Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?At the start of the A2 Course, we were given a brief as to what we had to do for our coursework. This was to create an opening 5 minutes for a documentary on a topic of our choosing. In addition, we also had to submit two ancillary tasks, a radio trailer and a double page listings spread in order to promote the documentary.Documentary:Bill Nicholls' theory of documentary modes became the basis to the ddevelopment of our documentary. Once selected, it was important to stick to the conventions of the mode. Our documentary is most like the expository mode. Expository mode addresses the viewer directly in order to advance an argument or recount history. They are often subjective and polemical, giving a factual, yet rhetorical opinion throughout. Most expository mode documentaries use a voice over, since it allows the figures and fact to be shown on screen while the voice over is narrating. As our documentary discusses an issue with the way in which we use social stereotypes negatively, suggests our documentary is slightly expository. We are trying to make people think differently.From watching documentaries, I took careful note of the different camera shots used and why they were so effective. Some of the camera shot types that I noticed in these documentaries were Close up, Medium close up, long shot, establishing shot and wide shot. In the documentary 'Supersize me' it often showed use of establishing shots and close up shot and long shot. A lot of the vox pops were spontaneous, in a setting where McDonalds was clear seen in the background and would also use cut away shots of 'McDonalds' products. Doing this highlights the subject of the documentary and redirects the audience to think and focus of 'McDonalds'. We have attempted to follow this convention in our documentary, by filming the Solihull Sixth Form logo to direct the audience into thinking how schools are a cause for social labels, then used cut away shots to Beth dressed as the different stereotypes

We used handheld camera for a couple of clips which we eddited so there was a cut away sot while they were talking in the interview. Handheld camera footage tends to go against the main conventions of a documentary as most documentaries are formal and use a tripod at all times. However, we decided to go against the convention as it makes the shot look a little edgier and fast pace, which is how we perceived our target audience.

Another was we set up our camera shot was using a tripod. The main use of the tripod was for expert interviews and Vox pops. Doing this allowed us to be able to set the camera in not only a professional manor but also still. As we wanted to get some good establishing shots of the college ground and canteen, we found the tripod to be very useful for this. We would set up the tripod and do a combination of a pan and zoom, to achieve a shot that would look effective and professional. A convention we followed, was the position and direction in which the person being interviewed looked. During 'Supersize Me' people who were being interviewed didnt look towards the camera, but at Spurlock while he was asking the questions. This is something we also decided to do, so when filming we would stand behind the camera to the left and when asking the questions, interview would look to wards us. This then give the appearance that the answers being given are purely their answers and their opinions and aren't giving an answer crafted because they are speaking to the camera. We know and our audience knows the authenticity of answers. In our documentary, we followed the conventions of having both vox pops and expert interviews. We used vox pops as a way of gaining authentic and truthful opinions of teenagers to whom our documentary is targeted towards. Using the vox pops helps to build an argument for our expository documentary. In 'Supersize Me', they used a handheld camera for the vox pops. However, as it was an interview, we felt this was too informal, so we challenged this convention and decided to use the tripod when filming interviews as it was far more professional and steady looking. An important factor when filming these interviews was mise-en-scene. We made sure that our experts were near a desk and dressed smartly, in order to convey their importance and expertise. In addition, from watching documentaries, we discovered that the use of caption on the expert interviews also showed that they were important on the subject and topic of the documentary. However, we slightly challenged the conventions of using a caption in a documentary due to the fact we used a white, slightly opaque, background. We felt that this really helped that little bit more to make the caption stand out even more, reinforcing the fact that this expert opinion is valuable. In addition, we made sure that our expert was also sitting on the right side of the screen

Our documentary uses a rhetorical narrative structure, and tries to voice an argument which tries to persuade and inform the target audience of the problem of 'Social Stereotypes' and the labels and judgment of their appearance may be both negative and incorrect. In the creation of our documentary, we had the option of either having an on screen presenter, voice over, or even both, we decided on having a voice over. The use of a voice over both challenges and conforms to real media products. The main reason we decided to use a voice over is because it is highly effective at putting across the argument. We thought this suited our documentary style much better and decided to challenge the convention of having an on screen presenter as we didnt want the audience focusing on us, but at the facts and figure and the cut away shots designed to back up the argument. Within the voice over, we followed the conventions of having facts linked to our documentary. This follows the 'Voice of God' element. To do this, in our planning and research we used a questionnaire and focus group design to give use an idea about the topic of our documentary. From this, we learned that 75% of the people we asked felt they had been victimised due to their appearance. Along with this statistic, we also showed it subtitled on the screen, while a clip was shown of a group of teenager. Doing this helped link back to the subject of the documentary and who we are targeting this statistic towards. We found this to follow the main convention of statics and facts, as seen in 'Supersize me' they also shows the statistics on screen, while they were read out by the voice over, Morgan Spurlock, which we found as an audience to be effective and well received. You not only read the fact but you hear it to. Background music was something that we followed in the conventions of documentaries. The background music chosen had to be just right and balanced in sound levels so that it isn't too over powering, or isn't noticeable at all. In the documentary 'Supersize Me' the background music were copyrighted songs such as 'Fat Bottomed Girls'. As a consequence, we had to challenge this and use music that wasnt copyrighted off the media website. We selected 'Jam1' for our background music as it had a quick tempo which helped give the documentary a fast pace, extremely suitable for our target audience.

Here is an example of the transition.Here is an example of the fading to black transition.Transitions and special effects were an important feature in the documentary. From watching 'Supersize me' they often changed the use of transition depending the effect they were trying to give. Often they wouldnt use a transition which meant the clips when straight from one to another, the effect of this was that the pace of the documentary was quickened. We decided to follow this convention and use it in our documentary. Towards the beginning and end we also put clips one after another to increase the pace. We felt that by doing this, it would suit and appeal more to our target audience. Also, we adopted the use of the 'Fade t black' which was often used. By using this, it made the transition from one clip to another much smoother. However, we did challenge the conventions of transitions as we used the cube transition when going from a vox pop to archive footage. We really liked the effect of this, it was something a bit different for our documentary.

Magazine:

For our listing magazine's double page spread, we decided to choose 'Radio Times'. One of the main reasons for this is because it is one of the most well know, and popular listings magazines. One of the main conventions of a 'Radio Times' magazine is the fact that at the bottom of the page it always says 'Radio Times' in a bold font. We have chosen to do the same as we want to make our magazine as authentic and as aesthetically pleasing as possible.I have followed the conventions of having a drop cap at the start of my article. I decided to followed this convention as the bold capital letter helps to direct the audiences eyes to the start of the article. The fact that the drop cap is also blue in colour again helps to draw attention to the start of the article as it is a strong bright contrast in colour compared to the standard, professional black font. These images selected to be presented in the magazine follow the convention of a listings magazine as the images selected are from the documentary itself. Therefore, it enables a link to be made between the article and the actual documentary. Also, the fact that we used images from the documentary give and insight as to what the documentary is about. In addition, we have chosen to follow the magazine s convention of using a large image that takes up more than one page as we feel it is the image that sums up our documentary. Also, we decided to but the main image mostly on the left side of the page as it follows the convention of a magazine. Since we read and look left to right, it seemed appropriate to place the image more dominantly on the left hand side.However, we have decided to challenge the conventions of use of colour within our double page spread. Even though there I little use above, we made the decision to chose something bright and fun as an accent colour so that it could highlight key point on our double page spread. The use of colour also adds some edginess and fun to the article, which would be more appealing to our younger target audience.We also followed the conventions of a TV listings magazine by including pull quotes. These were embedded within the article. These were specific points in the article that we wanted to emphasise.

Radio trailer: In order to gain a full understanding as to the convention of a radio trailer, we listened to a ranges of different ones for different stations. We looked at the main station which have advert breaks such as Capital fm, Free radio and heart. Due to the fact our target audience in 13-21, we felt it was suitable to go for a radio station which also has a close enough target audience. As a result, we found Capita Fm as the most suitable radio station to feature our documentary trailer.The opening of the radio trailer features rhetorical questions 'Ever feel stereotyped or like you dont fit in?' These questions are quite deep and generic which means they will apply to a lot of people. A listener may hear this and become interested in the documentary as it is a topic which many both understand and have been subjected to. This is one of the main conventions with radio adverts as they are great way to engage the listener, the question only sums up what the advert it trying to say. The radio trailers we listened to were all in between 20-40 seconds. This isn't too long, which meant all points needed to be put across clearly and quickly. We mirrored the duration in our radio trailer as it was just over 30 seconds. We felt that everything important and vital was put across quickly and clear