1. A2 Media Studies: Coursework
Evaluation
Irving Sewell

2. In what way does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

3. Documentary
The documentary was the opening five minutes of a TV
documentary it was called ‘ Cyber Bullying, The Dark Truth’ it
was about cyber bullying amongst teenagers. It was filmed in
the The sixth form College, Solihull. We also had to make a
double page spread for a TV listings magazine and a Radio
trailer for the documentary.
This was a factual documentary that was addressing a real
issue for many teenagers of today. The documentary was
about the growing problem of cyber bullying (mainly through
the growing use of social networking.)

4. Bill Nicholas documentary types
This type of documentary is This type of documentary This type of documentary has
fragmentary , they tend to use speaks directly to the viewer no narrative and has minimal
symbols. Continuity editing is and they usually propose a intervention. It can be referred
not important and they are strong argument. to as ‘observed lived life’
usually impressionistic
This type of documentary is This type of documentary This type of documentary is
a more personal approach. draws attention to the nature of fragmentary , they tend to use
The film maker gives a view documentaries and more likely symbols. Continuity editing is
and tells a story to deal with ‘realism’ not important and they are
usually impressionistic

5. Interviews
The majority of our interviews were vox pop
interviews which are used a lot in
documentaries especially ones that are on a
serious topic. This allows the view to see how
different people feel about the issue and see
their views.
We also had expert interviews that were used
to give the viewer more factual information
about the issue

6. Different types of camera shots

7. Use of facts
This give important facts to the viewer

8. Super Size Me
Super Size me is an American
documentary we looked at. It was too
do with the issue of eating fast food
and the affects it has. It was a
documentary that followed the film
maker round 24/7and showed his
journey throughout.
Like our documentary it was
addressing a serious issue and
displayed facts of the topic such as
obesity rates like our documentary This is an example of something similar in
showing the bullying facts. the two documentaries. When watching
There was a number of things in Super Size Me, our group thought the way
Supersize Me used that influenced the expert interviews were positioned and
choices on how we wanted our the names on the bottom left hand side
documentary to look. was a good way to position our own
expert interviews.

9. Comparison to real documentary
(Supersize Me)

10. TV Listings article
In comparison to a real TV listings double page spread (picture on the right). Our double page
spread seems to have many codes and conventions of real media products such as the images
used that are actually from the program, bright colours to attract readers, bold text that stands
out, the name of the programme and the colour seems to fit the topic. However when looking
at a real media product on the market our double page spread looks basic and there is a lot of
unused space on the two pages where as on a real media product both pages space are fully
used. You could say that our magazine challenges codes and conventions by having one page
that it just images what is not really common amongst many TV listing articles.

11. Radio trailer
• We made a 30 second radio trailer on BBC Radio 1. It
included voices from the documentary , the time, date and
what channel it would be broadcasted on (BBC Three). The
Radio trailer was made on Garage Band. Using the same
program we created a background instrumental for the
trailer.
• We thought BBC Three would be the ideal channel to
broadcast the documentary on because BBC is a very
popular TV channel amongst teenagers.
• The radio trailer did not really challenge any conventions of
a real media product as it was more a traditional radio
trailer with previews of the documentary and information
on when to watch it

12. Conclusion
As a conclusion I think the media products our
group created was very similar to real media
products on the market.
I think they developed and challenged forms
of real media products because they were
alike but they also had their own individual
elements to them which made them better