Evaluation

Evaluation

Climbing Documentary:

For my Main project I decided to create the climbing Documentary, I thought this would be a good Idea to pursue with it being the first time I have made any sort of good length film/documentary/music video to start with a subject that I know a lot about and will be able to easily fill 5 minutes of film.

For the Documentary I had set out a storyboard plan for what was going to be in the documentary and when, I believe looking back at the documentary that I have done quite well to follow my storyboard with only a couple changes which have had to be made to make the documentary run smoother, with any production I believe it is essential that if changes need to be made and when in the productions tages you don't believe that it will work out that it is better to make these changes and then acknowledge that as it will hopefully end up with a much better product at the end of the production.

Although the documentary will not be to everyone’s liking, I believe that the target audience that I have aimed it towards there will be a good amount of people who will want to find out more about climbing maybe with the thought of taking it up, so this documentary will be hitting some people inside of my Target Audience, from my own experience of climbing of 3 years this target audience has been put correctly, through also speaking with friends and teachers around the school they agree that not all of them believe the Documentary is good they do agree that it is a younger generation who may like it more, with the possibility of older adrenaline Junkies wanting to go out of their way and watch the documentary on the television.

Although my Time Plan that I had set out didn’t go totally to plan due to illness and missing a couple of the big production times I believe that I haven’t done badly to finish the documentary in time, this was due to trying to get a hold of John Fox to interview and climb in the Documentary and also the weather not being suitable to film the outdoor climbing, the time plan was initially created to make sure that the documentary would be completed on time, this is why i believe that even though i didn't manage to follow it word for word, the time plan then allowed me to see what i have missed and what i still need to do which is much better then not having any idea of what parts of the production and editing would be done.

Sub Task- Newspaper Advert

I am very pleased with how my Newspaper Advert has turned out, with not having much Photoshop experience behind me I have learnt very quickly and used effects and merging very well I believe. I am glad I have left the large image of the cliff and the climber climbing up in on the right hand side with the added background of the fading colour which gives a good contrast between the two, using the magic wand tool I managed to get all of the unwanted background image (of the climber/cliff) out so that I could fill every small area of the background with the Photoshop colour background which I have added an effect to, .

The newspaper advert gives out all of the information that I wanted the user to find out, and have found that is the usual information that is on an advert from my research.

If I was to make any changes on my Tv advert I would try and make it a bit larger then the size that I choose to create it at first, although I don’t believe this is a bad size as my research showed that there are some adverts that are able to be in the papers like how i have created,  I think it would be more eye catching to the reader if it was a full page advert, apart from that I am very pleased with the final production of the newspaper advert.

The text tools on photoshop are also very helpful as i was able to research and look up a text called 'rock' that was perfect for an advert about rock climbing, this gave the advert a more catchy look and drags the viewers attention to the advert.

Sub Task- Double page Spread.

I find it hard to judge how I have created my double page spread, throughout my research I found it very hard to find any double page magazine spreads that were dedicated to a documentary, because of this I decided to analyse a mix of a few different Double page spreads, and from doing this I have found that there are many similarities throughout all of the double page spreads as well as DPS's being set out very differently to each other.

I have created a double page that is aesthetically pleasing and drags the attention of the reader towards the images dotted around the page and the writing, I believe that the text that is on the page compliments all of the photo’s which can easily be read on the good photo in the background of one of the climbing area's,  I have chosen to use as it describes what happens in the documentary and what the audience may find interesting, this will hopefully entice the reader into tuning into the channel and watching the documentary which the date of showing is at the bottom right of the double page spread.

The image that is in the background of the Double page spread gives the DPS a much better feeling of a sunny climbing area that entices the reader into reading, this is good as there is no point in creating a DPS which doesn't make people want to find out more about.

On the double page i have also included in large at the top the name of the documentary with the same 'Rock' text that was downloaded and then inserted into the program, this means that the DPS and the newspaper advert have the same feeling about them that they are part of the same program.

On the bottom right of the two pages i have added in when the documentary is showing and which channel, this is essential as it means that the audience doesn't have to go looking and finding out when the documentary will be aired and hopefully will remember or right down to see the documentary.

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

One way in which I have managed to develop and use forms and conventions of other real media products that I have found is to follow the same sort of structure that can be found inside a documentary, of what sort of clips are in the documentary and how it is all put together, for example from my research into both other documentaries and the codes and conventions, I have taken that I need to use voiceovers throughout ontop of Real Footage of Events and Archive footage which I found happened in every one of the documentarys I analysed, another section that I decided to add in which I had found was used as a code or convention that is used in a lot of documentarys is interviews with people who know about the subject area you are talking about, in my case the climbing partner I climb with runs a adventure activity business which meant it was perfect for me.

One way in which I have challenged some of the codes and conventions was to split up my documentary into 3 or 4 separate sections about the sport of climbing, I decided this would be the best way to go as I was targeting the audience of around 20-40 which meant that there will have been a lot of people who haven’t been climbing before and want to find out and learn a bit about it, having the different sections means that they can learn more about it and offer then an insight into Climbing as a whole, whilst having the documentary on Jersey at the same time.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believe that the combination of my main Climbing documentary and the ancillary texts of a Newspaper Advert and a Double Page Spread in a Magazine merge together extremely well to create three pieces of work that flow with the same theme, with the two ancillary texts easily recognizable as leading up to the main documentary, I have tried to carry through some of the same images righ the way through the three projects as this will link them even futher.

Another way in which I have decided to make it noticeable that the two ancillary texts are linked is using the same text for the ‘Climbing- The Adrenaline Rush’ Title in the same place of the advert and Double Page Spread. I think that having the star ratings and Quotes from reviews of the documentary is a good idea to have in the Newspaper advert and Magazine spread so that it is once again noticeable the the texts are linked.

In the end I believe that the two ancillary texts go well with the Climbing Documentary and continue the theme right the way through the project, if I saw either the advert or the double page spread when reading I would Atleast take a look into what the documentary is like.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


Several media technologies were used throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation:

Research: Through the technology advances of the internet and the way in which we are able to collect and use the research of such media products as newspaper adverts, other documentaries and any research that i have needed throughout the AS and especially the A2, this has been good as it means that I have been able to broaden the market research that i have been able to carry out throughout the whole A level to create a final documentary that conforms to as many of the codes and conventions of a normal documentary as possible.

Planning: For the planning the main media technology that was used was Imovie to clip together the animatic storyboard as a video version of the drawn images, I believed this was a very good way to express what I wanted my final documentary to look like, this also gives a better idea of following the plan then trying to read it off pictures on a page.

Construction:

Double Page Spread: For the Double Page Spread I used the technological program of Adobe inDesign, a great program that had a option to set out how a double page spread should be set out, this was very good for aligning any writing or images, other tools such as backdrops meant that the finished product of the DPS was much more professional without these tools.


Newspaper Advert: The newspaper advert for the production was created on Adobe Photoshop CS3, this program is great for manipulation of images and writing to create a final professional product, for example the background image had flare from the sun in the sky, this was easily sorted with the magic wand tool allowing me to select only the sky and delete this, which was then edited to make the background look a bit like the sky using colour.
Another big advantage of using the technologies at hand was the Advert title which was 'Climbing, The Adrenaline Rush' which i managed to find online a font called 'Rock' which looked a bit like rock which is good for rock climbing, adding this into my Adobe Photoshop fonts meant that the advert had a feeling much more of a professional advert.



Documentary: The technology that was used for the production of the Documentary was using the program iMovie, a program which comes on the iMacs and is very helpful for editing the sound and clips together to create a good final product as a climbing documentary, the sound manipulation being able to move the volumes around was very helpful.
When the documentary had been finished I was easily able to export the documentary into quicktime which is a universal program which means that It can easily be viewed.

The way in which i have used media technologies in the construction of the tasks was mainly through PhotoShop CS4 and 2009 iMovie, the use of these two created a good finish product after a lot of effort and time changing what i had filmed and editing it.
For my main task i used iMovie to create the documentary which i believe came out very well, I imported the clips into imovie and after that cutting the clips together meant that i could use the transissions and effects to add to the experience of the documentary, another good thing about iMovie was that i was able to use Garageband on the Mac's to create a backing track to the documentary and add it into the documentary with ease.
For my Newspaper Advert I decided to use Photoshop CS4 for the things that I could do with it, after adding the background image and editing parts out with the magic wand i managed to get a good background and after that i just had to change the text, for not knowing much about photoshop before starting I believe that I have managed to create a very good piece of work in the end.
The Double page spread that i created started out in Photoshop and then was moved to inDesign for the ease of creating a double page spread with the margins for where the columns should be already on the page, once this has been done and I have added the background image onto it, I decided on the title,text and photos to use which meant that in the end once i had everything collected I would be able to finish the double page spread in little time, Although this is what i thought it wasn't exactly true as the Double page spread took a lot longer then I thought to create it.

I blieve that how I have used the media technologies that I had to hand i have managed to create a documentary and two ancillary texts which are very good and I am very pleased with them.

What have you learned from your audience feedback
My Audience Feedback has told me a lot about the main task that I have produced and also the two ancillary texts, the main task being the documentary supported by the Newspaper advert and the double page spread, From the research it has shown me that I have managed to re-create the codes and conventions of the three projects the audience think and believe that I have managed to create a documentary that people will be wanting to watch and are interested in, The audience feedback has shown me that if it was put on at prime time that 70% would be interested in watching it.

Audience Research




Above you can see that after I have showed 30 people including around 20 teachers around the school Whether the documentary is interesting and worth watching during prime time television 70% of them thought that it was worth the watch.


Above shows that from these 30 people that they do believe in 97% of cases that I have managed to conform to the codes and conventions of a documentary.


When carrying out the audience feedback I asked family friends, friends at school and teachers around the school to get the best feedback that i could and i believe that this worked well as I have found that i have managed to conform to the codes and conventions of a documentary in 97% of the people believing out f the 30 asked and also that 70% of the questioned group thought that the documentary was interesting and worth the watch.

This feedback is great to clarify what I thought of the documentary myself.