My A2 Media Evaluation

My A2 Media Evaluation on Prezi

Final Draft of Documentary

Final Draft Documentary from lydia earl on Vimeo.

Newspaper Advertisement

Magazine Double Page Spread

Yes it's hard to read the text, but if you go to the post below it shows you exactly what it says!

Magazine Review

FIRST PAGE:
There is no hiding from serious issues this week with a documentary about body issues, mainly anorexia. Documentaries do all seem to be about teenagers nowadays, but it’s educating for parents, teachers, younger children and obviously teenagers themselves. Concentrating mainly of 15 year old Lucy Smith, this documentary educates through the use of statistics, stand up comedians, interviews, anorexia tv awareness adverts and lots more. This documentary concentrates mainly on the female side of anorexia but still talks to boys that are not confident with their bodies.

A review from Tom Palmer, 18, said ‘I was actually very apprehensive before watching this because I think the whole subject around anorexia is very graphic and emotional but throughout the documentary I was totally engrossed by the way that it approached the subject.’


No one is supposed to ‘enjoy’ this documentary because a serious illness, like anorexia is not supposed to be enjoyed. But just because it won’t be enjoyed, why should you not watch it? You’re showing interest and support in the subject. This means a lot to people. It’s good to have a little cry at TV, yes it can be embarrassing but atleast this isn’t crying and some drama that isn’t real. This is a real life documentary that is supposed to attract your attention, concern you and educate you.

Will you give it a go, learn something? Or are you going to carry on ignoring serious issues in the world?


Three interesting facts about
anorexia:
1. Some anorexics wear a red bracelet to help other anorexics identify them, sort of like how people will wear a certain color a certain day
2.Anorexics personify their disorder, calling it 'Ana'. This style means they can talk while in public minus sounding suspicious.
3.Anorexics grow lanuga, a furlike covering, on their body which help store heat that they lose.

How is it identified?
Body weight is maintained at least 15% below that expected for a person's height. It is self-induced weight loss caused by avoiding fattening foods and may involve taking excessive exercise, using laxatives or self-induced vomiting. Those suffering from anorexia pursue a very low 'ideal' weight.

SECOND PAGE:

As was mentioned earlier, Lucy Smith, 16, is the person that is mostly concentrated on in this documentary. As the documentay was filmed a year ago now, we have interviewed Lucy again to see how she is doing now.
Are you happy that you will be starring on TV?
Yes I am, because I can look back at it and feel proud that I am now better. Also, I might be famous! Ha!
You said you’re proud of yourself. Do you think all your friends and family are also proud?
Well I do hope so, it took me long enough to get better! But I am sure they are, it would be  weird if they weren’t because I can’t imagine anyone wanting somebody to be anorexia, it’s a horrible thing to wish on somebody.
Is there anything you feel uncomfortable about being shown on the documentary?
Yes! I hate the picture that they show (not going to spoil anything!) I look so ill, I’m glad I’m not like that anymore. I guess it will hopefully raise awareness to people as it is so shocking!
Would you advise people to watch the documentary?
Of course I would. It will really educate people, and it will be good to have more people educated on the illness because it will help people understand what it is like for anorexics.
What are you doing now? What are your future plans?
I have recently started sixth form, I am retaking a few of my GCSE’s and then I plan to do Alevels. I hope to go to university in a few years time.
Are you worried about the illness coming back and distracting you from your education again?
Yes of course I am worried because it is a mental disorder that could reoccur at any time. But I have so much support and I am trying to leave it in the past. So fingers crossed, I hope it doesm’t as I want to get on with my life and have a good career!

Extract

Just to confirm to you all that the documentary that I have created is the opening extract to a documentary. To make sure people know that this is true I have added a Channel 4 logo in at the end to show that it is about to go to advert break. The reason I did this was to make sure it was clear to people that it had finished and I hadn't ran out of things to do. Posting my extract onto Facebook made me aware that it is important to finish it off with an advert break because many of the criticisms were that it didn't finish with a conclusion or it finished to sudden. Me saying that it is an extract to people still makes them think it finished to sudden, this is therefore why I added in the Channel 4 logo to also confirm the ending of my extract.

Audience Feedback from Facebook

I created an event on Facebook that asked people to give me feedback about what they thought of my documentary. I thought that this would be a good idea because I am asking lots of different people about what they think and it also gives me an idea of what things need to be improved. Here are the responses that I recieved:

Stevie Chambers - "I like the visual effects that you use and that you spoke to young people, as well as displaying the popular media influence that is almost unavoidable to us in western society.
The facts and figures at the start were quite hard to keep up with.
The interview with the young lady who had suffered anorexia was very good and brought all the facts to life.
Overall I thought it was clear, thought provoking and interesting."

Paige Phillips - "just watched the video, it was really good... i didn't realise that it effected more girls then boys which is quite interesting! but yeah was really good, well done :) xx"

Dan Knights - "Great it's an excellent idea to get audience response.
On a hole the video is good, well done. As I have said before I liked the intro and getting the statistics out there at the start and a vox pop, will certainly affect the audience in the way you would want.Ther are two points where the background music builds up, before the two interviews and it suddenly stops. Maybe having a fade out into the next shot or fade out before the next shot would help this."

Alice Bowen - "hello i just watched your documentary! i think it was pretty good! i love the fact you interviewed people and asked what they thought, i love how you included parts from tv shows i would be happy to sit and watch this on tv :) x"

Sam Smith - "Heyy watched your video, is gooood :) I never did media or anything...but thought that upside down writing thing was sick! dunno why, maybe cos it's ironic cos you're talking about perfection. Only thing I thought could be a bit better is the interview with that girl, seemed a bit like the girl was reading off a script..which she probably was but didn't seem that genuine. But then the other interview is better. Other than that it looks pretty professional :) and song choices are sweeet. Hope it helpss...xx"

Lee Cooper - "Its good, my only criticism is the harsh cuts you have used to go from one clip to the next. I would recommend some very short fade transitions in between some of the clips as this would make it run smoother. other that that it is a very good documentary which is easy to watch and very informative. I like the use of different TV clips to show how the modern world sees/responds diet problems."

Luke Roper - "i thought it was very good the little Britain part was a bit weird though rest was very well done"

Esther Squires - "well done ,very informative,tv clips were good,music brilliant,there was only one thing and that was a song near the end drowned out the voice of the narrator but nothing major,very impressive lydia.x"

Stacey Boast - "lydia i have watched your documentry and thought it is very good ! your interviewing was very good as you interviewed a range of people from the person suffering to people who look on as friends and people who can help deal with the illness. also the huge presure that the media put on young girls to look skinny . i was really skinny when i was young and everyone use to tease me but now its suppose to be ok to look skinny. its not healthy and dosent look nice! hope this helps and good luck xxx"

Shannon North - "I thought it was really good; professional, informative. The only thing I would say is that it could have done with a conclusion to wrap it all up, like what you thought was the cause of anorexia? If you think it would get better/worse? Is there enough help offered for people with it? ect. But other than that it was really good :) xxx"

Georgia Ray - "kate nash, skeleton song (i think it is?) is abit load compared to the narrative."

Amy Patterson - "Its really good.. would just recommend lowering the volume of one of the songs, and maybe smooth things out a little bit. but really good and very interesting to learn about :)"

David Bunn - "Not bad, good variation of clips, sound possibly needs a tune up but my speakers on the laptop are bad"

Melissa Bartram - "i found your use of technique really clever and the subject was interesting for me as a young person, but there was a lot of facts and not as many opinions as i would have liked to have seen, other than that well done! :)"

Sarah Durey - "wow its really gud.very clever and creative way of doing it. and you got all the information into it that it needed whilst using nowaday clips off tv from lil brit and ricky gervais.well done babe xx ur uncle david was very impressed and can not believe how gud tht is"

Sharna Wright - "Hey lydia, really liked your documentary :) espec the way you wrote/laid out words on paper. Also liked your use of tv clips and the music really suited the film. All I would say is i thought there may too many percentage facts in a row to take them all in. Also, the girl who had anorexia answers sounded a little over-rehearsed, the psychiatrists sounded more natural although it’s probably down to her being older and more relaxed, but overall I thought it was creative and informative. Hope this has helped a tad!"

Danielle Gosling - "It was good Lyd! :) but I found it a bit jumpy at the start of the 'beautiful' bit. Not sure if it was my laptop or not though. Also at the beginning I think you can see you picking up a pen lid or something?"

Sandra Jamieson - "it was very good"

Elaine Humpleby - "hi lydia - i think that there is evidence of a huge amount of work here, you manage the balance between interviews and fact well and the accompanying soundtrack work well at communicating emotion to the audience. some bits are original/fantastic including the innovative use of cut-out letter, handwriting and paper tearing - it will really appeal to the TA. the weakest but is the very end - we can talk about sorting that in the lesson on thursday - but have a think about strong conventional/unconventional ways to end 
the film"

Surria Harley - "Hi Lydia..watched yr documentary, great job. Good interview questions and facts. Also good choice of clips and music. Only thing i would add, might be nice to finish with a summary/conclusion, maybe with yourself on camera explaining what yr views are and how you found the experience? Just a thought but other than that well done.."

Photos Of Teenager

In my magazine article I wanted to have an interview with my reconstructed teenager to see how she is now. To do this I wanted to get some photos of her with her friends showing that she is happy and that she has recovered from her illness and because the reconstructed teenager was my sister, I was able to get pictures of her quite easily. I ended up putting all of these photos as a collage rather than using just one.

SECOND PAGE

Before starting to make my magazine double page spread I wanted to do a draft of the layout to see what it would look like. I used images of google and didn't bother to write out the article. I found this sort of layout in a 'We Love Telly' magazine and decided to stick to this layout when I made the actual magazine article with the images and the correct text. This is a draft of the second page that would have the teenagers interview and the mini articles of other documentaries that will also be shown on this weeks tv.

FIRST PAGE

The only thing I ended up changing on this first page was the colours of the text and I ended up having the text is columns so it didn't look like a book, it looked more like an article. I also used an image of scales because this is something that signifies anorexia because I didn't think it would be too appealing to read an article that it written over an anorexic person.

What i’ve done so far

View more presentations from lydiaruthearl.

The First Draft Of My Documentary

DOCUMENTARY from lydia earl on Vimeo.


I have shown a few people this documentary and they have given me some advice on what they think. I have changed it to make the documentary as it is now. But i plan to make a questionnaire and ask a few more people on any changes they think I should do.
I have now added a final piece to my documentary, so this isn't the final draft.

Draft For Advertisement

This is a brief draft of what I am thinking for a newspaper advertisement. A picture that will attract readers and then information about when the show is on. When I do the real thing I will probably put that it is a documentary somewhere on the advertisement as well, The picture will probably be in black and white. I will also play around with different fonts, sizes and colours. Any opinions on this, whether or not I should use a different photograph?

I ended up using an image of something else that signifies anorexia - a tape measure measuring a slim girls body. This is because it wouldn't reveal any images that are shown in the documentary and the image was a better size. This is because this image too long and not wide enough to use as an A4 newspaper advertisement.

Layout Idea For Magazine Double Page Spread

This programme has irritated me as I am not entirely sure how to use it. Adobe Illustrator. I have done a layout idea of how I want my magazine double page spread. But when I export the file to save it as an image so I can upload it to my blog - it goes a square shape rather than a rectangle that is the shape of any other double page spread. I will come back to this post at a later date to try and resolve this! For the picture in this article I am going to use various shots that are in my documentary, this will then give the reader a visual taster of my documentary.

I ended up using a different programme because I didn't think this programme was the right one to use and I preferred to use Photoshop because I knew it better and I felt it was more advanced in what I could do. I also didn't stick to this layout because it seemed that this layout was almost back to front because a reader reads from left to right, rather than right to left.

Assessment Criteria

7. An extract from a new documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:
a radio trailer for the documentary;
a double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary;
a newspaper advertisement for the documentary

Research and Planning must be presented in electronic format. Where candidates have worked as a group, the research may be presented collectively, but teachers are asked to differentiate the contributions of individuals within the group in arriving at a mark and justifying individual marks on the assessment sheet. As part of the moderation sample, the moderator will request some research/planning material.
Level 4 16–20 marks
There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.
There is excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding.
Time management is excellent.
There is an excellent level of care in the presentation of the research and planning.
There is excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation.
There are excellent communication skills.


Each candidate will evaluate and reflect on the creative process and their experience of it. Candidates will evaluate their work electronically. The format of the evaluation has some flexibility and its form can be negotiated between teacher and student: it may take place with individual candidates or with the production group as a whole, or each individual candidate or production group may make a formal or informal presentation to the whole class.
The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Level 4 16–20 marks
There is excellent understanding of the forms and conventions used in the productions.
There is excellent understanding of the role and use of new media in various stages of the production.
There is excellent understanding of the combination of main product and ancillary texts.
There is excellent understanding of the significance of audience feedback. There is excellent skill in choice of form in which to present the evaluation.
There is excellent ability to communicate.
There is excellent use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation.


Marking Criteria for the Media Text
In this piece of work, in terms of production 40 marks will be allocated to the main task and 10 marks each for the two ancillary tasks. In arriving at these marks, centres should use the relevant markscheme below for whichever media is being assessed. Within the section of the main task, centres should consider the relationship between the tasks and ensure that a sense of brand identity across the package is evident. This should be taken into account at this stage.
Where candidates have worked in groups, the teacher is asked to indicate clearly on the mark sheets any differences in the contributions made by each individual to the group’s work. The teacher should also make clear on the mark sheet the quality of the brand identity across the package as a whole.
In arriving at a level, teachers are advised to adopt a ‘best fit’ approach. Main Task Subsidiary Task
Level One 0 – 14 marks 0 – 3 marks
Level Two 15 – 23 marks 4 – 6 marks
Level Three 24 – 31 marks 7 – 8 marks
Level Four 32 – 40 marks 9 – 10 marks


Film/Television/Video Level 4
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
holding a shot steady, where appropriate;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer;
using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately;
using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, an excellent contribution to construction is evident.


Print Level 4
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
using IT appropriately for the task set;
showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
showing awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
accurate use of language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including within text, within particular IT programmes, cropping and resizing.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, an excellent contribution to construction is evident.

Today's Progress and Voiceover Conventions

I really feel like my documentary is coming together now. I have filmed everything apart from my talking heads and the psychiatrists interview. Tonight I am filming the interview, so will be able to upload it on Thursday! I have all the audio I am using uploaded and chosen for each clip of the documentary, all of my archival footage uploaded, so it is finally starting to look like an extract from a documentary.
In my talking heads I plan to ask all teenage girls whether they are happy with their body, and all teenage boys as to what they think about my teenagers weight. I will hopefully film these either on Thursday or next week. After editing the last few bits I can finally start making drafts of newspaper advertisements and magazine articles.

Also forgot to mention I need to record my narrative (Voice of God), I still haven't decided whether this will be me talking or somebody else. Can't stand my own voice, but we'll see. I am still indecisive about whether I will have a male or female narrative. If I was to have a female it is because I feel that anorexia at the moment in society is to do more with women, and women are 'supposedly' more educated about it. If it is coming form a woman I feel it will sound more personal for my interview because a woman may make the audience feel comfortable to listen to about such a serious issue. However if it was a male I feel this would be better because more docuementaries tend to have male voiceovers.
The voiceover will usually be authorative in some way, encouraging the audience to think that they either have some kind of specialist knowledge or, as in the case of people like Michael Moore and Nick Bloomfield: 'the right' opinions that people should pay attention to.
Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic) is used in a radio, television, film, theatre, or other presentation. The voice-over may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice actor. (WIKIPEDIA)

The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror was founded in 1903 and is a British tabloid newspaper. The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth  as a newspaper for women, run by women. Hence the name: he said, "I intend it to be really a mirror of feminine life as well on its grave as on its lighter sides....to be entertaining without being frivolous, and serious without being dull", and also invited men to read it. It cost one penny. (WIKIPEDIA)

Footage of Interview

I have filmed the interview with the anorexic teenager and I'm not entirely happy with the lighting. This is because it's all very orange, dull and artificial. I filmed the interview two different ways the first way was using a different shot for each question. However the last clip in this interview shows the script that she is reading from. So if I was to refilm this shot it probably wouldn't follow continuity well. Therefore I would have to film the whole interview again anyway.

Secondly I filmed the interview all in one shot, I don't feel this worked very well because it is quite boring and I wanted to keep my audience entertained by using a number of interesting shots. However I like the way she is sitting in this interview because she is all curled up in a ball, sitting in the corner of the sofa. You can't see her face very well and it represents the character to be shy and perhaps ashamed of herself.

Fat Fighters Little Britain

I thought that using this would be a good idea because its funny and well-known and is completely about weight issues and abusing overweight people which could perhaps put pressure on people to force themselves to lose weight.

Stand Up Comedians

My Next Ideas

Today, I intend to refilm my titles because it will be daylight and the lighting should be clearer. (Just in case you didn't know I want to do my titles on white paper with a black marker pen, film myself writing them and then speed it up). The first time I attempted this the paper wasn't white, it was more of an orange colour due to the artificial lighting, and also I didn't have a tripod for my sister to keep the camera still whilst filming me. Therefore when I later do it today, I will make sure the framing is correct, there is no wobbly moments and the lighting isn't a horrible orange colour. I did originally have myself writing on a piece of paper on a table, but I am considering changing this to writing on a piece of paper on the wall, this is because it will be clearer to see what I'm writing as my hand won't be in the way.

At the moment I can't do any uploading and editing because the technicians haven't sorted out my files, so I cannot access them! Handy, I know. However I am going to not let myself worry about this and get all of my filming done. I filmed some magazines stories and headlines on Tuesday of weight, celebrity stories. This is going to be used for archival footage to show the audience proof about how much weight issues are shown in magazines. Another issue I am trying to deal with at the moment, is the annoying thing about the school not letting us access YouTube. This is super irritating because I want to use an advert about anorexia of YouTube and also a clip of a comedian talking about weight (this I still haven't found or decided on, ooops).

Analysing a Listings Magazine Article

In HEAT magazine they have a TV Listings section at the back. This includes a TV guide and articles on the main programmes of the week. The issue that I have has an article about the documentary 'Supersize vs.  Superskinny'. I wanted to look at an article so I could study the type of language, tone .etc that they use. In this article they seem to make a serious matter a humorous article. "But which is best? There's only one way to find out - fight! Sorry, wrong show. And a bit flippant." This is using a well known quote from 'Harry Hill's TV Burp.' Using humour in it, could be argued that it makes it more exciting and interesting to read. Humour is known to attract many different audience types because it can be entertaining. 
The article also has a lot of rhetorical questions in it, this is a technique from persuasive writing. This is because they persuade the audience to read on and also attempt to persuade the audience to watch the programme they are writing about.
 The article isn't too long, it's quite short and gets the point across quickly. It doesn't give away too much information to spoil the documentary for the audience, but it makes them aware of what it is about. 
A negative point I think about this article is that the humour has the potential to give the wrong impression to the audience about the documentary. This is because it is not supposed to be humorous, it's about a serious issue - either being too large or too small.
Underneath this example there is even smaller articles about three other programmes, one of them is a documentary - 'One Born Every Minute.' This article isn't as humorous as the first but it still has a sense of it in it. 


When I write my article I will onloy obviously have it about one programme, but the writing will be short, have a sense of humour and I will include rhetorical questions in it.

Todays Progress

Today, I was able to upload the footage that I had previously filmed. After uploading it, I noticed that some of it hadn't turned out the way I expected it to. For example, the title work that I did, this is because the lighting wasn't correct and I also didn't film it from a suitable enough angle. Filming this when it wasn't daylight was a bad idea, because it was all artificial lighting that looked too dull and unclear. I filmed the interview with the anorexic teenager two different ways - (one being a different angle/shot for each question, and the other being the same angle/shot throughout the whole interview). I still haven't decided which one I prefer and which one would be more effective to use. Therefore I am going to do some audience feedback on it to see which they find would be better to use. The previous post was about the song lyrics that I wish to use, today I also got hold of these songs and imported them into iMovie. Using maximum 30 second clips, so it allows me to use them copyright free. However one of my songs I would like to use the whole of the song, therefore I plan to send an email to the band to ask for permission to use the whole song. This song is 'Superchick - Courage.' 


What I plan to do next is to re-film the titles, film talking heads and also continue the research on YouTube to find comedians talking about weight. As well as asking audience feedback on the interview process with the anorexic teenager, I also want to ask for feedback about what anorexia commercial advert they think I should use, and why. I need to print out a large photograph of the anorexic teenager to show the teenagers in talking heads. After a bit of thinking I have decided that I would like to film 1/2 of my talking heads in front of a projected photo of the anorexic teenager. I need to also arrange a date with the psychiatrist to interview her, so I can get that uploaded and edited. As well as using songs that aren't copyright free, I would like to use a few that are copyright free, these being songs that have no lyrics, so I can use them as interview background music.

Lyrics

Here are some examples of the lyrics that I would like to use in my documentary.
I have higlighted the words that I feel are most important about anorexia in red. The Ellie Goulding song I feel isn't as effected as the other ones I have chosen, but it still has an effect on the audience about anorexia girls wanted to be special and to feel loved.


I told another lie today
And I got through this day
No one saw through my games
I know the right words to say
Like "I don't feel well"
"I ate before I came"
SUPERCHICK - COURAGE

Skeleton you are my friend
But you are made of bone
 And you have got no flesh and blood
Running through you to help protect the bone
Skeleton we have been friends for years
And you have seen me through some trials
And tribulations and some tears
But everybody thinks I'm weird
And I should have known
That it wouldn't be long
Until you, you've got me standing in an awkward position
With unwanted attention and a need for explanation

KATE NASH - SKELETON SONG

Want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world
Like I'm the only one that you'll ever love
Like I'm the only one who knows your heart
Only girl in the world
Like I'm the only one that's in command
Cuz I'm the only one who understands how to make you feel like a man
Want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world
ELLIE GOULDING - ONLY GIRL (LIVE LOUNGE)


Every day is so wonderful
And suddenly it's hard to breathe
Now and then I get insecure 
From all the pain, feel so ashamed
I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring me down 
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring me down, oh no
So don't you bring me down today
CHRISTINA AGUILERA - BEAUTIFUL


Avalanche is sullen and too thin
She starves herself to rid herself of sin
And the kick is so divine when she sees bones beneath her skin
And she says:
Hey baby can you bleed like me?
C'mon baby can you bleed like me?
GARBAGE - BLEED LIKE ME

Potential Archival Footage

These are five examples of videos I found on YouTube of potential adverts for archival footage I am considering to use in my documentary.










I want to use this song in my documentary at some point, it is the soundtrack to the first of the videos above, the song is called Superchick - Courage. I feel that the songs lyrics are very powerful and it seems that it was definitely written about anorexia.

Today's Progress

I am going to be truthful and say I have given myself a bit of a break over christmas! But today I filmed the interview reconstruction with a 'fake' anorexic teenager. And I have also decided on a few music pieces and filmed my titles. I need to plan a time to interview the psychatrist and also get a group of people together to film talking heads. I have also found a few archival footage things that I want to use in my documentary.