Textual Analysis Evaluation

The Social Effects of Gaming

Introduction

For this part of the evaluation, I will be comparing my documentary to two other pieces of texts. These texts consist of a old

documentary (10 years or more) and a new modern documentary that has been released.

.Content

.Mode of Address

.Conventions

.Style and Form

.Technology

The Three TextsThese are the three texts which I will be analysing. They include my own documentary and two from the BBC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCwqIAqSE_khttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRbV_Vp6Gi8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UXbM8nlwg

My Documentary New Text Old Text

My Text

My documentary is on the social side of gaming and how it can have an impact on

people’s social lives. It is aimed towards 16-24 year olds from both genders. Games

are rapidly becoming a big part of our lives and we take a look at how games can

overtake people’s lives and what changes occur in them such as mood swings,

addictiveness e.t.c. This type of documentary is Mainstream as its targeted towards

a large audience and market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UXbM8nlwg

Old Text

This documentary goes into gaming addiction and looks into a young 13 year old

child who was once affected by games and his parents noticed changes in him such

as his behaviour at home and school and addiction in wanting to play it whenever

he could. It then goes onto show how he has overcome his addiction by playing

once or twice a week. This type of documentary is Mainstream as its targeted

towards a large audience and market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCwqIAqSE_k

New Text

This text is about gaming but opposite to addiction. It looks into whether or not

games are helping towards educating children. A school in Scotland takes on a task

of introducing Nintendo DS’s during class to see whether or not the brain training

game helps the children with their education. It explains new gaming in education

projects with the Nintendo DS which are motivating, engaging and improving the

attainment of students. I feel this type of documentary is Mainstream as its targeted

towards a large audience and market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRbV_Vp6Gi8

Content ( My Text )

My documentary is on the social side of gaming and how

it can have an impact on you. There are not many

documentaries in the current market than look into the

social sides of gaming as my one does which is one of the

reasons I feel my documentary stands out more than

others. The interviewee’s gave me good answers to

explain why gaming as such an impact on people’s social

lives.

Content ( Old Text)

This documentary is about a young child who is addicted

to video games. He tries to play whenever he can and eve

throws tantrums in order to get sent to his room for some

gaming time. This documentary is different to my in terms

of ethnicity as there are more white orientated people

involved where as mine as more brown and black people.

This documentary focuses strongly on young children

rather than everyone which is another topic where it

differs from my documentary.

Content ( New Text)

This text is about gaming, but on how gaming can help

children in their education. Nintendo DS’s are given to

school pupils in a school based in Scotland to see whether

or not they benefit from it. This text is different to mine

as my documentary focuses on the social side of gaming

and how it can impact on you in a negative way where as

this focuses on how gaming can be used to educate

people.

Mode of Address ( My Text )The mode of address in my documentary is very formal which is what I was aiming to achieve

when I set out this project task. The language used was very appropriate and clear for the

audience to understand. I tried not to use the ‘stereotype’ youth language as I felt this would

damage my target appeal.

The locations used were also appropriate places as they were local and anyone could visit these

places to find out more information for themselves.

High School Parent Gamer

Solicitor Office

Virgin Gamer

Contender

Mode of Address ( My Text ) Continued…

My documentary includes a range of different ages making it appealing to the older target

audience as well as my target audience which is 16-24 year olds. Also they dress appropriately

and fashionable. The older target market are wearing suits and shirts and the target market I'm

aiming my documentary toward are wearing casual clothing

Mode of Address ( Old Text )

This type of documentary is old and the mode of address is informal which is the same as mine.

The footage is quite old as the camera technology was not as advanced as it is now

As you can see from the pictures, the documentary is old with the out of fashion TV's

and game consoles

The whole documentary is presented through a voice over of a woman with interview’s in

certain parts of the stage. The voice is quite formal which suggests the woman may be between

her early 30’s and late 40’s. The locations used are places which the public can go to in order to

get more information.

Mode of Address ( Old Text ) Continued…

The people interviewed in this documentary are old so it would not appeal in my

documentary as my target audience is between the ages of 16-24 year olds.

Mode of Address ( New Text )This type of text is current and modern. The mode of address is again formal like my own text.

This type of text would not appeal to my target audience as the topic is the complete opposite

to mine as this is more focused on how gaming can help children in their education.

The locations are set inside a school and a news report

studio

In the documentary, the people are dressed with suits, shirts and tie meaning there is some sort

of class which the text may be aiming for.

Conventions ( My Text )

I feel that my documentary contained a variety of conventions. These contained a range of

archive footage, graphics, transitions, music, voice over's, vox pops e.t.c.

Examples of archive footageHere is an example of a graphic

used in my documentary

Example of a cutaway Example of an interview Example of a Vox pop

used

Conventions ( Old Text )

The conventions used in this documentary were similar to mine in the way that there was,

transitions, voice over's, Vox pops and interviewee’s.

The difference from this documentary to my documentary is that there are no graphics,

presenters and music. I feel that not including music to the documentary meant it kept it’s

serious tone about the topic in which the BBC may have wanted to keep it this way. There was

also no archive footage and I feel this may have been due to the fact that there was lack of video

game footage on internet sites such as YouTube.

Example of Vox popsExample of an interview

Conventions ( New Text )

This documentary has used a lot of conventions similar to mine and I feel this is because this

type of text is modern. Presenters were included, transitions were used, voice over’s e.t.c. A lot

of interviews were filmed as well as voice over for a fair amount of scenes and there was a lot of

presenting which involved explaining why the game could help children in their education.

There was however no archive footage which is a surprise to me as I would think a modern text

would have archive footage.

Example of interviews Example of a presenter

Style and Form ( My Text )

For my documentary, I wanted to give it a light hearted tone along with humour. I feel the way I

presented my documentary was simple but very effective in terms of appealing to the audience.

I feel as I was presenting the documentary, it made it more appealing to my target audience and

the humour I added made it entertaining.

Direct address towards

the camera

Example of humour

I feel that the upbeat music added over the archive footage in my documentary gave the it a kick

start to draw the audience in and watch the remaining minutes.

Style and Form ( My Text ) Continued…

There was a variety of different camera shots and angles used within my documentary. I did this

in order to create a more appealing camera language rather than the same shots over and over

again which would be boring and less appealing to my target audience.

Here is a range of different camera shots I

used in my documentary. As you can see

there are low angles as well as high angle

shots

Style and Form ( Old Text )

The old documentary contains similar aspects to my documentary such as the camera language,

however the tone of this documentary is more serious as the voice over of the woman talks in a

more serious tone rather than a light hearted one. I feel this is because the BBC want to show

the dangers of gaming addiction

As you can see from these pictures, there are a range of camera shots

and angles used. Rather than fixing the camera on the young boy, they

have zoomed into his face. Also there camera shot when they are

playing the cards is more like an over the shoulder shot.

Style and Form ( Old Text ) Continued …The opening of this documentary is quite boring as there is no archive footage or music added.

Instead there is footage of the boy playing his video game and then it cuts straight to him sitting

down on the sofa.

Style and Form ( New Text )

I feel this text is modern and more professional. It has clean editing and the information used

would appeal to anyone. There are also a range of different camera angles and shots to make it

more appealing to the public. However there was no music added to the text which I feel made

it a bit boring and less appealing.

From these images, you can see there is a use of different

camera angles and shots which include medium angle shots to

close up shots

Technology ( My Text )

I feel that I had modern equipment to use when it came to filming and editing my documentary.

The camera had standard quality and was clear to film with and the battery lasted long so I

wasn’t worried about it dying on me. When it came to editing, I feel I had high class equipment

such as the Macbook Pro along with the iMovie software which helped me produce a

documentary with sharp editing and transitions. Also if I had a HD camera then I would have

been able to product shots in sharper quality.

I feel if I had time to use Final Cut Pro, then I would have had better graphics to use which would

look more appealing rather than the graphics I used from iMovie.

As you can see, the graphics are dull and are not as

appealing

Technology ( Old Text )For this type of documentary, you can tell it’s old as the camera is producing less shaper images

than the one I used for my documentary. Back then, technology was not as advanced as it is

now so the producers may have not been able to get there hands on high tech equipment.

Also the editing is not as sharp as it could be which may be down to the software’s available at

the time

As you can see, the pixels are not as sharp as they are in my

documentary and the images are a tiny bit blurred.

Technology ( New Text )The newer text has more professional technology to use alongside the software’s used to edit.

The quality of the camera was HD which produced a lot more shaper images and the boom

microphones picked up the sound a lot sharper than it did on my documentary as well as the old

documentary.

Here are examples of the HD camera work

There are no blurs within the camera work and it produces

sharp images and colours to give it a nice piece of work