Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

There are variety of conventions that are stereotypical of documentaries, newspaper/magazine articles and documentary posters. The various conventions of these real media product all come together to form one whole product, that all contribute to making the product engaging and attractive. They all link to one another and synergise in order to create  brand images and correlate to each other. 

Documentaries have a vast amount of features that would be considered stereotypical of documentaries . In a previous blog post, I discussed the convention of documentaries and which ones I will use, as well and why and how I will use them.

"Documentary Conventions

There are many typical features that are prominent in most documentaries. Over the history of documentaries, many different camera angles, sounds and affects have been developed and become essentials for a good documentary.

One typical convention that often appears in documentaries is a voiceover. In productions such as wildlife documentaries, David Attenborough is a well known voice to provide a commentary on the activities of the various natural occurrences. Marcus Bentley is also a well known voiceover in Great Britain s he has been the voice for Big Brother for many years. Even though is a contrast, where ones is expository and the other observational, there is is still a common theme of voiceovers in both.  Perhaps this is a common convention due to the fact that documentaries are often based around visual content, therefore in most cases, an audio description is needed to provide more information about what is being presented. The voiceovers could also be used to influence the audiences opinion or guide them into thinking a certain way about the issue being discussed.

Another convention of a documentary is the use of "archive" footage. Although most documentaries are presented as reality and as if they are real life situations,  there are always clips shown that seem to look more realistic than the other footage throughout he rest of the documentary. The footage is often shown in such a way that it make it look as i f it has been taken from an actual situation from the past, rather than just recorded for the purpose of the documentary. This is often used to provide validity to the documentary, and helps the audience trust that the documentary is true and is presenting reliable information.

Along with voiceovers and archive footage are interviews with experts inside the topic of the documentary. This is often done through either the camera man asking the question or the presenter of the film asking them. This is an essential part of documentaries as it contributes to a vast amount of information that is told to the audience. Expert interviews are used in the documentary industry because it similarly provides more evidence that the the knowledge being explained is in fact valid and in depth, which helps add to the audience feeling more conformable in believing what they are being told.

There are often many locations and people presented at various time in a documentary. At time it can be overwhelming to understand who is who, what happened where and when it happen. Directors/filmmakers often add aston's (brief description of who/what/where something is) to assist the visual content being put forward to add more information to whatever is being shown on screen. This is done by film makers to help the audience follow the issue that is being shown and helps them ensure they don't get confused with key facts and information. Astons that provide detail about a certain individual also helps to add emphasis on the importance of them.

Furthermore, various sounds appear commonly in documentaries. Non diegetic music is the most type of sound that appears in documentaries. It is often used to create a certain feeling/emotion within th audiences body. If a rather sinister sounding rhythm came on every time an individual appeared on the screen, then it immediately indicates to the audience that that particular person is one that isn't to be like in the short film. The mood of the entire documentary can be set by the music used an it can hep establish if the it has more of a positive or negative vibe.

The documentary I am developing is a music documentary that'll follow the lives of a group of artists. In these type of short films, all the connections listed above are still prominent, however they are often used in a certain way for music documentaries. In music documentaries, voiceovers are often used to explain influences and motivation of why the artist do certain thing, and help us understand the lifestyle of therapists being presented. Archive footage of performances, life outside music or interviews with company are often used to show that what is being shown isnt' all just staged for the purposes of documenting. Interviews are also conducted with professional in the field to show that the artist being presented is in fact a real person and that other big named people know of them. Additionally, the non diegetic music thet is used in music documentaries os often the music of the artist that are being presented. In some ways, this can be seen as a publicity stunt to make sure their music gets out the audience and gains more recognition, however it is also used to purely because of the fact that if a documentary is about a certain music person, then their music should also be played."

Montages 

Through watching other documentaries such as AMY, One Direction: This Is Us and various Soulection documentaries, I discovered that there are many conventions that appeared in all of them, making them all fairly similar. In all of these documentaries, I found that montages of clips within the documentary are present in the opening titles/sequences. The directors and editors of the documentaries would pick out particular scene from the actual documentary and collate them together at the beginning in order to create a long montage that acts like a preview for what will appear in the documentary. These are often used to attract the audience into continuing watching, and to make them look forward to certain scenes. 

I considered this a good idea as audiences often do go on to watch until the end to be able to see those scene they saw in the opening sequence. I decided to use the same feature in my documentary as it makes the documentary engaging from the offset and intrigues them. I did this by creating a montage of various scenes, from the band in the studio, to performing, to just relaxing and chilling out. Showing this wide array of shots will show that there are many different features and parts to the documentary. I also used a montage at the end of the first part of my documentary to preview the second part which would have been “after the break”. I did this for the same affect, and this being to make the audience feel too intrigued not to carry on watching. The montages allow the audience to gain an understanding of exactly what they’ll be seeing in the near future and gives them the chance to decided whether or not they want to watch anymore. Therefore, I felt it was it fatally important to make these montages engaging by making them fast paced and synchronised with the non diegetic/diegetic music.

Voiceovers

Through watching the media products, I also noticed that direct interviews are ever present in all documentaries. These are often accompanied by voiceovers explaining what the interview is about or why it is being conducted. Regardless of whether it involved me as the camera or whether the subject just starts speaking, it was vital to involve the subject talking directly to the camera. These interviews are often conducted with the main subjects of the documentary and they are often done to try and establish further information about the topic being spoken about. It also provides the vibe of the documentary being exclusive access and makes the audience feel that they cant see this anywhere else. The further information provided adds interesting information to the documentary and is a major factor that makes the narrative engaging and interactional. 

In my documentary, I filmed a direct interview with he person who created the music groups studio to find out further information about why when and how he did it. This included details of how much he spent on all the equipment, and where he got it all from. Scenes like this allow the audience to connect with the documentary and understand the true meaning of the documentary. This interview lasted around two and a half minutes and was the longest part of the documentary, meaning that it contains the most detail. 

Diegetic/Non Diegetic Music

Watching other music documentaries such as AMY and One Direction: This Is Us, as said before, allowed me to explore many different features that are common in music documentaries. In particular, music documentaries include non diegetic music from the artist themselves, and is used in some ways as promotions for their own music. This is convention of the music documentary sub genre and the non diegetic music is often added to make the scene more interactive, engaging and exciting. If there was no music in the background, then many of the scene would be boring and not very entertaining. 

Therefore, I decided to do the same as I had observed in real media products, and included non diegetic music. All of my non diegetic music was from the artists themselves as I wanted to illustrate the large portfolio of music the musicians had. Additionally, I picked specific songs that fit the vibes of each scene, for example if the scene was a montage to engage the audience, I chose music with a fast tempo to match this. This was also present in the interview, as the general feeling was more chilled, I chose a slow paced beat to connote this. Before I started to edit the sound, the scene seemed very silent and was un-engaging, hence why the music was added to keep the audience interested. 

Archive Footage

Other conventions I decided to include in my documentary include is archive footage. After much research into real media products, it suggested that  documentaries are often made and presented to give deeper looks into lives of certain people or things,   or certain historical events, therefore real life “exclusive” footage from the past provides that feelings. I started my documentary in that manner by showing footage from behind the scenes of their first music video, and made that clear with the aston in the bottom left. By doing this, it created the sense of secrecy and made the documentary feel as if it really took a much deeper look into music processes, allowing the audiences to see what goes on and how things are done. 

Despite conforming to all these conventions of documentaries, I decided to challenge one convention. Through observing real media products such as various documentaries from Reggie Yates on BBCThree, I noticed that it is very common for the camera man/narrator to have an active role in the documentary. This normally involves them being on screen introducing new scenes, or conducting a face to face interview with a certain subject in the documentary. I decided not to include this my documentary as I wanted to make the band members the sole focus. As mentioned before, my voiceovers did most of the work in introducing new scene or initiating interviews. But throughout the documentary, I ensured that I did not have a visual role int his documentary, and used close up shots and tight frames to enhance the fact that the band members are the most important people in this documentary. My intention was to enhance their music and emphasis the hard work they do make sure they keep up with the ever changing music industry. 

Non Diegetic Music

There were many different conventions I discovered from the music documentary sub genre. One was mentioned previously about the use of non diegetic music from the artist themselves, but another convention is the use of footage from past/present performances.These scene are often film din an amateur manner, which the lighting being very low key and the shot is often hand held. I included something similar in my documentary as it showed spontaneity and authenticity, and made the documentary feel much more “behind the scenes”. This was common and popular in documentaries as it dded to the idea that the documentary shows exclusive footage and discovered “undiscovered” information. 

Archive footage of artists when they were younger is also conventional of real music documentaries. These types of shots are often added to show the long invested interest the artist have had in music, and emphasis the message of the artists working hard. I decided not to include this type of footage in my documentary as I simply didn't have access to this material. In the future, if I were to do this documentary again, I’d conduct more research to find that kind of footage so that I could add it to my documentary and also stress the long term desire the artists have had to make music. 

Ancillary Tasks

Along with creating and producing the actual documentary, it is important to create marketing campaigns for the documentary. These essentially help attract audiences to watch he documentary and increase viewers. I analysed a large number of real newspaper/magazine articles, alongside their adverts as well. Through exploring these adverts and articles, I discovered many conventions. All these conventions are included in articles and adverts as it allows the audience to engage in the poster and get as much detail as possible before even watching the documentary. 

The articles from newspapers and magazines all had very similar features in them. Many had subheading underneath the main title  to provide a little more informations about what the documentary. I included this in my article, where I say“ A close look at this weeks innovative documentary: A Week With Indigo Palace”. I included this as it just gave a very brief description as to what the article is about and allows the readers to decide whether they want to carry on reading or not. 

Discourse marker are often conventional of these articles as well. Due to the fact that as an editor, the aim is to grab the reader’s attention as quickly as possible and either encourage them to carry on reading or to feed as much information to them as possible. To do this, it is important to indicate where the texts begins immediately. This is done by have a much larger first letter in the opening paragraph, as well as having the introductory paragraph in bold. I did conformed to this convention in my magazine article as i wanted to include as much information as possible in the paragraph the most consumer are likely o read. In this bold paragraph, I ensured I included as much information as possible with the intention to hook the reader to continue reading. 

Another convention of magazine articles I discovered through looking at real products is that the magazines are often multi modal. This include involving pictures and visual elements t o the article to provide support and evidence to the text. These picture are accompanied by small bold captions that stereotypically provide context to the pictures and give information about where and when the picture was taken. This was a major convention and I decided to incorporate as it allows the article to be engaging and interactive, rather than just text baed and literary. Furthermore, the pictures included in my article allow the text me be more comprehendible and provides further detail to the text.  

One feature of my article that isn't necessarily conventional of the real media products I looked at is the extract from an interview. I decided to include an interview conducted between the editor and the band, and it included background information about how th ebb deformed and hat their motivations are. I hadn't observed this in many of the articles I looked a, however I decide to include the as I felt tit was a good way to show the audience what the band members are like. This documentary was produced in order to promote London artists, therefore getting them to participate in an interview to let people know their about was a good way of showing everyone what they are like. I wanted to be as creative and innovative in this whole production, not just the documentary, hence why I decided not to confirm to conventions and create a whole new feature. 

I also did further research into the conventions of documentary adverts. Through doing this, I discovered that many conventions of adverts contribute to the interactiveness of the advert.  Adverts contain a vast amount of feature that are common in all adverts, including the time and date of the show, the title, the broadcasting logo, alternative viewing options, social media interactions and a verity of colours and sizes. 

All the conventions mentioned above have all been included in my advert for different reasons. I have include the title of the show in a much bigger font to the rest of the writing on the screen as it makes it much clearer for the audience to understand what the name of the show is. Along this title, I included a quote which states “Here’s To Denmark Street”. I decided to include this quote as it connotes to the audience that it is an important quote from someone in important, and it intrigues them to go on a watch the documentary to find out why Denmark Street is so relevant. 

I also included an alternative viewing option. Obviously the time and date were present in the advert, but in this modern day, it is becoming more and more common to offer an “On Demand” option. This is because not every can view the show at the scheduled time, so the secondary option is given to provide further opportunities to watch. As technology is forever improving, the online medium is becoming increasingly popular, hence why it is becoming more conventions to include the internet option. 

Furthermore, staying on the subject of internet, social media is becoming a global platform for people to interact with other people about similar subjects. Therefore, the use of hashtags and other interactive features are becoming conventional, in order to increase awareness about the documentary as a form of promotion. I decided to integrate this feature into my advert to allow viewers to socialise on social media and feel part of an online community.  

Presenting the BBC Four logo in the bottom right of my advert was also a conformity to conventions. Regardless of whether it be BBC, ITV or Channel 4, the production/broadcasting logo is always presented in order to indicate to the audience where it could be viewed. This is done to allow the audience associate the documentaries with other documentaries they've seen on the same channel and decide whether or not they want to watch it. I chose BBC purely because pf the fact that they conventionally present shows about music culture.