Evaluation Question 4

Q. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

With the passing of time, the development in technology has made a large impact on the lives on many. This can seen in our documentary as well :P The usage of technology nowadays is extensive which has led to the creation of many tools that create an ease for the people who take help of technology for various reasons. A lot of things that come under the 'media technologies' have been used by us during the production process of Indoors alter Outdoors.

Blog:

To start with, the first thing that I got to learn was to use a blog. I never used a blog before this media studies project. Blogs were a completely new step for me and after knowing my way through it I actually realized how much easy and helpful blogs are when it comes to restoring your information in it. The fact that something went wrong with my computer and it was brought back to normal at the cost of all the data I owned, Blogger acted as a savior at that time as the files relating the documentary were pasted on blogger already. *Phew*

Internet:However, I think internet should be the first thing that should be mentioned in my experience of developing this product. I think that more than 50% of the work that I have done could not have been possible without the use of internet. The research on documentaries, newspaper adverts, posters, radio adverts, titles etc. has all been provided by the internet to me, so the main technology I used is the internet. I will be discussing the usage of different technologies under headings of the processes, for which I made these technologies come to use.

Websites:

There are a few websites that helped me a lot throughout the creation of my portfolio. The most important ones being Blogger, Google and YouTube. 

With the help of Google I gained access to all the imperative information I needed in regard to my media text. I very conveniently tracked down different websites for the research on the genre, codes and conventions, posters, documentaries etc. All these element converged into my final product.


Then, with the help of blogger I was able to manage my files in a very organized way without any risk of them being deleted due to technical problems.



With that, YouTube aided very much while coming across different documentaries. However, in the middle of the research stage of the documentary, YouTube got banned in my country due to some reasons. This created a lot of problem for us and disrupted the entire work. So, as an alternative, I shifted to other websites such as Daily motion, Vimeo and Tv-links etc., where I luckily found some documentaries which I could carry out my analysis on. During this, we were provided with links of proxy that gave us an access to YouTube and also, the software Hotspot Shield. I had never even heard of Hotspot Shield before in my life and then I had to use it to use YouTube. These two way outs proved successful and me along with all my media studies classmates were blessed with the access of YouTube once again.


Moreover, I came across different survey websites such as 'surveymonkey.com' and 'kwiksurveys.com' where I posted the questionnaires regarding my documentary to collect views of my target audience on what they would like to see in my documentary. These were way more convenient than making a hard copy of the questionnaires and running after people to fill it. We managed to collect a large number of responses by just sitting at home with the help of this online survey website. The website itself compiled the data in statistics which further saved our time and energy. I used Facebook to gather feedback from the target audience on the documentary.








Furthermore, With the help of an online sketching website, I was able to put a sketch like effect on the newspaper advert of the documentary. As none of us was good at sketching or drawing etc. these websites became a great help to us as the idea of the main picture of the newspaper ad completely revolved around it.


And last but not the least, my and Sabaina's common Gmail account which was solely created for the purpose of sending and receiving files to each other. The entire inbox and outbox is filled with emails relating to media studies. Not only did this kept all the files in one place but gave us the assurance of having our information in a safe from getting deleted or misplaced.

Camera & Tripod:

For the shoot of the documentary we had to use a number of equipment in order to film the scenes. At first, we made use of a Digital camera to capture the scenes. Then, we decided to take shots with a DSLR camera of Nikon in order to ensure good quality footage in the documentary that would attract the audience. I did know my way around a Digital Camera but using a DSLR was something new for me because I never used a DSLR before. It was to my luck that I quickly got familiar with it and managed to take shots of different scenes both indoors and outdoors.

With that, I used a tripod and learned how to adjust the camera at the eye-level and use different functions of it to adjust different angles.




Lights:
With that, we used a studio light to create a good light ambiance inside Dawood's house. As I had no experience of using such a light before, I burned my hand when I touched it as I did not know that it would get that much hot -_- Also, to adjust the lights during Dawood's shoot we experimented with few diffusers and reflectors to have some control over the lights.



Camera Lens:
Also, I used zoom lens of the DSLR camera for the first time. I had no idea of how to fix a lens to a camera as it was completely new for me. But with the help of online websites on YouTube I did learn how to attach it on the camera but I was still reluctant to try it by myself for the first time, considering that the camera was borrowed. So, I went to a photography shop where a professional photographer taught me how to fix the lens on it and also how to capture the depth of field shot from it, how to adjust apertures and exposure levels of the camera.



Mobile phones:
Furthermore, we took some rough shots with the help of IPhone at times when our camera was placed on charging. The pictures of ourselves were captured from the IPhone and HTC mobiles both.







Editing software:

Moreover, we used different software, such as, Final Cut Pro for the editing of the documentary. Although I did not play too much part in the editing but I did use it at the time of making a rough cut of the documentary with Sabaina. I got familiar with a number of options of the software and created the rough cut with ease. I took help of the Windows Live Movie Maker to make the bloopers, raw footage and the making videos of the documentary. I already knew how to use this software so it was not much of a new experience for me. Furthermore, for the construction of the newspaper advert, I made use of Photoshop ALOT. Apart from the sketching effect on the main picture, the entire newspaper advert was developed on Photoshop by taking help of different fonts, size adjustment and effects etc. I never experimented with the different filters in Photoshop, so getting familiar with these options was new for me. The logo of our documentary was also created on Photoshop and the fonts were downloaded from an online website as we did not find a suitable font in Photoshop. I also learnt how to use inner highlights on different texts, such as, the inner glow, outer glow and gradients, to make them stand out.

Video Formatting:

I got to learn how to convert the videos into MP4 format in order to post it on Vimeo for the feedback of our target audience. The videos that were made from my HTC phone were also transformed into MP4 to make it work on Windows Live Movie Maker. I knew how to change the formats of files such as PDF and JPEG etc., but converting the videos was something I never did before.

For the making of a 5-6 minutes documentary I had to use all these tools. This shows how important technology is. I have learned a lot from this project. I experienced using tools that I had never used before and I know that the knowledge that I have acquired will help me a lot in the future projects.

Evaluation Question 3

Q. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The importance of the audience has been established till now. the feedback of the audience matter a lot to us as we finally got to know what are the perceptions of different people on the concept that we have documented after extensive planning and research. We sent out the link of the documentary to the people we thought came under the target audience age group of the documentary. To be quite honest, I was very reluctant in sending the link and was super nervous about what people would think as this documentary has become very close to me. But, to my advantage, the response we received was way more than what we expected. It completely took us by surprise. 

However, before receiving this amount of positive feedback, we were attacked with a number of negative ones that I believe were important and made very good changes to the mistakes we made in the documentary. 

When we first showed the documentary to a few people from our target audience, they highlighted a number of mistakes. First, we did not make the logo very prominent. The logo of the documentary was placed in a way that it would suddenly come and quickly get finished and the next scene started. We were asked to give a bit more duration to the logo so that the viewers would be able to grasp the title fully. Moreover, initially we placed alot of interviews with very long durations to provide more information to the viewers. However, we were told to cut back on the interviews as they were too long in duration and at one point made the documentary seem like its dragging. So, we had to cut the length of a number of interviews. Furthermore, the adience were happy with angles and the shots we used during the shoot but we were told that the documentary lacked macro-shots, and macro-shots are to some extent very important in terms of the documentary cinematography. 

Sabaina made the changes according to the feedback and created the final product. The adjustments were made in accordance to what our audience wanted and we think that the later video was better than the initial as it now looks more professional. So, as we got the feedback of a relatively small number of audience and made adjustments we then decided to distribute the link of the documentary to larger audience to get their views. This was done and the overall views we got were appreciative. People complimented us the way we have described the entire concept in the documentary. It felt really good to know that people recognized the elements we did not thought that they would give much importance to, such as, the interviews we took from random people in Malls, they liked the fact that we took the initiative and gathered the strength to go up to people and persuade them to give an interview. 

The overall response was over-whelming and after the feedbacks I believe that the hard work has paid off as we have been successful in conveying what I we wanted to our target audience effectively.

The following are pictures of the feedback. We used Facebook as the medium to take feedbacks from our target audience.

Evalution Question 2

Q. How effective is the combination of your main products and the ancillary text?

Ancillary tasks, I believe, are the next most important thing to be recognized after the final product. There is should be a very strong link between the media text and the final product. Ancillary tasks are basically the promotion mix, that is used to inform the audience about the final product and attract them towards it. Effective communication can be carried out with the help of the ancillary tasks with the audience, and we all know that how much of an importance the audience holds to every product as at the end of the day, its they for whom it is created in the first place.

The media texts we chose to be the ancillary tasks were a Radio Advert and Newspaper Advert. This choice was made with the clear advantage of reaching to a large number of audience throughout, instead of publishing it in a magazine that was only to be bought by a limited number of audience.  

We tried our best to make the three products cohesive and in accordance to each other. There are a number of ways of how we made that possible.

Radio Advert:

The first thing we did was to the research on the codes and conventions and the existing radio adverts created by different people to get an idea of how it is created and how it delivers the message to the audience. The first thing we did was to come up with a script. The script was written in a way that defined the concept of the documentary to the maximum, adding questions to create curiosity among the audience to discover what the documentary was all about and make it interesting. 

'' RADIO ADVERT SCRIPT:

(Duration: 30 seconds)

Q. Have you ever noticed the changing ‘preferences’ of today’s generation?

Q. Have ‘indoor activities’ taken their course on the young minds or the ‘outdoor activities’ paved their way through the impacts of indoor activities?''

We started the script of the radio advert with the help of two questions in which we molded the entire concept of our documentary. These two questions not only would give an idea to the listeners about the documentary but also enable them to develop a thought process regarding this transformation of the young generation, which would be a factor that would attract the audience towards it. As in the documentary, we started the narration with the help of two questions for the same reasons, and we used the same strategy in the creation of the advert. The audience will be able to relate the advert to the documentary at the beginning and would remember the elements from the advert that attracted them to further watch the documentary. 

''Discover the answers from people among you from CHANNEL 7 present INDOORS ALTERS OUTDOORS, a documentary capturing the latest priorities of the youth of today!

PREMIER ON 7^TH MAY 2013, EXCLUSIVELY ON AAG.''

The title of the documentary and the production company were again made very prominent in the documentary and also in the advert which linked the two with each other.

Moreover, the music in the radio was very dynamic. The same music was further used in the documentary at the beginning. This creates a connecting point of the two elements and the audience would recognize the documentary with the help of the music used in the radio advert.

We used the same narrator in the radio advert and the documentary. This was again an attempt to make these two cohesive and create consistency among the media texts we are delivering to the target audience. The audience could not only relate to the narration question from the documentary but also relate to narrator who informed them about the documentary in the advert and who will be guiding them throughout the entire video.

Furthermore, the voices of the interviewees have been incorporated in the radio advert, which have been extracted from the interviews we have placed in the documentary, of different people while giving their opinion on the concept of the media text. This converges the two even more and creates a very string link between them.

Newspaper Advert:
Now comes the newspaper advert. Selecting the right idea, the right tools and the right concept etc.. was a very long and enervating process, but I believe that the hard work has paid off. The newspaper advert has a number of elements which the audience can relate the documentary with and becomes effective in delivering the media text to the viewers whom it is aimed at. The following is the newspaper advert of our documentary.

The element that describes and links the most with the documentary is the main picture of the advert. The main picture was extracted from one of the scenes from the documentary. This picture depicts the concept even more as it has been taken from our final product. The main cover picture is also of the main character of the documentary who played a role of a real life example of the topic, which has developed the content of the documentary even more. These two points strengthens the bond between the documentary and the newspaper advert and I believe that it describes the concept to audience very effectively.

The logo of the documentary i.e. Indoors alter Outdoors, was written using the same font in both the documentary and the newspaper advert through which the audience could easily identify the documentary by remembering the newspaper advert. The logo of the documentary acts as a brand, which distinguishes our documentary from those of the others and gives it a personality of its own. This is basically created so that the audience could remember the whole thing with the help of a unique logo that stands out from the media text. So, the use of the same logo in both the documentary and the newspaper adverts makes the whole package very consistent and inter-relatable.

 The time, date, channel and the production house have been written in a very prominent way and have been provided with the same level of emphasis that had been placed in the radio advert as well as the documentary. Which connects the two ancillary tasks and the finl product with each other and also provides the viewers and listeners with the right amount of information about the documentary.

 Furthermore, the concept was introduced with the help of the narration in the documentary and the radio advert by asking questions about it. In this case, as there could not have been any narration, we wrote a tagline that was similar to the questions in the radio advert and the beginning of the documentary in order to provide some hint about what the documentary is based on. We did have the option of writing questions on the advert but that would have made the whole thing very messy and conflicting with the each other.

Overall, I believe that the points that I have highlighted have created a lot of synergy among the three media texts that define each other. We have tried our level best to incorporate as much similar elements in these three as we can to make them relatable and effective.

Evaluation Question 1

Q. In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Indoors alter Outdoors, there's is so much work that lies behind the creation of this logo and what it represents. To begin with, the concept behind the documentary was to identify the change in the preferences of children from outdoor activities to those of the indoor activities. This documentary was created to capture this transformation among the young generation.

When looking at the concept and the title in depth, many could refer it to the concept of Binary Opposition, by the famous theorist Levis Strautt whose theories on narrative are being studied by many students of Media Studies in particular. It consisted of the concept of opposites that people witness in many films e.g. good and bad, truth and lie, i.e. where there's bad there's always good in narratives we see. So, accordingly, we have created Indoors alter Outdoors, with great emphasis of the key terms INDOORS and OUTDOORS, comparison between the two ends of a concept, which we have tried to portray in our work.

Before working on the documentary, we did a lot of research on how a documentary is made. This research guided us towards the codes and conventions of making a documentary. It was imperative for us to study these as they are the key components with which a documentary is brought into form. The codes and conventions were studied and identified in several documentaries and posted on the blog under the headings of genres and de-construction of documentaries. Although, different in nature but in the end all these genres are basically documentaries, due to which there is a lot common among them. After the extensive research, Sabaina and I were fully equipped with the knowledge of making a documentary with the aid of the codes and conventions that were necessary for us to incorporate in our work. While watching our documentary, the viewers will witness a number of codes and conventions that we followed in the documentary.

There are a number of ways to introduce the title and production house logo in the documentary. These two play a very important part in the creation of any media text due to which it is significant in informing the viewers about these two. The title connotes the concept of any media text and the production house logo informs the viewers about the company who has invested its resources and time in bringing a product to existence. In some documentaries we get to see the title at the end before the credits list appears; this plays the role of summing up the entire video into two to three words which re-informs the audience about the story of the media product. Whereas, in others there is always an introduction clip which represents a number of clips that the viewers get to watch in further development of the media text and the narrator narrates the concept of the media text to explain the viewers about it and then the title suddenly appears. We have used this approach. With help of a montage of different pictures that connotes the story of the documentary, we told the audience to some extent about the concept and then introduced the production logo and the channel it is being aired on, followed by the logo of the documentary in three different slides to create an impact and put emphasis on each and every word on the logo of the documentary.

We started the documentary with a quote, at beginning. This could be seen in a lot of documentaries all over that display a quote at the beginning in reference to the entire concept behind the creation of a documentary. This quote was displayed infornt of a clip of a girl taking swings in a ground. These two elements contrasted with each other as the quote described the impact of one of the components that transferred children from outdoor activities to those of indoors and the background was of an outdoor activities. This scene established both the ends of the topic our documentary.

All the documentaries produced by many people create a starting in a way that leads the viewers to the main element footage of the documentary. The beginning is molded in a way that comprises of all the elements on which a documentary is based on. We have done that and the tactic we prepared to familiarize our audience with the topic was by putting a number of clips from both the key components i.e. Indoors and Outdoors, in particular, the shot of the little girl on the swing and the teenagers playing football, signifying outdoor activities and on the other end, macro-shots of people using mobile phones etc., to relate to the Indoor activities. This was backed up with the narration which was transformed into questions regarding the topic of the documentary in order to make the audience curious to know more. These clips, with the help of narration, drives the audience towards the interviews which further explains the background of the our media text.

Then come the interviews. Every documentary has interviews, which are opinions and views taken by the survey population in order to get their perceptions regarding the topic in light, considering that documentaries provide information. We took interviews from a number people who we believed came under the target audience of ours. These interviews were very helpful, indeed. We obtained a lot of information from these on the concept of our documentary. The interviews were incorporated in the documentary at the beginning. They played a role of establishing the concept of the documentary. Furthermore, we took detailed interviews of the main character Dawood and asked him of his change in preferences from outdoors to indoors and why is it that way to give more information to the audience. And wealso interviewed his parents asking them bout the activities of their time and how they take this habit of Dawood of staying indoors all doors all the time.

In accordance to the codes and conventions, there was narration in our documentary. Almost every documentary comprises of narration. Narration guides the audience throughout the entire product and provides with the necessary information on the topic in consideration. We began the narration with the help of questions that were based on the concept of the documentary. These questions were used to:

• create an impact
• establish the topic to some extent
• create curiosity among the answers and persuade them to discover the answers to the questions by watching the whole documentary

With the help of narration we have provided the audience with the information regarding the documentary and to give an introduction of different scenes e.g. the introduction of Dawood.

Furthermore, to give real life example of the concept to the target audience, we followed a kid named Dawood throughout the day. This could be seen in many documentaries in which the camera follows the people who are an example of the point they try to give information on. I believe that this makes the content even stronger than giving opinions of different people as the people who can relate themselves to a particular situation can best explain what they experience in it.

The cinematography was done in accordance to the codes and conventions. We took mid-shots of all the interviewees in order to put more emphasis on them while speaking to the audience. We took candid shots of Dawood to show the viewers what he actually does in real life. The use of macro- shots was made to put the hint of body language of the interviewees while addressing the audience in order to make it more effective.

However, we have challenged the codes and conventions at one point of the documentary. This was done at the very beginning where we have placed a montage of different pictures that comprises of elements that describe the concept of our media text. Picture montages are very rare to see and we have used this different approach to try something new and start the documentary with very strong imagery and editing to create an impact that would compel the viewers into further watching the documentary.

Indoors Alter Outdoors - Extras

This post has been created to show the extras and the behind the scsne footage of the entire documentary. It comprises of three videos:

1) My and Sabaina's footage during the shoot of our documentary and the blooper videos of the people in our documentary

2) The raw footage, which consists of the footage we shot that has not been filmed in our documentary as we found better clips than them.


The Making and the Bloopers:

http://vimeo.com/65468837


The Raw Footage:

http://vimeo.com/65337063



 

Indoors Alter Outdoor - The final product

Finally, we re done with our documentary editing. The final product has been produced and ready to go on air for the viewers to watch. Below is the link to our final product! :D

http://vimeo.com/64928558

Indoors alter Outdoors - Editing

After lot of debate, it was decided that Sabina will be doing the editing of our documentary considering that she had the software Final Cut Pro and she knew her way around it, and also that as I did the outdoor shoot myself so Sabaina took the initiative to do this part of the process. The editing process has been posted by Sabaina in her blog, here is the link to that post:


http://sabainamediablog.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/media-dairy-entry-16/

Ancillary task - The Radio Advert

Our radio advert is complete! Here is the link to Vimeo.com for the access of our completed radio advert that will be representing our documentary.

http://vimeo.com/65336781

Ancillary task - Final Newspaper Advert

The Final Newspaper Advert:

Ancillary tasks - The making of our newspaper advert.

The idea for the construction of our newspaper advert was to take a picture out of the documentary, give it a sketching effect, state the logos, Production Company and dates etc. The reason why we wanted to give it a sketchy effect was that we thought this would give a very nice and different effect to the overall poster. It would work as a tactic for ourselves to attract the audience towards it as out of the newspapers full of texts our poster would defiantly stand out. The original picture would not have looked as much interesting attractive if posted directly.

The first step was to find a good and appropriate picture out of the documentary. Sabaina and I went through the whole documentary twice and finally managed to locate a picture that we thought would suit the most. This is the screen shot of the picture which has been cropped into the final picture of the newspapers advert. 

This picture was taken from a side angle and the way Dawood is laying on the floor looked very natural and effectively showed how much he is captured into that game. The fact that he is holding a game in his hand portrays the idea of our documentary very well as it shows an indoor activity on which we have tried to give information about in our media text.

Now, the next part was to find a tool on Photoshop that would give a sketch like effect which would make the picture look catchy and interesting. However, with addition to Photoshop I searched through a lot of online websites that would put such effect in pictures. This was in case the sketches that I would get from Photoshop do not turn out to be the way I wanted them to be and so, I wanted these to act as a backup plan for me. Websites such as:

I pasted this picture on Photoshop and started to use different effects on it to come up with something good. I went to filters icon and selected the sketches icon. I came across a number of options out of which I found the 'Graphic Pen' effect most suitable. It looked like this:

However, I this picture looked very 'noisy'. It was a bit too much for what I wanted it to be. I adjusted the options but it did not turn out as I expected, and so, I took help from the online websites I saved as a back-up.

I first used an online website. I placed the picture for the sketch effect and after a minute or so I received this picture as a result. I found the same problem in this picture as well. It was distorted and loud!

Then, finally I found this website which had a lot of options dedicated to the sketching effects on the pictures. It was my luck that the option I first chose was the one that satisfied me a lot, I used the 'Realistic Pencil Effect Photo Effect' option which suited the picture a lot.

This was the final picture of the advert. Now, the next thing we had to do was to crop it put in accordance to the standard size of a newspaper advert. We found the cropped version way better than the original size as the new version placed more focus on Dawood's face and the game he was holding. Then, I placed the logo of our documentary title on the top of the page in order to make it prominent. Then I pasted the tagline of the advert right under the title, as the tagline played the part of explaining the logo of the documentary to the audience. However, the background was distorting these two, so I came up with an idea of coloring the text's background in white. I did that with the help of the eraser tool. This made these two very prominent and they looked really nice.

                                 

Then with the 'Broadway' font I wrote the 'Premiere, at and only on' at the bottom left corner of the newspaper advert as it looked really nice being near to Dawood's picture.

The date and time were written with a different font. This is because these two elements were what we wanted to put more emphasis on. The date and time stood out from other words and they were written in maroon color, this idea was taken from our logo where we have written 'alter' the word which connotes the idea of our documentary in this color, different from the other words on our logo, which automatically grabs the eye of the reader towards itself. So, this was done to make the date and time stand out and to make the components on the advert look cohesive. Also, I placed the logo and the channel name on which our documentary will be running, I added the logo in order to make it stand out and add a bit colors to the advert.

Then the production company was written in the opposite direction to the date and time with the same font but with larger font size, in order to make the production company's logo more prominent to the viewers and made the bottom page balanced on both sides. 

 And so, I was successful in completing the advert. Here is how the final advert looks like:

FINAL ADVERT