Market research

We tryed to use a range of media such as facebook, twitter and text messaging.
The best response we got was from Text messaging, suggesting that our target audience of 16-22 year olds are more intractable through there phones. This research could help with how we attempt to market our documentary and try to appeal our documentary to them.
The questions we asked:

1. What kind of magazines do you read and why?
2. Do you listen to the radio?, if so, which station and how much?
3. Do you watch documentaries? do you like them? if so, why?

The Results we received:

1)

• Glamour and InStyle for the fashion and lifestyle content
•     OK magazine for the celebrity gossip and endorsement
•     OK and Look for the gossip
•     Look for the gossip and daily advice
•     Kerrang and RockSound for music updates and tour dates
•     Cosmo for the sex chat
•     Look and OK for a break from text books
•     Fashion for the clothes
•     Fashion and Look to be nosey at fashion and celebrity life
•     Rock magazines cause i like them
•     Signwave helps me with my job
•     Mountain biking and orienteering
• 4 replies said they didn't listen to the radio

2)

•  Choice FM all day everyday
•     Heart or Xfm all the time at home
•     Xfm all the time
•     Cam Fm and Kerrang whenever I can
•     Capital in the car
•     Capital all the time
•     Planet Rock in the car
•     Capital and heart fro 1-2hrs a day
•     Changes the station depending on the song
•     Capital in the car
•     Kiss 100 in the car
•     BBC radio 1 or Choice because i like them
•     Capital Fm all the time
•     Absolute radio 8-5 Mon-Fri
•     Kiss all the time
•     Radio 1 whilst I revise

3)

•  Yes occasionally for the real life and wild life stories
•     No because they don't interest me
•     Yes only about Doctors and people survival stories
•     Not really, prefer comedies
•     Yes I watch Science ones
•     No because i don't really watch TV
•     No because they are boring
•     Yes but only the animal ones
•     Yes, some depends on the topic, mostly sports
•     Sometimes, if they are interesting like nature ones
•     No i dont have the time
•     No i dont have the patience to sit through a film in one go
•     National Geographic, animal Documentaries in other words
•     No because they are boring
•     Yes because they have penguins in them
•     Not really but its rare that i find one that i like

New camera Techniques

My attempt at 'Bokeh shapes'. Once i perfect the art of this, I hope to include it in the documentary as transitions between show, to connote some sort of a journey to the viewer.

This is the video i got the idea from....

Checklist

Wednesday 12th December 2012

Alex & Andrew - Period 2, 3 & 4:

• Finalise fonts to be used for the credits
• Look over current footage
• Decide what footage to be used and what to be removed
• Decide remainder of footage that needs to be shot

Thursday 13th December 2012

All - Period 2 & 7:

• Organise main questions on paper to create documentary template
• Work out a solid progression for the documentary

Monday 17th December 2012

Andrew, Anthony & Alex - Period 2

• Conduct and film focus group

Tuesday 18th December 2012

All - Period 1

• Complete rough edit of footage with blanks (Alex)
• Create a list of what we need Ruth to record in Africa over holidays

Thursday 24th January 2013

All - Period 2 & Period 7

• Review Ruth's footage
• Fill in the blanks with Ruth's footage
• Record voice-over

Filming

Tuesday 18th December 2012 

Crew members: Andrew (director)/ Anthony (Camera-man)/ Alex (sound guy/editor)
Props: White board
Shot list: medium shot/ medium close up
Time: around 10:00 onwards

We are recording a log of our views on the footage we expect to get back from africa in the new year. This is an individual log of each one of us so we see the difference in opinions

New Direction

These are some photo's from the planning we did for the new direction we are taking on our documentary...

New Direction

After reviewing our failures and things we needed to do better, as a group we decided to make some changes to the direction of our documentary. It's not a completely different documentary however we have decided to use some special opportunies give to use to make a documentary with alot of depth.

The Journey- Treatment

Research into Focus Groups

This is research a member of our class done, it sums up what we use focus groups for.

Evaluation of our performance

Our Mistakes

• miscommunication
• lack of care for our documentary
• understanding what we wanted from our documentary
• not following the treatment
• different people in the group wanting different things

Support and advise before shooting:

•  research
• create a list
• write a "shooting script"
• get creative

Support and advise after shooting is complete:

• log your tapes- log and categorise the pieces in the puzzle
• review the BIG picture- main element
• create scenes
• build a roller coaster- powerful moment in my documentary
• villain/hero- person, thing or event
• Beginning, Middle and End
• the ending start strong - core message, create curiosity
• what's in the middle
• script template

Decisions made

General Studies
From researching on the internet we found help on www.desktop-documentaries.com which we basically took what we found relevant and helpful for us in our current situation. WE debated as a group over ideas from this source and made decisions on what we will use and when.

1. Film building block first, which in our case is the questions that are the base of our documentary. We need to make sure we have the footage of the story we want first, then get additional footage to support it.
2. Analyse footage we currently have. By doing this we can have a common view of the path of our documentary and see if their are any links we wish to follow based on the footage we already have (this links to the research on 'unscripted documentary') 
3. Using a Mic at all time. This will allow a continuity in audio for our documentary which should help to add a serious tone to it. 
4. Grab audience attention straight away. This links in with the pace we edit at, grabbing the audience attention straight away will help to market the documentary.

Leveson Inquiry Essay

This is another Media Regulation Essay on the on-going Leveson Inquiry...

Do You Think the Leveson Inquiry Represents Satisfactory Regulation?

Shot list/Interview Techniques

 

This is the storyboard/shot list for our interview on Sunday 18th. If all goes to plan we should have some good footage. The plan is to ask the interviewee and number of questions, some we have no intention of using in our documentary however this allows our subject to get comfortable with the camera and hopefully means we can get a meaningful response when we get into the slightly personal questions which we intend to use. This is reflected in the shot list as we use long shot to give the view a sense of the 'sucessful' surroundings our subject is in and also to let the subject get comfortable with the camera.

 

This sort of interview style, particularly with the questions asked I noticed while watching Piers Morgan's life story's. He uses generic questions to make the subject comfortable before asking personal questions which he is trying to invoke emotion from. This technique is particularly helpful to me and I intend on using this technique in our interviews.

 

 

 Skip to 1min

Production schedule

Change in Production schedule, we were unable to do our scheduled interview on Sunday 11th because our interviewee had to cancel, however it has been rescheduled to this Sunday.

Planning an Unscripted Documentary

We came across an article by Tony Levelle (writersstore.com) about planning an unscripted documentary. This help because it gave us an insight into how you can create an effective documentary without a script.

Levelle talks about a well known filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman, who has been making successful unscripted documentaries for 30 years. She gives him useful and helpful advice as to how she goes about creating a documentary thinking about what story she plans to capture in her documentary, how she gets started, where she would like to shoot, the situations and events she would like to unfold in the document and how she wants the story to essentially evolve as we watch.
The key things we took from her advice was:

1. Allowing your footage to tell you where to go
2. Allowing things (unplanned) to happen
3. Let the story evolve
4. Allow yourself to be open to surprises, making necessary changes as you go
5. 'Free association' during interviews (interviewees more likely to share ideas that feel alive to them)

This really changed the complex of how we are intending to film now. This means that the footage we are going to capture will differ from our original plan which could mean we take a different route to achieve the last paragraph of our treatment.

Treatments.

Treatments

 1.                                                 2.

Evaluation so far

Not enough key footage of subjectWe are lacking footage involving the main subject of our documentary. However footage we do have includes establishing shots, interviews and any other footage involving the public, is complete. This means we have to step up our filming schedule and get key material first.

Recording stopped automatically

This is a camera error which has continuously affected footage as the camera (Canon 550D) would stop recording at random points when filming important footage, such as interviews. I have conducted research and I believe the error message may have something to do with the memory card and, to resolve the issue, formatting the memory card is necessary when it is put back into the camera. Searching on youtube for further answers this video helped and confirmed it was a memory card issue.


(This is a different model of the Canon 550D Camera we are using*)

Landscape/portrait camera work

Unfortunately some footage was filmed with the camera positioned incorrectly and it cannot be rotated without a loss of quality, therefore we will be recording the necessary footage again on Sunday 18th November. This is down to miscommunication between me and the cameraman.

Miscommunication/timing

Some miscommunication occurred before our production schedule was accurate and complete which meant footage was not taken as I (Director) and individuals involved with camera work were not in the same place at the same time. This has had a negative impact because we have had to extend our period to film. This further enforces the need for a production schedule as all members of the crew know where to be, when and what needs to be film.

Developing an understanding of documentary (what we want)We are beginning to develop an understanding of the direction we want our documentary to go in to ensure we succeed in portraying the message of it. The shape and direction of our documentary has changed with more information we gather such as 'filming an unscripted documentary'. This means our documentary may move away from our treatment.

Treatment Research

Before creating our own treatments we researched in to A) what a treatment is B) What treatments consist of and C) An example of a treatment.

We found online some help on what a treatment is and what it consists of....

 

 

 

From this research we came up with three main things that our treatment needs to do..

1. It needs an opening and closing paragraph that attracts attention
2. The treatment should clearly state our idea, point of view and convince the reader that we are organized, professional and imaginative
3. Make sure we have access to the people, places and information necessary to complete the film before we propose it.

I believe our treatment will achieve all of these points. Just to make sure we had a clear idea of what a treatment should look like we found an example of a treatment online...

 

 

 



Time to Film

It's that time to get the ball rolling our filming schedule. It's hard to get a set schedule of what days we will be filming on exactly with a documentary, especially when we have to arrange interviews with 'successful' individuals, who have busy schedules as you would assume. To make sure me and my team are extra clear when we can film and what we need to film to for fill our objectives. To do this we will be using Celtex again this year, as we found it useful and effective to be organised. Filming has started and the schedule should be up soon

The Ali G Method

How does he get these important people to respond to silly questions?

Watch this....

Ethical Issues

STRONGLY AGREE

1) Documentaries represent someones version of the truth

2)Documentaries shape the truth

3)raw archive footage is more truthful than staged scenes

4) Documentaries are more truthful than fiction

5) Documentaries capture the truth

STRONGLY DISAGREE

 

These are statements are different ethical issues which we had a discussion about today.

 

Verisimilitude: Having an appearance of being true or real

Treatment

Treatment pic's will be up very soon!

5 Documentary Modes

 

Essay on News Of the World

This is an essay I done looking into wheater the News of The World should have been shut down or not.....

 

Media Regulation (BBFC)

Regulation (BBFC) from Andrew Adedipe

Questions about Regulation

Who regulates the media?

1   There are several different bodies that regulate the media in the UK. Different bodies focus on specific area’s of the media, for example: PCC (Press Complaints Commission), which was set up by newspaper bodies.  Other bodies such as the ITC (Independent Television Commission) deal with the regulation of private television.

Why does the media needs regulating?

2.   Media needs regulation to establish a level playing ground. The regulation of media insures that all media institutions, big or small stick to a set of rules and boundaries. Regulation also insures that the public are protected from the money hungry campaigns media institutions use to get the public to spend their hard earned money on needless products.

Should media texts be subject to censorship?

3.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0AZH5641LM So I watched this clip and the guy at 1:40 hits the nail on the head. This seems to be just another one of those things that we could argue about forever but if media text does become subject to censorship then where will things end. It would pretty much go against the whole free speech rule, so I guess it comes down to a moral issue. As human we should have a form of censorship ourselves and know what’s morally right/acceptable to say.

What are the key issues relating to media influence (Uses and Gratification Theory, Desensitisation, Cultural Regulation), and how might they have affected you?

4.   

Is the public protected or hindered by media regulation?


5.   Different people will have different opinions to this question, however the fact that people may interpret different things from ads from the media, so whats regulated may be an inaccurate estimate of what the public need to be protected from. So personally I think the public is currently hindered by the regulation of media. I think the public should be able to make their own judgments on what the rules should be for media that is regulated.


What is the moral responsibility of a media institution?


6.   Unfortunately the moral responsibility doesn’t seem to exist. The point of media institutions is to make money and a lot of it, and that all means they will do whatever is necessary to make as much money as possible (as long as it’s meets regulation guidelines of course). Morally they should present a truthful reflection of their product but then nobody would eat MacDonald’s would they.  

Louis Theroux: America's most hated family...

Ah the beloved loop hole, you've got to love it, the trick is you never admit it's wrong or 'sinful' and your cool to be in the crazy church as long as you want. As we see at 47 min into this documentary, this girl clearly has a connection with this dutch fellow but according to her its not a connection, simply a way to preach the bottom line however the Dutch guy seems to be different from all the other sinners she's come across? She sends him chocolates? but he's still a sinner and is going to hell right? I think Louis has struck gold, he See's her vulnerability and attacks (on a human level of course). She clearly has feelings for this guy, the constant gifts, keeping in touch, It's like she's kind of experiencing the big wide sinful world while being in the comfort of her church. The fact is although these people think that they are different (which they are), they are humans and will have felt human emotions which go against their belief. For this girl it seems to be love, and she seems stunned when Louis hit the nail on the head and discovered the loop hole she has (notice how the family jump in to protect her).