7. Font & Style
For the title of our short documentary, we have used this particular font we sourced from
Dafont.com. We chose this as we feel it is appropriate for the nature of our documentary as it has
a casual appearance whilst also resembling the appearance of tarmac – relating to the sports in
our documentary – skating and BMXing.
This is the logo we have created for our media text production. The overall style of this reflects
the casual, fun and fast-paced action of our short documentary, whilst the font is a graffiti style
relating to the preferences of our target demographic making it suitable and appropriate for
them.
9. Genre
The genre of our short documentary “Ridin’” is alternative due to the subject matter of the
documentary, and sports such as BMXing and Skating falling into an “alternative” category.
10. Characters
We have introduced the characters who feature in our short documentary through the use of
establishing shots at the beginning, and edited freeze-frames (done in Adobe Photoshop) of
particular characters throughout the documentary.
Establishing shots such as this enable the audience to gain
knowledge straight away of who/what is appearing in the
documentary. The establishing shot captures the mise en scene
of the characters and therefore reveals that they are
BMXers/Skaters.
12. Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
Editor's Notes
We chose the title “Ridin’” for our short documentary as it is a short, casual and upbeat and appropriate title aimed at our teenage audience. The use of elision of “ridin’” also appeals to a younger audience more so, as well as the font having a masculine appearance due to our target audience being primarily male. We set our short documentary on a Skate Park. We thought this the perfect location to capture the local youth performing tricks on BMX’s, skateboards and scooters. The particular Skate park we shot our footage in also had an effective mise en scene relating to our documentary subject as it featured graffiti. We therefore found this an appropriate setting for a documentary based on such sports. With regards to our use of costumes and props in order to establish an effective mise en scene, we shot footage featuring individuals who were already in the Skate park. Therefore, our use of mise en scene is natural – featuring clothing such as branded skating apparel such as DC – relating to the nature of our documentary. This would therefore target our specific target demographic audience. Along with the obvious use of props such as Skateboards, ramps, BMX’s, scooters and all of the appropriate safety gear relating to each i.e. gloves and extreme sports helmets in order to establish our particular mise en scene.
We have used camera angles such as close-up shots throughout our documentary in order to allow the audience to focus on specific objects i.e. the bike wheels in order to allow the audience to become more involved in the action of the documentary, rather than simply observing. This is use of the typical conventions of a documentary using Steel Neale’s “Repetition and difference” theory We have also used camera angles such as profile shots in order to provide the audience with a different perspective of the action within the documentary – allowing them to see the skaters/BMXer’s from a different angle maintaining interest. We have also used zoom and extreme long shots/long shots in order to establish the character’s surroundings, whilst zooming in order to focus on the action of the individual themselves. We have also used establishing shots in order to provide the audience with an insight into where the documentary is set, and therefore inferring the theme.
We have used the editing software Adobe Premiere CS3 in order to change and improve certain aspects and shots within our documentary footage and ordering the clips in a correct order to create a conventional short documentary . We have used filters in order to improve the appearance of certain clips, as well as editing certain images from freeze-frames of characters on Adobe Photoshop to create particular effects emphasising each character.
We have featured voice overs in our documentary. Voice overs are typical conventions of documentaries, however, we have challenged these conventions (Neele’s “Repetition and difference” theory) by providing a “difference” in the form of adding effects to the voice over of our interviews such as a “luminance” effect in the post-editing of our documentary to keep the interviews visually interesting for the viewer, whilst providing the viewer with conventions that are already established in many other documentaries in order for the audience to be able to familiarise with the documentary.
The ‘story’ behind our short documentary is to provide the audience with a different perspective of youths in the present/modern day. We intended to give an account of the activities of local youths from a teenage perspective, opposed to the general, pre-conceived perspective that an older generation may have of such youths, whilst providing an element of fun and action for the target demographic of young teenagers similar to the ones featured in the short documentary. Our documentary is a fragmented narrative as it has an element of a consistent story, yet, random clips which may have not been in chronological time order are placed together. In order to set-up the story/idea behind our short documentary, we used establishing camera angle shots showing the skaters/BMXers stood on the ramps with their bikes. The surround walls, graffiti and ramps can also be seen in the first few scenes, which allows the audience to gain an insight into the theme of the documentary and the events to follow. This establishes the story to come in the documentary clearly. This is quite a fragmented set-up as the establishing shots were not necessarily the first shots we took of the skaters.
The title screen which we have featured at the beginning of our short documentary establishes the alternative genre, due to the fact that “ridin’” can easily be inferred to be relating to sport, bikes or adventure. The tarmac appearance of the font also has this effect of establishing the genre. As well as this, after the title screen is shown, a non-diegetic music track begins to play which is of an alternative/punk genre – emphasising the genre category the documentary falls into clearly. This is a use of convention within the alternative genre.
We have used image manipulation in the form of colour filters on particular clips within our short documentary. The manipulation we have used is therefore not a typical convention of documentaries, however, it suits our target demographic audience due to the message of “youth” we are trying to convey within our documentary.
This is my final outcome for the “Newspaper Advertisement” ancillary project. I have based the ancillary project on a Channel 4 newspaper advertisement of “Britain’s forgotten children”, although, I have revolved the style of my final ancillary around a BBC one newspaper advertisement as I believe that BBC one target a more niche audience in comparison to channel 4. I have therefore added the BBC one logo, as well as the date and time that it is due to be aired. I have also included the “ridin’” title that I have used on other aspects of my project in order to ensure consistency. The alternative genre of the documentary can be inferred from the newspaper advertisement due to the bold and masculine title, dark colouring and a male BMXer featured within the image. The pie charts show research we carried out before I created my ancillary products. The pie charts show that our target demographic would prefer a graffiti- style font on a newspaper advertisement or poster for a documentary, as well as stating that a heavy use of text is not important to them. Based on this, I have created my ancillary to have a graffiti and edgy style font, as well as keeping the text I have added to it limited apart from vital details of when the documentary is to be aired. Due to this, I feel it appeals to our target demographic audience directly.
