EVALUATIONJosh Fry

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

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My documentary is conventional in many ways as per other documentaries in the

media industry. It has the following features:

- a very standard yet unique rhetorical type question title or a questioning title that

the documentary will hopefully answer with the information provided and presented

in the argument they are supporting.

Fees Uncovered

Other conventional aspects are visible though it has its own unique flare too.

Neutral shots when interviewing reinforce atmosphere and that much needed

sense of importance while keeping a formal interview format. The creative shots

I took coupled with the verbal discourse comply with conventional documentary

styles conveying the issue and relevance of the problem and demonstrating a

macro view of who it will affect and in what capacity.

The mix of shots of students moving between classrooms and panning shots

around the large buildings of the campus complement each other capturing a

sense of populous diversity to visually cue the viewer to the potential scale of the

changes afoot whilst the blend of staff and student affected is examined too.

My documentary utilises skills that I gained via my research - during this

period I watched countless documentaries submersing myself in the various

documentary formats to learn of ways to present my own. I feel the

documentary gives a more of a big brother style narrative with just me and

my classmate providing vocals with no visual appearance. The slideshow

style montage of images mixed with text format to hopefully impact the

viewer with the reality of the situation and what happens that is not always

publicised, I feel this convention meets with the norm found in real

documentaries although displayed in more unique fashion with the use of a

number of stills as that defies the form of a real media product.

The documentary supports an expository theme that is supposed to provoke awareness within the

viewer, as I set out to do. This I hope will allow the viewers to experience the thoughts and opinions of

people that are teaching and representing the student body, to give a well rounded view of the topic

as this is the conventional method for an expository documentary to present a case. The modern

documentary that is found on prime time television would convey a case a non biased manner : the

wording of the presentation often being more hard hitting than their counter argument. This is an

editing skill and sudden atmosphere change that allows the directors to make a balanced argument

but for the side there are supporting to resonate with the viewer based partly on their control of the

way they have presented the facts. This occurs often in Michael Moore’s documentaries and it is

where I found some inspiration for the mode in which I presented my product.

How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

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I decided to make a magazine front page for my single supporting piece as I felt

this would resonate with my target audience. This was for the viewers I was

hoping for would be the younger generation entering the UCAS system and

looking at the proposed fee increases with fear. I would hope that my product

would attract the audience I have chosen as I have gone for a colourful yet

informative piece that will hopefully provide a relevant linked project that will lead

nicely onto my final piece. My other supporting piece was inspired by a poster I

saw while filming at Kingston University advertising a protest in which it invited

students to attend with a snappy title and a clean and clear view of their intentions.

My supporting pieces link and resonate with my final product as they were

designed to be linked from conception. My supporting pieces are set to

convey the message of my documentary in a compact visual medium. My

Poster is supposed to represent the protest filmed in my documentary. The

magazine imitates a normal magazine with the added effect of the more

political story it contains. In terms of similarities my poster matches the

home made look that is conveyed from the rugged hand drawn posters I

found in the university.

?What Have you learned

from your audience feedback?

Audience Feedback

The audience feedback was very illuminating, I found that there were a

number of positives that people enjoyed and some small faults that could be

very easily rectified.

The feedback was mostly positive it includes points that made reference to

the context and the relevance of the piece in this troubling time.

Others commented on the technical aspects that showed expertise and

some tips to learn.

Overall the comments were positive or constructive criticism this led me to

the conclusion that the product had many successful traits and overall was

both worth watching and enjoyable.

?How did you use media technologies

in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used many technologies to create my final outcome; I learnt a huge amount

throughout my journey of production and specifically about the technology that is

used to produce a product, and how utilising even the simplest of software can

create something truly unique and creative. This course allowed me to explore these

media construction technologies in an in depth fashion and learn to use them too.

Products explored throughout the course varied from software to hardware but one

of the most prominent in my studies is “Blogger”. This is a website that allows you to

blog your learning processes which can range from research to idea generation.

Blogger is an interesting a useful recording tool : it allowed me to provide images,

video and other creative mediums of course including text work.

Blogger is accessed via the internet and here is a quick video I made to show some of the features available on the

blogger homepage I wanted to portray the ease of use and how the program can be used by anyone. Blogger is the

collective product that allowed me to show my project in a progressive and sophisticated manner. Click the screen to

play.

Sony Camera

The Sony camera was a key piece of technology producing

good quality footage. It was very easy to use, quick to start up

and simple to import onto the Apple Mac for editing.

The camera was reliable in terms of battery life, though at

some points there were sound recoding issues as it was very

receptive to background noise.

Sony adaptable Tripod; I used this tripod throughout the filming process and found

that it was easy to carry around and very useful when creating

a set fixture which was appropriate for my interview style

filming.

Yeti The yeti product is an incredibly useful tool, it is a

recording device that is very sensitive and picks up a good high quality voice recording. I used this in the voiceovers of my product and found it to be very compatible with the Apple Mac.

Digital Camera

I used a normal digital camera and IPhone camera to take still shots of any relevant content

throughout the project.

Apple Mac

The main tool of my project was the Apple Mac, this

technology was the lifeblood of my product. it brought my

documentary from a plan to a real product with the use of

Imovie. Imovie allows you to import and edit footage you

have taken into a movie format.

Wordle;

Wordle is a program accessible on the internet. It allows you

to paste in words - press the start key and it will generate a

fantastic formatted word cloud that can be precisely edited to

produce the most purpose suitable picture.

Prezi is an amazing software application: I used it to create a presentation showing how I manifested the links between my different theme topics .

The software works very well. The program can be easily integrated into other means of presentation with a linking system that is compatible with Blogger.