Recording and Editing Radio Trailer

Friday 3rd December

Today I recorded the radio trailer using a camera and a clip microphone. We have used the same person who has done the voice over for our documentary to combine the two products together. We recorded it in the radio studio at our college so that it would be in a quiet room and there would be no added noise from other students. To ensure that the microphone was working I listened to what the camera was recording by plugging headphones into it. This allowed me to realise that the first microphone we used did not work so we were able to change this before we recorded the trailer. We decided to record the trailer twice so we could choose the best bits from them and the first time we recorded it, he spoke very fast so we asked him to slow down and pause in the parts where the sound bites would be so that we could easily edit this in.

After recording the trailer, I added it to the sound bites which I had copied from the documentary and one of the music tracks, Pendulum - Watercolour, so that I could edit the best version and cut it down to fix the sound bites in and make sure that the trailer was 30 seconds long. I unlinked the video from the audio so that i could delete the video to leave us with just the sound of the radio trailer. I also made the volume louder on some parts of the audio and lowered the volume of the music so that everything could be heard clearly, especially the name of the documentary and the scheduling.

Codes and Conventions of Newspaper Advertisements

Channel 4 Newspaper Adverts


Disarming Britain

http://4creative.frankiandjonny.com/flash/#/print/press_and_poster/disarming_britain_1
This advert has used urban colours such as greys and blacks to give the show an urban feel and the fact that it is called Disarming Britain suggests that it will be violent so these simple, dark colours relate well. The Channel 4 logo has been coloured red for the advert because of the connotations that red suggests , blood, anger and violence. This makes the audience think that these will be key themes in the programme. The image includes teenagers which have been made to look like yobs, creating a stereotype in the audience's head that can be linked to the programme. The 'Teenage Yob' is wearing a golden chain which can again be linked to another stereotype at first glance of the yob or chav groups. The other male in the poster is using his fingers to create a gestural gun linking to the title, as he has been disarmed.

China's Stolen Children

http://4creative.frankiandjonny.com/flash/#/print/press_and_poster/chinas_stolen_children_48_sheet
This print advert uses an image of the Great Wall of China to display images of missing or stolen children in China. This image straight away shows the audience the great scale of the situation as the wall is huge and is shown right into the background of the image, not just a close up. The red logo and coloured box of where the title and scheduling goes is used because red is a colour which appears in the Chinese flag and it is a colour which is considered to be lucky for the Chinese. Also, the documentary is being shown on the 8th of October and the number 8 is also seen as being lucky in China. With the logo being red, it makes it stand out against the dull and gloomy colours of the image in the background so that the audience know straight away that the documentary is on Channel 4. The boxed in text also has the same effect, drawing the audience in to the title and scheduling with the logo as well and this then makes them look at the image which catches their thoughts.


Sven: The Coach, The Cash And His Lovers

http://4creative.frankiandjonny.com/flash/#/print/press_and_poster/sven_1
This image on the poster has Sven Goran Eriksson in the centre as he is the main focus for the documentary. After noticing Sven first because of the lighting on him focusing our initial attention to him, we see that other England players are surrounding him in a steamy bath. The steam can show that there will be some excitement in the documentary, as the title suggests. The More 4 logo is again on the right hand side and has stuck to its usual green colour because this stands out against the background anyway as the background is has a misty grey kind of colour to it. All of the font on the More 4 advert is in capital letters to show that it is all of the same importance and that the name and scheduling are all equal because you need to know them all to begin to watch the documentary.

Iraq: The Bloody Circus

http://4creative.frankiandjonny.com/flash/#/print/press_and_poster/iraq_week_a
The print advert for this documentary has used dark grim colours to create a sombre mood that relates to the Iraq war. These dark colours are highlighted by the two soldiers' costumes. They are dressed as clowns to link with the 'Circus' in the title which could suggest that some people think the Iraq war is a joke. One of the clowns is wearing a bright blue wig and the other is wearing a bright green wig which matches the colour of the More 4 logo, making it stand out more than anything else on the advert. In between the two clowns is one injured soldier. This represents the 'Bloody' in the title of the documentary and the serious side of it.

Codes and Conventions in Channel 4 Newspaper Advertisements
All of the adverts are branded with the channel's logo on the right hand side of the advert so it is the last thing that the audience will see before they turn the page, being the thing that they remember the most so even if they do not remember the name of the show, they will remember the channel so they can find out the name. The advert encapsulates the documentary with one exciting enigmatic image, leaving questions to be answered as well as creating questions about the documentary. The images do not give away a lot about the narrative to the programme but give one essential piece of information which can be read from the one image. All of the above analysed print adverts contain the required information that is needed for the audience to be able to watch the documentary, these are the name of the documentary, date and the time. Another advert which does not stick to these conventions is the Disarming Britain one because it has no title, date or time, only a website for the audience to visit.

Drafting Newspaper Advertisement

Ideas of Images For The Newspaper Advertisement

1) A Free Runner in the middle of doing a jump or a flip
2) An image off the edge of the wall like in the title of the documentary
3) Everyone jumping into flips at different stages for example, some of the people have just landed, some are just about to jump and some are in the air

We originally decided to create a poster using one of the images from our documentary footage from the gym where someone does a back flip off one of the vaults to link the poster with the documentary.
However, after creating this poster, it gave away too much about the documentary so we changed it to a brick wall with moody, black footprints walking across it which is less suggestive on the subject of the documentary.

Newspaper Advertisement Production

Below are the original images that we took to create our final Newspaper Advertisement using Adobe Photoshop CS5.

We took a picture of a brick wall to use as the background because it relates the the title sequence in our documentary and is a simple image that links to the urban sport.



We took a picture of the bottom of my boot so that we could cut it away to get a footprint that would walk across the wall, again linking to the urban side of the sport. The bottom of my boot is moody to show why the footprints would have been left on the wall.



This was our original poster, using an image from the documentary but we felt that it gave too much away about what the documentary is about and did not create enough enigma. We also decided to change the date of the documentary as we felt that not many new documentaries are shown at the end of a year but are more likely to be shown in the new year.


This is the final newspaper production with the title, slogan, scheduling and Channel 4 logo. The Channel 4 logo is on the right hand side because after analysing other Channel 4 adverts, we found out that this was a convention. The writing is in a white box to make it stand out against the wall and then the font we chose was Calibri as we felt it looked the most like the Channel 4 font. The date reads '20 January' instead of '20th January' because after analysing Channel 4 posters we realised they just had the number for the date.

Audience Feedback

Questionnaire For The Audience Feedback

Documentary Questions
1) Did you find the documentary interesting?
2) Did it inform you fully on Free Running?
3) Would you want to watch more of this documentary?
4) Do you think that the sport is a good way to keep fit?
5) Would you consider starting to train in this sport?

Radio Trailer Questions
1) Can you understand the narration?
2) Does the music fit with the advert?
3) Does it make you want to watch the documentary?
4) Is the scheduling clear and memorable?
5) Does the narrator's voice fit with the subject?

Newspaper Advert Questions
1) Would you know what the documentary is about from this image?
2) Does it make you want to watch the documentary?
3) Do you think that it could be improved?
4) Does it look like a typical Channel 4 poster?
5) Is the scheduling clear and memorable?

Audience Feedback Results

We asked three people to give us some feedback on our media products. We asked them all the above questions and below are their responses.





We also posted our documentary onto YouTube so that people could comment on the video, giving us their opinions on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ6B2cjC_H4&feature=player_embedded

AS Task - Codes and Conventions

I have studied many documentaries to discover what the codes and conventions of them are. Two of them are called, "The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3D On Ice" and "In The Teeth of Jaws".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orLGl7c5oHc (The Simpsons, Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Zj8R0kumw (In The Teeth of Jaws, Part 1)

After analysing these two documentaries carefully, I realised that the interviewee always speaks as though they are answering questions but no questions are heard, therefore, they must answer in full sentences. As well as this, the interviewee never looks straight into the camera but as though they are talking to the interviewer. This gives it a more relaxed focus and doesn't make it look personal but as though they are talking to a large group of people. They are also shot in either a mid-shot or a close-up but very rarely in a full or long shot. This again is to make it look more personal.
Another code and convention is the title that appears whenever anybody new speaks. This title tells us their name and why they are important to the documentary and how they are linked to the subject. For example, in The Simpsons documentary, Sting is talking about the Simpsons so a title pops up in the bottom left hand corner saying, "Sting, Musician". A cutaway to a Simpsons episode which Sting is in then appears to show how he is related to The Simpsons.






Cutaway shots are used to add interest to a documentary because if it was just talking all the way through they would be very boring. Cutaway shots also backup the points that the interviewees are saying. For example, in documentaries about films, such as a documentary that I have watched about the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times, the cutaway shots were often of the section of the film that the presenter was talking about so that even if the audience hadn't watched the film then they would still understand what the point was.

AS Task - Planning

One of the first things that we planned was our setting. We have chosen to use the Wicked Cafe at college because it has a relaxing feeling and it will appeal to the age of the target audience, teenagers, as this is a place that they can relate to, especially ones who go to our college. We then thought about who we were going to interview and the person who we have decided on is a member of our media class who we can trust will give a good interview because she knows all of the codes and conventions herself as well as understanding what we are trying to achieve as she has to do the same task.
We have also begun our story board for the documentary. We want our first shot to be of a telephone mast to establish the subject of our documentary, mobile phones. Our second idea is to have one hand staying in the same place and changing the phones in it to show all of the different types you can get, for example, a flip phone, a sliding phone, a touch screen phone and a normal button phone. This will introduce the start of the documentary and reinforce the subject of it. We have come up with an idea to fade an image of a phone saying, "1 message received from ..." into an image of the interviewee and the documentary will begin. We are unsure if this will work though so it may not happen. We will plan the cutaway shots after we have filmed the interview because they need to relate to her answers.



We have now filmed the interview for the documentary so we have planned our cutaways. Some of them will have to be pictures off the Internet because of our time frame we wont have time to get all of the images we would like. Most of the cutaways will just be general ones with people phoning others or texting rather than being specific to what she says all of the time. However, this will still relate to the documentary as they show general usage of mobile phones.