The media product is our documentary called ‘’The Fortune in Fortune Telling’’ what we have produce challenges our knowledge of what we know about codes and conventions of a documentary. When researching the different codes and conventions used for documentaries we analysed 6 different documentaries from different genres of fiction, crime/drugs, fame and nature. When analysing these 6 different documentaries we had to note down the certain features, Music, Narration, Camerawork, and Lighting, Mise en Scene, Type of documentary and the themes running through the documentaries. In order to do this we had to find out the different codes and conventions so we could comment on them successfully to give evidence for our analysis.
Here I have shown I have explored the related codes and conventions and how our documentary has used them well and successfully to create a successful documentary.
In our documentary we have included a voice over, which was the narrative over our documentary, giving our audience an insight of what is coming up, what will come next and briefly describing keywords throughout our documentary that needed to be explained to our target audience. When choosing a voice over we felt we needed an old lady with good pronunciation, a voice that could be matched to our stereotype of a fortune teller, so our audience can relate and get a feel of the atmosphere we intend to create during the documentary. We eventually found a middle aged women, who was happy to narrate our documentary. When recording it we did do a few takes, which sounded good, however when we put it over our documentary, we found that there was too much narration, and her narration voice was bland and monotone with no enthusiasm where needed.
We decided we need a very animated voice to narrate our documentary, and we found this was a problem because we underestimated the time it would take us to record and edit the narration. Fortunately we had a friend who does drama, and was happy to narrate our documentary, using an old, posh, animated voice giving our documentary depth and interest. The second time round recording it was successful and we then used this narration. I feel the narration sounds good but could be better if we used a middle aged women, however the fact our narration is animated and enthusiastic where needed, allows us as an audience to be interested in our documentary.
By using ‘real footage’, footage that hasn’t been tampered with, it makes what the narrator is trying to suggest to be more objective, giving visual evidence of what the narrator is suggesting so the audience are more lenient to believe that it is truthful. In our documentary, we used real footage, of magazines and Internet pages that we filmed ourselves, to suggest how the Media Is a huge influence on fortune telling.
The images to the right hand side are examples of the magazines and Internet pages they we have used in our film, that we would consider as real footage.
Throughout our filming process we also used real footage of an interview with a fortune teller, that we visited who told us a brief background about herself and Fortune telling in general. We felt by using this footage in our documentary the audience would feel what we were saying was objective and accurate. By having this interview with the fortune teller, it is similarly like having an interview with an ‘expert/professional’ and our audience would believe in what they are saying is accurate, because they are experts in what they do; in our case it would be the fortune teller knowing all about fortune telling.
Another convention of a documentary would be that filmmakers go to great lengths to convince us as an audience that everything they have shot is realistic and from real life events. In our documentary all of our footage can be seen as realistic events that happened however in one of the shots we did ask a few people to look and stop at the fortune teller booth (the sped up shot of people walking past) so our voice over could say how many people have visited, or been slightly interested in the fortune teller booth.
Here is the snapshot from our own documentary of the people walking past, where it is then edited and sped up.
Here are the snapshots from our documentary of our statistical information, where we interviewed the public other questions, however we made it look like we were interviewing them about the statistical information, however we gathered that information earlier from our Target Audience Research Questionnaire.
Here is a snapshot from the mise en scene of our documentary.
Here is the image of of 'shadow man' that we used in our documentary, and here is a snapshot of us using it in our documentary.
The narrative structure of our documentary is linear as all the events link into each other chronologically, backing up each evidence of ideas. For example we have the opening sequence which is the introduction explaining what will be happening in the documentary. Then we have the first fortune teller we visited, discussing on average how many people visit her on average, showing how popular it can be. We then explore a different fortune teller booth, showing how well advertised hers id with famous celebrities and idols, so we question is this why people visited, they are influenced by celebrities. Then we discuss the biggest involvement within the media TV shows, films and the focus on magazines, horoscopes and phone lines. Then it goes onto how people are influenced by this as especially the Internet. Interviews a young teenager who believes she has had paranormal interaction because she has gathered her knowledge from the Internet. We then explored how people can take fortune telling into their own hands and pretend to be fortune tellers, to make money. We interviewed a fortune teller from home who believes she can predict the future by reading tealeaves. This order of our documentary I feel fits in well with one another as it explores variety of different topics however they link in a give evidence off one another.
The images to the right hand side are examples of the magazines and Internet pages they we have used in our film, that we would consider as real footage.
Throughout our filming process we also used real footage of an interview with a fortune teller, that we visited who told us a brief background about herself and Fortune telling in general. We felt by using this footage in our documentary the audience would feel what we were saying was objective and accurate. By having this interview with the fortune teller, it is similarly like having an interview with an ‘expert/professional’ and our audience would believe in what they are saying is accurate, because they are experts in what they do; in our case it would be the fortune teller knowing all about fortune telling.
Another convention of a documentary would be that filmmakers go to great lengths to convince us as an audience that everything they have shot is realistic and from real life events. In our documentary all of our footage can be seen as realistic events that happened however in one of the shots we did ask a few people to look and stop at the fortune teller booth (the sped up shot of people walking past) so our voice over could say how many people have visited, or been slightly interested in the fortune teller booth.
Here is the snapshot from our own documentary of the people walking past, where it is then edited and sped up.
Here are the snapshots from our documentary of our statistical information, where we interviewed the public other questions, however we made it look like we were interviewing them about the statistical information, however we gathered that information earlier from our Target Audience Research Questionnaire.
In documentaries ‘natural sound and lighting’ is used, to make documentaries look more realistic and create intense atmosphere to set the mood of a scene. It can make things in the documentary look more emotive in some cases depending on the documentary and the audience. W A good example of using ‘natural lighting’ can be the Tea Leave interview where we dimmed the lights and added candles for the miss –en-scene. I feel that this lighting added an eery atmosphere to the interview, and made it realistic in ways it could be more related to the fortune telling theme. I also feel that the candles could make the interviewee look more wise so the audience can believe more into what she is suggesting in the interview.
Here is a snapshot from the mise en scene of our documentary.
Archive footage and still images is a main convention during documentaries. By using archive footage and main still it proves the point you are trying to suggest and give evidence to back up what your are suggesting, making it more informing and objective to our audience. In our documentary we have used archive footage by using the Britney Spears advert for the perfume ‘Radiance’ and Paranormal activity, and this is shown whilst the narration is explaining how the media has had a huge impact in making the general public , and the involvement it has with advertising the Supernatural and most importantly fortune telling, therefore explaining how much money they are making.
Here is the trailer for the Britney Spears Advert where we cut it down and only used a small section of it.
Here is a snapshot from our documentary of us using the Britney Spears Advert as Archive Footage.
Here is a snapshot of our documentary showing another part of our archive footage, paranormal activity.
We have also used still of an image of ‘The vampire diaries’ when explaining different TV shows that have published the supernatural even more. In addition we have included images of ‘Hatman/Shadowman’ to show a stereotype of how the media have perceived this Supernatural creature. By using all this archive footage and still shots, it makes our narration more reliable and objective and we can give evidence in what we are trying to suggest during the narration.
Here is the trailer for the Britney Spears Advert where we cut it down and only used a small section of it.
Here is a snapshot from our documentary of us using the Britney Spears Advert as Archive Footage.
Here is a snapshot of our documentary showing another part of our archive footage, paranormal activity.
We have also used still of an image of ‘The vampire diaries’ when explaining different TV shows that have published the supernatural even more. In addition we have included images of ‘Hatman/Shadowman’ to show a stereotype of how the media have perceived this Supernatural creature. By using all this archive footage and still shots, it makes our narration more reliable and objective and we can give evidence in what we are trying to suggest during the narration.
Here is the image of of 'shadow man' that we used in our documentary, and here is a snapshot of us using it in our documentary.
Here is an additional image we found using our secondary research, and here is us using it in our documentary.
By having interviews with experts in our documentary it helps convince our audience in what we are trying to suggest is more reliable. In our documentary like I said before, we have included an interview with a fortune teller, who reads fortune for a living. By having this interview included in our documentary it shows we have gathered information from an ‘Expert’, a fortune teller knowing the knowledge about Fortune Telling.
Graphics and titles can be used as mainly subtitles during the documentary, which can introduce the interviewee, their name and occupation. Graphics text, can also be used to label images of time date/location, which can answer any unanswered questions that the audience might be wondering throughout the documentary. In our documentary we have included subtitles, in all of our interviews of their name and occupation.
Here is a few examples of using the subtitles, introducing the interview. As you can see the text in each title is exactly the same as we wanted continuity. It stands out and is basic with an authentic look because of the ancient looking text, which helps create the atmosphere we are trying to create.
For our documentary we have also used text graphics as the Title to introduce the documentary, which has the same font as the subtitles, which is quite standard but looks ancient which can create the mood of
supernatural throughout the whole of the documentary. We have used white text which stands out against all of our backgrounds in the documentary, also shadowing around the outside is a dark shadow which can help allow the text to stand out more if not so already.
Here are both the opening titles that merge into one using a cross fade. As you can see the text stands out and creates the right atmosphere, of old ancient, rituals we wanted to create with this text. These next two images are snap shots from our documentary showing our titles
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We have also included text when showing a statistic of ‘how many people have visited a fortune teller’ which is again the same font and is used over the muted interviews with the people. We felt that we did this successfully because the audience could visually see the statistics however instead of using a black simple, plain background we used interviews to show these were some of the people we asked to gather information for the statistic, which makes the documentary more interesting.
Here is a shot from or documentary of where we have used statistics, through text.
The sound in documentaries is essential there is non diegetic and diegetic sounds. Non diegetic means the sound have been added in the editing process to add emotion depending on the type of documentary and the situation the music is used. Dieget sound is the speech, the background noise for example in interviews that is used, it naturally occurs. In our documentary we have used Non –diajectic sound as the background music. In the opening sequence we have used music called ‘’Creepy carnival music’’ we felt this music fitted perfectly with our opening sequence as it created an eery mood to our documentary, and set the documentary successfully representing the supernatural theme well. The second source of non diajectic music was the 'Haunted House ' which we felt was more upbeat and gave liveliness to our documentary. We used this music in most of the cutaways and the middle duration of our documentaries.
Our non diajectic in our documentary is also our narration involved in this which we felt was very successful, as our narration was very interesting and animated giving enthusiasm where it was needed. The narration in our documentary was used to inform and briefly describe things our audience wouldn’t of been able to with just the visual alone. The diajectic sound involved in our documentary, was the only background sound of the interviews, and the background sound of the interviews was mostly quiet as they went quite successful. One problem we had that occurred was the interview with the fortune teller lady the sound was poor, and a lot of background noise was involved so it was quite hard to figure out what she was saying however, we overcame this by altering the audio levels and spending a a lot of time editing and cutting down and cutting out the unnecessary sounds where we could. However it still is not as great as we expected but this has made us aware for next time, that the microphone is very sensitive to background noise.
Graphics and titles can be used as mainly subtitles during the documentary, which can introduce the interviewee, their name and occupation. Graphics text, can also be used to label images of time date/location, which can answer any unanswered questions that the audience might be wondering throughout the documentary. In our documentary we have included subtitles, in all of our interviews of their name and occupation.Here is a few examples of using the subtitles, introducing the interview. As you can see the text in each title is exactly the same as we wanted continuity. It stands out and is basic with an authentic look because of the ancient looking text, which helps create the atmosphere we are trying to create.
For our documentary we have also used text graphics as the Title to introduce the documentary, which has the same font as the subtitles, which is quite standard but looks ancient which can create the mood of
supernatural throughout the whole of the documentary. We have used white text which stands out against all of our backgrounds in the documentary, also shadowing around the outside is a dark shadow which can help allow the text to stand out more if not so already.
Here are both the opening titles that merge into one using a cross fade. As you can see the text stands out and creates the right atmosphere, of old ancient, rituals we wanted to create with this text. These next two images are snap shots from our documentary showing our titles
>
We have also included text when showing a statistic of ‘how many people have visited a fortune teller’ which is again the same font and is used over the muted interviews with the people. We felt that we did this successfully because the audience could visually see the statistics however instead of using a black simple, plain background we used interviews to show these were some of the people we asked to gather information for the statistic, which makes the documentary more interesting.
Here is a shot from or documentary of where we have used statistics, through text.
The sound in documentaries is essential there is non diegetic and diegetic sounds. Non diegetic means the sound have been added in the editing process to add emotion depending on the type of documentary and the situation the music is used. Dieget sound is the speech, the background noise for example in interviews that is used, it naturally occurs. In our documentary we have used Non –diajectic sound as the background music. In the opening sequence we have used music called ‘’Creepy carnival music’’ we felt this music fitted perfectly with our opening sequence as it created an eery mood to our documentary, and set the documentary successfully representing the supernatural theme well. The second source of non diajectic music was the 'Haunted House ' which we felt was more upbeat and gave liveliness to our documentary. We used this music in most of the cutaways and the middle duration of our documentaries.
Our non diajectic in our documentary is also our narration involved in this which we felt was very successful, as our narration was very interesting and animated giving enthusiasm where it was needed. The narration in our documentary was used to inform and briefly describe things our audience wouldn’t of been able to with just the visual alone. The diajectic sound involved in our documentary, was the only background sound of the interviews, and the background sound of the interviews was mostly quiet as they went quite successful. One problem we had that occurred was the interview with the fortune teller lady the sound was poor, and a lot of background noise was involved so it was quite hard to figure out what she was saying however, we overcame this by altering the audio levels and spending a a lot of time editing and cutting down and cutting out the unnecessary sounds where we could. However it still is not as great as we expected but this has made us aware for next time, that the microphone is very sensitive to background noise.
Reconstructions are generally used in most documentaries, it is used to show events that has happened in the past, or set up certain scenes to match what the narrator is discussing. You can also have small reconstructions to be used for cutaways. Reconstructions can be criticised because it draws away from the idea that it is realistic, and it can involve problems or certain stereotypes that be be introduced. In our documentary we used a small reconstruction that was used to show the tea leave interview getting a client. A small reconstruction was made mainly for cutaways again, of someone making a pot of tea, and the tea leaves being read. These cutaways are shown when she explains the procedure of tealeaves, and the step by step in how you do it.
By using hidden footage that the public is unaware about when filming it can be used as evidence when the narrator is trying to suggest a certain point. It can help back up certain suggestions and because its naturalistic footage the audience will consider it to be more accurate. In our documentary we did something similar to this, and set up the camera on the street for about half hour to an hour, where we filmed the public walking past the fortune teller booth. The point in this shot was to see how many people walked past the fortune teller booth and even acknowledged it, showing their interest. We sped this footage up and included in our documentary when the narrator is discussing how many people get their fortunes read.
Green screening is a successful way to show an interview in a documentary so you can create your own strong mise en scene. In our documentary we planned to do something similar by using a blank wall in our Supernatural experiences interview, and wanting to add in a background of an image that could relate the the Supernatural. When editing this it didn’t turn out to plan and the green screen process didn’t work because there was to much visible white colours on our interviewee’s skin and clothes which blended her into the background when we tried to edit it onto an image. We then just had to leave the interview background blank, however I do feel even though it doesn’t have a strong mise en scene, at least it doesn’t have a poor unrelated mise en scene, and there is a blank background that can be neutral in most interviews.
This is a printscreen of showing how we couldve used greenscreen however it wouldnt work whne we edited onto Premiere .
Hand held cameras can be used in documentaries to help it become more realistic as it creates a sense of filming in a natural environment and that it is not set up. They are also an advantage as they are quick and easy to film/ and set up which allows us to capture realistic footage more easily if we normally used a tripod and the time to set it up. We did not include any handheld camera work for the first section of our documentary, the section being filmed. We felt it was unnecessary for what we were suggesting and it didn’t require any handheld camera needed in places.
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