Preliminary Task - Evaluation

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

My media product uses and has developed upon existing documentaries which cater to both a niche and a mass market, depending upon their content, and which use similar documentary conventions. Myself and my partner, Laura, decided to create a topical documentary based on the opinions of students and staff about the school canteen. We used a combination of a strong music track, quick cuts, short interviews and simple, bite-sized pieces of information to ‘hook’ our target audience and to reflect the documentary genre of our media product. We used a strong base track as it connotes a strong sense of purpose, and the upbeat tempo combined with the electronic pop genre of the music implies that the documentary is modern, radical, and has a bold statement to make, as well as an important message to put across to the audience. We wanted our documentary to grab the audience’s attention right from the start, an objective which I feel we achieved through the use of a strong song in the background throughout our documentary, and the use of the word ‘great’ in the title shot, which connotes importance and strength. We have also challenged traditional conventions by implementing white text which is on a black background, which creates a bigger impact upon the audience than the reverse would have done. Our media product is also clear, as the focus of our documentary is introduced immediately.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Who would be the audience of your media product?

Our media product represents the interests of both students and teachers of secondary schools, as well as portraying the opinions of the canteen workers. Our media product is designed to entertain as well as inform, and would be distributed amongst schools, in particular to the senior management to demonstrate which issues within the schools could be addressed. Our target audience is young and in touch with the latest technologies available to them, and, as such, we have used a combination of different shots, media techniques and a strong, consistent music track to portray this.

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience we used a strong, up-beat music track in the background and we designed our documentary around a topical subject which is relevant to our target audience. The title of our documentary is ‘The Great Food Debate’, which, as it does not specifically name the subject of the documentary, creates enigma and grabs the audience’s attention and makes them want to keep watching. We have used a bold font, with a reverse out white text on a black background to create impact and to connote truth, as there is no grey colouration which would connote uncertainty. We maintained the music track throughout the whole of the documentary, though we dropped its volume during the interviews, in order to maintain a sense of verisimilitude.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the creation of this media product, though I have discovered both by strengths and my weaknesses in the world of film media, I also feel that I have had the opportunity to hone the skills which I had already gained from my studies last year. My weaknesses have been in editing the product within the time limit and in attempting to upload it to my blog. However, I was fairly confident in my knowledge of the imovie program already, having created a documentary on the dangers of trampolines three years ago, and feel that my knowledge of the program has been furthered even more so with the completion of this product. I feel that we have managed to portray our initial ideas, and are pleased with the final outcome.

In future I think I will need to become more familiar with the software used and spend less time on my market research and more on completing the task, getting constructive criticism for it, and altering it so that it’s the best it can be.