Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
and conventions which hare rules generally accepted and understood when
creating and producing media products.
The headline or otherwise known as the main title is usually located across
the top of the page. Its the conventionally the biggest font on the page and
tells the reader what the article is going to be about. For my double page
spread I wanted to follow this convention, as it would notify the reader what
the article is about and be bold on the page so it would grab the reader's
attention. We chose to use the bright bold colour red to make the headline
stand out on the page and decided to use slogan for the title so it would be
catchy and memorable in the readers mind facilities for disabilities. The real
media product that I will be comparing my media product to is the Radio
Times A year in the life of a shepherd double page spread also uses a
headline, however I felt that the use of white for the title was quite boring
and neutral and didnt stand out on the page or grab the readers attention.
The focus was also taken of the main title as it was located at the very edge
of the left hand side of the page and wasnt near any of the hotspots in the
rule of thirds. For my double page spread we decided to place the headline
right at the top of the page so it would be noticeable straight away to the
reader, by following this convention wanted to make the double page spread
a professional as possible and create an immediate impact for the reader.
It is also conventional for a double page spread article to begin with a drop
cap indicating where the article begins. We decided to use a drop cap in our
real media product, as we wanted to clearly show the audience where the
article stared and also make it look as professional as possible. The real
media product also used drop caps however in the article two drop caps are
used which is considered unconventional in real media texts. We decided to
follow the convention rather than subvert it like the radio times article.
Now seening this real media product I believe it would have had a greater
impact on the reader if we did feature a main image within the article.
For our media product we decided the layout should consist of three vertical
columns on the left side of the page. We wanted all the columns to be equal
in width to create a professional layout. In comparison to this radio Times
chose to use four small columns located at the bottom third of the page. We
decided to follow conventions, as we wanted the article itself to be a main
focus within the article.
Quotations are regularly used within media texts such as double page
spreads and are group of words taken from a text or speech and repeated by
someone other than the original author or speaker. We included one quote
from the documentary to link the to products together and give the reader a
sense of what to expect if they were to watch the documentary after reading
the TV listing article. Similarly to this A year in the life of a shepherd also
uses quotes in the same way. The quote reveals a little more about what the
reader can expect in the documentary and creates a link between the two
products.
In addition to this Stuart Halls encoding and decoding theory can be applied
to both mine and the radio times double page spread. The writer of the radio
times article encoded that farming was a hard, unrewarding job which was
decoded by readers like myself. I believe this was the preferred reading the
writer wanted the reader to take from the article. Similarly to this our article
also encodes the message that the college doesn't meet the needs of the
physically disabled students and staff through the use of real life examples
such as Suzanne not being able to do certain admin tasks. I believe our target
audience decoded this message and understood this overall meaning of the
text.
Documentary
In order to see if my documentary developed or challenged codes and
conventions of real media products I decided to compare it to a BBC three
documentary ' The world's worst place to be disabled' which was aired in
2015. I chose to compare this documentary with mine as we decided that our
documentary would be aired on BBC 3 and they have similar audiences.
For my documentary I wanted to follow codes and conventions and include as
I had learnt from my audience research that both my secondary and primary
audience would want to see an expert interview in the documentary. In my
documentary we decided to interview the principle of the Solihull Sixth Form
college Paul Ashdown to see if he thought that the college met the needs of
those who were physically disabled. Through gate keeping we cut down Paul's
interview to what we thought to be most important information and mediated
the piece so that the audience can understand that the college can't meets
everyone's needs and sometimes it can cause barriers for students and
members of staff. Similarly to this the BBC's documentary also included
experts in the documentary. The first interview that takes place is an expert
interview carried out by the presenter of the documentary. The presenter
interviews a member of staff from the human rights watch and asks her
'what's the worst place to be disabled' which is the documentaries topic. The
question is then asked again at the end of the documentary to another expert
in Ghana to reflect on the documentaries findings. This is an example of
circular narrative as the documentary goes full circle and comes back to the
original question. As we only created the first 5 minutes of our documentary
we didnt have an ending, but if we were to finish making the documentary I
would also return to the original question to reflect on our findings. Like my
documentary other interviews also take place; some with experts and some
with witnesses such as people who are disabled and living on the streets in
Ghana. These witnesses are similar to my witnesses Rebecca and Suzanne
Medley as they relay their personal experiences . I'm glad we were able to
interview and film the witnesses real life experiences as it helped create
actuality in the documentary. Actuality is featured within my documentary as
we follow student Rebecca around to see how she gets around the school and
how she interacts with her friends and how they give her various help.
Actuality is a big part of the BBC's documentary as its focus is to see what it's
like to live and be disabled in Ghana. We wanted to use actuality to reveal
what it was like to be at school and disabled and we wanted the audience to
understand these real life events that occur every day.
Another code and convention frequently used in documentaries are voice
over's. We decided to have a voice over in our documentary so we could give
the audience extra information when needed and explain what was
happening in a linear structure. Like our documentary BBC's 'worst place to
be disabled' documentary had a voice over as well as a presenter. We
decided not to use a presenter as we thought it was a sensitive topic which
we wanted our audience to form their own conclusions on and we felt having
a presenter could allows us to express our own view to the audience. As we
wanted the documentary to have a fairly observational mode we didnt want
the audience to feel we were pushing our own personal view points across.
We believed that we have a mixed style type of documentary as it includes
interviews, an observational mode and narrative to help advance the topic of
the argument. In contrast to this I think the BBC's documentary is self
rest of the documentary I would feature more of the PowerPoint in. Unlike the
BBC documentary our documentary didn't challenge any forms of
documentaries as we wanted it to appear as professional as possible to the
audience. I happy we did this and followed the codes and conventions as it
made the product look like a real life documentary.
Radio Advert
Length
Music tracks- target audience
Voice over - direct adress
Sound bites from doc
begining middle and end -linear narrative
Date tmime chnnel
In order to see if my radio advert developed or challenged codes and
conventions of real radio adverts, I compared it to the BBC's Radio 4 advert
for 'The Untold'. I chose to use the advert from this radio station as it is part
of the same media conglomerate that we would show our documentary on
(BBC 3). For our radio advert we decided to have it on for the duration of 60
seconds. It is conventional for radio adverts to either be 30 or 60 seconds
long. We chose to use the longer option as we wanted to include all the
important information such as the date, time and channel it would be aired
on as well as giving the listener a brief idea about what would be included in
the documentary. In contrast to this the BBC's radio advert was 30 seconds
but it also managed to get in all the important credentials and sound bites
from the series. I feel that having a 30 seconds advert would have been just
as successful as our 60 second one. However I am very satisfied with our
radio advert and feel that everything we included gives the listener a good
understanding about what the documentary focuses on.
It is also conventional to have a voice over to explain to the listener when the
documentary or series will be aired, and any other information about the
documentary itself to persuade the listener to watch it. For our radio advert
we used the voice over to relay some facts on the topic, 'It is against the law
for a school or other educational provider to treat disabled students
unfavourably. This ranges from harassment, discrimination and victimisation.'
Similarly to this the BBC's radio advert also used a voice over but it was
mainly used to described who created the documentary, what it's called and
when it airs next on TV. I'm glad we used our voice over to give extra
information as being a listener myself I know little about what is going to be
the BBC's series of 'The Untold' whereas from our audience feedback we
know that our audience understood clearly what was going to be in the
documentary after hearing the radio advert.