Subject Matter

As we are making a documentary which consists of specialised subject matter; I did some research into social networking sites and their dangers. I decided I wanted to answer the following questions:

Target Audience Research: Analysis

After conducting our focus groups we found out the following about our target audience of 16-18 year olds and their documentary viewing habits:

Target Audience Research: Videos

These are the videos of our two focus groups.

Target Audience Research: Questions

Today we conducted two focus groups of eight 16-19 year olds. These teenagers were both male and female. We asked them the following questions:

1. How old are you?
2. Do you watch documentaries? If so, which ones? If you don't, why? What would make you watch documentaries?

Similar Products: Part 2

3. 'Educating Essex' for Channel 4

Similar Products: Part 1

To make sure we applied the correct codes and conventions to our documentary we looked at five similar products and conducted a textual analysis of each one. These products include several different styles of documentary making. We looked at:

• 'The Truth about Drugs in Football' by Dispatches for Channel 4
• 'Small Teen Bigger World' as part of the Extraordinary Me series for BBC 3
• 'Educating Essex' for Channel 4 
• 'Gateway to Heroin' by Vanguard for Current TV
• 'Big Brother' for Channel 5
• 'Hunting the Internet Bullies' by Panorama for BBC One

Industry Research

We conducted research into the documentary industry to see who is making similar products to the one we're going to make. We also identified why they may want to help us distribute our final product once we have made it.

Styles of Documentary

There are several different styles of documentaries.

'Fly on the wall'
'Fly on the wall' documentaries observe real life situations supposedly without disturbing any of the participants. The latest 'fly on the wall' documentary is called, 'Educating Essex' and follows the teachers and students of Passmore Academy.

Modes of Documentary

As defined by documentary theorist, Bill Nichols, there are said to be six modes of documentaries. They are:

Codes, Conventions & Techniques

I researched into the codes and conventions of documentaries so I know what to include in my final product. I have also looked into the techniques used in documentary making. This is especially important when looking at how camerawork and editing is used.

Codes and Conventions:

• A voice-over. A voice-over played over the on screen images will encourage the audience to think that the narrator has superior knowledge on the subject being discussed. They can either be by the presenter of the documentary or someone else with lots of knowledge on the subject.

About Documentaries

About Documentaries on Prezi

Initial Ideas

After deciding on the brief, we briefly discussed what issue we will do our documentary on. We want to do something which we can personally relate to and something which is a current problem throughout the world. Here is the mind map we created about our initial ideas.

We have decided to look into the problems surrounding social networking further. We think this would be a good topic to consider as it will link well with the other unit we are currently doing.

Welcome to my A2 Media Studies blog!

I will be using this blog for my G324 media production portfolio. I have chosen to make a 5 minute extract from a TV documentary as I think it will challenge me more compared to the other briefs which were on offer. I also think I will find more enjoyment out of this brief as I will be trying something I haven't done before. For this project I will be working with Jasmine Robson.

I am influenced by documentaries which discuss issues within the modern world. At the end of the project I would have hoped to achieve a greater understanding of how to communicate modern issues to an audience through documentaries.