Louise Belcher Media studies A Level 2013-2014

1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Prior to planning my documentary, I watched and researched into a variety of different types and sub-genres of documentary in order to understand how they conform or differ to the typical conventions of a documentary and apply this to my film. My topic- the reasoning behind lasting popularity of vinyl records, was something I chose as it is something I am very interested and passionate about and wanted to get this feeling across to the audience. However a lot of the documentaries I first watched were rather hard-hitting and serious, for example Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' and were rather different to the type of feeling I wanted to create for my audience. Consequently I decided to look for smaller, music documentaries and found several that were very similar to the atmosphere I wanted to create, 'Last shop Standing' was very useful as it revolved around a similar topic of vinyl and had relaxed, atmospheric interviews and created a desirable feel towards vinyl for the audience, this was a good starting guideline as inspiration for my film.

I feel that my end product does very much conform to general conventions of documentaries, I used several interviews and for this applied the 'rule of thirds' when framing the shot, so that the subjects were positioned more to a side of the frame and also used a mid shot to make it more interesting and rather intimate. I also assured that I interviewed them without moving them so that they were more natural and relaxed, adding realism to the documentary. In terms of editing the interviews, I used several cutaways to keep interest and back up some of the points the interviewees were saying and had a variety of different appropriate shots to choose from. A big part of my film that very much conforms to the documentary genre is the montage at the beginning. I took inspiration from Shane Meadows 'Made of Stone' for the opening to my film and similarly mine begins with a 'voice of god' style voice-over which introduces the topic followed by a small appropriate quote to back up the voice-over and then a small sequence that introduces the montage which shows a variety of clips, photos and newspaper headings that introduce the topic more broadly and reiterate the point of the documentary.

In terms of sound and music, I found that as my film could be classed as a music documentary, that choice of music was important and saw that in the documentaries I watched, the sounds and music were very much instrumental in adding interest and creating a certain emotion. Therefore to fit in with the topic surrounding a revival of vinyl popularity, I chose modern songs that had an older more vintage sound, for example the music over the montage is a modern cover of an older song and also has lyrics that emphasise something lasting- 'Rock 'n' roll is here to stay.' Thus creating a romanticism and nostalgic feel towards the topic. For sounds I used a non-diegetic voice-over throughout to help to re-emphasise the topic and help it to flow better. In my interviews I also had a lot of ambient sound to create a busy, intimate and interesting atmosphere and to add realism and consequently I feel that my product does very much conform to the general codes and conventions of a documentary which help to get my point across and create a professional, interesting feel to my product.

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

I was very fortunate to have acquired a very good camera and editing suite not long before I began filming and found media technologies paramount in the each stage of the creation of my film. I heavily relied on the internet initially for researching, gaining contacts to interview and to able to watch many documentaries on sites such as Youtube and BBC iplayer. However media technologies were most necessary when filming an editing, I used a Canon Powershot SX510 camera which enabled me to film in HD and was very compact and easy to use and therefore gave me room to vary my shots and also meant I was able to get some very good quality, crisp and clear shots of records which added to the romanticism of vinyl and the general feel I was trying to put across. Although it was fairly new, I managed to adapt to the new camera fairly well and was generally very pleased with all the filming and photo quality and practised with it prior to my first interviews until I felt quite confident. Although, there were a couple of clips from an indoor shot that were a little dark, however when editing I was able to improve this and generally was very happy with my camera and filming. The editing posed more difficult as initially there were a couple of problems as I had not had the opportunity to do a lot of editing and found it difficult to get used to a new editing suite. I used Cyberlink PowerDirector 10 and I had some minor problems when playing back what I had on my time line, however was fortunate enough to have advice from someone who works with computers that was able to easily resurrect the issue. There was also some slight sound issues with a couple of interviews as I was unable to acquire a microphone until after and decided not to use one particular interview. However in the other interviews, there is some ambient sound that actually creates quite a busy, intimate atmosphere and is quite beneficial to the documentary.
Fortunately for my voice-over I was able to acquire a microphone and used a Blue snowball microphone to ensure that the voice-over was clear, especially as I used music over the voice to add interest and emotion.
In terms of evaluation technologies were also very important as utilisation of web 2.0 allowed me to share my film on sites such as Facebook and Youtube and meant I was able to gain good feedback and opinion from different perspectives and my target audience. Therefore I generally found that the technologies I used were very beneficial and easy to use despite some minor issues with editing and am very happy with the end result.

3.What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I produced several films before the final cut and got feedback from people within the target audience to see what could be added to improve my film and make it more suitable. For example, my first finished film had no voice-over and less cutaways making it sligltly less clear and informative, as I already knew about the topic having audience feedback was important in suggesting how clear and well it actually flowed from another perspective. The addition of more music and the voice-over made the film far easier to understand and the use of music has given my film a more interesting feel and makes it appear more like a music documentary therefore fitting in with the topic. The extra cutaways and some cut down clips have also made it flow much better and some long clips of interviews, particularly the first, which initially seemed quite repetitive now have been cut to more appropriate lengths with just key information and now consequently seem less tedious. In this respect I was very grateful for audience feedback and being able to see the film from another perspective.

I was able to take advantage of the internet and posted my documentary to Facebook and Youtube to gain a broader opinion, and was very happy with the feedback I got. There was no negative feedback and I felt that it was very well received, I had lots of comments stating that it was 'very interesting' which was very encouraging that the overall topic was enjoyed as that was the aim of the documentary as my interest in vinyl is not generally hugely shared, so I felt the interest in this suggests that the objective of educating in the documentary was met.
The feedback I received was also from a varied age group and as my target demographic is quite broad I felt it was very encouraging that the topic and general feel of the film was well received and this has shown me the huge importance and help of audience feedback and how social media can very much benefit this.

4.How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary task?
To answer this I have presented it in the format of a Prezi:
Click here:
Question four- Prezi

When it came to filming my documentary I really wanted to meet and interview people in really small, raw and atmospheric locations with people who were interested and passionate about the subject.

To begin with I wanted to interview a record owner and after some research was lucky enough to find a shop in The Guardian readers top ten record stores in Britain- 'Rubber Soul Records,' which was conveniently a short train ride away in Stoke. I emailed the owner- Robert Barrs and thankfully he was happy enough to oblige and I was able to go to his store and interview him.

The shop was perfect for the type of setting I wanted despite some slight issues with filming due to the cramped nature of the shop however Robert was good to interview as he seemed down to earth and relatable and gave a good insight into his opinion of vinyl records.

As well as a store owner I wanted to meet with some record dealers and had already thought a record fair would provide a good location, atmosphere and insight into a possible different or similar perspective. Consequently from meeting Robert I was able to find out about an upcoming record fair nearby in Newcastle-Under-Lyme in a pub called The Old Brown Jug and was able to go along and gain another couple of interviews.

The pub was a great place to interview as it was quite small, rather dimly lit and very inviting and provided a great setting and atmosphere. I was able to interview two sets of people- online record dealers, Richard and Scott and a younger female and Older male dealers- 'charlie Boy' and Grace Austen, however upon editing discovered the latter clip was not appropriate for my film as the sound quality was poor due to background noise and the interview was not as information filled as the initial so I didn't use it.

For the final bits of filming, I was able to use culminations of shots from the locations in which I interviewed and shots I filmed at home for my montage and for extra clips. Consequently I was very pleased overall with the variety of clips and interviews I had acquired and the small, raw and atmospheric locations.