The Process From AS To A2

Our experiences at AS level have allowed us to progress very easily into the standard of work required for A2. At AS, we learnt the basics in regards to filming, editing and production, but over the past year we have developed largely on these skills.

We have been able to organise our time very well, and create a comfortable work ethic which has allowed us to begin our documentary in a positive way. Each individual in our group has different strengths, and this has allowed us to progress more quickly as a group because we can do things quicker.

Also, we have gained a lot more experience in new programs such as GarageBand, and have used more technology such as the Yeti USB Microphone and others. I have also used a number of different websites to improve the standard of my blog, such as Prezi and Slideshare.

Overall, we have worked very well as a group with very few, if any disagreements on the style of our documentary. We have all agreed that our documentary has proved successful in both construction and production, which has made our supporting pieces easier to create as we have allowed ourselves more time to concentrate on them due to good time management.

Final Documentary Piece

This is our final documentary piece, which we have uploaded on Youtube so that those interested in our topic can easily watch it online. We have also uploaded it onto the social networking website, Facebook, so that we could show others the progress we'd made.

Advanced Portfolio Documentary Evaluation

Media Studies A2 Portfolio Evaluation

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Audience Feedback

We needed to record audience feedback to allow us to find out whether our documentary was successful for our target audience or not. We asked approximately 10-15 people to watch our documentary and television advert, and give us a brief overview of their opinions.

We received a few constructive criticisms which contributed to the finalising of our documentary, but the general overview was very positive. The main positives that our target audience had picked up on was the use of our montage of shots at the beginning of both the documentary and also our variation of shots combined with music. This was a beneficial process for us because we could use all points to our advantage for the finishing touches to our documentary, and also constructing our evaluations.

Group Supporting Piece: Television Advert

Our group supporting piece required a large amount of work, because our intention had been to create a radio advert. This was unsuccessful because GarageBand would not allow us to record using the Yeti and there was too much crackling in the audio when we used the Macbook's built in microphone. This lead us to our idea of a TV advert, which we thought would be more successful anyway because our theme is focused very much on aesthetics and visuals.

We edited down a montage of footage and intentionally used some that isn't in our documentary, giving the impression that there is more to come in the next part of the documentary. The montage is combined with a drum and base track to add to the fast tempo and nature of the advert.
Following the completion of the documentary advert, we created the title and recorded a voice over using my voice on the Yeti microphone saying 'Skin Deep, Sunday, at 8.' This is conventional dialogue for a TV advert, and the process of creating the voice over was very simple and effective in comparison to our attempts at a radio advert.

Here is our final TV advert, which we haveuplaoded on Youtube:

Creating The Titles For Our Documentary And Supporting TV Advert

Once we had finished editing down our documentary, we decided to work on our titles to make our documentary look all the more realistic. We realised that titles are highly conventional for a documentary, and that without them our documentary would look unfinished. Our group tested a few of the transition options, and after some deliberation we decided that the effect called 'Pull Focus' would prove very effective.

We chose the edited photo of the tattoo on Hazelle's hip for our documentary piece, and a photo of a back tattoo from http://www.weheartit.com/ for our supporting piece, the TV advert. We then chose the 'Ken Burns' option, which allowed the photo to scale from top to bottom as the focus pulled away from the photo and the text appeared. For our documentary, we wrote 'Skin Deep, How thick is your skin? End Of Part 1' to follow typical conventions of documentaries, as when documentaries cut to adverts, this is the style of concluding the first aspect of the program.

For our TV advert we altered the text slightly to make it more typical of an advert, therefore our text was 'Skin Deep, How thick is your skin? Sunday 8pm on DocTv'. This was informative for the viewer, and therefore an effective end to the advert. We also used the same Pull Focus technique for our Audience Feedback film to maintain continuity.

Filming Expedition At Interskin Tattoo Studio

We phoned Interskin Studios in Staines and organised a filming expedition to contribute to our final documentary piece. The agreed to let us film and interview the tattoo artists, which has enabled us to gain valuable film which will enhance the professionalism of our documentary, and make it more informative. We chose to interview a tattoo artist who had been practising tattooing since he was young, and specialised in nature related tattoos. This allowed us to learn more about tattooing as an art form, and why people get into the tattooing business as a line of work.

Two men had booked tattoo appointments at the time that we arrived, and agreed to let us film them having their tattoos done. This was a perfect opportunity to get some valuable footage for our documentary, and we managed to get a variation of angles and shots using both a Sony Camcorder and a Kodak Zi8 to get as much footage and as many still shots as possible.

We have integrated the footage in a number of different ways. The footage of the men being tattooed has been put into our montage at the very opening of our documentary, and also the very end. The tattoo artist we interviewed was a really useful piece of footage which we used as a separate interview to show the informative nature of our documentary.