Friday 8 January 2010
Monday 4 January 2010
How did you use technology: construction, Research, planning, evaluation ?
What have you learnt from your audience feedback ?
Can you tell that the adverts are for the documentary?
Do you think they scheduling for the doc is the right time and channel?
How do you think this documentary compares to a professional doc?
Do you think the voice over used is appropriate?
What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses about the product?
This video shows some of the responses to the questions we asked
- That people would want to watch the rest of the documentary which connotes that the first 5 minutes were interesting enough to make people want to watch more.
- There was good coherence created between the print advert, radio advert and documentary with people noticing the same voice over and questions in all three products. This also signifies that the adverts are doing what they are supposed to do in advertising the documentary.
- The documentary is to a good standard as people thought it could be a professional documentary.
- The voice over used is appropriate and helps move the documentary on, this voice over is also clear and understandable.
- The scheduling of the documentary was appropriate for most people as people like watching BBC documentaries and watch television at the time the documentary was scheduled for.
- If we made the documentary again, from the audience feedback, some of the footage could be improved and the cutaways could be more relevant to the interviews and one of the grahics is spelt wrong as we put 'Athesist' and it is spelt 'Atheist'.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks ?
- • The same three questions are used on all three products ‘What does Christmas mean to you? Is it all about God, spending time with your family? Or is it all about the gifts?’
This picture shows the print advert we produced and the three questions on the christmas tree
This is a clip of the radio advert we produced which includes the three questions
This is a clip from our documentary which includes the three questions
The scheduling of the programme and adverts also create coherence across the three products as they are scheduled to appeal to the target audience and therefore the radio advert would appear on BBC radio 1 as the target audience is 16 – 24 year old which has the same target age group as the documentary.
The same voice over is used for the documentary and radio advert to create a familiarity and so when the audience watch the documentary they will be able to recognise something from the advert. We used the technique of a 'voice of god' voice over as it follows the codes and conventions of many documentaries. - We have used a tag line in both adverts saying 'the truth behind the modern Christmas' which also combines the three products. This helps the audeince see that the adverts are for the same product and are threrfore more likly to watch the product if they hear about it more.
- We have also used some of the same music in the documentary as in the radio advert such as the 'money money money' clip and the instrumental sound under the voice over in the radio and the beginning of the documentary. Which helps the audience identify that the advert they saw is for the documentary that they are watching.
The print advert and radio advert were produced to advertise the documentary.
The radio advert would mostly be played on BBC radio 1 as that station has the same target audeince as the documentary .
The print advert was produced landscape so it could therefore be published in newspapers, such as the first image below advertising the shop 'Magnet' and also on a billboards such as the billboard below advertising the programme 'Lost'.
image taken from the Daily Mirror
image found at http://www.docarzt.com/
The newspapers that the print advert would be published in are the following:
In what ways does your product use develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
For our documentary we chose to produce a explository documentary and therefore our documentary contains a 'voice of god' narrator which anchors the meaning of the images and juxtaposed images and sounds.
The next two images show graphics on screen which is a code and convention of documentaries and signifys to the audience who the person being interviewed is. The first one is a sceen grab from our documentary and the other is a clip from one found on youtube. The graphics are used in documentaries to connote to the audience who the person on screen is and their significance to the documentary. The link to the youtube video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLUGMWrd-AM
This is a copy of all of our voice-over in which we used a 'voice of god' voice-over which is used im many documentaries such as the youtube link below which also uses a 'voice of god' narrator. We chose to use this type of voice over to add a proffesional element to the documentary and to help anchour the meaning of the images.
Saturday 19 December 2009
Copyright Emails
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
Friday 4 December 2009
Codes and Conventions of adverts
- 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
- 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
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Edit Decision list
- Cutaways of Cards (Card Factory)
- Customer being served (Card Factory)
- Cutaway of sweets (B&M)
- The Snowman Irn Bru advert
- Opening sequence
- Jemma cutaway
- Jemma;s interview with Wham in the background
- Rahima and Ema interview
- Cutaway of toys
- Back to interview
- Elderly interview
- Shot of toys -music in background
- Card Factory
- B&M long shot
- Wilkinsons- Shot of swees and deconrations
- B&M interview with manager
- Cutaway of shop
- Interview with vicar
Friday 27 November 2009
Secondary research
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
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
· 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
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
· 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
Reported in the Daily Mail 19 December 2006
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)
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Editing
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 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
Monday 9 November 2009
Primary research
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Sunday 1 November 2009
Some draft question for voxpops
- Do you celebrate Christmas?
- Do you believe in god?
- Why you think the commercialisation of Christmas is an important issue?
- What song do you mostly associate with Christmas?
Draft questions for a retail manager
- Do you think the commercialisation of Christmas is and important issue?
- If yes, why do you think this?
- Do you think the commercialisation has changed over the years?
- How do you celebrate Christmas?
- What does Christmas mean to you?
- Do you see a significant increase in sales around the Christmas time?
- What time of year does Christmas stock come in?
- How much do your profits increase during the Christmas season?
Draft questions For a Vicar
- Do you think the commercialisation of Christmas is an important issue?
- Do you think it has changed over the years?
- What does Christmas mean to you?
- How do you celebrate Christmas?
- What does Christmas mean to your congregation?
- Do you think religion is being left out at Christmas?
- If this is true, why do you think that people celebrate Christmas?
- Do you think more people should help the less fortunate at Christmas?
- 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. | 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 | 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 |