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.