Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

By Christelle Fumukina

Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread

I’ve used a main image, and this convection challenges the forms and conventions of real media products because all double page spreads have at least one image that

attracts the reader. Under the image is also a caption that describes what the image is so that the reader is not lost and is clearly aware of what the image is supposed to

show or represent. I made sure that I used an image that relates to the ancillary text to make it look professional. Also, as the documentary is about young students and

bullying, the image had to be of a young student.

Real Media ProductMy Product

Double Page Spread

Many real media use textboxes, borders and images in their double page spread. My media product develops these forms and conventions because I was able to include many images in my double page spread that related to the article. All of the media products that I researched had at least two images that related to the topic of the

ancillary text so I made sure this was the case for my own media product. My peers and I organised a photo-shoot for the cast in the documentary trailer so that the viewers

can have an insight of the people that will be featured in the documentary. I also noticed that other real media products had the same picture from the advert in the double page spread, this makes both products consistent and makes the audience

aware that they are both about the same topic.

Double Page Spread

Another convention that I used in my double page spread that challenges real life media products is the use of columns, the columns structures the text well and makes it

look more presentable. Without columns the text will be all over the place and sometimes distracts some people from reading the text because it would be in big

chunks. Most real media products use two columns is this is where I got the idea from because I wanted to fit in as much text as I can without overcrowding it.

Real Media Product

My Product

Double Page Spread

I used page numbers so that the readers can navigate around the magazine, this convention is used in every single magazine, and it is one of the main conventions that editors use on their pages. I made sure that the page numbers were at the button of

the page because this is also very typical of other magazines. Magazines like NME and Billboard are examples of magazines that use this convention, these magazines print

page numbers very small so that they do not distract the reader from the texts or pictures.

Real Media Product

My Product

Double Page Spread

Drops caps are a convention that most magazines use to introduce their texts or each new paragraph. I followed

this convention by using it for my own article. I didn’t use drop caps for every single paragraph in my article

because I don’t think that it is very necessary because the article is not that long and I didn’t want to make my page

look too loud.

Real Media Product My Product

I inserted a pull quote in my media product’s double page spread. Pull quotes are typical conventions used in magazines articles, they are usually placed in-between articles in order to interrupt the text and attract the reader. Pull quotes are usually made visible by being a different colour to the rest of the text, and often real media products they use a different font or size. I have challenged the conventions of real media products by inserting a pull quote in the middle of my article. To make the pull quote stand out I made sure that the size was bigger than the rest of the article, changed the colour and added a little background to it.

Real Media Product My Product

Double Page Spread

I made sure that I included the time and date of the documentary so that my audience are aware of the details of when the documentary will be on. I accompanied this by putting the institution logo above the time and date so that they know which TV production will be showing this documentary.

This challenges the conventions of real media products as other documentaries add a date and a time for the documentary.

Real Media Product My Product

Double Page Spread

I made sure that I stuck to a specific colour scheme for my double page spread in order to make it look consistent and challenge other real media products. The colours that I used for my double page spread were white, black and light pink. The reason why I used black writing was because it stood out in with the white background and white is a pure colour. In addition I used the colour pink for text boxes and borders because the colour pink is a pastel colour because it is associated with children, which is who

my documentary is based on.

Real Media Product. The editors for this magazine used different types of pink for this double page spread, this is also a feminine colour and it makes sense because Nicki Minaj is a female artist. The text colour is black which stand out from the pink background, I used this idea for my own media product but the only big difference is the background colour.

Documentary Trailer

Documentary trailer

I looked at many different documentary’s similar to the one that I intended to create in order to see the different forms an conventions that they use.

One video that stood out from the rest was a trailer for a documentary called ‘ Educating Yorkshire’, a documentary about the day to day lives of students and staff in a school. Since my documentary is about bullying I only focused on the scenes with bullying in it. In this particular clip there was a teacher talking about social media websites and how it influences the pupils, this piece of dialogue was used as a voice over with images of

social media logo’s such as Facebook and Twitter popping up on the screen. I used this idea for my own documentary and took screenshots of

abusive comments from someone’s Facebook picture and used it in my documentary; I challenged the conventions of this real media product by

adding a teachers dialogue about social media as a voice over for the screenshot that will be presented on the screen at the same time.

Documentary trailer

In my documentary trailer, I used many jump cuts that went from scene to scene of the different events that will be presented in the actual documentary. In real life documentary trailers, this is done in order to give the viewer an insight of

what the documentary will present. In addition, a new technique that I learnt on iMovie for the trailer was how to fast forward and slow down videos. The fast

forward effect allowed the video to look even more exciting because the viewer will not be fully aware of what is going on, this makes them want to see the

actual documentary even more. This technique has been used a lot of wildlife documentary’s especially if the editor’s intentions are to make time seem like it

is going fast.

Documentary trailer

I used a voice over throughout my documentary, this was to replace the text that I previously inserted in the documentary, the reason why I did this was because too

much text made the trailer look too boring. Another reason why I used a voice over in my documentary was to challenge the conventions of real life documentary's. Many documentary's use voice overs as a guide for the reader of what is happening on the screen, I used a voice over to introduce the school and city that the documentary will

be based in. Another type of voice over that I used was of a dialogue taken from sections of the documentary, I had a clip of a child cyber-bullying along with a voice

over of the teacher talking about cyber-bullying on social networking websites.

I used a voice over at the start of the documentary to introduce the documentary and the school, with some brief information about the staff and students. This is so that the audience are aware of what type of school the documentary will be about.

Documentary trailer

I challenged the forms and conventions of real media products in my documentary by adding a series of transitions for my documentary, this made the trailer more interactive and fun to watch. I made sure that I didn’t have too many transitions in my trailer because the trailers that I watched only had 3 - 4 transitions and is usually used to create a relaxed mood. One transitions that a lot of trailers that I researched seemed to use a lot was the fading

transition, this is where one scene or images fades while another one comes up, I followed these conventions and used the fading transitions in parts of my own documentary.

Blur transition

Swap transition

Door way transition

Checkered transition

Circle close transition

Documentary trailer

When it came to filming, my peers and I had already done our research on the different shots types that most documentaries use. We made sure that we followed the same

conventions of real media products by using the most appropriate shot types. A popular shot type used in the documentaries that we researched was the zoom/reverse

shot, these techniques can change a wide shot to a close-up shot. Zoom is often used to stress out situations and make things seem more serious, and a reverse can be used

to show the location and surroundings of a character.

I used a medium close up shot for the teacher’s interview in order to include the different props in the video so that the audience are aware of the setting and know that the documentary is set in a school.

I used the zoom tool on the camera, and zoomed in when the teacher said that the school does not tolerate bullying in “in any form” this makes the words stand out more to the audience making it memorable.

Documentary trailer

A further convention that I challenged from real media products in my documentary was is the use of text and titles. I used a label whenever an interview footage shown on

the screen, the text has basic information about the person like their name and who they are at the school. The convention is used by many real documentaries as a quick

and cheap way to convey basic information about a certain person in the documentary. Below are two examples of the kinds of texts that I had in my documentary.

This text introduces and teacher and what his role is in school.

This text has information about what the footage is showing and the people involved in it.

This is a hash tag of the documentary and appears near the beginning of the trailer to make the audience aware of what they are watching and how to find out more about it on twitter.

Documentary trailer

A convention that many real documentaries use, especially the documentary mode that I am following is the use of interviews. Interviews allow the audience to understand the different thoughts of the people that are being filmed. It allows the people being filmed

to describe events or situations in their own words and give their own first hand opinions about different topics or events that have occurred. In my own documentary I

was able to include interviews with different staff of different levels (head teacher, subject teacher etc.) talking about their thoughts of bullying; and I also included an

interview with a student that is currently at the school talking about the reasons why he bully's other people.

Documentary trailer

The use of sound in my documentary is a key conventions that I used to develop real media product. I used a software called garage band where I was able to create music

of my own to put into my documentary. Their was music playing all throughout my documentary which made it more exciting and less boring to watch. I used both

diegetic and non-diegetic sound in my documentary. The diegetic sound that I used in my documentary is of children talking to each other on the play ground while walking to their lessons, the reason why used this type of sound is to make the documentary

more natural which makes it look professional, also making everything seem real. The reason why I used diegetic sound (music) was to engage the audience because of the

way the sound followed with everything that was on the screen, this gave my final product more interesting.

Using Garage band to create music

Inserting Garage Band project into iMovie

Documentary trailer

I included real life footage in my documentary, a convention that many real media products use. All events that are seen by the audience are considered as ‘real’, so it

would make it easier to actually present real life footage . In my documentary their is a scene of two teachers in an office discussing something, to make it look more real and make the audience acknowledge what they were talking about, I added a voice over on

top of it footage talking about how the school tackles bullying. To the audience, this footage will seem like the teachers are talking about different incidents that they need

to deal with.

This is a footage of the school’s child protection officer having a discussion in an office with the school head teacher.

Documentary Advert

Documentary advert

I researched different documentary adverts and created my own documentary advert by challenging the forms and conventions by real media products, I used Photoshop to create my documentary advert and this piece of software allowed me to manipulate my images and text

in order to make my documentary look more attractive. I was able to manipulate the background of that I inserted which was originally just a normal picture of a school, I used the filter tool in order to make enhance the picture and make stand out more, giving it a more rich look. My documentary is based in a school so I made sure that the background was a building

of the school to reassure the audience of the location and setting. I also cropped the sky out of the background image in order to edit it to a different and unusual colour as well.

This is an example of a real media product that edited the background to, similar to my media product.

This is my real media product, I added an effect to the school building and made he sky look darker.

Documentary advert

I used three people from my cast and put their pictures in my documentary advert. I challenged the conventions of other media products by doing this and overlapping the pictures on top of

each other. Overlapping images gives some characters more power that is why I made sure that the picture of the head teacher overlapped the two pictures on the subject teacher and the

student, so that it is obvious who the leader is. I also manipulated the image to give it a cartoon effect so it looks more childish because the documentary is based on children.

This is an example of a real media product that manipulated the images to make it look more like cartoons. (Educating Yorkshire)

This is my real media product.

Documentary advert

All of the real documentary adverts that I researched had the date that the documentary will be showing and some had the time as well. I challenged this convention by adding a date and time for my documentary on the advert as well. I made sure that it was the same date and time that

I put on my double page spread and actual documentary trailer as well in order to make it consistent. Documentaries are usually shown in the evening where mostly everyone is back

from work. As my documentary is based in school, some of the audience are likely to still be in education, these are mostly teenagers. I choose to broadcast my documentary at 9pm because teenagers are usually up late at times like this. I also choose the day Wednesday because it is

the middle of the week which allows people to do any important things on Monday and Tuesday so that they could relax on Wednesday, also people are usually busy or out on Fridays

Saturdays and Sundays.

This is an example of a real media product that uses date and time for their documentary advert.

This is my real media product, I put the date and time of the documentary on my advert.

Documentary advert

In a documentary advert, it is required to have the logo of the channel that the documentary will be played on, this is so that the audience do no waste time looking for the right channel. I

followed this convention by doing this for my own documentary, I put the logo of my documentary at the bottom of the page, I made sure that it was visible but not too big because

I wanted the title and images to standout more. Big bold texts and images are more likely to stand in the mind.

This is an example of a real media product that put the institution logo on their documentary advert

This is my institution logo on my documentary advert.

Documentary advert

A further convention that I followed from real media products on my documentary is a catch phrase. A catch phrase is a phrase that most adverts use in order to gain repeat viewers. I didn’t just place it anywhere randomly on the page but I placed it on the roof of the school buildings, this made it look more effective and creative. The catch phrase says ‘The unexpected becomes

reality in our school’ it is written in third person because I want the audience to know that everyone in the documentary is inclusive in this quote. Catch phrases usually give a product it’s first impression from other people, and in this case I want the audience to be confused about

what it means, this would push them to watch the documentary and find out.

This is an example of a real media product that put a slogan/catch phrase on their documentary advert

This is my catch phrase.

Documentary advert

Most of the documentaries that I researched were very simple with one main image, a title, date and the institution logo. I stuck to these conventions in my own documentary to make it

look real and professional. Below are the examples of the documentary adverts that I researched before creating my own.