A2 Media Studies | Documentary Planning: Storyboard

In order to further progress the script for the documentary, me and Tom alongside have also considered ideas for the storyboard of the documentary. This is where the location recce comes into place because we have taken photos of possible locations for filming the documentary at. I have decided to use Adobe Fireworks to illustrate shots that me and Tom have discussed about and as illustrated below, here are the shots we've considered so far, with some updates to follow once more shots have been discussed.

The soundtrack me and Tom have used for the mock documentary (and potentially for the actual documentary) was made by Olexandr Ignatov which is called 'Inspirational Piano' and below each of the shots are the editing, camera techniques and the duration of each shot.

The first shot to be considered for the documentary

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Zoom

Duration: 4 seconds

The second shot to be considered for the documentary and why it should be used

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Panning movement

Duration: 10 seconds but sped up in iMovie

Third shot for the documentary, again a considered shot and why it would be useful

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Pan

Duration: 20 seconds

Interview with a teacher will also be included.

Fourth shot for the documentary to be considered

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Pan

Duration: 5 seconds

Fifth shot for the documentary

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Tilt 

Duration: 15 seconds

Including an interview with a student.

Sixth shot for the documentary as well as why it would be useful

Editing: Straight cut

Camera technique: Pan

Duration: 5 seconds

A2 Media Studies | Documentary Planning: Script

Whilst going through the planning phase of the documentary task, me and Tom are currently considering what the narrator, teachers and students might have to say in the documentary to show a vibrant working environment. The only thing which is holding both of us back from doing a full script is the lack of a storyboard, which will have to be thoroughly planned out and drawn. Once the storyboard is finished we will start the full script and for now an in depth into any considerations regarding the documentary script will be added here and will be updated once the full script is made.

Script - 1st draft

Teachers

• "This school is a very vibrant place where we expect our students to excel in their studies."
• "We as a school have been rated as 'Outstanding' by Ofsted."
• "We also have high pass rates in the subjects we offer as in previous years, most of our students have passed their subjects. There's been a 69% pass rate with our year 11 students on their GCSEs and a 98% pass rate with our Year 13 A-Level students."
• "We believe that our students are very enthusiastic with coming to school and working through their subjects."
• "We try to make our lessons as interesting as possible to ensure that students are enthusiastic about their studies and are progressing with their GCSEs for their benefit in the future."

Students

• "The teachers at this school are doing their best to ensure that we get the best education in the subjects we do."
• "The school's environment is very welcoming to us students throughout the entire building. All teachers and all students are nice and the school is always kept clean on a regular basis."
• "This school is very unique from other schools because the school has a good bond with local businesses such as Southampton Airport so that we get state of the art equipment which other schools may not be able to afford which is an enhancement on our education."
• "The school hosts several rewarding events such as the 'big picnic' which is set in the sports field, assemblies which celebrate the success of students and trips to rewarding places for students such as theme parks and entertainment facilities."

Narrator

• "We'll be taking you around one of Britain's schools based in Southampton."
• "We want to show what school life is like for teachers, students and other staff which work in the building."
• "This is Bitterne Park School, a school which has maintained itself as a great representation of a secondary school in the United Kingdom."
• "The headteacher of the school is Susan Trigger who has been in control of the school for over 20 years and has kept improving the school."
• "In this school there are over 1,500 students who are currently working towards their GCSE grades, all within 5 different year groups ranging from years 7 to 11."

Alongside all of these script elements that me and Tom have considered regarding the documentary, we should also note that interviews with people won't be scripted as we want people to spontaneously say how they feel about the school and what it offers to them and that it's conventional for this to be portrayed in documentaries which highlight school, as a result of this the viewer will feel like they know the truth about people's experience at the school and are getting the actual truth from the real people in the documentary.

A2 Media Studies | Documentary Planning: Synopsis

The documentary which me and Tom intend on making is an overview into the reality of school life and what it's about. Initially the documentary was sought to cater towards an older demographic such as parents though however upon several responses to surveys which me and Tom created we found that our audience/demographic is mostly identified as digital, free-spirited and creative. Whilst it may target parents who can relate to this identification of our audience, it's mostly targeted towards a younger demographic which covered ages ranging 15-20 years.

A total of 13 people responded to a survey that me and Tom created which highlighted our demographic and both of us have discussed the possibility of including the following in our documentary:

• Provision of information with use of voice overs and editing (text showing up on screen) - Most people reflected on information and learning when answering a question linking to Blumler and Katz's 'Uses and Gratifications' theory.
• Interviews with different types of people throughout the school e.g. teachers, staff, students etc.
• Fly on the wall footage (CCTV styled footage, a high angle shot of everything that's going on in the setting). This in particular could highlight what will occur within one of the interviews, for example an interview with a teacher, it could highlight students misbehaving throughout the school or how students overall are doing in the school because it would provide more information for the tribe wired and fun/atics demographic which me and Tom perceive that we have for our documentary, based on the questionnaire feedback.
• A variety of camera shots - Shows more of the school and allows for people to reflect on information and learning as they'll get to know what a secondary school in the United Kingdom looks like.
• Different settings such as a corridor in the school, a teacher's office and during a lesson - More locations were put into consideration during the location recce. (Reflected on a survey which received 4 responses at most)
• Different music for the documentary - Whilst the music for the mock up documentary fits well, me and Tom discussed the possibility of finding any other songs which fit well with the scenes in the documentary.

Some of these considerations were picked from answers which were picked most throughout the survey and there's a lot of content which me and Tom could add to the documentary from this. The documentary will not only show the life of people in school in the United Kingdom though however it will show what the school looks like and how people work and act in a busy working environment.

A2 Media Studies | Ancillary Tasks: Font Feedback

Along with feedback from the mock up documentary, me and Tom also decided to make individual surveys regarding the ancillary tasks which will be included with the documentary. As illustrated below are the options for the fonts with the title of the documentary and the results that followed, we again had four people fill in the surveys and as mentioned below, results turned up as the same so the results were illustrated in a single chart.

Options for the choice of font on the magazine advert

Options for the font on the double page spread

Votes collected in together for both results - They surprisingly came out as the same so they're in one pie chart instead of two.

From these results, me and Tom will have an idea of what fonts we can use on our ancillary tasks and it will benefit us in the future because we know what would be the ideal font for the tasks ahead. Alongside this, me and Tom will also further discuss the use of fonts in future which means that the fonts chosen most likely won't be the final idea that we have in mind.

I think that people picked option 2 for the fonts because they're more popular and more suitable for the Channel 4 type documentaries and they can recognise them and the top fonts remind the audience of historical schools and secretarial colleges among the older demographic. Alongside this I think that they picked the font because they look more professional or documentary style so it's easier to recognise from Channel 4 documentaries for the demographic.

A2 Media Studies | Mock up Documentary: Illustrated Feedback

Following up on the mock up documentary which me and Tom made, we also provided a survey which four people filled out and shown below are the results of the survey, including the question that linked to the results.

Q: Out of the following emotions, which one linked to you the most whilst viewing the short scene? - Application of Stuart Hall's Audience Positioning theory.

Q: Do you believe the music works well with the short scene?

Q: Do you believe that the two camera shots used in the short scene would work in a documentary?

Q: What kind of scenes would you like to see in a documentary?

These answers will benefit me and Tom when we go to make our documentary because we will know what elements from the mock up documentary can be applied to the main documentary and we know that the music we used in the mock up documentary also fits well and it will be a possibility that the music can be applied to the actual documentary once it's made. Along with this, we're also able to look back on these results and know what kind of scenes we could add to the documentary, what people would like to see the most on the documentary.

With the feedback that me and Tom have received from the questionnaire, the pie chart showed us that we should have a real variety of shots because our mainly tribe wired and fun/atics demographic are curious to see the workings of the entire school, including the interior of the main building (and not too much of the outside environment). Therefore we'll only use outside shots to establish the setting of the documentary and to fill in any edits made to the documentary. Other significant areas which stood out to me and Tom in the pie chart would be the shots in the school corridor, teacher's office and interviews, this shows us that our demographic not only want a variety of shots and interior shots of the school, they also want more of an information and learning side of things with the inclusion of interviews from students and teachers so they can learn about how the experience is from staff members and students.

Summary

From this, me and Tom learned that we need a variety of shots, interviews and shots of the school corridor mainly for our documentary and whilst these are the options people voted most for, we can also consider the other options in the pie chart. We also learned that our mock up documentary (or as a nickname, mockumentary) got a completely preferred reading, the use of music was suitable and appropriate and that the two camera shots which we were able to film would definitely work in the actual documentary.

A2 Media Studies | Documentary Planning: Props and Costume

Whilst me and Tom are currently in the phase of planning our documentary we also have to consider the props and costume which will be featured in the documentary and as listed below, here are the props and costume we have considered for the documentary.

Props

• Pens
• Books
• Computers

Costume

• School uniforms (students)
• Business wear (teachers)
• Suits (management of the school)

The props and costume are already covered by the school as uniform is compulsory and the business wear and suits as the teachers and students are required to wear it in the working environment and the pens, books and computers are also covered by the school as there are several ICT rooms which allow for the opportunity to film people working on computers, as well as on books in core subjects such as Maths, English and Science (could be more practical work based, showing an extra opportunity to film the working environment of the school).

A2 Media Studies | Ancillary Task Planning

Whilst the time for filming the documentary approaches, me and Tom have begun planning the ancillary tasks which will also be included with our documentary. The ancillary tasks which me and Tom will be doing will link directly to the documentary with aims to have it done in a professional yet simple style which Channel 4 manages to convey with their documentaries, the tasks that me and Tom had been offered are shown below:

• Magazine/Newspaper advert
• Double page spread
• Radio advert

*Options me and Tom have chosen are highlighted in bold 

We've chosen these ancillary texts because we find that it would be easier to make than making a radio advert. This is likely because me and Tom have had photoshopping experience in the past and sometimes I require photoshopping software as I have a background of attempting to become a game developer which sometimes for me requires the software to texture/create stuff. Along with this, me and Tom have been getting around the ropes of Adobe Photoshop which will help us with the ancillary texts with the many options that the software has to offer to us and it should help us in making the ancillary texts satisfactory.

As illustrated below, here's the planning and preparation for the ancillary texts:

Planning for the double page spread

In the planning for the double page spread as you can see on the picture, we considered what elements would be attractive to the viewer and what we could include on the documentary, the following list consists of things which me and Tom considered as seen on the illustration:

• Layout (including several different elements that a magazine should offer e.g. subheadings, shapes, quotes, logo from the channel which is airing the documentary, images etc.)
• Title (including colours, information and styles) 
• Sell lines ("Britain's hard working students" - as blurred out in the picture due to a lack of focus on the camera)
• Images (areas such as the setting of the photo, the subject of the photo (students, teachers etc.) and the position/size of the image, whether it should take up a page and where it would go, either on pages one or two) 

Planning for the magazine/newspaper advert

In the planning for the magazine advert, as also shown on the picture, me and Tom came up with a few ideas as to what we could include on the text and shown below is a list of things that we considered adding to the text:

• Layout (e.g. shapes, small sell line as it's not supposed to have many sell lines, web links/reference to the channel website, the time and date of the documentary's presence on television etc.)
• Fonts
• Title (e.g. positioning of the title, whether it should be in the middle, left or right of the canvas and style of text which included text strokes (outline on the text) and bold as well as the colour of the text, which linked to gradient because it showed me and Tom what colours of text we could consider)
• Subject (e.g. what should be most important in the photo like the school or a person who may work at the school or someone who currently goes to school)
• Gradients (e.g green, red, white and black - To convey colours which may reflect education as well as the school's main colours which are green and yellow, whilst black is a reference to the school's uniform)
• Addition of the channel logo which in our work is a concept created by me, with ideas by Tom during the making.

Summary

From all of this planning I've learnt about the conventions of a documentary and what should be added to a documentary, based on me and Tom's viewing of some of Channel 4's texts which include promotional poster-style adverts which are simple yet professional at the same time. This has also given me a view on what we could include on our documentary that would satisfy the audience member and attract them into viewing the documentary.

A2 Media Studies | Mock up Documentary: Audience Feedback

After the filming and editing of the mock up documentary, me and Tom thought it would be a reasonable idea to create another questionnaire towards our demographic which from previous results showed that we mainly have a digital, free-spirited and creative audience. This additional questionnaire was created to gain additional information from our audience and especially on the mock up documentary. 

Within the questionnaire there are questions which link to the emotional response in which the viewer which linked to Stuart Hall's audience positioning theory with the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings. We will hope to get a few responses in the questionnaire so we can review the questions and see what we can to do satisfy the needs of the people in our audience/demographic.

Mock up documentary audience feedback questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BVK2SCV

Along with the mock up documentary feedback, we will seek feedback from our digital and creative audience with two other questionnaires which link to our ancillary tasks which are linked below:

Ancillary task 1 - Magazine advert: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BXL9RC6
Ancillary task 2 - Double page spread: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BNFTF9S

A2 Media Studies | Documentary Planning: Location Recce

Whilst me and Tom are preparing to film the documentary, following from our mock up documentary scene, we decided to visit Bitterne Park Secondary School and take several shots of locations that could be considered when filming the documentary. Illustrated below are several photos which me and Tom took of locations of the school and an illustration of planning made prior to the recce visits in the locations we took pictures of, we also decided on alternative locations hence why we have lots of photos of locations:

Planning written down on a book before the location recce visits

Upstairs corridor in the school

High angle shot of the downstairs corridor in the school

School canteen

Bitterne Park Sixth Form with the main school in the background

Bitterne Park Secondary School's entrance sign

Destinations lounge, hinting the school's bond with Southampton Airport

Main school quad

View from the third level of the sixth form

Teacher's office in the sixth form

Establishing shot of the second building which the main school offers

Main school sports field in an establishing shot

Main school sports hall with the main school seen in the background

A view of the school's main building/reception site nearby one of two entrances

Another view of the reception area of the school, nearby the entrances

Establishing shot of one of the first sights when people enter the school

Playground/top field of the school

Downstairs corridor in the main school

Main school building seen from the area of where the sports field is

Establishing shot of a class at work in the sixth form

All of the locations illustrated will allow us to be able to film (with permission from teachers if needed) students and teachers on a regular basis in Bitterne Park Secondary School and we can capture several activities and things being done such as lessons being taught, art, drama, sports and people walking around the school to fulfill their daily needs in education.

As a summary of this location recce I've found that there are more locations than I think there were to be able to film people in the school in than I originally thought and it will benefit me and Tom because we will be able to use these locations for our storyboard with extra shots if needed in preparation for the editing of the documentary once the entire extract has been filmed and put together.

A2 Media Studies | Mock up Documentary Scene

Following up the planning an preparation of the documentary that me and Tom are going to make, we have made a mock up scene of a documentary which Channel 4 has promoted and aired on TV. We based our scene on Educating Yorkshire's 'Crunch Time' scene.  Due to limitations during the making of the documentary, we have only been able to create a 7 second clip which has two scenes based on the Educating Yorkshire scene.

As shown below, here is the mock up documentary scene which me and Tom made:

Background of the mock up scene

Although a little later than expected, me and Tom set out to film and edit the scene on November 6th and below you'll see some specifications of the mock up scene which will highlight areas such as characters, setting and camera shots:

Equipment

• Camera
• Tripod (used to stabilise the camera)

Characters

Character-wise, we used a teacher who works at Bitterne Park Secondary school (Mrs Chilcott Coombes) who was happy to let me and Tom come into her lesson and get assistance with recording the scene. The only limitation we had during the characters of the mock up scene were the students, as the three students in the class chose not to be in the frame, we decided that we would film the teacher instead.

Filming locations

The locations we used were the sports field of the secondary school and a classroom in the main secondary school.

Cinematography

For the shot in the sports field of the main school, we decided to make use of an establishing shot, just as shown in the Crunch Time scene and for the shot of the teacher we decided to use a similar shot to the one used in the scene we based our documentary mock up on, which was the use of a mid shot on the teacher. In addition to to the cinematography, we also created a storyboard which had shots from the Educating Yorkshire scene which is shown below:

Storyboard of the mock up documentary scene - Inspired by the 'Crunch Time' scene on Educating Yorkshire

Limitations

The only limitations that we had on the mock up documentary scene were the students choosing not to be in the shot if they didn't want to and me and Tom being unable to place a picture of our own at the corner of the frame, just like the Channel 4 logo in the Educating Yorkshire scene. We came up with a concept of the picture and a name of a fictional channel named '8V' which stands for '8 View' as seen below:

8V logo - Concept

Further building up on the limitations, with the students not willing to be in the frame for the mock up scene, we have considered using a class which  has people in younger years who are more willing to be in the camera frame, we will also show our digital, free-spirited and creative audience the mock up video which will allow them to reflect on what went well and what could've been better in future.

In addition to the specifications of our mock up documentary scene, the soundtrack which can be heard in the video was Olexandr Ignatov's Inspirational Piano.

Summary

Overall, despite the limitations, me and Tom were able to both learn and benefit from this mock up scene as we were able to establish some experience with the equipment needed to make a documentary as well as the planning and preparation to make a documentary scene. We learned about what we needed to put into consideration whilst making a documentary scene which included booking equipment, arranging with teachers to be in our mock up scene, storyboards required for the scene shooting and the settings of our documentary. We will benefit from this because we not only have experience of making a documentary scene, we will also be able to further improve what we either missed out on or couldn't do during the mock up scene.

We could also improve on the stability of the camera during the making of our mock up documentary scene as initially there was a slight shake on the first scene which was cut out during the editing phase of the scene, meaning that in future me and Tom can review this and ensure that we know better on how to use the equipment provided in order for the scene to be filmed.

A2 Media Studies | Next Steps Analysis

After analysing results gathered from the questionnaire, me and Tom have an image on what we'll be doing on our documentary in future. We'll be considering elements of our questionnaire which were answered most by respondents which will regard the following:

• Pleasures gathered from watching a documentary (Rick Altman)
• Reflection on uses and gratifications (Blumler and Katz)
• What should be included in a documentary (e.g. interviews, voice overs, variety of camera shots etc.)
• What specifically makes people want to watch a documentary

All of these areas were based on the questionnaire which me and Tom made and gathering from responses which were reflected on the most, our audience would often reflect on the intellectual puzzle when viewing a documentary, they reflected on information and learning whilst viewing a documentary and context was what motivated people to view a documentary, in accordance to our questionnaire results which were answered the most. We also found out that people were mostly adapted to being digital, free-spirited and creative, which shows an insight into our audience being interested in documentaries and alongside this we also found that people mostly like recreations of events in documentaries whilst historical and educational documentaries followed on from the responses when asked: What kind of documentaries do you watch?

Me and Tom intend on planning to meet the needs of the digital and creative members of our audience, which we are specifically focusing on, with features on the documentary which can be added during the editing process of our documentary, which would include information being added on screen, an interesting display to attract the viewer and possibly media convergence on our ancillary tasks, which would be the prints me and Tom will also be making alongside the documentary which will aim to promote the documentary and give the viewer or audience an insight into what sort of theme the documentary conveys. Alongside this planning, we both intend on referencing to responses on our questionnaire such as a 'recreation of events' by recreating the events which normally take place in the average school day, such as students being taught by teachers, students interacting and students participating in outdoor activities such as sports.

We're going to be pitching the documentary more towards the tribe wired and fun/atics people in our demographic and could consider the possibility of aiming to the people who were active, caring, affluent and influential. This would be because not only were there the most votes on tribe wired and fun/atics people but however because it seems to be a more suitable audience range - it could be similar to the types of people who watch the standard documentaries which are on Channel 4.

Summing up our results, me and Tom will begin to get into the planning and preparing process of making the documentary over the coming months and we'll consider these elements of our questionnaire as well as considering other answers in the questionnaire which weren't chosen as much as other answers.

A2 Media Studies | Questionnaire Analysis

Over the last week or two I've gathered several results for mine and Tom's survey, I collected about 13 responses from the survey after asking a number of people to fill it in if they could or had the time to. After reviewing all of the responses I have chosen to analyse these results and I will be explaining what these results show and how the results will benefit me and Tom when we go to make our documentary.

Responses to the survey me and Tom made

As shown below, here are the responses to almost all of the questions within the survey, and below the images, will be an analysis on the responses that me and Tom received on our survey. Among the thirteen responses that we received, users had the option to choose more than one choice for their answers in some questions. I will also list the number of people who responded in the bar charts, pie charts and even doughnut charts.

Question: What is your gender?

In this first bar chart result, we asked one one of the most simple questions. From this I have drawn that we have a wide range of males in the demographic of our documentary at this stage coming up to beginning the making of the documentary.

Question: Out of the following, which of these would describe yourself the best?

Active, caring, affluent, influential: 2

Aspirational, fun-seeking and active: 3

High aspirations with a low economic status: 0

Digital, free-spirited and creative: 5

Home-centric, family orientated and materially ambitious (not shown): 2

We asked what lifematrix segments each of the people fit into according to the responses that we received. From this pie chart we have been able to establish what different people fit into in terms of the lifematrix segmentation. A lot of people within this demographic come about as 'digital, free spirited and creative' and it's also a good that people fit into the other segments as this establishes a mixed audience for our documentary which is better than having an audience just fixed to a single segment. This will benefit me and Tom when making our documentary in future because we will be able to figure out what elements in our documentary can suit the needs of the people in the different segments so it hopefully pleases the audience within the lifematrix.

Question: Do you like watching documentaries?

This was another simple question that me and Tom asked on the survey to which people responded to. As you can see on the bar chart, whilst over 90% of people said that they like watching documentaries, a single person decided to go against this. Their reasoning for their objection is mentioned: "Monotone, some can be tedious to watch."

Whilst the respondent doesn't like documentaries, I can only draw that he has a limited likeliness of documentaries though however doesn't like them in general. However, most of the answers gathered from this question were positive and we received several responses as to why people liked documentaries.

Question: What kind of documentaries do you watch?

Educational: 6

Observational: 2

Historical: 9

Recreations: 10

Gathering from the results above, most of the people who have filled in the survey tend to like recreational documentaries, historical documentaries and educational, whilst observational, not so much. This shows that a lot of what I'll call our demographic/audience, like documentaries which have the aim to educate the viewer as well as the depiction of recreated events and historical context. These answers will further benefit me and Tom when we're planning our documentary because it will show us what kind of aspects we would have to consider, including questions such as:

• How can we make our documentary 'educate' the viewer in a way?
• Is there any way that we can put some historical context in the documentary?

Question: What makes you want to watch a documentary?

Context: 10

Type of TV channel: 3

Marketing: 3

Drawing from these results we've found that most people watch documentaries because of the context of them and very little for the type of channel and the marketing of the documentary. This shows me and Tom that in order to establish an audience with our documentary, we will have to ensure that our context fits towards their needs. This is understandable because the lifematrix fits mostly into the 'digital, free-spirited and creative' segment on our documentary audience which shows that they will watch a documentary because of its context instead of an advertisement on TV (unless the context interests them) or a specific TV channel (e.g. Channel 4, National Geographic etc.). Me and Tom will benefit from these results as we will know exactly what people will want the most and building on what I mentioned earlier, we're going to have to think of how to make a good context within our documentary and we will plan the context of our documentary in the near future.

Question: What kind of pleasures do you receive when you watch a documentary?

Emotional: 1

Visceral: 3

Intellectual puzzle: 6

Other: 3

In this question we linked to the theory in which Rick Altman discussed different types of pleasures, listed as options for users to pick in relation to the question. Gathering from the results, we've found that a lot of people are drawn into the intellectual puzzle and visceral pleasures whilst watching a documentary, whilst other pleasures mostly consisted of 'knowledge based' pleasures. This links back to the lifematrix of our small demographic/audience as most answers were 'Digital, free-spirited and creative' meaning that it's more likely that people will receive knowledge based pleasure from viewing a documentary as they are already into the digital world with devices such as computers, televisions, phones etc. This will benefit me and Tom when we go to make our documentary because we will know exactly what the most likely pleasure is to be gained from audiences, meaning we will have to find out ways on how we can pleasure people from our documentary by providing information throughout.

Question: When watching a documentary, which of these gratifications do you reflect on the most?

Gathering from the results on this question we found that most people apply themselves to information and learning whilst watching a documentary, in link to the Uses and Gratifications theory by Blumler and Katz in 1974. Alongside other areas which reference the lifematrix as known to being 'Digital, free-spirited and creative', this also does and shows me and Tom that the provision of information about the school in our documentary should play out as a vital element when we go to prepare and progress the documentary itself. The results will be beneficial in future to me and Tom because we will know which of the uses and gratifications should play out a key role in the documentary and which ones won't play out as a role within the documentary.

Question: What do you want to see or hear in a documentary?

Interviews with experts: 7

Interviews with students: 4

Interviews with teachers: 3

Facts: 7

Fly on the wall footage: 8

Variety of camera shots: 9

Voice over: 9

Other: 3

We had an array of mixed responses from this question, we asked what would be good to be featured in a documentary, allowing the respondents to check multiple choices. Gathering from the results we found that interviews with people, fly on the wall footage, voice overs, facts and a variety of camera shots are important in order to create a documentary which is both professional and satisfactory to the viewer. Me and Tom will be able to use these results in future to ensure that we know what we're going to feature in our documentary and that we know what we could consider featuring within our documentary.

Summary

From all of this analysis I have not only been able to establish a small audience for the documentary prior to its planning and preparation, I have also been able to learn about what people like the most in a documentary and what people like the least in a documentary. Whilst several aspects of the questionnaire stood out over other results, that doesn't mean that me and Tom won't consider featuring the least answered areas of the survey in our documentary. I've also been able to establish on how people can relate to theories in a documentary and how the results we have gathered are beneficial to our documentary project in the coming future.

A2 Media Studies | Demographic Questionnaire

Whilst me and Tom are planning our documentary, we have created a questionnaire which includes 10 different questions. We have made the questionnaire in order to identify the target audience and get information from other people about what their views on documentaries are and what they would want to see in them.

We used SurveyMonkey to create the questionnaire and we also embedded two media theories into the questionnaire which included the Uses and Gratifications theory by Blumler and Katz and Rick Altman's audience pleasure theory. We also embedded the LifeMatrix segmentation into the questionnaire though only used around 5 of the segments. Along with this we will have 10 individual people to take the survey over the next week or two if possible, initially there were 13 questions on the survey though however membership was needed for surveys in excess of 10 questions so we decided to keep the survey at 10 questions maximum.

SurveyMonkey Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QGJNDWB

Summary

From all of this I have learned to engage with the target audience of the documentary that me and Tom are going to be making and we've also considered what kind of elements are needed when addressing to our target audience.

A2 Media Studies | Audience Research

I will be researching audiences of media texts such as the demographic and social classes of people who view media texts and I will also be looking at what kind of audience would want to watch the kind of documentary me and Tom are going to make, which is loosely based on education documentaries promoted and aired by Channel 4.

Demographic profiling

Demographic profiling can be defined by age, gender, class, geographical areas, religion and economic status. There are different social classes which can group types of audiences too, these social classes consist of different grades which are A, B, C1, C2, D and E, they range from upper middle classed people who are very high in the working industry to people who are unemployed (e.g. pensioners, teenagers) and can be defined as the lowest graded workers.

Lifematrix segmentation

The lifematrix segmentation defines a range of audience groups which links to different types of demographics too, some of the lifematrix segments consist of the following:

• Tribe Wired - Digital, free-spirited and creative young singles.
• Fun/Atics - Aspirational, fun-seeking and active young people (kids, teenagers and young adults).
• Struggled Singles - People with high aspirations and a low economic status.
• Settled elders - Older people, sedentary lifestyles (meaning that they're not too active and can be quite settled down)

Audience research - Channel 4

Linking towards the target audience of Channel 4's education documentaries (e.g. Educating Essex, Educating Cardiff, Educating Yorkshire etc.), I believe that the demographic of such documentaries fall along the classes of C1, C2 and D. These social classes range from semi-skilled workers to intermediate or professional workers in the working industry and they are more likely view the said media text because they've had working experience either currently or previously, can relate to the documentary (e.g. other teachers, parents and students - who would have had little work experience around their age) and are more likely to be viewing these documentaries and aren't too high up in the working industry either. For people in the A and E social classes, the A social class are more likely to be watching something which is more professional whilst the E social class is less likely to have access to television unless they are living with other people paying taxes.

Summary

Based on what I have found out about audiences, I have been able to consider what kind of demographic profile/social class is more likely to view the documentary that me and Tom are going to make, I believe that the audience for the documentary would be in range of C1, C2 and D, it's not likely that any higher social classed worker would view the documentary nor would a lower social classed worker as they either may not be able to due to a lack of income or they would want to view something that is more educational and likely more professional.

A2 Media Studies | Planning a mock up scene from a Documentary

Me and Tom have agreed that we are going to make a scene based off a scene shown in the Channel 4 documentary 'Educating Yorkshire'. This is in place so we can see how close we can get to the professionalism of Channel 4's documentary and see what kind of skills we currently have in terms of making a documentary, prior to the main documentary which we plan to make.

Currently our planning consists of a filming schedule to ensure that we know what to do and when we want to do it. So far this is what we have for our film schedule:

• Filming to begin on Tuesday 3rd November during our media lesson (2:05 - 2:55) and we will likely attend a session after college if the time is needed to get the work finished.
• If needed, filming will also be done on Wednesday 4th November which will go from 9:05 to 12:25, the time can be used for filming and editing the scenes, depending on what we've gotten done.
• We have considered three teachers and their classes to see if we can use one of the classes for the project.
• The camera will be booked on Tuesday 3rd November and Wednesday 4th November in the times mentioned before.
• Permission needs to be asked for from the teachers we have considered for the project and see if they will allow us to film their class during a time where we can film.

From the planning of the mock up scene me and Tom will be able to know what to do when we are going to film the project as well as edit it and it will also give us an insight on what we would have to do when we begin to make the actual documentary, meaning it will be easier for me and Tom to make the documentary in future.

Regarding the planning of the mock up scene, these are the shots from the video we are basing our project on that we have added to our own storyboard:

Establishing shot of the school

(Soundtrack begins)

Establishing shot of the classroom

(Volume of the soundtrack goes down)

Dialogue: Who feels that paper can be their friend? - Teacher

Direction: Teacher looks toward the class.

Establishing shot of students putting their hands up

Direction: Students put their hands up.

Mid shot of the teacher in the classroom

Dialogue: Today you've just been getting to know her alright. By June you'll be taking her out to dinner. - Teacher

Direction: Teacher smiles and continues to address the class.