Monday 8 February 2010
Monday 11 January 2010
Draft Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses many forms and conventions of real media products. We analysed the features of existing documentaries such as Time Team, and looked at how we could implement similar features into our product. During the making of our documentary we have tried to follow the generic conventions of Time Team, this is because we have tried to base our documentary on Time Team. Our coursework focuses on a project documentary like Grand Designs. As a result of this we are not going down the route of a historical documentary such as Time Team as we believe the future is what counts. Our media text uses common forms and conventions of real media projects.
For example, our main presenter in the opening sequence is speaking directly to the camera, whilst walking across the shot, whilst the camera pans round to follow him. Non-continuity editing techniques we have include a montage sequence (incorporating a sonic/ sound bridge) to show more of the setting; shot transitions such as fades through black and cuts; shot-reverse-shot structure in an interview, over-the-shoulder shots. Editing techniques included in the film include ‘dubbing’, and fades into shots. We begin the documentary without an establishing shot, as we include these after the introductory dialogue/ sequence with our presenter. Our documentary always follows the 180° rule; this is to stop any chance of confusing the audience. Sometimes the 180° rule is broken but during a documentary this is very uncommon as there is no need to break the rule. We are hoping our establishing shots will be recognisable in the opening credits of our documentary, thus giving us time to get straight into the opening sequence without showing an establishing or re-establishing shot. We believe this would be unnecessary because the opening credits will fade out with a shot of the Rotherham Town Hall.
We also use an action match in the first sequence to show more of the setting, and voice-overs so that we can show establishing shots, but the presenter can say what is in the shot, and this will help the audience identify what the establishing shot shows. Our opening sequence starts off with a medium close up of the first presenter, the camera then slowly zooms out and pans up towards the town hall, from this moment onwards we have a new shot establishing low angle shot to show the mise en scene. This shot tells the audience where the filming takes place and also includes fore, mid and background features. The sound in the film is largely diegetic, as the presenter is talking to the camera whilst in shot. Non-diegetic sound is largely voice-overs, and are used where there is no major need for the presenter to be in shot, but where information about the subject needs to be conveyed verbally to the audience.
Most shots in the film are either long shots or wide shots, as the main subject is the setting, not the presenter, and the setting is a building, which we need to show in its surroundings. The point of view of most shots is objective, like the audience is stood where the camera is. We have mainly used a deep-depth of field, due to the fact that a lot of shots are of buildings being shown in their surroundings. A deep depth of field is generally used in our documentary because the Castle itself lies on one of the highest points in Rotherham; therefore filming at the Castle will give a great backdrop to Rotherham.
We have also used insert shots and eye-line matches, as these help to illustrate points that the presenter makes, such as examples of buildings deteriorating. We have also used cross-cutting, where we are watching one presenter, and then we cut to another presenter in a different location, but talking about a similar subject. Cross cutting is mainly used during existing documentaries such as Grand Designs and Time Team; this is because to enable the audience to loose interest, they frequently show two presenters narrating differing subjects to keep the audience entertained.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We feel that our main product and ancillary texts combine effectively, as we have tried to implement several features of existing products, and combine them to create an effective newspaper advert and double page spread. We analysed several adverts and double page spreads, looking at elements such as composition, colour, subject, layout (of text), etc, and looked at how we could include these into our products. We feel that the advert ties in with the main film especially well, due to the semantic link between the image and headline of the advert and subject of the film – tea bags representing the Boston Tea Party, the flags representing the opposing countries in the American War of Independence, and Boston Castle’s link to that. Our newspaper advert was created using Adobe Photoshop, the layout of the advert consists of a main image covering the entireity of the allocated space. Our main image is a mound of tea bags piled together with the American and British flags placed on top. The significance of this is to refer to how the Castle made its name. The Castle achieved its name due to a Boston tea party which was assembled In America, and when the Lord of Effingham came back to England he named the Castle after the tea party. As well as a mian image the
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
During the course of our planning, we undertook extensive audience research, to find out what they thought of our ideas, and how we could make them better if there were problems. This would enable us to further improve our product to conform to what the audience would expect from a product of this genre. The audience research consisted of asking the audience to choose out of 3 ideas which they would most like to see implemented into our product.
We also presented our idea for a storyboard for the film to an audience, and asked them to fill out a poll afterwards, asking questions such as if and why they liked it, and any improvements that they may suggest. We found that the majority liked the more complex ideas, which involved things like reconstructions and flash-backs, and that few people liked the idea of a role-play.
We decided after reviewing this audience feedback to use the simplest idea (which came 2nd in the poll), due to time constraints and likelihood of obtaining the required resources which in our case were limited as for reconstructions, we would require costumes, props and possibly a mock castle set; where as with the simplest idea, we just needed the technical equipment such as video cameras, microphones and tripods. After we had refined our chosen idea, we then presented it to the same people to gain their thoughts on it, this was deemed a success and so we began to put in place the many ideas and suggestions that were given to us during the audience feedback process.
4 How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout our planning, research and production, we have made heavy use of Web 2.0. We have been collating our work on our project onto a new form of work submission which is Blogger.com in the form of an online public blog. On this blog are production videos, pictures, and blog posts which can contain all the media types. To make the blog user friendly we implemented web 2.0 techniques such as placing hyperlinks within the blog posts to show either definitions or links to definition websites such as Wikipedia. Pictures of people mentioned were also linked with pictures of the people and a bit about them.
We made use of the internet to look for examples of adverts and double page spreads, and also to look at existing documentaries such as Time Team, World at War, etc, we used sites such as Google which is a powerful search engine, Wikipedia which is a website where anyone can upload information about a topic. When making our poll sheets, call sheets and storyboards, we used Microsoft Word, and when making the powerpoints for our audience feedback presentations, we used Microsoft PowerPoint, which was then uploaded onto googledocs to embed into our blogs so it could be showed in the correct format. This alone was new to us as it is a recent media development.
We also relied upon Adobe Photoshop, using it for production of adverts and double-page spreads, as well as converting word documents into images for uploading to our blogs. We also used Quark for the production of our double page spreads, and Adobe premiere for the editing of our film all of which required some tuition and practice as these were not easy software to learn and a fair amount of skill was needed.
When we were filming, we used a mix of Samsung and Canon video cameras with voice recorders, and uploaded the footage off our tapes onto the Adobe Premiere software which we used to edit and rearrange the shots. We have also used this equipment to record our evaluation and our presentations for audience feedback.
Our media product uses many forms and conventions of real media products. We analysed the features of existing documentaries such as Time Team, and looked at how we could implement similar features into our product. During the making of our documentary we have tried to follow the generic conventions of Time Team, this is because we have tried to base our documentary on Time Team. Our coursework focuses on a project documentary like Grand Designs. As a result of this we are not going down the route of a historical documentary such as Time Team as we believe the future is what counts. Our media text uses common forms and conventions of real media projects.
For example, our main presenter in the opening sequence is speaking directly to the camera, whilst walking across the shot, whilst the camera pans round to follow him. Non-continuity editing techniques we have include a montage sequence (incorporating a sonic/ sound bridge) to show more of the setting; shot transitions such as fades through black and cuts; shot-reverse-shot structure in an interview, over-the-shoulder shots. Editing techniques included in the film include ‘dubbing’, and fades into shots. We begin the documentary without an establishing shot, as we include these after the introductory dialogue/ sequence with our presenter. Our documentary always follows the 180° rule; this is to stop any chance of confusing the audience. Sometimes the 180° rule is broken but during a documentary this is very uncommon as there is no need to break the rule. We are hoping our establishing shots will be recognisable in the opening credits of our documentary, thus giving us time to get straight into the opening sequence without showing an establishing or re-establishing shot. We believe this would be unnecessary because the opening credits will fade out with a shot of the Rotherham Town Hall.
We also use an action match in the first sequence to show more of the setting, and voice-overs so that we can show establishing shots, but the presenter can say what is in the shot, and this will help the audience identify what the establishing shot shows. Our opening sequence starts off with a medium close up of the first presenter, the camera then slowly zooms out and pans up towards the town hall, from this moment onwards we have a new shot establishing low angle shot to show the mise en scene. This shot tells the audience where the filming takes place and also includes fore, mid and background features. The sound in the film is largely diegetic, as the presenter is talking to the camera whilst in shot. Non-diegetic sound is largely voice-overs, and are used where there is no major need for the presenter to be in shot, but where information about the subject needs to be conveyed verbally to the audience.
Most shots in the film are either long shots or wide shots, as the main subject is the setting, not the presenter, and the setting is a building, which we need to show in its surroundings. The point of view of most shots is objective, like the audience is stood where the camera is. We have mainly used a deep-depth of field, due to the fact that a lot of shots are of buildings being shown in their surroundings. A deep depth of field is generally used in our documentary because the Castle itself lies on one of the highest points in Rotherham; therefore filming at the Castle will give a great backdrop to Rotherham.
We have also used insert shots and eye-line matches, as these help to illustrate points that the presenter makes, such as examples of buildings deteriorating. We have also used cross-cutting, where we are watching one presenter, and then we cut to another presenter in a different location, but talking about a similar subject. Cross cutting is mainly used during existing documentaries such as Grand Designs and Time Team; this is because to enable the audience to loose interest, they frequently show two presenters narrating differing subjects to keep the audience entertained.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We feel that our main product and ancillary texts combine effectively, as we have tried to implement several features of existing products, and combine them to create an effective newspaper advert and double page spread. We analysed several adverts and double page spreads, looking at elements such as composition, colour, subject, layout (of text), etc, and looked at how we could include these into our products. We feel that the advert ties in with the main film especially well, due to the semantic link between the image and headline of the advert and subject of the film – tea bags representing the Boston Tea Party, the flags representing the opposing countries in the American War of Independence, and Boston Castle’s link to that. Our newspaper advert was created using Adobe Photoshop, the layout of the advert consists of a main image covering the entireity of the allocated space. Our main image is a mound of tea bags piled together with the American and British flags placed on top. The significance of this is to refer to how the Castle made its name. The Castle achieved its name due to a Boston tea party which was assembled In America, and when the Lord of Effingham came back to England he named the Castle after the tea party. As well as a mian image the
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
During the course of our planning, we undertook extensive audience research, to find out what they thought of our ideas, and how we could make them better if there were problems. This would enable us to further improve our product to conform to what the audience would expect from a product of this genre. The audience research consisted of asking the audience to choose out of 3 ideas which they would most like to see implemented into our product.
We also presented our idea for a storyboard for the film to an audience, and asked them to fill out a poll afterwards, asking questions such as if and why they liked it, and any improvements that they may suggest. We found that the majority liked the more complex ideas, which involved things like reconstructions and flash-backs, and that few people liked the idea of a role-play.
We decided after reviewing this audience feedback to use the simplest idea (which came 2nd in the poll), due to time constraints and likelihood of obtaining the required resources which in our case were limited as for reconstructions, we would require costumes, props and possibly a mock castle set; where as with the simplest idea, we just needed the technical equipment such as video cameras, microphones and tripods. After we had refined our chosen idea, we then presented it to the same people to gain their thoughts on it, this was deemed a success and so we began to put in place the many ideas and suggestions that were given to us during the audience feedback process.
4 How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout our planning, research and production, we have made heavy use of Web 2.0. We have been collating our work on our project onto a new form of work submission which is Blogger.com in the form of an online public blog. On this blog are production videos, pictures, and blog posts which can contain all the media types. To make the blog user friendly we implemented web 2.0 techniques such as placing hyperlinks within the blog posts to show either definitions or links to definition websites such as Wikipedia. Pictures of people mentioned were also linked with pictures of the people and a bit about them.
We made use of the internet to look for examples of adverts and double page spreads, and also to look at existing documentaries such as Time Team, World at War, etc, we used sites such as Google which is a powerful search engine, Wikipedia which is a website where anyone can upload information about a topic. When making our poll sheets, call sheets and storyboards, we used Microsoft Word, and when making the powerpoints for our audience feedback presentations, we used Microsoft PowerPoint, which was then uploaded onto googledocs to embed into our blogs so it could be showed in the correct format. This alone was new to us as it is a recent media development.
We also relied upon Adobe Photoshop, using it for production of adverts and double-page spreads, as well as converting word documents into images for uploading to our blogs. We also used Quark for the production of our double page spreads, and Adobe premiere for the editing of our film all of which required some tuition and practice as these were not easy software to learn and a fair amount of skill was needed.
When we were filming, we used a mix of Samsung and Canon video cameras with voice recorders, and uploaded the footage off our tapes onto the Adobe Premiere software which we used to edit and rearrange the shots. We have also used this equipment to record our evaluation and our presentations for audience feedback.
Thursday 17 December 2009
Progress Update
Re-filmed Tim brannens interiew due to the first being too long for the 5 minute segment. Booked and filmed in the foundation room.
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Friday 30 October 2009
Production Pictures
These are the photos taken of us filming the first part of our documentary on Boston Castle, it involved shooting scenes for the introduction and location shots that will be used later on in the documentary.
Thursday 29 October 2009
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