Copyright Emails

Dear Epic Records
I am writing to ask for your permission to use two of your records in our A Level Media Coursework. The songs we would like to use are called Last Christmas by Wham! and Wonderful Dream by Melanie Thornton.
We are creating a documentary about the commercialisation of Christmas and we require these records to produce it.

Yours sincerely, Liander McMinn, Sarah Harte and Becky Jarvis
Weatherhead High School, Media Arts College


Dear Decca Records
I am writing to ask for your permission to use one of your records in our A Level Media Coursework. The song we would like to use is Money Money Money off the Mamma Mia sound track.
We are creating a documentary about the commercialisation of Christmas and we require this record to produce it.

Yours sincerely, Liander McMinn, Sarah Harte and Becky Jarvis from Weatherhead High School, Media Arts College



Dear Mercury Nashville Records

I am writing to ask for your permission to use one of your records in our A Level Media Coursework. The song we would like to use is the instrumental track from Julianne Hough’s Sounds of the Season Holiday Collection.
We are creating a documentary about the commercialisation of Christmas and we require this record to produce it.

Yours sincerely, Liander McMinn, Sarah Harte and Becky Jarvis
Weatherhead High School, Media Arts College




Dear Big Machine Records

I am writing to ask for your permission to use one of your records in our A Level Media Coursework. The song we would like to use is called Christmas Must Be Something More by Taylor Swift.
We are creating a documentary about the commercialisation of Christmas and we require this record to produce it.

Yours sincerely, Liander McMinn, Sarah Harte and Becky Jarvis
Weatherhead High School, Media Arts College

Edit Decision list

Codes and Conventions of adverts

 Print Advert

• There is usually one main image to catch the attention of the audience.
• The title of the programme and the channel that it is on in bold and the name of the programme is in a bigger front size.
• There is only two or three colours used becasue of the cost.
• The name of the programme has a hook line

 Radio Advert

• Extracts from the programme are usually used
• They are produced so that it can be used in different forms of media
• There is a music bed under speech and other parts of the advert
• The title of the programme is mentioned along with the scheduling of the programme
• Well known presenters are used or presenter in the docuentary
• Voiceover askes questions that could be answered in the documentary and uses an enigma code
• The outline of the documentary is established in the voiceover

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tape Log Sheets

Edit Decision list

1. Cutaways of Cards (Card Factory)
2. Customer being served (Card Factory)
3. Cutaway of sweets (B&M)
4. The Snowman Irn Bru advert
5. Opening sequence
6. Jemma cutaway
7. Jemma;s interview with Wham in the background
8. Rahima and Ema interview
9. Cutaway of toys
10. Back to interview
11. Elderly interview
12. Shot of toys -music in background
13. Card Factory
14. B&M long shot
15. Wilkinsons- Shot of swees and deconrations
16. B&M interview with manager
17. Cutaway of shop
18. Interview with vicar

Secondary research

The secondary data we used in our doucmentary was clips from films such as The Snowman and White Christmas. We also got clips from other films that we did not use, these films were;
Elf
The Grinch
A Christmas Carol

We also used a clip of the music video for Last Christmas.

We researched into lots of different christmas films such as

• Elf - 2003
• Miracle on 34th Street – 1994
• The Grinch – 2000
• Nightmare Before Christmas – 1993
• Christmas Carol – 1984
• The Muppet Christmas Carol – 1992
• Scrooge – 1951
• Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol – 1962

other research we did was into statistics and facts about christmas such as the following:

Christmas is back in the US shops

Wal-Mart and Macy’s have both announced that its customers would be wished “Merry Christmas” and there would be Christmas-themed window decorations following the outcry at the banning of Christmas greetings and the removal of any specific references to Christmas of previous years.
Reported in the Church of England Newspaper, 24 November 2006

No room at the card shop?

A survey by the Daily Mail of 5,500 cards in High Street shops, including WH Smith, Clinton Cards and Hallmark, found only 67 with pictures of the Bible story. Traditional nativity scenes appear on only one in 100. Hundreds avoided any images linked to Christmas at all, including fir trees, baubles, snowmen or Santa Claus and inside many wished either Seasons Greetings, or had no message inside at all.
Reported in the Daily Mail 9 December 2006

The Modern Celebration of Christmas

The Stamp of approval

Despite the rise in email and texting, Royal Mail say more Christmas stamps are being sold than ever before. Following the secular Santa of 2006 and the expressions of regret from the Church of England and others, Royal Mail have announced they plan to alternate between Christian and secular themes.
Reported in the Church of England Newspaper 10 November 2006

Presents Galore!

The average child in Britain will open 18 presents on Christmas morning, worth £330 according to a survey by Children’s Mutual, a leading Child Trust Fund provider.

· Of the presents received, one in 10 will be broken by the New Year, only 40% will make it to March and just a quarter will be intact by next Christmas.

· In total around 46 million toys, worth £870m will be thrown away.

Reported in the Daily Mirror, 6 December 2006

Online Shopping

An estimated £180m was spent on December 4th last year, on what was predicted to be the busiest day of Internet shopping. Over the Christmas period in 2006 the total online was estimated to reach £7bn.
Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2006

Giving to Charity at Christmas

More than a third of those who were planning to donate money to charity last year, said they were planning to do so through a church or other place of worship. A survey of 1007 adults for World Emergency Relief found that:

· 16% said they would be giving because it was the Christian thing to do at Christmas

· Nearly one-third said they would be giving directly to a church or faith-based charity.

· Around 35% planned to support charities because Christmas is too materialistic and they wanted to help someone less fortunate than themselves.

· People in Wales and the South West were most likely to give through a church collection (44%), and donors aged 65 and over were most likely to give to church or faith-based charities (39%).
Reported in the Church Times 15 December 2006

What Children think of Christmas

A poll for the BBC children’s TV programme Newsround found that of those surveyed:

· 44% of 7-11 year-olds regarded Christmas day as a celebration of the birth of Jesus - although in Northern Ireland the figure rose to 71%.

· Although 89% were excited, and 79% were happy about the holiday period, one in six said they felt sad, nervous or left out at Christmas.

· Perhaps not so surprisingly, one in four (24%) believed the season was about giving, rather than receiving, presents.

· Giving clearly matters, however, with almost two-thirds (63%) saving their pocket money to buy presents, adding up to an average piggy-bank of £34. 33% nationally and 45% in Scotland managed to save more than £50.

Newsround presenter Ellie Crisell said; ‘Christmas is exciting for children but it can also be stressful. They worry about their families getting along, about buying the right present and, amid the festivities, feeling alone.’
Reported in the Daily Mail 19 December 2006

(http://www.eauk.org/resources/info/statistics/christmasstats07.cfm)

Christmas is the most significant trading period of the year for retailers in the UK, with approximately 40% – 60% of many larger retailers turnover being made between November and January – ‘the Golden Triangle’.

Total spending in December 2004 was £31 billion, of which £14 billion was spent in the two weeks leading up to Christmas and £5 billion in the week after Christmas. Of the £31 billion, £10 billion was specifically for Christmas purchases.

On average, each person will spend £330 on Christmas gifts.

On average, each household will spend approximately:

£160 on food and drink

£660 on gifts

£20 cards and postage

£25 decorations

£20 crackers

£35 Christmas trees.

This year we will spend more than £1.2 billion on Christmas trees, with between 34 - 36 million trees produced to cope with demand.

We will send an estimated 1.7 billion Christmas cards to friends and family.

Christmas wrapping paper sold in the UK equates to 83 sq km, which is enough to cover 33 Hyde Parks.

Christmas costs £920 for the day. Based on a 12-hour day this works out at £1.28 per minute, and £76.66 per hour.

The average Christmas lunch costs £12 per head (excluding alcohol).

We will consume 30 million turkeys this Christmas with a market value of £305 million.

On average, children will receive gifts worth more than £250.

Commenting on Christmas 2005, BRC Director General, Kevin Hawkins, says:

“When it comes to Christmas 2005, we are again seeing that many traditional presents such as clothing, jewellery, CDs and books are on people’s gift list. However, technology items are on the ‘must have’ lists with MP3 players such as the new Nano and video i-Pod proving very difficult to find on store shelves due to the high level of demand. Equally popular are the new gaming machines with people queuing to purchase PSPs and X-Boxes.

“While 2005 has been a tough year for many retailers and consumers have benefited from the significant discounts available on the high street, our advice to consumers is not to leave their Christmas shopping until the last minute in the hope of significant discounts. Retailers have been monitoring stock levels closely over the last few months and if people do leave shopping until the last minute they may find that variety is limited.”

(http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/brc-christmas-facts-and-figures-$15112130.htm)

Editing

During the editing process i have learnt how to use adobe premier properly as i had only touched on how to use it before. We layed lots of different sounds such as music and interviews played over the top. We have mostly used straight cuts between each shot however we have used some fades between shot to show the connections.

Liander and I spent lots of our free lessons editing and at first we had problems with the audio levels and getting the music the right sound so that interviews could still be heard over the top of the music. After we had figured out how to edit the sound levels on different parts of the music our next problem with the sound was getting all the sound at the same level all throughout the documentary which was hard because we had recorded in different places where the sound levels were different.

I collected most of the archive footage from the internet that we used in our documentary. We thought it was important to have archive footage, especially during an interview with elderly people to illustrate what they were saying. We also used a clip of the music video for Wham! - Last Christmas because it illustrates what someone else in the documentary says however the quality of this video was not good enough and therefore we had to find some different cutaways.

Here are some screen grabs of our editing work

                                      

Filming

When our group filmed we filmed in different locations, to get lots of our cutaways we went to BM, Wilkinson, Card Factory and a local card shop. 

We filmed 8 different interviews to use in our documentary. We filmed an interview with the manager of B&M. We interviewed him about how the shops profits increase and to what extent they increase. We also interviewed some residents from a local care home about how Christmas has changed over the years they have been alive. We also interviewed a vicar and some people who have a different religion and don't celebrate Christmas. Another interview we filmed was an interview with someone who celebrates Christmas but does not believe in god. We also interviewed people who worked in card shops and asked them questions about when stock arrives and the profits that are made over Christmas.  






When we first went to film some of our cutaways in B&M the tripod did not work properly and we therefore had to film alot of our shots without a tripod and therefore the shots did not look right and we had to re do all the cutaway's from there. We would have also liked to film panning shots moving the tripod however this was no possiable and we therefore had to film panning shots just moving the camera on the tripod. 


When we interviewed a worker in Card Factory we did not get very good answer's to the questions we asked and could therefore not use any of the interview, however we were able to use a short part of it in the beginning before the opening credits. 


When Liander and I went to re film cutaways we went into Wilkinson's and asked if it would be ok to film in their shop and they said we could and therefore we have more variety in the shops we filmed in.


This is a picture of the group filming some vox pops however we did not use this vox pop in the final edit 

Primary research

Interview with liscard B & M store manager

Interview with card shop worker

Filming in various shops in liscard such as B &M, Wilkinson’s, card factory

Interviews wit h someone who does not believe in god but celebrates Christmas, people who don’t celebrate Christmas, someone who celebrates Christmas for god, elderly people and how Christmas has changed over the years they have been alive.

Interview storyboards

Opening credits storyboard

Pictures of group working

Some draft question for voxpops

1. Do you celebrate Christmas?

2. Do you believe in god?

3. Why you think the commercialisation of Christmas is an important issue?

4. What song do you mostly associate with Christmas?

Draft questions for a retail manager

1. Do you think the commercialisation of Christmas is and important issue?

2. If yes, why do you think this?

3. Do you think the commercialisation has changed over the years?

4. How do you celebrate Christmas?

5. What does Christmas mean to you?

6. Do you see a significant increase in sales around the Christmas time?

7. What time of year does Christmas stock come in?

8. How much do your profits increase during the Christmas season?

Draft questions For a Vicar

1. Do you think the commercialisation of Christmas is an important issue?

2. Do you think it has changed over the years?

3. What does Christmas mean to you?

4. How do you celebrate Christmas?

5. What does Christmas mean to your congregation?

6. Do you think religion is being left out at Christmas?

7. If this is true, why do you think that people celebrate Christmas?

8. Do you think more people should help the less fortunate at Christmas?

9. Do you buy presents?

Running Order

Montage of different shop, showing Christmas Trees, presents, cards etc with Christmas music. Opening title with more Christmas music in the background.	20 seconds
Interview with someone who celebrates Christmas though but does not believe in god	1 minute
Interview with someone from a different religion and what Christmas means to them	40 seconds
Interview with elderly people about how Christmas has changed over the years.	1 minute 30 seconds
Montage of shop images.	40 seconds
Interview of Manager of B&M	30 seconds
Interview with Mr Swindell (Vicar): He celebrates Christmas because of God.	40 seconds
How homeless or poor people deal with Christmas	30 seconds
Interview with Shelter representative	40 seconds
Interview with Shelter	30 seconds
Queens Speech-what significance does it connote	30 seconds
Recycling Presents	40 seconds
Film of a school Nativity play with voiceover	1 minute
People who work over Christmas: Service Stations, Police, Fire Brigades, Hospitals, Chefs, waiter etc: Do they mind it?	1 minute
Filming of a traditional family at Christmas	1 minute
Interview with the Pope, Cardinal, Chief Rabbi	40 seconds
Traditional Christmas dinner	30 seconds
TV Schedule-40’s Top of the Pops.	1 minute
How people abroad celebrate Christmas	1 minute
Children and Parents opinions on Christmas	50 seconds
Why people get stressed by Christmas	1 minute
How shops sales sore over Christmas	50 seconds
How people living on their own deal with Christmas	40 seconds
The Shoe Box Appeal	1 minute
The History of Christmas	1 minute 30 seconds
Christmas Catalogues that help people with money troubles over Christmas: e.g. Park	40 seconds
How Christmas recipe’s bring families together	30 seconds
Last minute shopper vs. careful planner	30 seconds
How Christmas has changed due to America? (Film clips)	1 minute 30 seconds
Voxpop on American streets	1 minute
People celebrating and getting too drunk during the festive season	1 minute
Statistics about how the amount of money people spent throughout the Christmas period has increased	40 seconds
Has the improvement in technology increased the price of gifts?	30 seconds
How people in different countries who cant afford Christmas to show how lucky people are	40 seconds

Formal Proposal

Topic: Christmas: Why people who don’t believe in God believe in Christmas.

Type of Documentary: Expository

Channel and Scheduling: BBC1 8 pm Thursday 24th December

Primary Research needed: Interviews with a vicar, retail person, jahovers witness, Muslims, children (their opinion of Christmas), adults.

Secondary Research needed: Clips of films with Christmas extracts in them. E.g. Love Actually, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Friends, The OC.

Narrative Structure: The shops then into the interviews with a retail person, showing the none believer putting up decorations then into interview. Show clips of films then into interview with a vicar.

Outline Content: Look into the reasons why people who don’t believe in god believe in Christmas and asking people their opinions on the commercialisation of Christmas.

Target Audience: 16 -24 year old men and women

Here is an example of someone in our target audience:

Name: Jessica Etherington

Age:18

Job: Student/ Part time sales assistent

Graphs of answers from questionnaire

Answers to Questionnaire and Questinnaire Analysis

Here are the answers we got from the open questions in our questionnaire;

What is it about Christmas that gets you stressed?

·         Money

·         Getting the right presents

·         Organising family parties

·         Family arguments

What song reminds you of Christmas?

·         Wham – Last Christmas

·         Jingle Bells

·         Rudolph the red nose reindeer

·         Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas

·         Merry Christmas everyone

·         I believe in father Christmas

·         Fairy tale – new York

·         Coca cola advert

·         Christmas carols

·         Santa clause is coming to town

·         Rocking around the Christmas tree

·         Band Aid – Do they know its Christmas

·         Merry Christmas

·         Xmas in Hollywood

·         We wish you a merry Christmas

·         Deck the halls

·         I wish I could be Christmas everyday

·         White Christmas

·         Run run Rudolph – Chuck Berry

What words do you associate with Christmas?

·         Present

·         Santa/father Christmas

·         Tree

·         Church

·         Family

·         Friends

·         Snow

·         Baubles

·         Happy

·         Warm

·         Good food

·         Roast dinner

·         Tinsel

·         Mistletoe

·         Reindeer

·         Sleigh

·         Noel

·         Green

·         Joy

·         Drunk/alcohol

·         Holly and the ivy

·         Elf

·         Turkey

·         Carrots

·         Cookies and milk

·         Jesus

·         Carol singing

·         Greed by companies

·         False

·         Commercial

·         Lights

·         Decorations

Where do you buy your Christmas cards?

·         Asda

·         Clintons

·         Card factory

·         Charities

·         WHSmith

·         Catalogue

·         Amazon

·         Wilkinson’s

·         Market From these results and from the graphs on the next post we were able to see that the commercialisation of Christmas is an important issue and fro the words that people assosiate with Christmas it is clear to see that people who celebrate christmas don't necessarily believe in God as God was not even a word people assosiated with Chirstmas. The graphs show that under 20 people do not beliebe in god however nearly 30 people celebrate Christmas. The words people assosiate with christmas has also helped our group with the mise en scene for interviews and the opening credits such as in the interview with someone who does not beleive in God but celebrates Christmas we used a picture of santa and some tinsel as these were both words people assosiate with christmas.