A2 Radu Taga: 2009

Media Blog A2

Research:

Research into the genre:

The word Documentary comes from the verb to Document i.e. report with evidence something that has actually happened. It can show this by using actuality footage or reconstructions. All documentaries are Mediated which is the creative process to make it easily understood by the audience and also be entertaining.

The six main types of Documentaries:

Fully narrated – an off screen voice is used to make sense of the visuals and anchor their meaning (these types of documentaries are called natural history documentaries)

Fly on the wall – origins in cinema verity –the camera is observing real life as it happens and the candidates are “unaware” of the cameras presence.

Mixed – using a combination of interview, observation and narration to advance the narrative.

Self-Reflexive – the subject of the documentary acknowledges the presence of the camera and often speaks to the film maker.

Docudrama – A re-enactment of events as they are supposed to have happened

Docusoap – They are usually occupation based, follow people in these programs. They usually follow a story line.

These are the six types of documentaries there are more but these are the main ones that we will be focusing on. Apart from the types of documentaries we will also learn some new terminology such as: Construction of Reality – this is where reality is constructed for the audience. They are edited. The camerawork gives one view. Another term we will learned is Gatekeeping – means that the producer controls the flow of information he is selecting and rejecting the information that will go in the documentary

There are 7 types of narrative of a documentary.

Narrative Structure:

Open Vs Closed – An open narrative in a documentary is where a question is raised and it’s not answered. Usually the documentary will present evidence of both sides and leave the audience to answer the question themselves.

A closed documentary answers the entire question it raises and doesn’t leave any loose ends.

Single strand Vs Multi strand – A single strand is like the name suggests it has one narrative, keeping it simple for the audience, where as a multi strand narrative has more than one narrative structure.

Linear Vs Non-linear – A linear narrative is where the documentary follows a chronological order, where as a non-linear does not follows a chronological order and the documentary can be shown in flashbacks of flash forward.

Circular narrative – The start and end of a documentary are the same so the documentary starts at one point and ends at the same point.

In class we analysed three documentaries and we as individuals had to analyse two more so we can get a concrete codes and conventions of a documentary. In class we analysed The Devil Made Me Do It, Marketing Meatloaf and That Thing.

The Devil Made Me Do it:

Type of documentary: Mixed

Themes: Religion (spirituality), Good Vs Evil (Binary Opposition) and the power of the media – can music (Manson) influence the behaviour of young people.

Narrative structure: Single strand, Open, Non-Linear.

Camerawork:

Close up/medium close up of interviewees on the whole, framed on left or right of shot.

Manson interview – low-angle signifies power, light from one side so half the face was lit dark, shows two side’s of Manson.
Slow pans across town during both day and night

Sense of being quiet and deserted.

Shots of deserted streets

Lots of shot’s of religious iconography

At the end of the program there are busy streets, teenagers drinking which shows a contrast from the beginning of the program

Manson press conference.

Shots of journalists and cameramen

The documentary is not part of the conference, the audience is positioned as a observer

Shots of a view finder of a camera, puts a distance between the documentary camerawork and the conference cameraman.

Shots of Manson gig

Camera watching through the window of a door at the police station shows that the audience isn’t suppose to bee there at hat they are spying.

Most of he camerawork is hand-held mostly the actuality footage so that the cameraman can respond to events quicker.

Tracking shots.

Mise-en-scene:

Police chief interview – Behind the desk of his office with the cap on the desk near the camera, shows what he is to the relation of the documentary.

Actuality footage – Manson in McDonalds’ contrasts between Manson’s beliefs, Hypocrite.

Sound:

Voiceover/narrator – Male, quite young, Standard English, no clear accent. This is the glue which holds the narrative together

Voiceover used to translate Italian.

English with Italian accent to anchor to audience they are watching a Italian person

Sometime the translation ends before the Italian person stops speaking.

Music reflects the subject matter, religious choral music.

SFX e.g. heartbeat, whispering

Manson soundtracks.

Editing:

Cut and cross cutting most common edits

Montage at the beginning of the show

Fade to and from black

Editing creates passe – takes us from one place to another

Slow Motion

Juxtaposition – gothic teenager with holly music in the background.

Archive material:

· Manson music videos

· Newspapers

· Italian talk show

· US News

· Italian News

Graphics:

Subtitles of Manson song lyrics

At the end of program writing on screen saying what happened to the girls after the trial

Persons name – job relevant to the story, anchors meaning to who we are seeing

Anchors periods of time

Title – gothic overtones

Translation subtitles

There was a really good scene in this documentary which had the work of editing, camerawork and sounds in sync. The scene was when the “girls” were confessing to the crime.

There was a lost of sound effect in this particular scene to create the atmosphere of being alone and that a murder is taking place, these SFX included:

Heart beat

Dog barking

Whispering

Hitting with a rock

Stabbing

Screaming

Door shutting

Scuffling

Voiceover (the actors voice)

Bell

Taking a knife out.

The Camerawork also played a big part in creating the atmosphere.

Slow panning

Tilted frame on the floor – Point of view shot

Close up of statues

Panning of graveyard

Long shot down the corridor

Finally the editing was used to crate the atmosphere desired.

· The editing created pace

· Slow – long take of pan across the city

· Editing of heart beat + cutting signifies death

The Marketing of Meatloaf

Type of Documentary: Mixed – Interviews, Archive material

Themes: Marketing in the music industry, image creation, manipulation of audiences and power of the media.

Narrative Structure: Closed, single strand, non-linear

Camerawork:

Zoom/pan on still images, makes image more interesting used on chart listings, magazine covers, etc

Establishing shot at the beginning of the documentary

Interviews with Meat Loaf are chopped down and used thought the documentary

Low angle shots used

Interviews – standard framing (left or right of the screen)

Most interviews are done in close up or medium close up

One interview done in profile – stands out, crates a barrier between the audience (unconventional)

Handheld actuality footage.

Camera positions us as the observers during the press conference, records the crew filming meatloaf

Point of view shots

Close up of titles of CD’s, magazines, etc.

Misé-en-scene: Chromakey used as backgrounds for some interviews – background can be changed and always relevant to the narrative.

Sound:

Voice over - is male, standard English, holds the narrative together.

Voice over - opinionated tone at times and often commented on things that were going on.

Heartbeat sound was used near the beginning.

Classical/string music was used at a time of tension and suspense to help heighten the mood.

Meat Loafs song’s

Editing:

Questions were edited out

Text used on the screen – not long enough to read

Cutting most common edit

Dissolve used a lot – especially in the interviews

Spinning effects

Montage of news programmes on meatloaf

Fast motion footage of outside HMV

Slow motion used.

Archive Material: Top of the Pops, David Letterman show, Brit awards, US TV news programmes, music videos, awards ceremonies, websites, and newspaper cuttings/magazines

Graphics: Logo for the title of the series, text anchors who the person is and their relevance to the situation and programme, graphics sometimes superimposed over images, titles scrolled across the bottom of the screen which is unconventional, white sans serif text used.

That Thing:

Type of documentary: Mixed

Themes: representation of gender, feminisem, popular-cultured – changed through videogames.

Narrative Structure: Closed, single, Non-liner

Camerawork:

Standard framing of most interviews – close up and medium close up

Big close up of the inventor of the game in a tilted frame

Hand-healed camera

Point of view shot + tracking inside the café

Zoom

Panning

Camerawork stimulates the attention of the audience

Mise-en-scene:

Computer room

Chromakey

Blue/green screen filming

People talk and the screen in projected in the editing in the background all the way through with extracts from the game

Back projection – projection behind the interviewee

Forward projection

The creator of the game is put in a PC

Sound:

A sound track over the whole of the documentary with thet sound track of the game

At the end it changed to ray of light by Madonna to anchor the subject the interview is talking about

Voiceover – male, young, Standard English with elements of slang

Editing:

Lots of cuts

Fast pace – fast motion

Graphics super imposed

Montage editing

Archive material:

Footage of game

Fan forum

Angelina Jolie interview

Nikey advert

Graphics:

Sand-serif

White

No capital letters

Person name – subject matter – linked to title.

After we looked at the three documentaries as a class we as individuals had to go and analyse 2 documentaries on our own. I chose to analyse How The Celts Changed Britain and The Last Nazis. I watched my two documentaries on the bbc iplayer.

How The Celts Saved Britain - Salvation: (link to the documentary)

This was a 2 part documentary on BBC2. It started with How The Celts Saved Britain - A New Civilization and then continued with How The Celts Saved Britain - Salvation. I have analysed the second part of the documentary.

Type of documentary: Self-Reflexive.

Themes: History, Culture, Religion.

Narrative structure: Single strand, Linear, Closed.

Camerawork:

Hand-held camerawork

In the interviews mostly used medium close up and close up, some long shots as the presenter was walking with the interviewee.

Tracking during some interviews and when fallowing the narrator.

Panning

Close up of buildings and religious icons

Zoom on cross and other religious icons.

Graphics: A 3D map is used with the name of the region on it. Name and job of the interviewee to anchor there role in the story.

This is an example of how they filmed one of their interviwes and also how they used the graphics in the programme.

Mise-en-scene:

Most of the interviews conducted outside with non standard frame as they walk but with the standard frame when they stop to talk.

Monks in robes + crosses in the reconstruction to anchor the time.

Old bots in the reconstruction.

Scribbler interview – in a work shop to anchor his job, standard framing and some two shots of the interviewee and the narrator.

Religious iconography to anchor the subject of the documentary.

This was of the scenes that they have reenacted

Sound:

Voice over – we see the narrator in the show so we can put a face to the voice

A “whoosh” sound when cutting to different scenes or to different shots.

Old music in the background – mostly a drum beat

Different voice over in some parts when telling a story such e.g. irich voiceover.

Religious music

Editing:

Fades from picture to picture

Fast motion

Zoom + cut used both together on a picture

Zoom out

Fast cuts

Overlapping pictures

When cutting we see a flash of white light

Fade to black

Slow – motion

Archive material: Re-enactment, books.

The Last Nazis Most Wanted:

This was a trilogy of documentaries starting with The Last Nazis - The Hunt for Dr Death, followed by The Last Nazis - Most Wanted and ended with The Last Nazis - Children of the Master Race. I analysed the second instalment which was Most Wanted.

Type of documentary: Self-Reflexive.

Themes: War crimes, justice, old age.

Narrative structure: single strand, linear, closed.

Camerawork:

Hand – held

Close up of wind-mirror of car – we see the camera man/narrator of the documentary

Close up of second narrator

Tracking both backwards and forwards.

Standard framing in interviews either on the left or right

Graphics: Title in black, translation of German, location of place they are in, “what happened next” at the end credits.

This is the opening titles of the programm.

Mise-en-scene:

1^st Nazi interview – cosy home, well decorated, few belongings,

2^nd Nazi – same as first but he is wearing a suit

Law student – casual cloths

Old woman (Neo Nazi believer) – white coat + hat

Sound:

Piano music in background

Voice over – 2 of them on a man 28, and one a woman about the same age

Translators voice when asked to translate

Chanting “Nazis out” while pop music in background.

Editing: fade to/from black, cuts, most questions not edited out, and lots of zooms.

Archive material: pictures of the Nazi (wanted posters), letters, news papers, photos, actuality footage (during the war).

After we analysed the documentaries we came up with the codes and conventions of them.

Camerawork:

Vary shot types and movement to keep audience interested e.g. panning, zooming and tracking

Hand-held camerawork is used for actuality footage were necessary

Interviews: Close up or medium close up conventional (use variety)

Big close or extreme close up can be used

Stationary camera (tripod)

Eye line is roughly third of the way down the screen

Framed to the left or right of shot

Establishing shots used

Pan and zoom are used when filming still images

Point of view shot – sometime used to position audience in the action

Mise-en-scene:

Behind interviews is either relative to the subject e.g. Chromakey, or the job of the person being interviewed

Archive material: used from a variety of sources: TV programs, film, newspapers, music videos, magazines, still photographs.

Graphics:

Used to translate when necessary

Title is unique/creative

Name and relevance to subject or there role of the interviewees usually two line: second line might be in Italian – different from the name: anchors who they are.

Credits: scrolling up the screen, all archive material is credited

Narrative structure: open/closed/circular, single strand to not confuse the audience, most documentaries are non-liner.

Sound:

Voiceover used to link everything together

Standard English

Age + gender are relative to either audience or subject

Voiceover – not partial, emotionless – statement of fact

All questions are edited out

Music is used relevant to the topic

Interviews – no background noise

Editing:

· Editing crates space

· Questions are edited out

· Cut – most common edit – no editing effects used unless relevant – doesn’t distract the viewer

· Dissolve is used

· Cutaway are used frequently always relevant to what is being talked about

· Fade to and from black sometime used to show passage of time or end of a chapter.

Now that we established the codes and conventions of documentaries we looked at the scheduling of one and the topic that we might choose to look at.

First we looked at the type of scheduling we could make:

Inheritance – this is where you schedule the program immediately after a popular program to inherit the audience.

Pre-echo – this is where you schedule a program before a popular program.

Hammochink – this is where you schedule a program between popular programs

Now that we know the 3 types of scheduling that we could do we went on as a class and done a brain storm for possible topics, these were: Afghan War, Pregnancy, WW1, WW2, Race, Wars, Schools, Music, Films, Illness, Fashion, Beauty, Nature, Poverty, Alcohol, Animals, Recession, Teenagers, Technology, Media, Celebrities, University, Obesity, Saturday jobs, Elderly, Food, Drugs, Cars, Diet, Travelling, Holidays, Relationships, History, Disability, Discovery, Stereotypes, Pass times, Eggs, Anorexia, Homelessness, Chocolate, Wallasy, Six Form, Clubbing, Mobile Phones, Murder, Money, Drinks, Family, Hair, Nails, Houses, Bikes, Bears, Babies, Dinosaurs, Fish, Egypt, Books, Roads, Tables, Pens, Cinema, Life Sky, Sex, Crime, Natural Disasters, Public Transport, Wealth, Festivals, Dancing, Laptops, Make-Up, Shoes, Bags, Home, Friends, McDonalds, Zoo, Rings, Hair Washing, KFC, Sneezing, Penguins, Parks, Wales, Love, Hate, Dress, Liverpool, Pink, Working, Sport, Exercise, Take Away, Dolphins, Bubble Gum, Nobly Bubbly, Kisses, Jewellery, Marmalade, Pringles, English, Blue, Waffles, Facebook, Chocolate Cake, Texting, Photographs, Gigs, Radio, Doritos, My Bed, Sleep, Dog, Boyfriend, 7 Deadly Sins, Tattoos, Piercings, Anime, Manga, TV, Xbox, Games, Drama, Bacon, Sweets.

Now that we have had a class brain storm about what ideas we can use for a documentary we were split into groups of three and us now as a group had to chose a topic of our documentary. As a group we decided that our documentary will be about tattoos. After we chose our topic we also chose the target audience: 15 to 40 year olds, channel and scheduling: Channel 4, 8pm, Wednesday and the title of the program: The Human Canvas. After we done all this we went on to conduct research on our target audience. With the target audience we produced a questionnaire and gave it to 30 people to fill it.

Audience Profile:

This is a typical member of the target audience that I have decided to focus my documentary on. Michael is a male, age 18 and lives in Merseyside, England. He is currently in 6th form and is studying for his 3 A level’s. He likes to party and spend time with friends. He has a mixed opinion on tattoos and would like to have one sometime in his life but is undecided on which type.

Tattoo Questionnaire

1) Are you…?

□ Male □ Female

2) What is your age?

□ 15–19 □ 20-24 □ 25-29 □ 30-34 □ 35-40

3) What is your occupation?
…………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………

4) Have you got a tattoo?

□ Yes □ No

If yes what part of body do you have it on?

……………………………………………………………………

5) What does the word tattoo mean to you?

………………………………………………………………

6) What is your favourite colour?

□ Red □ Blue □ Green □ Yellow

□ Black □ White □ Other (please specify)

……………………………………………………………………………..

7) Who is you favourite celebrity/idol?

………………………………………………………………………………

8) Does your favourite celebrity/idol have a tattoo?
………………………………………………………………………………

9) What is a meaningful image to you?

………………………………………………………………………………

10) Are you religious?

□ Yes □ No □ Undecided

11) Do your parents approve/ have approved of tattoos?

□ Yes □ No

If no why not?
…………………………………………………………………………………

12) If you don’t have a tattoo or if you want one, what would you like?

………………………………………………………………………………

Below are some of the answers from the qestionare that we asked:

After we had all the questionnaire results back we had to collate the results and draw conclusion from them.

Questionnaire results.

1) Are you….?

Male – 11 Female – 19

Conclusion: There were 11 males and 19 females that took our questionnaire; because there were more females than males this shows that our documentary will be biased towards the female gender of the audience. We have to take this into account so we don’t overlook the male audience and make the documentary appeal towards both genders equally.

2) What is your age?

Conclusion: Looking at the results, the majority of our audience opinions will rely on people aged 15-19. As the next greater quantity of age lies in the 35-40’s category, we have basically got enough evidence to support both the youngest and oldest age, and this will hopefully account for the lack of information claimed by the other ages in between. Therefore taking this in, we should be able to comprise a documentary relative to every person between the ages of 15-40 – our target audience.

3) What is your occupation?

Conclusion: From the pie chart we can see that our documentary will attract a broad range of audiences we must make sure that we keep the documentary interesting for everyone.

4) Have you got a tattoo?

Yes – 10 No – 20

Conclusion: 2/3rds of the participants answered ‘No’ to this question, which could create a problem within how much interest there is with them from our target population. However, there is the 1/3 of the audience who do have tattoos. This shows that significant proportions have got tattoos and that they are very popular so our subject for the documentary will draw a lot of attention.

Conclusion: The parts of the body which people desire to get their tattoos on are varied, which gives us a greater variety of footage to be able to use (e.g. images of different tattoos in different places).

5) What does the word tattoo mean to you?Conclusion: Looking at the graph we can see that the word tattoo mostly means to people that it is a picture on a person’s body. The second most popular answer was a life long memory. This shows us that most people don’t see a tattoo as just a picture on the body but rather the picture represents something to the person warring it and different images can mean different things for everyone.

6) What is your favourite colour?

Conclusion: From the graph we can see that most people have the favourite colour red with the colour blue being second. We will incorporate these colours in the documentary so that we attract the people’s attention to it.

7) Who is your favourite celebrity/idol?

Conclusion: we can draw the conclusion that the most idolised celebrities are Cheryl Cole and Beyonce which both have tattoos. From this we could use these two celebrities in our documentary. We would use these celebrities because most people recognise them and this will draw a interest in the documentary.

8) Does your favourite celebrity idol have a tattoo?

Yes – 15 No – 15

Conclusion: From the results we can see that in our documentary we will have to explore some issues regarding to “Does celebrities influence people getting a tattoo”.

9 What is a meaningful image to you?

Conclusion: From the pie chart we ca see that we have indeed have a broad audience that might watch our documentary and that each of them has a different meaningful image and that not every image means the same to everyone.

10) Are you religious?

Yes – 6 No – 19 Undecided – 5

Conclusion: From the results we can see that most people are not religious, but this doesn’t mean we can’t have some debate about what different religions think about the idea of getting a tattoo.

11) Do your parents approve/approved of tattoos? If No why not?

Yes – 16 No – 14

Conclusion: From he results we can see another issue we need to address in the documentary which is “Why do parents find that having tattoos is bad”

Conclusion: These results reinforce the issue about parents thinking that tattoos are bad. From the results we can plan questions or plan a segment about the different answers parents give to there children when they as if they can get a tattoo and why is that.

12) If you do not have a tattoo and would like one what would it be.

Conclusion: From the piece chart we can see that tattoos are developing and people don’t want the traditional ones such as a rose. People are starting to come up with there own ideas about what tattoo they want, this is another thing we can discuss in our documentary.

Planning

Documentary ideas brainstorm:

After we produced or conclusions from the questionnaire results we went onto producing a brain storm of possible contents of our documentary. We split up the contents under certain titles such as “Designs” and then we thought of words related to the title, below is the things we came up with.

History of tattoos:

Origin

Creator

First tattoo

First tools used

Now and then comparison

Historic peoples tattoos

Sailor tattoos

Designs:

Tribal

Animals

Names

Symbols

Cartoons

Famous people

Different language

Flowers/harts/stars

Cover ups

Make up

Fear;

Phobia of tattoos

Interview with people that are scared

Ashamed

Needles

Pain

Opinions:

Parents

Doctors

Religion – Jehovah witness, atheist

Friends

Media

Stereotypes:

Chav

Moshe

Indie

Peppy

Punk

Nerds

Copy cats:

Celebrities – rock stars/movie stars

Friends

Parents

Cultures:

Chinese

Arabian

Indian

Hebrew

Scottish

Irish

American

Europe

African

Hawaiian

Symbolism:

Religion

Culture

Beliefs

Family

Interviews:

Paris Hilton

Rhianna

David Beckham

Tattoo artist

General public

Priest

Women

Parents

Marlyn Manson

Pope

Cheryl Cole

Chav’s

Emo’s

Old women

Vox pop:

Show people picture of lizard man and ask them for their opinion on it.

After we came up with all the ideas for the documentary we had to produce a formal proposal to agree on the final ideas for the documentary.

Formal proposal

The Human Canvas

Topic – Tattoos

Type – Mixed

Style – Informal, informative and entertaining

Channel and scheduling – Channel 4, 8pm, Wednesday

Target audience – 15 to 40

Primary research - Interviews with; General public, a tattooist, Artists, celebrities such as David Beckham, Rhinnna and Cheryl Cole. Cult members, Chavs, Emo’s, Men, Women, Parents. Permission for filming in places e.g. tattoo parlour, location for filming.

Secondary research – Internet, books, magazines, programmes, television, radio and newspapers.

Narrative structure – Open, single strand, non – linear

Outline of content – Interviews, voxpops, archive material, videos, and photos.

Resource requirements – Digital camera, computer with Adobe Premier, tapes, tripod, video camera.

Now that we have finished the formal proposal we moved on to producing a detailed running order for the documentary.

Running Order

Montage of images of peoples tattoos (music in background)
20 seconds

Opening titles (flick through each letter of ‘The Human Canvas’ that’s painted on body parts) display on split screen to show title.

15 seconds

Still images of old history tattoos e.g. military ones. Voiceover asking the question ‘Where did they come from?’

30 seconds

Interview with tattooist – cuts of tools etc
1 minute 30 seconds

Footage of girl getting her tattoo.
20 seconds

Interview with person talking about tattoos, opinions and showing their tattoos
1 minute 30 seconds

Voiceover cut to prison break (show map tattoo) how this glorifies tattoos. Cut to lizard man and voxpop of reactions to him.
35 seconds

Interview with Cheryl Cole on tattoos
1 minute 30 seconds

Interview with Cheryl fan who has copied her tattoo. Her inspiration.
1 minute

Voiceover explaining celebrity craze of tattoos whilst showing cuts of celebs different tattoos
20 seconds

Archive footage and pictures of Hell’s angels and about them. Rock music playing. Voiceover explaining how it makes them individual
1 minute

National identities and the different tattoos that countries get. Pride in their country
40 seconds

Voiceover about Jehovah witness’s with a shot of church.
10 seconds

Interview with a Jehovah’s Witness about not allowing tattoos in their religion.
1 minute

Montage of religious tattoos – voiceover explaining each tattoo
30 seconds

Interview with Muslim man about his views on them
1 minute

Interview with Tattooist. Point of view shot of fast motion around tattoos
40 seconds

Archive material of Miami ink (Hawaiian episode). Shows the tools and the symbolism of their tattoos
2 minutes

Advert Break – 3 minutes

Interview with doctor about tattoo removal. Cuts of removed tattoos
1 minute 30 seconds

Shots of horrible tattoos and shops
30 seconds

Show a tattoo badly removed – Archive material
20 seconds

Interview with person who wants their tattoo removed
1 minute 30 seconds

Voiceover asking if tattoo is an art form, show footage of art and tattoos
20 seconds

Interview with art critic on what he thinks if they are an art form
30 seconds

Show lizard man and tiger man. Voiceover on how people want to look different but other people don’t get it
30 seconds

Voiceover asking where will we be in the future with tattoos? What will they look like?
25 seconds

Total time
24 minutes

With the runing order done we now had to produce a storyboard of the opening sequence of the documentary and to draw a singel shot of the framing for each interview. Also we had to produce a list of questions for each interview.

Interview questions

Tattooist interview:

1) How did you get into the profession?

2) Tell me about the most unusual tattoo you had to make?

3) Tell me about the different designs you do?

4) Do you do tattoo removals?

5) Tell me about the most popular tattoos that people get?

6) Tell me about your favourite tattoo?

7) Tell me about your tattoos?

8) Tell me about the different tattoo designs you do?

9) Tell me about the process of tattooing?

10) Is tattooing an art?

11) Tell me about the tools you use?

12) Tell me about the inks you use?

13) How do you get the tattoos to stay on the skin permanently?

Person with tattoos interview:

1) Tell me about the time you got your tattoo?

2) Were you scared of getting a tattoo?

3) Tell me about the parts of the body you got it on?

4) Tell me about the designs you chose?

5) Are you planning on getting any more?

6) Tell me about the designs you are thinking of getting?

7) Tell me about the reason you chose to get a tattoo?

8) Tell me about your parents view of tattoos

Person who will get tattoo done:

1) Tell me about the reason you are getting a tattoo?

2) Tell me about what inspired you to get the tattoo you are getting?

3) Tell me how you feel about getting a tattoo?

4) Tell me about your knowledge about the process of getting a tattoo?

Story Boards:

Before we can start filming we had to produce a story board of the two interviwee framez and the opening titles. We done some ideas and when we were happy with what we had we went and started filming.

Filming

Now that we finished producing the reserch into the documentary we started to acually film it.
Rachel and Chelsea filmed the tattooist interview, which was a success apart from some sound with the microphone rustling sometimes in the interview and also people opening the door to the shop would trigger a bell which we had to get rid off during the editing because it was above the tattooist’s voice. All of the problems would the video would have to be delt with when it came to the editing. The interview with the rachels uncle was done by herslef and this interview went allright and no majour changes had to be made. After the interviews we had to film some cutaways to put during them.

This is where we filmed our tattoo pictures to use a cut aways in the documentary. We used a black background which we stuck to the wall then we stuck the pictures to the background, after that we filmed them in diffrent styles e.g. we panned some and other we zoomed out or into the pictures, this is to give variety in the shots we used so not to get reppetative and boring to the audience watching. We all took turns in filming the pictures so while one of use was filming another just stuck the pictures on. This gave everyone a change in filming and it made the shots have more variety as each of us came up with ideas for diffrent shots.When I filmed the pictures of the "Tiger-man" and "Lizard-man" I accidently filmed over an interview but luckily we could cut the question out when it came to the editing phase.

After the cutaways have been filmed Rachel and I filmed the opening titles of our documentary. We first painted letters on my body (to which the whole group contributed) which we then took pictures off and Rachel then put them on Adobe Photoshop to put them together to spell “The Human Canvas” and then we printed the image off and filmed the printed product.

After we filmed the cut aways of the pictures me and Chelsea went and filmed a vox pop which would be used in the documentary. We first started to set the camera in a good location where lots of people would pass by so we can get a variaty of people.

We would be showing people pictures of a simple tattoo to get thier opinion on it then we would show them a picture of the lizard-man and tiger-man to contrast with the first tattoo and to see how far they would go with tattoos.

Editing

Now that the whole documentary was filmed including the cutaways and opening titles we started the editing process. We started by capturing all the footage from the camera to the computer on Adobe Premier, and then started to edit the interviews. We started to cut the footage we did not need of the interviews to shorten them so the documentary would be exactly 5 minutes. We also had to make sure to edit the questions that were asked out so that you can only hear the answers the person was giving, we done this by using the razor tool and cutting the precise point that we needed, it took some time to get all the correct areas we need but in the end we done it. We then slotted in the cutaways that we filmed, this was so we can cover up any jump cuts in the interviews.

This is a screen grab of how we were editing the cutaways so they would not be too long or too short.

This is a screen grab showing one of the inteviews after it was cut down geting ready to be put in the corect order.

In our documentary we have used pieces of music from artists, to make sure that it was alright with the record company we send them a email asking for permission to use their artists music.

Below is the finished documentary.

Codes and Conventions of radio/print adverts:

In class we started too look at the codes and conventions of a print adver and a radio trailer, this is to help us come up with one of each for our documentary. We each took a section of the to work on and i picked the radio trailer. Below are the codes and conventions of a radio trailer.

Raio Trailer:

It had sound extarcts from the documentary

It has a voice over - can be the narrator of the documentary or a diffrent person, the voice over poses questions to the audience.

There is a music bed- if neede

The shedualing and channel are anounced

SFX - if needed

Knowing the codes and conventions i move on to produce a script of the advert.

Radio advert script:

Clip of voxpop with teenagers saying “If he would come up to me I would slap him”, then the woman “He looks a bit scary” then the guy “I don’t like it”.

Start with rock music (paper cut by linking park).

Would you change the way you look for the sake of art? Tattooing has been an art form for centuries, from the small little terse “I love Joe” imprints on the skin to the all out body and face tats. Cut to tattooist interview “Many people have bad opinions of tattoos but yeah I think its art” (in the back ground the sound of a tattoo tool with a buzzing sound). Love them or Loath them they are now more popular than ever. Is it beauty? Is it art? What’s the point? The Human Canvas Wednesday at 8:00 on Channel 4.

After this i started to produce the advert.

First i took the bits of the documentary that i intended to use and put them in a diffrent file, after which i cut out the video and was only left with the sound. After that i started to cut the sound file until i had the bits i needed and started to put them in the right order.

After the bits were in the right order i started to add the sound to the advert along with the voiceover.

Evaluation

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our documentary had to be of good quality and to be seen as a professional product as such we had to fallow the codes and conventions of making a documentary. Below are some of the codes and conventions that we have fallowed that are being compared to professional documentaries.

Framing

These are extracts from a BBC 1 documentary (power of nightmares). Here we can see that the interviewee has been framed to the left of the camera and the background chosen is related to the topic which is about different politics and the fight on terrorism around the world.

This picture is the interview of our own documentary. Here we can see that we stuck to the codes and conventions of documentaries because we framed the interviewee to the right or left (to the right in this section) and we also chose a background that suits the theme of the documentary.

Graphics

These are shots from the same documentary. There is another code and conventions that we stuck to in filming our own documentary which is the graphics used to show who the interviewee is and what is there relationship to the subject.

Here we can see that in our own documentary we kept to the code and convention and that we created graphics to show who the interviewee is and their relationship to the subject of the documentary.

Cutaways

Above is a cutaway from the same documentary as before. Cutaways are used to avoid jump cuts that are caused after the questions are being edited out. Sometimes the cutaway might have an effect on it such as dissolve but the one above is a simple cut between frames.

This is one of our cut away that we used to make sure that the tattooist interview did not jump. Like the cutaway from the professional documentary ours does not have an effect on it, it is just a straight cur between the interview and the cutaway. We had a bit of trouble getting some cutaways that would be relevant to what the interviewee says as it was hard to get the right pictures, but in the end we managed to get them and edit them in. Also we had some trouble film some of the pictures because we could see the edge of it but again we managed to film them and edit them in.

Vox-pop

This is a vox pop from a documentary called Hungry Beast; these are used so people can see the audiences’ reactions to the subject of the documentary.

This is our own vox pop. We used it so we can show the reaction of people to the tiger-man and lizard man and also get their opinion on the subject of tattoos. It was hard to stop people who were willing to be interviewed but once we got some it was an easy job to film them.

Voiceover

In every documentary there must be a voice over, so in our documentary we chose Nathan to be our voice over. We chose him because we felt that his voice was best suited to the subject of tattoos. He has a good tone for the subject and speaks Standard English which is what we wanted for the voice over in the documentary.

Below is one part of the voice over from our documentary

Below is a bit of a voiceover from a proffetional documentary

Music

For the documentary we had to choose music that would either go behind the voice over or behind the interviewee. We chose to use some of linking park’s songs because we felt they were situating to the subject that the documentary was focusing on. To use their music first we had to write the label company a letter requesting permission and once we got it we used it in our documentary soundtrack. The letter to the record company are earlier in the blog.

Narrative structure

Another convention that we had to fallow in a documentary was the narrative structure of the program. From our running order below it can be seen that we chose to fallow a linear narrative structure in terms of order that we presented the topic of tattoos. The narrative structure is also a closed one, we chose this, because their being so many different opinions of tattoo’s there is no wrong or right answer so the audience can decided after seeing the documentary if they like them
or hate them.

Runing order:

Montage of images of peoples tattoos (music in background)

20 seconds

Opening titles (flick through each letter of ‘The Human Canvas’ that’s painted on body parts) display on split screen to show title.
15 seconds

Still images of old history tattoos e.g. military ones. Voiceover asking the question ‘Where did they come from?’
30 seconds