A2 Media Studies | Final Product: Documentary

A2 Media Studies: Final Product: Newspaper Advert

Newspaper/Magazine advert: Inside Britain's Schools - Promotional poster

A2 Media Studies | Final Product: Double Page Spread for a TV Listings Magazine

A2 Media Studies | Evaluation: Question 4

Q: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For this question I will be going through a chronological structure with the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages on how I used media technologies, shown in this presentation below.

A2 Media Studies | Evaluation: Question 3

Q: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Previous audience feedback / Documentary audience feedback

To ensure that me and Tom would be able to learn a lot from the feedback that we received regarding the documentary and the ancillary tasks, we provided surveys to obtain audience feedback for the mock up documentary, the font choices and the fictional channel logo '8V' which we made up, illustrated below.

Reflecting on audience feedback from the previous questionnaires provided to people, the mock up documentary only really needed to be longer and show more scenes of the school to fit in more with the conventions of an actual documentary and people liked the documentary and provided a preferred response of happiness (Stuart Hall, 1975). In terms of the channel logo, our audience said that it matches the conventions of a TV channel logo and looked like Channel 4's logo. In conjunction with the previous questionnaire feedback, the feedback we got from our ancillary tasks was that it mainly looked professional and had a good layout.

From the mock up documentary feedback we listened to the people who said improvements could be made as the actual documentary is nearly the maximum time given for the video text which is 5 minutes, our documentary is around 4 minutes and 54 seconds long and with the fonts and channel logo we changed it ourselves from feedback that others gave and from difficulty implementing the fonts into our ancillary tasks as illustrated below. The audience feedback was very useful because me and Tom were able to learn what could be improved and what was good about the choices we made for all of the previous questionnaire content.

Chosen font for the magazine advert

Chosen front for the double page spread

8V logo - Late 2015/January 2016

8V logo - February 2016

From the feedback that me and Tom received through that we learned how we could improve the mock up documentary (the preliminary task), what font would look best on the ancillary task, whether the channel logo looked professional or not and also what our audience was like in terms of the life-matrix (tribe-wired). Following up on this, me and Tom made a questionnaire which was handed out to 50 students who saw the first screening of the nearly-finished documentary and after looking through 37 questionnaires we found out a lot of information about what was good about the documentary and the ancillary tasks and also what we could do to improve all three of the items (documentary, magazine advert and double page spread) to make them more appealing to the audience.

We found our audience to be mainly tribe-wired and fun/atics from researching the psychographic audience instead of a demographic and I feel this provided for better feedback because it showed me and Tom what people's abilities were in those segments and their views on the documentary, giving us an insight on what not only tribe-wired people think of the documentary and the ancillary tasks but also fun/atics people along with settled elders and struggling singles which were the least given answers when asked what psychographic people went into. Me and Tom also confirmed that our demographic would fall into the C2DE sector of the socio-economic groups which are categorised letter groups to represent where someone is in the working industry, something which I have covered in this post where I researched audiences.

Firstly me and Tom learned from the recent feedback that most of our audience had a frequent use of technology and that over 50% of viewers were female [19/37] which meant less than 50% of viewers were male [18/37] and that there was a good ability to use technology throughout all of the audience members that filled out the questionnaire as illustrated below. The fact that our audience have a good ability to use technology proved to me and Tom that we have correctly targeted the tribe-wired audience on the whole which meant that the feedback that we've been given by the audience is quite useful.

Q: How regularly do you use technology?

Q: How would you rate your ability to use technology? (e.g. iPhones, iPads, apps, computers etc.)

Alongside this we also learned that an older demographic is more likely to watch our documentary if it was on television as 8/37 people voted that a younger demographic would watch the documentary and that 27/37 people (with the exception of 2 people who may have not filled in their answer) which suggests that the documentary could cater more towards adults and certain demographics including parents, teachers, middle-aged adults, and so on instead of children although the documentary has a friendly nature and delivers positive vibes to audience members viewing the text through the use of soundtrack and positive dialogue about the school and the teacher's reflection on his job and the school, something that whilst an adult would approve of it, a younger audience member such as a child would also approve of the documentary.

Q: What demographic would watch this documentary?

Me and Tom also found out that our documentary does not only aim at a tribe-wired audience but also a fun/atics audience which would be aspirational, fun-seeking and active young people, linking back to the young demographic which can say quite a bit about who would watch the documentary in terms of the demographic as most people perceived the documentary as something that an older demographic would watch. Not only were the tribe-wired and fun/atics segments of the life matrix that the documentary could be aiming at but the struggled singles (people with high aspirations and a low economic status) and settled elders (older people, sedentary lifestyles) also have potential for where the documentary could be aimed at and also more specifically who it would be aimed at.

Q: Out of these types of demographics, which one do you believe we would be aiming our documentary at?

These are just some of the results that me and Tom received when the questionnaire was handed out and at this point me and Tom reviewed what people thought was good about the documentary and what could be improved to make the documentary even better.

Documentary (video text) - What went well and what did we learn?

In a question on the questionnaire [Q4] which asked people if they liked the documentary that me and Tom have created, the following are the views from the students who provided feedback on their choices and out of 37 people, 33/37 people liked the documentary whilst 4/37 people did not like the documentary. The documentary in accordance to viewers was very informative, well developed, felt like an actual documentary, showed what approach teachers had towards their students and was a good insight into the school, had a personal touch and had a good soundtrack. From this we learned that the documentary was good for the most part with some people maybe providing a negotiated/oppositional reading (Hall 1973) with their views on the documentary, with what could be improved on the documentary below this section.

When asked how professional the documentary was [Q5], the students responded that the documentary was recorded well, it was like a real documentary, the interview was professional, the interview had real opinions on the school, was edited nicely alongside a good soundtrack and alongside all of this was realistic, well produced and had a good balance of information. On this specific question students had the option to vote quite, very and not very and illustrated below are the views of the students on whether the documentary was professional or not. Me and Tom learned from this that our documentary was indeed realistic and matched conventions of a real documentary with mostly preferred readings throughout the audience with not many areas that could've been improved in the documentary and also that a documentary may not be something that some people are particularly interested in.

Q: How professional do you think our documentary is?

What I believe to be the final aspect which went well in the documentary was the soundtrack, there were a lot of positive responses in regards to the documentary's soundtrack which was mainly composed of piano music in order to deliver positive vibes to the audience. When asking the audience if the music suited the documentary, all people that filled in an answer said yes with the exception of 4 people who did not fill in an answer for the given question and the response that we got from the soundtrack consisted of it being suitable, creating a relaxing atmosphere, quite laidback, fitted well with the theme of the documentary, suited the documentary at a good pace, worked really well with the action on the screen, wasn't overpowering and alongside these answers was accordingly an excellent choice and made the documentary look professional.

Our documentary's ideology was to show the school in a positive light and to give an insight into what life is like for people who attend secondary schools such as students and teachers. We wanted to show the documentary as unbiased so we got the opinions of students and teachers who go to the school and we wanted people to see the negatives of the school as well as giving a realistic feel to life in a secondary school. However, we wanted to give an overall positive representation of school life, and positive represent the teachers at the school was hard-working as you would see in programmes such as Channel 4's 'Educating Essex'. If people see the message that we're trying to send with the documentary, they'll have a preferred reading (Stuart Hall, 1975).

We learned from all of the following feedback that the documentary for the most part received a preferred reading and injected the audience with positive emotions which could be relaxation, peacefulness and happiness through the use of soundtrack and what the documentary had to offer and we also learned that the documentary was realistic and met the conventions of an actual documentary, which was the aim of creating a short documentary up to 5 minutes in duration.

Documentary (video text) - What could be improved and what did we learn?

Whilst the documentary received positive feedback, there were people who tended to subvert the overall feedback from the documentary or contributed their ideas to how the documentary could be improved as shown in the illustrated graphs above. There were little improvements that the audience provided us with in terms of how the documentary could be improved which are shown below in the form of a list:

• Should've interviewed more people - I believe that something that me and Tom could learn from this is that interviewing more people in the documentary would give the video a more information and learning theme (Blumler and Katz 1974).
• Some people couldn't hear the questions being asked in the documentary - At the time of the screening a voice over was considered for the documentary but not written up in the form of a script or added to the documentary, me and Tom thought that the addition of a voice over would provide more facts to the viewer and give it more of an information and learning aspect to it as mentioned before.
• The documentary had only one focus - Me and Tom learned from this that more than just focusing on a single lesson and a single teacher, the documentary could have been a lot more diverse in terms of what it offers to the viewer and what knowledge the viewer can gain from the documentary, had it been focused on more than one thing.
• Some aspects look staged - Feedback from a question [Q7] which asked how convincing the documentary was.

We learned from this that there's little room for improvement but the documentary could potentially be improved to provide more information to the viewer as the documentary is more of a fact-orientated text and aims to provide information and learning to the viewer. Another thing that me and Tom learned was that we could have made an attempt to make the documentary seem less like a staged act, specifically in the situation where a student is getting sent out of the classroom and talked to by the teacher for her actions.

Ancillary task feedback

For the ancillary tasks I'll be going through each individual task, what feedback was provided and what me and Tom learned from the feedback more importantly. Along with feedback that will be further discussed throughout, we asked the students if the print texts would encourage them to watch the documentary and 21/33 people answered yes whilst 12/33 people answered no, the feedback that we got from these people consisted of the following:

• Want to find out more about the documentary.
• Intrigues me
• Looks boring
• Formal and good
• Doesn't personally interest me
• They look interesting
• Don't like documentaries

As illustrated below, here are the ancillary tasks as of (15/03/16) and will be updated if any improvements have been made.

Magazine advert

Inside Britain's Schools - Magazine Advert

Double page spread

Inside Britain's Schools - Double page spread

Magazine Advert - What went well and what did we learn?

With the magazine advert, we asked people if it looked professional and 25/37 people (with the exception of 5 who didn't answer) answered yes. The feedback we got from those who justified their reasons mentioned that what went well with the magazine was that it was put together well, looked professional, had a good design, wasn't overdone and looked like a modern magazine advert. We learned from this feedback that the magazine advert had certainly met the conventions of an actual magazine advert and that it could definitely be something that would be able to promote the documentary if it were to be screened on TV.

Magazine advert - What could be improved and what did we learn?

Along with those who thought the magazine advert was professional, there were only 7/32 people that did not think the magazine advert was professional and the feedback we received from those people consisted of the following:

• Too basic
• Too many words
• Not that much
• The writing looks annoying
• Plain/Boring

We learned from this that there is room for improvement for the magazine advert in mind and that it could be improved by looking at Channel 4 documentary promotional prints to see if there's anything else that could have been added to make it more professional and I also have a view that some of the students may have been uninformed on what a documentary magazine advert looks like and this feedback may be an example.

Double page spread - What went well and what did we learn?

When asked if the double page spread looked professional, 28/32 people answered yes and we also asked people if the double page spread gave enough information to the reader and 33/34 people answered that it gives enough information. Displayed below is the feedback that me and Tom received:

• Good information and pictures
• Professional
• Formal
• Looks realistic
• There's enough pictures and text
• Good layout
• Looks professional

Me and Tom learned from this that the double page spread can be improved to look better though however it was realistic and informative with a good layout and would be suitable for promoting a documentary and that there was a good use of pictures throughout the double page spread according to the students who saw the double page spread.

Double page spread - What could be improved and what did we learn?

With the questions which I have already mentioned, when asked if the double page spread looked professional only 4/32 people said no and with the question regarding if the double page spread provided enough information, only one person out of 34 people that answered the question said no. With that being mentioned there was only one person who justified their answer which was that the photo in the middle not fitting the rest of the magazine.

We learned from this that some people may not be interested in documentaries from those who saw the documentary and the ancillary tasks and that the photo in the middle of the double page spread could either be changed or aligned more to the center as that was something me and Tom noticed after it was shown to the students.

A2 Media Studies | Evaluation: Question 2

Q: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Documentary - Inside Britain's Schools

Magazine advert - Inside Britain's Schools

Double page spread - Inside Britain's Schools

The main product and the ancillary texts work out to be an effective combination because they all revolve around the ideology of putting a secondary school under a positive light and giving viewers an insight into what life is like at a secondary school in Britain as of 2016, something which hasn't been shown in popular culture since around 2014 when Channel 4 aired their documentary 'Educating the East End'. The way that the combination of the main product and the ancillary tasks works is that the documentary is the USP (unique selling point) of the product which is promoted through a magazine advert and a double page spread and the ancillary tasks can also work as a way of marketing the documentary in a way to viewers who may be new to the type of documentary and those who have viewed Channel 4's series of education documentaries (e.g. Educating Yorkshire, Educating Cardiff etc.).

Product combination: Media convergence

Furthermore with the links to Channel 4 and the influence from the channel, media convergence is evident within our product combination in order to make it effective from the lack of social media links because of the documentary's genre which makes it professional as it's something that not many people would want to follow up on with social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc.) as it's normally consumed by a young demographic. An older demographic is more likely to follow up on the documentary as they're more likely to be interested in the documentary and the lack of social media in our texts also shows that we're trying to attract a more mature audience into the documentary, leading to more preferred and negotiated readings (Stuart Hall 1975) based on their views.

We could have used social media within our texts but with the idea of having a more mature, informed audience and that an older demographic is less likely to use social media, I believe it would be more effective to provide information about the documentary to people through more traditional methods instead of going with the technology that's around today. One factor that stands in the lack of social media in our texts would be that our audience is mainly tribe-wired which suggests that social media may have been a necessity in our product combination. 

The only form of social media we used was YouTube for the main documentary which helps achieve media convergence through likes, shares and electronic word of mouth from people who have consumed the documentary through watching it to gain more attention and the distribution on YouTube also suggests that it could attract views on catch up television such as Sky on Demand and Channel 4's 'On Demand'.

Channel 4's 'On Demand' website

Product combination: Brand identity

In conjunction with media convergence, brand identity also plays a part in our product combination through the use of colour schemes, the fictional channel logo and the setting of the documentary. With the colour scheme there's a very mature and neutral style which only consists of black and white along with use of red in the magazine to point certain things out to the reader; we incorporated this colour scheme into our documentary to portray a true 'educational' and calm theme to the documentary and its print texts in order to attract the mature audience which was mentioned in media convergence and is also welcome to a younger demographic too.

With the fictional channel logo we could have used it more throughout the double page spread though however acts as brand identity as people will instantly recognise what the channel is from the use of the logo in the documentary and the newspaper advert. Not many people are aware of the fictional channel's existence and illustrated below is the fictional '8V' logo which was based on the BBC's logo, also illustrated for comparison. When making this logo I inverted the colours of the BBC logo to possibly change the logo so it doesn't look exactly like the BBC's logo and again to come back to the ideology of the documentary depicting a mature and eductional theme with its colour scheme.

8V logo

BBC logo

In terms of the setting of the documentary, brand identity works with the product to make the combination of the video and print texts effective through the use of the main school building which is also evident in Channel 4's 'Educating Yorkshire' (illustrated below for comparison with our documentary). The depiction of the school building comes out as an icon of the documentary as people are able to instantly recognise that the documentary is about education and strongly gives across the genre as an observational documentary.

Main school building shown in 'Educating Yorkshire'

Main school building shown in 'Inside Britain's Schools'

Initially me and Tom wanted to film in the sports field but due to construction going on for a new school we couldn't, this was posted in the recce locations post however below is the shot me and Tom wanted to do or proposed for the introduction of the documentary. We switched over to the shot above to show more of the school and the school sign makes it more welcoming, also allows people to recognise the school which is more organisation identity than brand identity.

Sports field, shows some of the school building when the camera is turned around though however shows the amount of space that is given in order to film the shot

With all of these areas in mind with brand identity, another feature of our product combination which helped with identifying a brand was the use of space in both ancillary tasks which makes it easier for the reader to find out what the ancillary tasks are marketing towards, not over wording them and it's also professional for the documentary and the reader.

Comparing the product combination to a Channel 4 documentary

Below is how Channel 4 have gone around with promoting Educating the East End with a trailer and a promotional print. This will show the effectiveness of a documentary and a print text combined together to get people to view the documentary, which was the aim of the magazine advert and the double page spread for the documentary me and Tom made.

Promotional print text for Educating the East End's trailer

In comparison to 'Inside Britain's Schools', the use of a print text promoting a video text works effectively as viewers will get an insight into what they're about to watch with the print text before the trailer is aired to them and something that will instantly be recognisable is the theme of the documentary and what it's trying to portray. Linking back to Inside Britain's Schools, I'd say that the effectiveness of the documentary and the ancillary tasks combined is consistently effective.

I believe that there are specific features of our ancillary tasks and the documentary which are similar across all three texts and those features would include shots of the school and a discussion about something related to education as well as elements evident in brand identity with a simplistic colour scheme, fictional channel logo, use of white space, lack of social media and provoking word of mouth both verbally and electronically with the documentary on YouTube and the print texts. Also something that I gathered from our documentary, was evidence of juxtaposition throughout when the teacher is talking in an interview and it switches to a completely different topic but still portraying the education theme when the teacher is teaching students and then telling one of them to leave the class after disrupting the teacher and the lesson.

It's effective throughout but not as effective as the way Channel 4 promotes their documentaries using this method as there were opportunities for developing even more conventions for the double page spread and the documentary itself. The documentary and magazine advert in particular meet the conventions of what real life media products are like and I think the double page spread also does this as well but not as much as the other two. Viewers are able to get a quicker glimpse into what the documentary is about and what it's going to be like for the viewer whereas with the double page spread it's something that would take a lot more time for someone to learn about the documentary though however does provide a lot of information about the plans of fictional channel '8V' and their intentions on filming the documentary.

Summarising this, I believe that the combination is very/consistently effective with some improvement that could have been done, something which I've mentioned in the third question of the evaluation regarding audience feedback to the magazine advert and double page spread. The documentary could have had a lot more potential as well with conventions which I've looked at in question one of the evaluation.

A2 Media Studies | Evaluation: Question 1

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