4 ) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

3) WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

From our audience feedback, we have learnt that people found it hard at the beginning to understand weather the mockumentary was supposed to be real or believable. They didn’t necessarily understand what was going on and they found this a little confusing. They said that the title cards helped with this, yet these title cards were hard to see as the writing was quite small.

"I liked the way it changed in the middle." - Focus Group Member

None of the focus group said they had witnessed this kind of situation themselves and they didn’t realize that it was such an issue among teenagers and they thought that this mockumentary helped them and would help other people to realize the dangers. The majority of the focus group were aged between 17 and 18 but we had one teacher, this pretty much matcyhed our target audience.

"Not very realistic but it made sense within the given genre" - Focus Group Member

Charlotte’s character reminded a lot of the focus group of an American teenager which made them feel like our mockumentary was similar to an American teen movie. The focus group didn’t say that they wanted to know what happened later on, as they didn’t feel that there was a later on.

"It was very informative." - Focus Group Member

The last question, people had a mixed feeling about. Some said that if a drug results in death then it isn’t for a good or legit reason and therefore it is just as bad as other drugs. On the whole people enjoyed our film and were impressed with it, they thought that more time would have resulted in maybe a better production but the enjoyed it. In general comments, people said that it looked like a real documentary and was very professional looking.

2) HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILlARY TEXTS?

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Our movie poster targeted teenagers. We used an independent style that appealed to the niche audience that we tried to attract. We used a de-saturated image which connoted the nostalgic and independent style we wear aiming for.  The poster revealed the main subject of our film, Ben Collins, the boy who died and the title of the movie, ‘Why did Ben Collins die?’ A name that catches your eye and summarizes what the mocumentary is all about. We made a double page spread for a magazine, featuring an interview with us, the directors, and a summary of the mocumentary. This was similar to the two art house magazines, ‘Little White Lies’ and ‘Sight and Sound’. Both magazines targeted a certain niche audience similar to the one that we wanted to attract to our mocumentary. We consciously decided not to use successful actors as we didn’t want the audience to be detracted from the films verisimilitude. Therefore the magazine article focuses more on us, the directors of the mocumentary and our motivations and reasons for the film.

1) IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS

We consciously choose not to use Voice Over’s in our Mockumentary as we felt like it would alter and influence the reading of our media text and create a passive Media audiences rather than a active one.  Therfore, instead of Voice Over, we used Title Cards to explain certain events that happened off-screen.

 Two of our Title Cards; used instead of Voice Overs to explain off-screen plot points.

Our whole project as a whole encourages a more active media reading. Our genre for example, a mockumentary, usually “mocks” a certain topic, mockumentaries aren’t meant to be taken serious mostly but ours is. That is due to us not specifically wanting to do a mockumentary. Our main ambition was to create a hybrid of two media genres. Teen Movies and Documentaries. The Mise-En Scene within our Mockumentary heavily references the general conventions of Documentaries and the way they are shot. We used Talking Heads for the individual interviews with the various characters and used subtitles to annotate the shots, revealing the characters name and their profession.

 Example of Annotations and Subtitles used in Talking Heads of our characters.

 In order for the interviews to not get visually boring, we decided to use reaction shots and noddies of the interviewer in order to make the on-screen happenings seem more alive and quick. This makes it easier for the audience not to lose interest and keep paying attention. 

Example of Reaction Shots of the Interviewer during the Interviews

  At several instances we used Handheld to create a feeling of everything happening in the moment, making our mockumentary seem more real as opposed to staged and scripted. For Example, the scene where we interview the character  “Charlotte” takes a surprising twist when she receives a text and storms out the room. The camera switches to handheld and follows her out the room for quite some time when finally, it is shut down by the angry character. This makes everything seem more real and believable. 

Example of the camera switching from tripod to handheld, chasing one of the characters.

The American documentary “American Teen” features similar technical aspects that are often present in this genre. The movie often uses a Handheld camera following the various characters. Vox Pop and Talking Heads are also a recurring technical stylistic device. 

 Example of Reaction Shots of the Interviewer during the Interviews

FEEDBACK QUESTIONAIRE SAMPLE

ANNOTATED FINAL FILM

FEEDBACK QUESTIONAIRE

1. Did you think the way the documentary was made is believable and realistic? ______________________________________________________________ 2. Have you witnessed similar situations yourself during your school time? ______________________________________________________________ 3. How old are you? ______________________________________________________________ 4. How realistic was the representation of Charlotte’s character? ______________________________________________________________ 5. Did you enjoy it? ______________________________________________________________ 6. Do you want to know what happened later on? ______________________________________________________________ 7. Did the film raise awareness on the matter of ADHD? ______________________________________________________________ 8. How far do you agree with Tom’s statement that drug abuse can be justified by a good enough reason? ______________________________________________________________