1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 2. Challenge: I aimed to follow the list of conventions that we wrote at the beginning of the project and so theres few aspects that dont follow convention. One feature that arguably is atypical is the length of our title sequence as often theyre short and use a variety of graphics but my title sequence is longer than most at approximately 30 seconds. 3. Conform to convention through interview: I conform to the conventions of the following: Rule of thirds Subject looking off camera Omitted questions Relevant mise-en-scene On-screen graphics Medium close up camera shot Always an expert being interviewed 4. Rule of Thirds: The rule of thirds means that the interviewees eyes are way up the screen, this is a convention followed by most if not all professional documentaries. I replicated this in my documentary in order to use the convention and produce a typical documentary. 5. Medium close up and subject looking off camera: In documentaries, in order to maintain a professional appearance, the convention of having the medium close up camera shot in interviews exists. I abided by this convention as evidenced by the examples below. In between the two, as a comparison, is a professional example. Alongside this, the convention of having the subject look off into the space beside the camera or the one asking questions provides a professionalism too. 6. Relevant mise-en-scene In the documentary, I know that the mise-en-scene is important as it consolidates what the speaker is saying and is hence a convention thats common in professional documentaries. I attempted to mimic this in order to achieve a professional demeanour in my documentary and make mine typical, to help the audience understand what theyre looking at. An example of a real documentary to compare will be placed in the middle of the two examples from my own work. 7. Cut aways: Cut aways are a common feature of every documentary as its a convention in itself but also to avoid jump cuts which are thereby atypical of documentaries and so of course I mimicked this idea of covering cuts with cut aways. I followed this convention and implied a professionalism into my work as theres no jump cuts, much like the average real documentary. 8. On screen graphics: The convention of using graphics at the beginning of an interview is typical of documentaries for obvious reasons, they must therefore be clear and provide all the detail that is necessary economically. Theyre small and occasionally have some form of graphic behind them, I strayed away from any form of color behind the names and instead opted for white with a slight outer stroke enabled in order to ensure boldness. As you can see, in comparison with the professional documentary, my graphics are just as clear and similar in style. 9. Conventions conformed to through footage: I conform to conventions of the following: Actuality footage Archive footage Vox pops 10. Actuality footage and Archive footage: Documentaries often use archive footage, especially mixed documentaries which mine is. This helps to provide the audience with a contextualized understanding of whats being portrayed in the documentary. In my documentary, I opted to use very little archive footage and instead mostly actuality footage footage that my group and I actually shot ourselves. Often professional documentaries use archive footage to consolidate their own sources, this is something I mimicked. 11. Vox Pops and omission of question Vox populi; this is basically the act of filming members of the public, asking similar if not the same question over and over again to get a mass of different answers. I began my documentary with vox pops, and so followed the convention of including them in my documentary to achieve an aspect of public opinion to appeal to my audience. As you can see from the comparison, I followed the general convention of omitting the question; something I also did in my planned interviews. 12. Conforming to conventions through sound: I conform to conventions of the following: Non-diegetic soundtrack Single stranded narrative Natural sounds/diegetic sounds 13. Non-diegetic soundtrack: My documentary features two songs in the non-diegetic soundtrack. Both of which were chosen because I believe they complement each other, I also used this song in the radio advert to tie the two of them together through having the same soundtrack. This follows convention as the same song is supposed to be used as its typical of professional documentaries. 14. Single stranded narrative: As all documentaries have a narrative, it was optional whether I had a single stranded narrative or not. A single stranded narrative is a narrative strongly focused on one argument in my documentary, I opted for the single argument to be that obsessions are common, this was conveyed through both the voice over but also the two experts the therapist that started the documentary and the student helper that ended it as exemplified in the videos beneath. This is a convention and so imitates real media products, for example like Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners which suggests the same thing that mine does.