Question 1- in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?By Louis Taylor

Introduction

The documentary that i created, follows a large number of media conventions within documentaries, the reason for this is because i think this makes my created documentary look more realistic to the viewer and gives my product a more professional look about it. Although i have followed some of the conventions given known to documentaries i have also broke some of them to make my documentary unique to the others out in the industry to make sure there is something eye catching to the viewer.

What conventions did I use inmy documentary?

One of the first general conventions that I have created is a voice over, I used this as the appeal voice at the end of my documentary I thought this would add a professional touch to my documentary and makes it clear what the contact details that we are giving are for. I also text overlays so that the audience would know who was talking at the specific time of the documentary e.g. when the mother of the taken daughter is speaking her name comes up and who she is in relation to the victim, I felt like this should be used within my documentary to make it clear to the audience who was speaking at the time and to also give what they were saying more effect, a text overlay was also used with in both of my ancillary task to give information to the audience such as times, dates, titles and topic of the documentary. A presenter was another of the conventions that I used, to me a presenter is a key part to a documentary because it gives the audience a basis of the subject that documentary is going to be on and does not just throw them in the deep end with no basic introduction on the subject. The location we used majority of the time was the media suite because the school site was no the best place to shoot any footage and it was difficult to get everyone organized and ready out of school this is also why we took a diversion from the re-enactment route because this could of potentially made us bypass the deadline we wanted to meet as a group. The lighting used with in our cutaways was very important because it added mystery to who the person was who took the girl, it didn’t allow you to see the persons face and fitted in well with the mysterious topic as our documentary was a crime one. The only problem with our cutaways was that the text overlay was viewed by some of the audience as quite anonymous because it did not follow the general text shown with in our documentary and this was viewed as quite unprofessional which I have took on board from their reviews. The lighting was also lighting when taking photos for our double page spread and our newspaper advert because it allowed a constant theme to go through out all of our products and also brought mystery to the products that would of hooked the audience in because the image will make the audience want to know who the hidden person is or what the program/ article is about. I tried to add in a few interviews because I feel like this will give the reader 1st class information on the subject because its so close to home it also gives them first person information of a person that was there during the crime to hook them in and keep them watching.

This shows the writing used in the cutaway.

This screenshot shows our presenter talking about the show and you can also briefly see the text overlays that have been used to introduce the person singing.Here is a example of

a shot taken in the media suite during a interview

Here is a example of how the lighting caused mystery because you cannot fully see the figure

Double page spread There area number of codes and conventions that I followed, the first being the use of a title I decided to

have to main title in read to make it stand out from the general colour scheme of the double page spread itself which was mostly all black and white, this is so that I can catch the readers eye with my title and hook them in to having a interest in the context of my double page spread. As you can see I used two columns in my ancillary tasks one on the right page and one on the left page in which the context is on the same context but different from each other, I did this to get as much information in detail so that the audience will be able to get a real basis into the plot of the documentary before they watch it my reason for this is because I believe this would make more of the public become interested in the particular case being discussed on the show. I also used a main image and some smaller images for the more visual of the public, I felt like this was important as the initial main image will be the first thing that catches the audiences eye so it must be one that grips them and makes them want to read on in the article, I have then added more images for effect to add onto the main image and furthermore hook the reader into the mystery of the crime documentary, I have tried to keep the colour scheme of these photos as quite dark ones in order to fit into the sinister colour theme given to the double page spread to fit in with the actions committed with in the crime its about. Although I tried to keep all my pictures dark I have added one which is brighter this picture follows the code and conventions of some newspapers that take pictures of the writer of their article so that they can get gratitude for there piece of writing. The content of the article itself is what I believe sells the documentary because I feel like it give the audience a taster of what the documentary is about but because this is just a small taster and they cannot see the majority of features involved unless they watch the documentary this is what should hook them into wanting to know more about the case and making them want to watch the documentary created. The lighting of the main picture is also a massive part of making my main image interesting because it brings a sense of mystery that will hook the reader into wanting to read more this Is why I purposely tried to make the image dark so you cant see the persons face.As you can see

the title of my documentary is a different colour to the rest of the statement to stand out.

As you can see the lighting makes you see a figure but you cannot make out who it is bringing mystery to it.

You can see the writers photo in the right corner

Newspaper advert When doing the newspaper advert I tried to keep it quite plain and simple as I saw a number of adverts like

this I believed this was the best way to do it because for the reader it is short and straight to the point making it easy for them to find out the information they want, it also does not give away to much meaning that the reader will also have to either read the double page spread or watch the documentary to gain more information on the topic of the crime documentary. I used the TV company logo because I saw channel 4 do this a number of time I though this was very professional and gave a good look professional look to the advert, it also allowed the television company logo to be advertised and made it clear who produced the documentary for the audience. I decided to use the same image as I did in the double page spread for my advert firstly because I feel like the image is really good and has a certain effect on the audience that will hook them in and make the want to get more information on the topic being discussed in the documentary, I also makes the two products acknowledgeable and compatibly together so that the audience will be able to see the image and relate the products and the documentary together so as a overall all were promoting each other. I did not use a tagline as such but I did use a small sentence to hook the reader in which basically told them what the documentary was on and that it was a unsolved mystery to the nation making it become a major matter, this will hook the reader in because they will want to know what the big fuss about the particular case is, under the tagline I have put a brief sentence telling the audience when the documentary making it easy for them to identify it. I put the title to the documentary in plain font to keep it clear to the reader what the crime documentary is called, although it could have been a bit more interesting font used I feel like the topic of the documentary should be kept simple as you see in most TV documentary adverts.

This shows the logo above the short sentence to hook the reader in quite similar to the advert I have created

As you can see the fonts are similar and simple likewise is the fact that both are in boxes to make them stand out.

On both adverts there is quite a distinctive different photo that are quite mysterious and strange in a way to hook the reader into the content written on the advert.

Did I challenge any conventions? And was this the right decision to make?

There was a few challenges through out the different products that we made the first being that with in our documentary interviews we did not reveal the questions being asked or who was asking them, differently to different crime documentaries and we also did not hide the faces of any of our victims to our viewers to make the experience more real and interesting for them to watch. I thought that this worked well because it gave the feel that none of the documentary was false and none of the interviews were being fed what to say because of insinuations within the questions. Another thing that we did was during the presenter talking we changed the focus of her to the girl that has gone missing, we felt like this would have more effect on the audience because they would be able to see the victim as her story was being told. I also think that this was a good challenge of the codes and conventions of general documentaries because it allowed our one to stand out from other crime shows within the industry, it also made the talking of the presenter less tedious so that the audience did not just get bored of watching her talk about what happened instead we just simply changed the subject to keep the audience thinking.As you can see the

first interview above is taken in a two shot style when our interviews are taken in a mid shot style.

During a Louis Theroux documentary you would see he is the main topic when presenting. But when watching ours you would of seen that the topic changes from the presenter and zooms in further to the picture of the girl on the right.