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.