Stuart Rush A2 Video Task 2010

Evaluation

Beginning draft...

My media product involvers the representation of ‘Adam’s’ disability, his mental illness and cerebral palsy, based on real life conditions, this fly on the wall documentary reflects from the documentaries I have research into such as ; ‘Dispatches’, ‘Torrettes’ and ‘why are thin people not fat’ which usually look at a social acceptance, personal positive responses and development and backing this up with factual relevant information, that we as a audience can interoperated in different perspectives due to our societies ideologies on incidences throughout the media.
The Mis en scene in documentary needs to involve a naturalistic circumstances, props, clothing, sounds, camera angles and locations. That can be easily related to the subject in hand. primarily throughout a documentaries lighting should always be natural as possible, as we don’t want it to look quirky . It would be taken as seriously, but there can be exceptions for artificial lighting, for instance in low lighted areas like tombs and caves in historical documentaries and for wildlife programs to create a ‘photographic’ (barthes) element.

Camera shots, that are usually involve are lots of rapid multiple shots, moving or stationary with basic visual effects with text. The shots that are constructed are somewhat photographic, each shot is aliened to be a photograph, pleasing to the viewers eye, as a passive audience this is probably dismissed by most of the public. ¬-Animated text involves information about the sequence that is being situated on the screen, this usually involves information about the Character/ person shown or facts and figures, so we can get a clear understanding on what is going on.
Characters/the people involved in the documentary are somewhat voluntary but selected as they are ideal for what they have been selected for, because as a producer you can select the person that you want to involve in you documentary e.g. the characters situation and circumstances of lifestyle. You would ask you self if you broadcast to 6,000,000 viewers, the subject is about drug use, and the affects thay have on young people will they understand the condition and empathy you want to project across to your audience.
Digetic/ non-digetic sounds are as followed, Soundtracks, voice and sound effects, important within a documentary.
Many aspects of a documentary aren’t created/ setup in a documentary, as it is a documentation of something or someone, but to some extent it is because you as a producer you have the power to choose the location, the characters involved and how it will be presented through the lens, it is key to capture the subject in unworthy situation, for example selected a family which is situated in luxury villa, rather than in a suburban area in a council flat it wouldn’t acceptable as you want to create this atmosphere around the character that they are isolated and far beyond control.
There are many conventions in a documentary but they seem quite bleak and unrecognisable as we are quite a passive audience. As above I have stated a few of the codes and conventions throughout the media, which make a production successful. But throughout each generation codes and conventions adapt due to our growth in technology, on what is achievable within the making, as cameras become more manoeuvrable and the exploration within ideas have become broader because society has become more intelligent.

The choice of disability was a person influence due to own experience to consider basing our main task on. Using such a emotional subject to base the extract on, we were thinking hopefully it would grasp the audience attention.
I have chosen to represent a specific disability in society, and discusses the feelings within one particular household, its is displayed as some sort of fly on the wall production. The codes within this particular genre, well there isn’t a particular genre as such in as a documentary attempts to display the deception of people, places or situations within reality as it is not fictional.
The representation of our documentary that should be portrayed to our designated audience is, it is a natural as possible, and realistic as possible, this should be obvious throughout the production, within out soundtracks selected, the camera angles chosen and the pace of the cuts/edits the digetic/non digetic adn location (mise en scene).

The section of society that should that should be interested in our documentary are those that like to engaged within self educating and seeking information. As ours displays a serious subject with facts and first hand opinions on the matter. The ‘representation’ of our documentary

In a book published in 2001 called ‘Introduction to Documentary’ (Indiana University Press) Bill Nichols defines the following six modes/sections of documentary
The Poetic Mode 'reassembling fragments of the world', a transformation of historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form, usually associated with 1920s and modernist ideas.

-The Expository Mode 'direct address', social issues assembled into an argumentative frame, mediated by a voice-of-God narration, associated with 1920s-1930s, and some of the rhetoric and polemic surrounding World War Two
The Observational Mode as technology advanced by the 1960s and cameras became smaller and lighter, able to document life in a less intrusive manner, there is less control required over lighting etc, leaving the social actors free to act and the documentarists free to record without interacting with each other

-The Participatory Mode the encounter between film-maker and subject is recorded, as the film-maker actively engages with the situation they are documenting, asking questions of their subjects, sharing experiences with them. Heavily reliant on the honesty of witnesses'

-The Reflexive Mode demonstrates consciousness of the process of reading documentary, and engages actively with the issues of realism and representation, acknowledging the presence of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at. Corresponds to critical theory of the 1980s

-The Performative Mode acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary, and presents ideas as part of a context, having different meanings for different people (often autobiographical)

These sections/ criteria’s of the theory developmental are part of genre due to the adaptation of society, and how its introducing new technology though out generations of documentary production, and how then film makers challenge conventions and broadened the boundaries that documentaries can explore.

The effectiveness is the combination of each ancillary is due to the continuity within the fonts, colours, characters and language used. With the double page spread there is a clear link due to main central image, as Adam is the main focus of our documentary it is highly relevant that we included him in the magazine listing. Also the fonts and colours are exactly the same to the main task as I want the pieces to connotate throughout

Using the ideology of ‘Barthes’ the connotations of the main central image of Adam are; the clothing that he is wear are quite dull, reasonably urban and the jacket has a hood. These represent Adams deception and masculinity. The anger seen on his face and the firm grip of the camera shows, anger and his control over this documentary, as this is a representation of his life. The white/ grey background is simply there to show professionalism and to draw your attention towards look at Adam’s aesthetics. The quote that is above Adam is there to show Adam’s place within the documentary, to show 1st hand feedback, and facts discussing the issues withheld.

I think that I have represent the unique selling point quite clearly, as for a start we have chosen to do a subject in reality in which a lot of families suffer from around the UK, we discuss the difficulties within ‘cerebral palsy’ with facts and first hand evidence from a voluntary family, they have been filmed for this production. They then explain the compications and the successful elements of Adam. Also as it is directed towards the ‘channel 4’ media this would fit quite nicely with Horizon’s documentaries such as ‘why thin people are not fat’, the codes and conventions such as camera angles, soundtracks and narrative are somewhat similar.

There are many different media platform that could involved with our documentary due to the producers being ‘Channel 4’ advertising this documentary would be easy as this is a production company which is highly successful and trusted by the general public. Website would included snippets and adverts for the production, channel radio station and podcasts would play a our radio ad, magazines for instances like ‘TV Magazine’, TV choice and ‘TV satellite, would all display the double page spread that we’ve created due to its relevance, also this text product could also be excesses on online magazines, like ‘Hello’ due to the growth of a intergrading media with technology. Producing such things as digital open a new market on seeing information as it can be seen on thousands of portable products.

Here is one of two of the minor production tasks. This is our the Radio Advert.
Edited on premiere pro the sequence involves clips from the extract but edited to create more atmosphere, due to the length.
The section at the edit stating when the program is on a the channel its situated on was my voice recorded with the laptops microphone on 'audacity' the noise was removed the pitch was decreased, the tempo was altered and then amplified. After that it was placed into premiere pro the pitch was then alter along with the fine tune.

Below is the double page magazine listing that advertises our documentary.
The central image is a photograph of Adam this has be altered by increasing the images brightness and contrast, (to make the background a clear and crisp white as the it was photographer on a white backdrop to begin with). Then the photo's 'green channel' had its brightness increased to create a slight tint to it. Lean toward creating some sort of lomo photography. This tint also add this vintage feel to it (quite 80s).
Simply the main headline of the documentary is on the left hand side, the text above the 'Adam rush' is in a quite sophisticated font, resembling style and seriousness.
The font of, 'Adam Rush' is simply to show continuity withing the main task and the ancillary task (The same reason for the colours chosen).

Click For a better resolution
This is my double page magazine listng created on photoshop. The writen task its self was created on photoshop. The boxes have been created from the 'rectangular lasso tool' with a colour alteration, then the box right hand side at the top was added to a new layer and the opacity percentage was altered so it would become transparent.

These images below just resemble the steps i tooking within creating this.

These are just some examples of some other double page spreads for documentaries, the level of skill of this are quite poor, we have looked at several others, that are produced by the main production companies for example channel 4 and the BBC and the codes and conventions that are involved within those pieces are quite simple to reproduce.