This piece of paperwork tells us how much the production is going to cost as a whole, including travel along with what props/costumes that need to be bought. For our piece, we didn't have to purchase anything, and we didn't travel anywhere.
Location Recce
This piece of paperwork is used for scouting out locations to film at, in this case, we covered the whole of the college.
Production Schedule
This gives us a time table of events, telling us what needs to be completed on what day. Without this, we wouldn't know what we were filming on what days, and so on.
Location Release
This piece of paperwork gives us permission to film on the location that we chose. In this case, we chose East Norfolk Sixth Form College as a whole for recording.
Actor Releases
Actor releases are pieces of paperwork that give us the rights to show the people within the film/documentary.
Primary research is research that has been conducted by myself, and in this case, I used a questionnaire to get answers on my documentary idea, asking people if they would watch it, and what they would like it to include.
The primary research taught me that a lot of people would be interested in a documentary that revolved around the idea of showing how it has changed our daily lives, being done in a timeline method. Many people also said that it would appeal to a large audience that use technology in their everyday lives, and that they would find it interesting to see how it has changed their lives.
Secondary Research:
Secondary research is research that has been conducted by others on the topic that I am looking at, that allows me to get a feel for the reactions of people in general to my documentary idea.
Secondary research has told me that technology has had both a positive and negative impact on our lives. In many cases, it has vastly improved the student aspect of live, but it has also led us to become less sociable, and also have problems such as people getting addicted to media, that is easily accessed through technology.
All of my ideas have been noted in the prezi above, but I have to choose the one that I like the most and give a more in-depth explanation about how I would do it, the target audience of the documentary.
The idea that I like the most is "Advanced Technology". The basic concept of this idea is to go over the advancement of technology over the past, talking about the first breakthrough and then going on to talk about the rapid increase in technology, and how fast it was improving. It would give a small timeline from how it all started to the point that we are at today. If there was still enough time at the end, it would then talk about what could happen in the future with the rapid advancement of technology.
There won't be many interviews about this, if any. This would be presented using an expository documentary style, however, if it had interviews, it would be an interactive documentary instead. The genre of the documentary would be education, but it could also come under special interest. The primary target audience would be people who show interest into the progression of technology. The secondary audience would be those who have a general interest in technology, The Demographics would be A & B, and the psychographics would be explorers. The main aim of the documentary would be to show the audience the incredible speed of which technology has advanced, especially over the last 50 years. The majority of it will be filmed within the college grounds, but some of it will need to be done outside of the college grounds, so we can get the opinions on how technology has affected the elderly, and how they find it useful. The crew for this would need to be small, mainly the cameraman and an person to do the voice-over, but it would also need to include people who we would be interviewing. There would be questions such as "How has technology affected your life?" and "Do you know how much technology you use everyday?" The only equipment that we will need would be a Camera, Tripod and SD card, possibly a microphone, just so that the people being interviewed can be easily heard. Nothing will need to be bought in, meaning the budget would only include travel; the maximum budget would be around £5.
Feedback:
We had to share our idea for the documentary to the class, and then receive feedback on the idea. One piece of feedback that I received is that I should make sure that the documentary is focused on a specific part of of the advancement of technology, meaning the social side of it. This would mean interviewing a range of different people, getting them to say how they use technology in their everyday lives. This is changed from the original idea of showing the progression of technology, and how it has advanced.
Three minute wonders are small clips of people talking about a certain subject. As the name suggests, they are three minutes in length, and some can be strange. I had to find three of these three minute wonders that I liked, and then state what I like about them.
Karl Pilkington - Life
In this three minute wonder, Karl Pilkington talks about his opinions on life, and his impressions of how far we have come. What I like about this three minute wonder is that he is completely blunt with his opinions, even when they have no logic behind them. These clips of his are usually on big subjects (such as this one - Life), that people debate and think about extensively, but he just gives his opinions on it, speaking how he feels about the subject.
Though it isn't very informational, it has an aspect of humour to it, and allows the audience to appreciate his opinions.
The Wall - Pure Evil
In this three minute wonder, the street artist "Pure Evil" creates a piece of art combining a unicorn and a rocket launcher. In this, I really liked the piece of art that he created, but he also had an interesting commentary about what he was doing, and what it was like, giving some story to what it is like to be a street artist. He states his views about it. I really liked the part where he was talking about his habit of repainting "welcome to hell" outside of a nursery, before then realising and being considerate, and moving his art elsewhere.
Jeff Koons - "Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank"
In this three minute wonder, it is a bunch of school kids commenting on a piece created using three basketballs, and suspending them within the air. What I liked about this was that everyone who had something to comment on it had a different opinion, and interpreted the art differently. Someone were narrow-minded, whereas others tried to look into what the artist was thinking when he came up with the idea. I especially liked the conflicting opinions that people were giving, some annoyed that it managed to make money of such a piece, and others really trying to understand and interpret the piece.
a documentary is a piece of media that aims to be informative and give the audience the truth about a topic. The true definition is "A Film, TV Programme, or Radio Programme that provides a factual report on a particular subject." The defining characteristic of a documentary is that it aims to provide the audience a factual representation of a subject.
This can be achieved in many ways, and there are many different directors that use different types of documentary to portray the facts. In total, there are five different types of documentaries that a director can produce, depending on what style they prefer and is most suitable to the subject.
Expository Documentary
An expository documentary usually has a voice-over that will address the audience about what is going on within the scene. This, however, is only giving meaning to what it happening in the scene, not giving opinions about what subject. All the facts that are in the documentary are provided by the voice-over. The images within the scene are to compliment and show what the voice-over is talking about.
Expository documentaries has the effect of objectivity, along with direct and transparent representation of what is happening in the subject.
An example of an expository documentary is one by David Attenborough, called 'Desert Seas'. In the documentary, he talks about two oceans that are right next to each other, yet have completely different characteristics.
(A small trailer about what the documentary is about) This is an expository documentary as it has characteristics as described above. David Attenborough is simply a voice-over, explaining what is happening within the two seas without actually being there, and it has images that accompany his voice, showing what he is talking about. It has the aim of objectivity, with showing the audience the beauty of the two seas without including any bias opinions about the subject.
Observational Documentary
An observational documentary presents a slice of life, without getting involved with the scene. The director does nothing to interfere with what is happening within the documentary, and instead is a passive bystander watching how things occur and the end of life. The recording is neutral, and stays non-judgmental, leaving the audience to decide what they think about the documentaries subject.
An example of an observational documentary is Armadillo, directed by Janus Metz. This documentary shows what is it like in the Danish army, presenting the audience with what happens when they are on duty.
This is observational, as the director doesn't get involved within the film at all, and instead, simply films what happens as it occurs. It is completely non-judgemental, and just aims to provide the audience with an insight about what happens out on the battlefield. All of the scenes that are in the documentary are how they played out at the actual time, with no major editing to change show the subject in a different light.
Interactive Documentary
An interactive documentary involves the filmmaker has a direct role within the documentary, as they participate as one of the people in the documentary. They will be interactions between the interviewees, the presenter and event the audiences. Generally, these will have the presenters argument/agendas out in the open. This type of documentary will usually be edited to manipulate the text and what happens within it. Because they are sometimes edited to manipulate the facts, this type will often get criticised, but it is defended by filmmakers saying that the projected imagine is more important than the fine details.
An example of an interactive documentary is Louis Theroux, 'Drinking to Oblivion'. This documentary follows Louis Theroux as he meets those who have an alcoholic problem, and who are slowly killing themselves due to it.
This is an interactive documentary because the camera follows Louis Theroux, the filmmaker, as he interviews and follows the experiences of those who are killing themselves with alcohol. He will usually address the audience when he isn't with an interviewee. Though he addresses the audience, he will only do this if he believes that he has got everything he can from a certain scene, and that it is time to move on.
Reflexive Documentary
A reflexive documentary is one where the filmmaker attempts to expose the conventions of documentary to the audience. This will use shots from everyday life, however, these will be edited in order to portray a subject in a different light than it might appear than if it was unedited.
An example of a reflexive documentary is 'Driving Me Crazy' by Nick Boomfield. This documentary follows a musical being produced, following all the dancer/singers/choreographers as they put together their musical for the world to see.
This is a reflexive documentary as the filmmaker doesn't get involved, but it is edited in such a way that it produces a different view to what it would have been like at the time, making sure that it was still engaging for the audience to watch.
Performative Documentary
This type of documentary represents the world indirectly, and has emphasis on the presentation rather than content. It will use a lot of re-enactments, exaggerated camera positions and soundtracks to help the audience become submerged within the diegesis (the world of the manner). This type of documentary aims to present the subject matter in a subjective, expressive, stylised, evocative and visceral manner.
An example of a performative documentary is 'Tongues Untied', by Marlon Riggs. The documentary follows Riggs, as it depicts him growing up. This is a performative documentary as it is very subjective with it's views, and will involve the audience within the documentary by submerging them into the diegesis. It has an emphasis on presentation rather than the content.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, I believe the best documentaries are those that manage to get the facts out to the audience, without having to twist the footage in order to make it suitable for their needs. How they present this is their choice, but they also have to make sure that it isn't a dry documentary to watch. Because of this, I think interactive documentaries are the best types of documentaries, when it isn't heavily manipulated to skew the facts onto one side.
However, all documentaries have elements of truth to them, just some more than others, so they're all good for their purpose, allowing the audience to find out about subjects they usually wouldn't be able to.
For this assignment, we had to choose a Unilever product, and re-brand it so that it would be suitable for a different target audience. They wanted to open brands to a larger audience. There were many brands that could have been chosen, but for our group, we decided to go with PG Tips.
PG Tips is a tea brand that is owned by Unilever. We had three other options on the table for products that we could have made an advert for, however, we chose PG Tips democratically, but putting pieces of paper with the names of the four products that we had decided, and chose one out at random. PG Tips was the brand that was chosen through this method, and it was also the most convenient brand to do, as all it needed was a simple setting, compared to the others, which were more complex.
The current target audience for PG Tips is those who are middle-aged and above, who already own a house and those who would typically drink tea. We decided that we wanted the target audience to be students, those who might be ad university or those who just like drinking tea. We wanted to do this because it would open the tea drinking market to those who aren't usually known for drinking tea, boosting the sales and increasing revenue. It also seems suitable to appeal to this audience, as we are students ourselves, allowing us to portray what it would be like easily, allowing the audience to identify with the situation.
The Finished Product & Feedback:
The feedback that I have was collected using a website called "Survey Monkey". This website allows you to create a survey and than gives you a link or the option to print it off to distribute it to people. This allowed me to easily create a survey that gave me feedback on the advert that we had created. The data that I collected showed me that many of the people that gave feedback on the advert were of the target audience - all of them being students. Though many of them were male, a large majority of the responses said that it was a good advert. The majority also said that it did well for the new target audience, with an average rating of 5.56 when it came to how well it was shot. Nearly all found the advert humorous and said the advert completes its purpose. A large portion of them said it was suitable for it's purpose, and there was mixed responses when it came to keeping the audiences attention all the way through. I believe that the advert that we created managed to get the message across to the audience that Tea can be for all ages; it doesn't matter whether you're still a student. However, I believe it lacked what was necessary to persuade them that they can drink tea, no matter what the age, as it didn't have much relevance to that apart from the age of the actors, who looked like students. It would've been more appropriate to base the idea of the advert around the different audience, linking it to them in more ways than just the age of the actors, and have an off-topic subject for the advert.
In our advert, we tried to use props that would give the scene a homely feeling, so that it didn't just look like a staff room. We tried to achieve this by using a kettle. However, this didn't prove to be very effective, and there was still a lot of items on the walls that meant it had a staff room look to it. To give it a personal touch, a rubber duck was added in the background for a scene, sitting on top of some books. The camera work throughout was rather shaky, but we used different shots, including a vertical pan when looking at the person making the tea, and a horizontal pan at the start of the adverts. We included a range of different shots, including close ups & medium shots. Apart from the pans, there were no other intentional camera movements, as the camera was supposed to be static for the rest of the advert. The sound we used when everyone had a breakdown was used to create tension and help the audience realise how strongly they felt about the tea being made incorrectly. We used music similar to what would be played in elevators for the tea being made correctly, as it gave a nice ambient background and made sure it wasn't just silence. We also added a muffled sound of music being played when the person making the tea had his headphones in, giving the illusion that he was actually listening to music, which worked well. The editing at the end using the screenshot and making the text appear on the screen when the slogan was spoken was a nice touch, along with the boxes of the product and how they faded out afterwords, marking the end of the advert. I think the technical and aesthetic qualities of the advert were good, however, they had a large amount of room for improvement.
I think the advert could've done a better job when it came to selling the product, as there was no emphasis on the product, and instead all the emphasis was on the making of the tea, which barely showed the product, as it was the first step, and was briefly mentioned. Compared to the other PG Tips adverts, where they have emphasis on the product, the advert was focused on the production, meaning it didn't do an effective job of selling the product. If the product was given a much larger role, using some editing techniques and a greater mention, it would of sold the product much more effectively than it did. With no story line in the advert apart from four people making tea, there was little that helped sell the product. We used entertainment as the persuasion technique for our advert, which revolved around the person making the tea incorrectly and everyone having a breakdown about it. There were others that we could've used, such as stating a 'Unique Selling Point'. This means to point out what is special about the product compared to other products of a similar nature. This was done in the 'PG Tips Digger Advert', where the whole advert revolved showing the different between PG Tips and a generic tea bag brand. The message that we were trying to send to the audience was that you don't have to be of a certain age to drink tea and enjoy it. We tried to do this through the use of the age of actors, and what language was used in the advert, but we could've also done it so that the scene made it look like we were students, and mentions of classes. However, because there wasn't much of a story line, the mention of classes wouldn't have been possible. Overall, I think the advert is fit for purpose, however, there was problems with it. The biggest problem with the advert is that the camera was shaky for a lot of them, and there was better ways that we could've shot it. The editing was done to a professional standard, however, the sound could've been made quieter so that the speech could be heard easier. One problem with the BCAP (British Code of Advertising Practice) code that this advert might have is the volume levels. Because the soundtrack in the background is loud, as well as there being a pop in the voice-over, it might be undesirable for the audience, which would cause problems.
Personal Reflection:
Overall, the advert that we have created is true to our original intentions for the advert, and we didn't really stray too far from what we had planned on the storyboard, shot list and so on.
I am not very satisfied with the advert, as I believe there were many things that went wrong and could've been corrected if we had thought about it and put more time into our work. The camera was shaky a lot of the time, due to rushing and not using a tri-pod, which had a negative impact on our final advert, and made it seem unprofessional. There wasn't any story line to the advert, and it starts abruptly with someone standing up and making tea. Without any explanation, it has the potential to be confusing to the audience. There was a lack of emphasis on the actual product and selling it for the younger target audience that we wanted to do, and instead it was more focused on the tea being made a certain way, which doesn't have any relevance for the younger target audience of the product as a whole.
If I was to do the advert again, I would make sure that it had a lot of emphasis on the target audience and the product instead of an off-topic subject, and be sure to make the setting more suitable, to help identify with the target audience.
