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.

Voice Over For Our Final Documentary

In the opening of our documentary, we have a series of footage that is correlated to be very fast in tempo, and to compliment this we wanted to compose an informative voice over to engage our viewers and establish our theme well.

We researched our topic in a lot of detail, allowing us to select the most relevant facts. Following this, we created a script that fitted in well with the footage, and also would fit the time period necessary for our documentary.

We recorded Matt Burge, a student in our Media Studies class, reciting facts about tattoos and the meaning behind them. We wanted to portray the idea that tattoos are much more acceptable in today's society, and that tattoo artistry is an art form rather than something that is frowned upon. Our microphone of choice was a Yeti - a USB microphone which allows fast voice overs to be created as they can be used as an overlay very easily and recorded directly into iMovie. This made our process much simpler and more efficient.

Supporting Piece: Advertising Campaign

I decided to create an Advertising Campaign for my independent supporting piece, as I thought that as tattoos are a visual expression, the best way or reflecting our documentary would be through visual advertisement. I decided that my campaign would consist of a billboard advert, a poster and a flyer, and that all three would use the same image to maintain consistency, but also have aspects that make them individual and eye catching.

For my poster, I began by finding a base photo I liked from http://www.weheartit.com/, and opened it in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I then flipped the image horizontally, as I thought that any text I was planning to use would look better on the right hand side of the page.

I then created a logo to make my advertising campaign look more realistic and genuine. I created one from scratch on Adobe Photoshop, and used simple black and white colours to make it look professional but eye catching.

Following the creation of my logo, I edited the image by making the colours more vibrant to contribute further to our theme of tattoos, and also used the eraser to give the edges of the poster a mottled effect. This made my poster look grainier and more original. I then added the text on the right hand side, which included the title, tag line and the time the documentary was on. To develop my advert further, I downloaded a brush from www.brusheezy.com for Adobe Photoshop, and used it in the bottom right hand corner to give the advert more character and show a variation of techniques.

To further the effectiveness of my documentary advert, I used a variation of settings such as 'Fresco' and 'Grain' to create a rougher effect to my ad. I then inserted the logo I had created earlier in the bottom right hand corner, and used a false website address to ensure that although my advert appeals to a younger audience, it still maintained a professional style.

Ideas For Our Next Filming Expedition

We have recently been considering the prospect of filming someone going through the process of getting a tattoo for our documentary. Our next move would be getting permission from a local tattoo parlour, and finding someone who has been planning to get a tattoo for some time. Our local tattoo parlour is INTERSKIN, Walton-On-Thames, and if we can find someone who is contemplating getting a tattoo, we will phone and/or write a letter to ask for permission to film in the tattoo studio.

There is a possibility that we will not be able to film the process of someone getting a tattoo, but it may be possible to film a consultation. This will inform our audience of the positives and negatives of getting a tattoo, and how the process works.

Our main focus during our filming and editing has been Hazelle Moscrop, who recently mentioned she has an interest in adding to her body art.

Hazelle has been contemplating getting a tattoo on her wrist of a peacock feather, and has chosen an image that she would like to recreate.

We are hoping that Hazelle would consider getting a consultation for her new tattoo, and if she makes the decision to have her tattoo, that we would be allowed to film the process.

Initial Ideas For Our Title

Trying to decide on a title is a very difficult process, as each member of the group has different ideas for the name of the documentary. However, when choosing the name of our documentary, the idea of the name 'Skin Deep' arose and we all agreed that it suited the style and nature of our documentary. It really grasped the concept of beauty not only being skin deep, and how there is so much more to tattoos than just aesthetics; that there is a personal and sentimental reason behind most of them. There is always, of course, room for development, so we may change our mind if another name springs to mind during the remainder of the editing process.

Having considered 'Skin Deep' as a name for our documentary, we decided to experiment on ways to introduce our title at the beginning of our documentary. When filming in Camden, we met a man who had 'Patience' tattooed across his knuckles:

This inspired us to try this technique simply using felt tipped pens. Claudie drew the words 'Skin Deep' across our friend, Matt's knuckles to test the effect. This was the outcome:

We really liked the outcome, as the font that we had used was very similar to that of the original 'Patience' tattoo, and with there only being 4 letters for each word, 'Skin Deep' looked perfect as a title. With a little extra time, we will be able to spend longer photographing the tattooed knuckles, and eventually use them in our supporting pieces, whether they be advertising campaigns, articles or a trailer.

Choice Of Font

We had been struggling to choose a transition that would allow us to have Hazelle's name at the bottom of the screen when her interview began, so that the audience would know exactly who she was and know a bit of her background, enabling them to relate more to her. Finding a font for this proved quite difficult, as we wanted the font to be legible, but also very inkeeping with the style of tattoos in general. We looked at a few fonts on http://www.dafont.com/, and eventually decided on 'Faith Collapsing.'

We chose this font because we liked the tattoo style writing, and it fitted very well with our transition of choice.

http://www.dafont.com/faith-collapsing.font

Inked Magazine: El Wood Photograhy

Having researched INKED Magazine in quite a lot of detail, due to it's features of tattooed models, we discovered El Wood, a heavily tattooed model who proves that tattoos can be portrayed in an elegant and classy way.

We decided to use some of El's photographs to create a photography montage to finish our documentary. I noticed that having the photographs flick through at the same speed would not quite fit with our choices of music, and also when the montage finished, it was too plain. We tried editing the photos so that they sped up towards the end, and this worked much better and was much more exciting and contributed to the upbeat style of our documentary.

El Wood also models for http://www.totaltattoo.co.uk/ and FRONT Magazine.

Links to El Wood's Facebook Page and Tumblr Blog:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/El-Wood/127863047275379#!/pages/El-Wood/127863047275379

http://elwoodmodel.tumblr.com/

Initial Problems And How We Overcame Them

When editing the footage of Hazelle's interview, we decided to integrate some of Hazelle's 'Suicide Girls' modelling photographs as they are very vibrant and would make the construction of our documentary look more sophisticated. Our main issue with this was the audio from the footage of Hazelle's interview, as we had to detach the audio in order to link the clips of the interview with the photographs. This would enable us to have the audio playing over the photographs of Hazelle's tattoos and her modelling photos, and then meeting the clip from the interview after the sequence of photographs. We really struggled to match the audio and the clips as it was very difficult to cut the footage precisely. After a lot of patience, we eventually got the audio in time with Hazelle's speech.

The other problem we have been struggling with is deciding on what music to use at the beginning of our documentary (during the footage from Camden Town), and the music to play during Hazelle's interview. With the music at the beginning of our documentary, we wanted to use a track with a heavy drum and bass/dubstep baseline to attract a younger audience. Finding a song that fits this genre, and also fits in with the fast paced editing of our footage has proved very difficult. Here are some of the songs that we have been experimenting with:

High Contrast - Pink Flamingos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt2xd8mWMJg

Mount Sims - Black Sunglasses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY7NJ6V8fpk

Adele (High Contrast Remix) - Hometown Glory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozV_vWXZgZY

... and many others.

For Hazelle's interview, the problem we have been experiencing is choosing a track that is quiet enough to enable us to hear the audio from our footage over the music. We soon realised that any music with lyrics wouldn't work, as the words would clash horridly with Hazelle's speech and neither would be heard properly. We eventually considered Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed (Instrumental): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZ7TNnRuos, and although this is not our final decision, this song has proved the best out of the songs that we have tested so far.

Interviewing Hazelle Moscrop

For our documentary, we have been focusing on various different views on tattoos and the impact they have on certain individuals. One person that we have interviewed is Hazelle Moscrop, who has recently been involved in promoting her tattoos on a website called 'The Suicide Girls', who promote images of women from all over the world who have multiple tattoos and want to display them.

Hazelle uses her tattoos as a form of expression, and has designed all of her tattoos herself to make them more personal to her. She has a lock on her stomach, and intends to get the key to match on her wrist as her next tattoo. We have filmed an interview with her for our final documentary, as we all felt that her opinions of tattoos was very in keeping with the ideas we have been looking at for our project.

Initial Filming & Editing Prezi

Initial Filming & Editing on Prezi