A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK EVALUATION

by JAMES CHRISTMAS
Theatrical poster for Super Size Me

THE BRIEF

For our A2 media coursework, we were told that in groups we would make a the opening five minutes to a fictional hour-long episode of a new fictional documentary, to be aired on a British television channel of our choice, as well as it being of a target audience of our choice, but predominantly a topic of our choice. To add to this, our ancillary tasks were to create an accompanying radio trail to advertise the documentary on, and a double page spread promoting and relating to the documentary (in an alreadyexisting TV magazine).

QUESTION ONE: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
THE DOCUMENTARY
To begin with, and to understand the various categories, we gained initial research from watching examples of existing documentaries, primarily Morgan Spurlocks Super Size Me. Through doing this, we discovered that documentaries fall into different categories such as investigative, social, educational, cultural and commemorative. Like Super Size Me, and a majority of existing television documentaries, we decided that ours would be an investigative documentary, to give the viewers an insight into current subtleties not covered into everyday life. Here we decided that the topic would be on CCTV and how our country is being watched by the authorities of Britain. I would say that the main purpose of the outcome of our documentary is to reflect on the opinions of society by having millions of these devices around the country. We later looked into other documentaries which relate to this topic of surveillance and CCTV such as Suspect Nation, The Conspiracy Theory, Modern Spies and the trailer for Every Step You Take, which led us more in the direction of what type of documentary we would want. Likewise these documentaries are investigative.

Title cards for Suspect Nation, Modern Spies and Every Step You Take

We also began by looking at the codes and conventions of documentaries and how they are conveyed in Bill Nichols theory of documentary modes from 2001 as we discovered our documentary was mainly expository mode as it investigates research into a specific element of our society and displays this knowledge. Where a poetic mode documentary would only focus on the mood of the research, primarily visually, rather than the content provided. Super Size Me however is an example of performative mode as filmmaker and presenter; Spurlock engages with the investigation by conducting an experiment on him to physically explore the side affects of what is being researched. Many documentary codes and conventions have been followed in our documentary by the use of camera as it is vital to visually capture the content of the investigation in out documentary. For example we have used a variety of framing or shot lengths such as; Long shots, to give the audience a full clear view of a person, place or object. In this case it was useful for shots of traffic passing by as the voiceover mentions about the use of cameras on public transport. Medium close-ups/close-ups, usually used for the head and shoulders of a persons face, or just the face alone, was used for CCTV cameras, in action, as they are the main focus of our documentary.

Panning is used to give a full view of an environment, as if someone was stood in one position and rotates to observe their surrounding. In this case we used these transitions to observe the natural environment of the sixth form college, which is unaware of being watched on CCTV. However it was also used to observe the surroundings of a solicitors firm, where an expert is interviews, which leads into its establishing shot. Essentially establishing shots are long-shots of the outside or a faade of a building as they are used to state where the action is for a brief moment before a jump cut to indoors, where the action is. Most appropriately for our documentary, we used tilts which become low-angle shots, to capture someone or something that would be intimidating to the persons point of view, in our case for the CCTV cameras, they are

both physically high above us, and act as a way to intimidate us, making us vulnerable. For our three expert interviews, we positioned the camera and the interviewees at a midshot according the rule of thirds, meaning that their eyelines are roughly level at about a third of the screen down from the top. Interviewees are commonly positioned with their eyelines towards the interviewer, hence not looking directly at the camera but they appear to be facing them at approximately 45 degree angle. If the interviewee is facing towards the left of the screen, then horizontally, their eyelines are two thirds from the left of the screen, but if they are facing towards the right of the screen then they are only one third from the left of the screen. Ideally it is conventional for interviewees to be facing toward dead space or the two thirds where the interviewee does not take up any room, leaving it blank. This same principle also applies with our voxpops yet as we have little time to set up a mobile camera and ask pedestrians to remain in a single spot, this convention may sometimes be broken.

Super Size Me experts

Our documentary experts

For our expert interviews, we found it important that it was clear of what they represent and how they contribute to the topic of CCTV. Mis-en-scene allows us to use location to indicate what career the expert uses, for example a sociology teacher was filmed in a class room with a whiteboard behind her. The principle of the college shows in the dead space behind him a number of folders on a shelf to imply organization. The injury solicitor however shows himself in front of a sign which advertises his company, to remind the viewer of what he does with a number of folders of different clients on his desk. For the majority of camera shots, a tripod was used to keep the camera stable and avoid shaking, to remain the subject matter as serious and less

difficult for the viewer to concentrate. It also remains to be formal; as if we used a hand-held camera it would be less formal to the audience. Sound also plays a huge part in the creation of this documentary, as a presenter is used to narrate a large portion of the investigation into CCTV; however they are not shown addressing audience via the camera. To keep the topic of the documentary serious and avoid distraction from the narration and interviews, we have not used hyperbolic sounds (such as cartoony noises) and lack non-diagetic noises. However is used in the opening of documentary, using the non-copyrighted music from Garage Band to add suspense and to immediately convey an intimidating theme for the topic of an invasive device such as CCTV. The main purposes of special effects in our documentary were used to consolidate the facts and hopefully the understanding of the audiences knowledge. An example of this is the use of a diagram of a British map as the narrator reads the statistic that there are 35,00 CCTV cameras in the UK and multiple number of cameras pop up in randomly places. This is used to emphasize the incredibly large number of CCTV cameras and give a visualization of that they are all over the UK, in the same way an illustration would accompany words in a book.

A screenshot showing a diagram of our documentary (left), like a diagram shows a statistic by various people popping appearing in various colours in Super Size Me (right)

Special effects and editing also allowed us to create captions on top of the camera, such as to accompany a quote from a source telling the audience a relevant fact about CCTV. The use of blurring however also became useful as it made the text appear clearer and the background would not distract the audience from the text. Other text we included was the title card of the documentary, as inspired by the title card and transition of Suspect Nation. We used the same effect to imply a it was being typed out by somebody, in a

style as if somebody was sitting at a computer operating a CCTV camera, on top of a static fuzz, to give the text a blank canvas and give the effect of a CCTV piece of footage is just about to start.

THE DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

The purpose of our double page spread was to provide a small amount of subsidiary information to promote our documentary, so apart from physically stating in the text what it is, aesthetically it had to look relatable to the documentary and to the topic of CCTV.

We decided that it would be placed in a copy of Radio Times; one of Britains most read TV listings magazines, so it would appeal to a large amount of readers and promote the documentary to more people. Radio Times also reaches out to a more formal audience, which would suit a serious topic like the arguments for and against CCTV, as we discovered many other, less formal TV guides tend to focus more on soaps, dramas and unserious programs.

Like previous Radio Times articles, their style was to keep colours quite minimal, chiefly having a white background with black

main copy (article text). This also worked well in using the topic of CCTV as it is a serious topic, in which in some ways the black and white would reflect a colorless screen capturing CCTV footage, hence creating a dull yet an intriguing effect. In common with Radio Times articles, the formality is shown by using serif font. This is used as well in the masthead, on top of its photographs, using a shadow underneath to stand out. Or masthead we decided to use as Britains eyes in the skies as they are designed to be catchy, usually as alliteration, puns or in this case a little rhyme and a nickname given to CCTV cameras. The main article follows the rule of thirds in terms of the positioning of the main photographs and the text, but has been divided into three columns in order to make it easier to read short lines, rather then lengthy ones causing the reader to loose their place and get confused by the text. So that the reader would know where to start reading at significant parts of the article, drop caps have been places to properly indicate where an article would start. Common features in articles also include page numbers in the corners so it is easier for the reader to navigate, as well a reminder of the publication of the magazine, being the magazine logo and dates of publication. In articles that relate to TV programs, the scheduling details, including channel, date and time are usually presented separately from the article, in this case, we use a box and change to a less formal font to stand out so the reader knows when and what channel to watch out for. The photographs were used to convey the theme and topic of CCTV, such one of the main images being a split screen, commonly overseen by people controlling CCTV which also features in the documentary. Two photo however are placed on the other side but in slanted positions to give a small bit of informality, one even looking like a poloraid which could relate to the idea of crime and whether or not CCTV controlling us could be seen as a crime or not. One photo is a panoramic view of a typical building, monitored by CCTV, so the panoramic effect could relate to a CCTV camera revolving and keeping its eye on the entire environment. Another photo shows examples of CCTV cameras, again from a low-angle shot to intimidate the public. Another photo shows a typical sign that you would find on a warning the passers-by that they are being monitored 24/7, again shot from a slightly low angle to intimidate them, on a typical brick wall that could be anywhere. A final photo is another photo of a CCTV camera, however this one has been edited so the text from the article can wrap around it, almost as if its sticking out of the page and in a sense, breaking the fourth wall, so the reader could be under the slight impression that CCTV camera could be watching them right as they read the article.

Despite using these in our double page spread, I regret that we had missed out some things to enhance the double page spread which are commonly used such as the use of captions to describe what the photographs are and how they link to the article. Also the use of pull quotes would have especially enhanced our article as they would highlight key factors that our interviewees say in the article.

THE RADIO TRAILER

For the radio trailer of the documentary, we needed to use a channel that would reach a large audience as it would be broadcasted on Channel 4. As the BBC is publicly funded and does not advertise, it would not have been able to be broadcast on their, so we decided, that radio stations such as Capital FM and Free Radio would be