Evaluation - Question 1

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

The institution that we decided to follow was Channel 4 as we believed that the distinctive style that have works well with making their products stand out from others and we therefore wanted our products to do the same. By following the Channel 4 style we had to ensure that our documentary followed the typical forms and conventions of a Channel 4 documentary in order to make our products look professional and consistent. To follow the typical Channel 4 conventions, we made our documentary based on real life moments which shows what homosexuals think and feel rather than what people generally believe or the opinions of the public. As we think that the topic of homosexuality is a very opinion based topic, we wanted to receive information from a homosexual which is what would happen in a typical Channel 4 documentary. We followed the conventions of a reflexive documentary which bases the subject on real life moments and opinions rather than re-hashed facts as we feel that it was the best way to grab the attention of our target audience.

In terms of our newspaper advert, we again wanted to follow the typical forms and conventions that Channel 4 would have done. Therefore, when editing our photo for our newspaper advert, we ensured that we used the lighting effects to portray the meaning of the image in addition to what was in the image itself. We developed this by making our main character (Dean) appear in low key light which represents that he is seen as an ‘outcast’ in comparison to the public which was our background that we made to appear bright. However, we challenged this by having Dean dressed in slightly coloured clothes, so that even though they were dark they still had colour in which portrays that even though he is stereotypically different from everyone else he is actually the same. Another way in which we used the forms and conventions of Channel 4 newspaper advertisements is that we did not include a lot of writing on our advertisement. The text that appeared was the title of the documentary along with the time it was being shown. We also made sure that like Channel 4, the writing was in the bottom corner which therefore gave the audience more of a chance to focus on the visual content.

When creating our documentary, newspaper advertisement and radio advertisement, we had to make sure that they looked consistent and linked to one another. One way that we did this was by using an appropriate font. Channel 4 have their own font, therefore we found some of their font and used it in both our newspaper advertisement and throughout our documentary to ensure that our products look like Channel 4 products.

When thinking about the conventions of a documentary, we used the typical conventions that are seen in a documentary to make it more appealing and ‘real’. Firstly, we used voiceovers within our documentary; voiceovers are normally used to encourage the audience to think that they have some kind of specialist knowledge and therefore are encouraged to believe that what is said is the truth. The unseen commentator explains or tells story during a documentary stating what is happening and/or adding extra information such as facts. Within our documentary we used voiceovers to set the scene and ask rhetorical questions in order to get them thinking more about the topic on which our documentary is about. We also used voiceovers to introduce our characters/interviewees so that the audience knew who we were talking to and why we were talking to them. Using voiceovers taught us that you can give information to an audience without necessarily having someone on screen telling them. This is useful as it allowed us to show other footage relevant to our topic whilst giving the audience information as well as something to think about.

Another convention of a documentary would be that they use real footage of events that have occurred in order to further convince the audience that the documentary is real. We used real footage within our documentary in order to attempt to ‘raise awareness’ that homosexuality is more than normal and that there are millions of homosexuals throughout the world. We realised that using real footage as well as our own footage it shows that we haven’t necessarily created the documentary to convince people to think in a certain way but to see the reality of today’s society.

Another convention that we used within our documentary is that we used as much natural lighting as we could. This gave our documentary more of a sense of realism and shows that our footage wasn’t heavily edited to portray a specific message.

Interviews with ‘experts’ are also used within many documentary as people tend to want to hear the information from professionals in order to believe that what is said is true or false. Interviews are typically used to give factual evidence rather that an opinion in order to influence the audience to believe what is being said. Furthermore, interviews allow people being filmed to speak directly about events prompted by specific questions. Filming and interview also gives the opportunity to capture the emotion of a person whilst they may be telling a personal story. In the documentary that we created, we included two different interviews. One of which was an interview with an ‘expert’ as they are a psychologist. We interviewed a professional as we felt that it was important to give the people an insight into what they think. A way in which we challenged this convention in the interview with the psychologist is what we allowed her to give her own opinion rather than facts which doesn’t normally happen in documentaries about a serious topic like homosexuality. The other interview that we used within our documentary was with Dean, a homosexual sixth form student who is also head boy. This interview was used to show the audience how an individual thinks and feel when discovering and telling people that they are gay. We were also able to show true emotions and feelings to the audience by using this interview.

Finally, another convention that we used within our documentary is that we used the ‘bridge’ effect. This is where the voice is bridged over from one scene to another. We done this so that we could show the audience multiple shots and scenes whilst they were still able to listen to an interview. This was effective as it was more appealing to the audience as they didn’t have to watch certain shots with no sound to them.

Overall we think that our final products were convincing as we followed all of the typical forms and conventions as well as the conventions from a Channel 4 product. All here of our products also link up well and are completed to a professional standard which is eye catching for our target audience. We found that we were able to reflect the topic of homosexuality well as we discussed our original idea of how the ‘acceptance’ of being homosexual has changed over time and also how people view homosexuality in today’s society.