Research Puff Piece

Reviews

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/01/09/halcyon-hotel-worth-checking-episode-two-review/

This article begins by talking about the TV series' genre, conventions, however doing so in a critical way, commenting that it is something you'll have seen before. After his introduction the writer develops into revealing further details such as name dropping the actors as well as their characters and the roles they have in the series. Contradictory to his initial reflection on the series, the journalist goes on to commend the scriptwriter, and leave the reader wanting to find out more. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/01/07/taboo-review-tom-hardys-swaggering-brute-costume-drama/

Ben Lawrence, the journalist of this review uses comedy and relaxed language to interact with the reader on a more personal and relatable level. 'Taboo' is introduced using a question which draws the reader in and makes them think about the drama. By describing the programmes characters and using Tom Hardy's well known name Lawrence educates his readers as to the series' and helps them understand it. He also name drops Steven Knight, and other work he has directed, such as the renowned Peaky Blinders. To conclude the review Lawrence finishes much the same way as he started, humour. 

What I've learnt from this research:

I have learnt that my writing in an informal way I can form an intimate relationship with the reader and therefore make them more likely to watch the program that is being reviewed. 

Puff Piece draft

Puff Piece Research Two

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

This research is more documentary specific

With help from the website linked below, we were able to gather more research. 

http://www.desktop-documentaries.com/documentary-reviews.html

Chris Bridger, the journalist, takes a positive attutude towards 'Undefeated' talking about how it made him feel, what its about all within the first paragraphy, we plan on replicating this introductory paragraph as it engages the reader and gives them someone to trust that it is a good documentary, the complimentary outlook on the documentary is key to the success of our pilot episode because the target audience will read it and then feel motivated to watch our documentary when it comes out. 

People in the 'Undefeated' are also mentioned in a way that makes the reader like them, and so grow interested in what happens to them throughout the documentary, we plan on using something similar to this. In our Q and A I will mention some of the people in the pilot episode and the answers they gave us, leaving the audience wanting to know more. 

The lightness of this documentary is similar to the mood generated by 'The Big Question'. Immediately the reader is introduced to the subject of the documentary, grabbing the readers attention from the very start, making sure they don't move onto a different review. This review is considerably short, something that we could have done, but instead by going into more depth in our puff piece we have more information for the target audience to think about, including an interview with the director, which creates a buzz around the pilot episode. 

Audience Research Results for posters

These results show that our target audience prefer simple posters, keeping this in mind we will present all the essential information in a clear way. 

As these results show a similar amount of votes for each choice, we will include both of these elements in our poster to maximise their satisfaction. 

With these results we will use appropriate colours for an upbeat documentary, probably pink or yellow.

These results show that most of our target audience view advertisements online, which is perfect as that is where we plan to place our poster. 

Potential Target Audience

Identifying my potential target audience is an essential part of planning towards our documentary series, it is important to think about who you are making your end product for, because they will be consuming it.

We have estimated our target audience to be within the ages 15-29, adolescents and young adults. This is because the content is mainly of people in this age range and so the topics explored will be of interest to those watching it.

This has also effected us when choosing our ancillary tasks; we have picked the promotional poster and a puff piece because we feel that these are what are most likely to pop up in their day to day lives. We also conducted audience research to find out what they look for in a promotional poster and have used that feedback to develop our poster. 

Our potential target audience has also influenced us to release our series online, so that it is easy and fast to access, ideal for those leading busy and stressful lives, it is a quick escape from day to day life, and a way to find out others opinions on issues of importance, or irrelevance. The documentary also communicates straight to the subjects on screen giving people who may feel isolated a way to connect with other briefly if they are having a busy day and cannot find time to connect with friends. 

For example;

Sally is a 21 year old student in her final year of uni, she is very busy with work trying to get all of her assignments in but she needs a break from the studying so she clicks onto iplayer to watch a 5 minute doc that takes her mind away from her hard work and entertains her. 

Connor is a 28 year old who works in a very busy office five days a week, and also has a job on the weekends so he can pay his bills, he rarely has time to go out with friends because he nearly always has work to do, to take a break he opens up iplayer to watch a quick documentary that his friends will be watching too, that way they can all chat about it on their group chat on their way to work.

Ellie is a GCSE student who is very busy with revision but needs to take a brief brake so she looks up the documentary series and views an episode, then she can continue with her revision with a clear head and a perfect sized break. 

Documentary Poster Research

Theory of semiotics

At first I found the theory of semiotics very complex, but after conducting research and viewing this explanatory video on youtube I understand the concept. 

Semiotics are the things that we just understand, the video gives an example that explains if we see someone on screen shake their head, we know that they mean no. This is simply an example of the audience reading/interpreting a certain code that everyone speaks. 

The concept of semiotics goes further than just actions though, it can be used from anything such as colour to the way a piece of media is edited. For example, if a scene was dark, blue, low key lighting, we would interpret it as scary or sad. 

Semiotics will help me when I am making my documentary because I will understand why I am making a certain edit, or using a specific type of music, and what effect it will have on my audience. 

Production Diary

July - Bea and I came up with the idea for our short film, two sisters who had run away from home living on the streets. Our short film would simply be an event in their lives, we kept it simple. We wanted the eldest of the sisters (Sophie) to go to the local shop and buy something with the coppers they had got from begging. In the shop she would come across a mother and her son buying loads of food and paying with large notes, the audience would see her reaction to this and hopefully they would sympathise with her. Over the top of these shots the youngest of the two sisters (Lilly) would act as a narrator, describing how much she loves her sister and all she has done for her, but with-holding their true circumstances until they join up at the end, with (Sophie) bringing her some food.

We wanted the audience to feel shocked and saddened by what the sisters had gone through but to feel enlightened by the love they had for each other.

We planned to film in the summer holidays...

But due to lack of organisation we failed to do so.

September - After the summer holiday our thoughts had wondered and we were no longer so set on our original plot.

Instead we came up with the idea of 'Don't Get Me Started' a documentary in which we would approach strangers in Camden, London and ask them to follow on form this. Before we filmed our intuition led us to create a back up plan - just in case our original idea did not work out. 

This was the question 'If you could be anything in the world what would you be and why?'

We thought that this would be a strong back up plan because its a positive question, people may not be as willing to rant about their negative opinions for fear that someone will oppose them or that they may offend someone. By having a more open question that allows people to answer either in a calculated way or a silly way more people should be willing to take part. 

We filmed in October.
We began by setting up our tripod and camera facing a brick wall that we wanted people to stand in front of and give their answers. However after realising that people were reluctant to take part we opted for plan B. Our planning and experience came in handy as if we had not planned for something like this to happen, we would have been completely lost. 
Instead we perseveered and found that our plan B was actually much more feesable to carry out than our plan A. Instead of making our filming subject to one place, we became mobile, and did not use the tripod as much which allowed us to approach people quickly and without hassle, as Camden is a very busy place on a Saturday.  

11:00am: Meet in Camden and begin filming establishing shots.

12:00pm: Finish filming establishing shots, begin to look for a place to set up our camera and tripod.

12:15pm: Found a place to set up, begin looking for people to ask our question to.

3pm: Finish interviewing people. Begin filming more establishing shots.

3:30pm: Finish filming final establishing shots. Begin putting equipment away.

3:40pm: End of filming.

The footage we brought back was very rich in content, at first. 
Cutting the material together was very difficult as we came to the conclusion that we did not have enough establishing shots for what we wanted to achieve, to fix this situation we went out to Camden again to catch more establishing shots on:
This session was a lot shorter than the last one as we knew exactly what we wanted to film and were much more familiar with the area, we had captured all the material we needed within an hour.

Back in the editing room, we found it very hard to piece together the shots because we had never done anything in the genre of a documentary before. However by referring to our research we managed to use other short documentaries and look at their structure, hoping to create a similar end result for our doc. 

It has taken us several months to sucessfully finish editing our episode of the documentary series because there was so much to improve on. 
I have learnt from this journey that documentaries are incredibly hard to piece together because we had no storyboard to use for structure and no script. Instead we learnt the shots inside out so that we could place them in the perfect order. 
Our audience research helped us massively with this process as well, asking them what we should improve on (developed in the posts on the draft versions of 'The Big Question').

Institutional Research

I am perfoming Institutional Research so that I can identify which platforms are ideal for the broadcasting of my documentary 'The Big Question'.

BBC 3

In 2015, the BBC pledged to become an 'open platform' for creativity. 

This gaurantee asures us, as film makers, that the BBC is a perfect place for us to work with to present our documentary series. The ariticle includes the BBC's director general, Tony Hall who states that the company is an "open BBC for the internet age." Our plan is to release 'The Big Question' solely on an online platform so it is easy to access for millions of viewers. The BBC already has an online channel, BBC 3, which has already been used by independant film makers such as Ben Brown. This is evidence for how relevant BBC 3 is at the moment, allowing for a large viewing audience. The BBC plans to open itself up to the culture presented all accross Britain, I believe our documentary series is just the tip of this iceberg. 

The opening up of iPlayer will allow other broadcasters to show their content, which shows a widening of the company and the eagerness to accept all media from anybody. It also states that there will be a focus on online content, which displays a potentially perfect place for us to work with in terms of distributing our series. BBC 3 will make future production much broader in terms of content and also a much easier platform to submit media onto for a large viewing audience. It will open up the independent media industry. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34168310

Channel 4

In their statement of promises, Channel 4 uses the phrase 'foster' in terms of how it interats with budding film makers which is key for us as it assures us that Channel 4 has made a gaurantee that they will support us. Channel 4 also states taht they will work with the digital age, using differenet forms of media to boradcast their content, this will inevitably include online, which is already happening (4OD). They also say "We will use our reputation for risk and non-conformism to engage a younger generation in the values of public service broadcasting." This is directed at the same target audience as us, the young and amibitous. They also strive to be the first choice when independant film makers are looking for a platform to work with and broadcast their content with, which is very convenient for us, as this is exactly who we are. 

http://www.channel4.com/about_c4/promises_2001/promises_intro2.html

Youtube

YouTube, an incredibly currenet online platform, was launched in 2005. It is the largest place for anybody to upload a video independently for a worldwide audience to view. I view this as one of the most ideal places for us to use as a platform for our documentary series, we can use social media oursleves to advertise our series, and do this completely independently, whereas with the other companies we would work alongside them to acomplish the end goal, we could do this of our own accord, which in some ways gives us our own freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/


Researching into the different media platforms that I could potentially broadcast my documentary series on is essential to the planning of 'The Big Question' because I need to know where I am preparing my product for and the branding and style that I should prepare to incorporate with my products. 

Risk Assessment for 'The Big Question'

Working in such a variable environment such as Camden can be risky because you have to remain aware of everyone and the environment around you, and the risks that can be created as a result of this. 

Risks and how we will confront them:
Theft - Any crowded area brings the risk of theft, if our cameras were stolen we would have nothing to film on and loose a lot of money. We should remain aware of our cameras at all times, keeping them with us, as well as keeping an eye out for any suspicious behaviour. 

Traffic - left and right, don't film in the middle of the road, basically be streetwise, make sure that we're looking where we're going and not just at the camera. 

Transport Strikes - strikes could mean that we can't get to filming on the day we have planned, which would leave us with a wasted day, to avoid this we will plan in advance, checking to see if there are any planned strikes or work taking place that could impact our journey. 

Weather - if the weather is bad, rainy and cold, then it is unlikely that there will be as many people in Camden to film, and we are less likely to enjoy the experience. Therefore, checking in advance and picking a more appealing day will be better for the shooting. 

'The Big Question' draft 2

This is our second draft of 'The Big Question'. We have improved the colourgrading, sound and sequence. 

Research into the role of the Internet in the distribution and marketing of film

Arguably the rise of digital technology and internet use is having a negative effect on the distribution of independent films because it is taking over the conventional ways of publication, putting pressure on low budget independent productions who are not able to compete at this level. 

Big production companies then dominate the box office, leaving little to no room for independent films to gain screen time. This is because the big companies have the resources to publicise their productions on a larger scale than independent companies, therefore the general public demand what they are being led to want, what they see the most, and this happens to be the bigger movies because they are advertised on a larger scale. To make money cinema's need to put on movies that the audiences want to see, so independent films are pushed aside. 

The internet has expanded the audience consuming media, but at the same time it has had a negative effect on the media industry. 
Piracy was always a nuisance before the internet revolution, but now it has blown up massively with thousands of online pirate sites and illegal downloads it is even harder to manage. Game of Thrones is a massive franchise, but is the most illegally downloaded series, due to its popularity, however as a result Game of Thrones is missing out on a lot of money. 
And this is is now evident across all forms of media, including music, films and much more. 

This is an interesting article surrounding the issue:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/14/robert-levine-digital-free-ride

I have researched into the role of the internet concerning distribution and marketing of films because it is important that I understand the industry that I will release my documentary into so that I can distribute and market my final product in the best way possible. By releasing my final product online it means that I will not have to compete with the big blockbuster movies. Using the internet also means that almost anywhere in the world has access at any time to my documentary opening up my potential target audience. 

I have learnt that the media industry is constantly changing because of fast pace advances in technology. 

In the case of my documentary I feel that advances in technology have aided the production and distribution of my product because I can upload my final film online for a global audience for free. 

'The Big Question' draft 1

This is our first draft of 'The Big Question' is nowhere near what our final edit will look like, as this is not the standard we would like to be working to.
I am including this in my blog to show the journey that our documentary goes on. From the first edit to the final one. 
We have pieced all the shots together in the order we feel is best, however our documentary should be 5 minutes long and is currently at 7 minutes and 18 seconds, clearly we need to cut over two minutes of content, so our final edit will no doubt look considerably different to this one. 
We plan to not only cut down on length but also edit the sound, our establishing shots have sound that impedes on the other shots with dialogue. We plan to gradually fade the establishing shot sound in and out for a smooth transition between shots. We also have a plan to include some form of music. 
The colour grading can jump sometimes from shots in low key and high key because of the environment that we filmed in, it had variable lighting.

Puff Piece Q and A

Ideas for the Puff Piece

For the puff piece Bea will introduce the documentary by saying that she had been to see it at a film festival and that she got the chance to ask the director (me) questions. The questions that Bea asked me were customed to provide her with enthusiastic answers to make the puff piece postive and to excite those reading about 'The Big Question'. Once Bea has used the interview she will go on to talk about her opinion on the documentary and the relavtive information on how to view it.

Layout of puff piece.

Bea willstart off writing the puff piece on word because to the tools it provides her, such as spell check. Once we are happy with what Bea has written she will import it onto photoshop and also add some pictures. We need to import pictures as well otherwise the puff piece will look sparse and unappealing. 

Ideas for questions:

1. What do you love about Camden that made you decide to film there?

2. What inspired you to film this documentary?

3. Why did you decide to chose the question: 'If you could be anything in the world what would you be and why?'

4. What was one of your favourite answers and why?

Draft Poster 3

This is our thrid draft.  

This is our third draft for the promotional poster. 

Through audience research we have gathered more information to help us improve it further.

Coming soon to iii - instead of coming soon the BBC3 we have been advised to change it to iii because that is more representative of other BBC3 posters. 

Outline text - It will make it look more solid and less floaty. 

Ident smaller - the i-dent draws too much attention it should simply be there as branding and not part of the subject of the poster. 

Draft Poster 2

Second Draft Poster for 'The Big Question' 

I have used all of the feedback from my audience and my own knowledge of adverts to create this second draft. 

After conducting further audience research for our second draft we realsied we still had more work to do. This is an average poster, but we need to perfect it if we want to get a wide audience viewing. They won't be as impressed by a mediocre poster, and so are less likely to go on to watch our series. 

To improve this poster I plan on cropping some of the people, enlarging some of them and also the image of camden brige, as well as getting rid of the random spaces between the people on the poster. 
I hope that these changes will give the poster a refined look. 

Draft Poster

This is our draft poster, one of the ancillary tasks.

We chose to do the poster because according to our audience research, posters are very effective ways of grabbing attention of potential viewers. 

However, I am not satisfied with this poster, so we took feedback from our audience and concluded that we need:
Less people
More evenly spaced (its very busy at the top and very empty at the bottom)
More text to interact with those viewing the poster 

To do this I plan to take at least half of the people off the poster and enlarge the remaining people. This will make the poster look less muddled and more pleasing to the eye, this draft has so many people that those viewing it cannot concentrate on what the writing says. 

Making the remaining people larger will also sort out the spacing, as well as adding text, hopefully an even placed poster will look more professional and informative. 

A way to interact with the audience through the poster is by asking a question to involve them in the documentary too, such as "Who would you be?"

Poster Advert Plan

I will be using photoshop to create the poster, this is a software that I have no prior experience with. What I lack in experience I hope to gain in skill once I have begun using the programme. I expect that I will learn the basic tools I need to create a proffesional and appealing poster efficiently and I will be able to use this new set of skills to develop any future products.

One problem I faced in photoshop was that I could not cut people out of their backgrounds, due to the unfortunate lack of experience. This meant that when I tried lasooing the curser went everywhere, and the hard work I was putting in had no positive impact on the poster. However once I had played around with different tools I figured it was easier to cut out the desired image and erase the background. Each image that I had edited created another layer.