Evalutation - rohini

For my practical production, I worked in a group of four to produce an informative/investigative documentary titled 'Dot Com'. ‘Dot Com’ explores the recent fascination in social networking sites such as ‘Myspace’, and presents some of the negative implications brought about by their abusive use, aiming to educate a primary target audience of teenagers on its safe use. The title immediately suggests a connection with the internet yet still creates enigma through its shortness.

When planning our production, we collectively decided to share responsibility for all tasks. However, a lack of commitment and effort from one member led to an overburden of pressure and responsibility upon the rest of the group. Individually, my contribution to the practical production was of a consistently high standard throughout all planning, filming and editing stages. The narrative structure of our documentary had been finalised prior to editing through researching various documentaries such as ‘Parents and Myspace’, enabling us to focus more time on smaller details.

Our documentary begins with a dramatic montage sequence inspired by soviet montage from Dziga Vertov’s ‘Man with a movie camera’, studied in module 2. The montage consists of well known social networking site pages and logos, anchored with a non diagetic parallel song titled ‘slash dot com’. We felt that this song was extremely appropriate as it fits perfectly with the title of our documentary helping to draw everything together and create a look of professionalism. We purposely sped up shots in order to make them correspond correctly with the fast pace and beat of the music, directly appealing to our primary target audience by representing the energy and exuberance of a teenager. Also being careful to make intertextual references to music videos appealing to our target audience through the familiarity and entertainment provided. When introducing the title of our documentary we used bold typography outlined with a white glow making it appear computer generated, appealing to the target audience by directly linking to a main interest of technology and also through creating a look of professionalism by tying in with the rest of the documentary.

When filming internet café’s from the outside we used a fly-on-the-wall style technique in a similar way to the documentary ‘Dying to be thin’, by using extreme low angle shots in order to present the internet as a powerful institution. This is emphasised further through the way in which sped up shots of people walking past help to create a ‘moral panic’ by making the café’s look very busy, thus presenting the growth of technology consumption, making the internet appear as over consumed and out of control to the audience.

We filmed the vox pops using slightly low angle shots in order to contrast they way in which the teenage respondents felt powerful and in control, talking about a situation in which they were most vulnerable. Teenagers from a range of ethnicities such as Black, White and Asian were shown, conveying liberal and anti-racist views. We paid detailed attention to mise-en-scene by purposely selecting computer backgrounds in order to present teenagers as slightly obsessive about the internet. Additionally, we selected certain footage from the voxpops in order to present teenagers as unaware of the risks of meeting strangers from the internet. This could be considered as constructed and mediated, although, as Grierson defines all documentaries are ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ and we felt that it was essential in order to educate the audience on the dangers of the internet’s inappropriate use.

We took an active role and went undercover in our documentary as did Donald Macintyre in the ‘Big Sting’. We filmed the msn conversation scene using point of view shots showing typing hands in order to make clear our cinema verite style. The constructed msn conversation scene between a male and female is accompanied with a romantic diagetic song titled ‘Dot Com’ conveying a heterosexual ideology. Although, the instrumental part of the song is parallel as it helps to build up tension and suspense, the lyrics are contrapuntal as they are ironic, creating a more sinister tone in order to highlight the possible danger to the female to the audience. We applied to key documentary conventions by filming the girl waiting in Ealing using a hidden camera, appealing to our audience by creating a look of authenticity and realism. A high angle was used with the girl in a central position in order to present her as vulnerable to the audience. Numerous cross fades were added to the scene in order to signify the passing of time to the audience. We challenged stereotypes by using an Asian girl in this scene in order to show that teenagers of all ethnicities are susceptible to this type of danger.

Again, In order to comply with key documentary conventions we included a real life story using a victim. When filming we made sure that we considered ethical issues and so withheld the identity of the female as opposed to Michael Moore’s sometimes over intrusive techniques in ‘Bowling for Columbine’. As opposed to just using a shadow on the wall we darkened the room and filmed the female so that the audience sees something 3D instead. This is effective as it is far more emotive as the audience can make out the person, creating positive values by encouraging the audience to sympathise and identify with the girl. We used a female here in order to appeal to our primary target audience of females as well as conform to stereotypes. Instead of just having the scene run through, we decided to add close-up cuts of the victims face in order to be more visually pleasing as well as to show more emotion helping to show the dangers and consequences to the target audience through a sense of shock. Although the real life story seemed slightly long we decided not to shorten it by a great amount as this would reduce its important emotional appeal to the target audience.

We also included an interview with a representative (Sarah Bickers) from a well known charity called CEOP. Safety values are conveyed to the audience when Sarah Bickers is giving internet safety tips to the audience. The tips given are shot with Sarah Bickers looking directly into the camera in order to create a personal relationship with the audience by addressing them directly. A medium shot is also used here as opposed to a close-up shot in order to create a comfortable relationship with the audience rather than an invading and claustrophobic atmosphere. The tips were shown on screen as they were said in a typing effect in order to appeal to our audience by providing entertainment as well as educating them in a subtle yet effective way. Additionally, various cutaways were included in the interview in order to keep the primary target audience by making it seem more visually pleasing. One of our main weaknesses in the Interview was that our technical proficiency suffered as a result of external microphone interference which we were unable to rectify. We decided to keep the parts of the interview with the disturbance as they were vital to its structure.

We conformed to the Todorovian narrative structure in order to create narrative pleasures for our audience by fulfilling their expectations. The beginning our documentary with the voxpops acts as an equilibrium. The disruption occurs as the words “jus link em sometimes” creates a sound bridge to the newspaper article montage which presents the extreme negative consequences of meeting strangers online in a shocking way. Various other disruptions such as the Ealing construction scene are shown until a new equilibrium is created through the CEOP interview which provides support and information to both our primary and secondary target audiences.

‘Dot Com’ will be broadcast on BBC 1 as it follows key public service requirements of effectively entertaining, educating and informing both its primary and secondary audiences. We have also chosen to air the documentary at a peak time of 8 o’ clock in order to acquire a mass audience.

Overall, ‘Dot Com’ maintains a look of documentary professionalism through a clear and coherent narrative structure, using key documentary conventions such as interviews and voxpops. Additionally, positive ideologies to educate, inform and to create sympathy are enforced throughout the documentary.

ROHINI

last progress report - Kunal

welll..... ITS ALL DONE!!! about time our production is all finished.. took a long timee.. a loooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg time, but now its finally finished and i think that it ended up being a good experience and i think we produced an excellent documentary which should get us the grade we want. I think that it turned out how we planned and we did not exactly change our whole idea so the whole thing worked out pretty good!!

Kunal

Evaluation - Kunal

For my practical production, I worked in a group of 4 in order to produce a documentary which we titled “Dot com”. It is a documentary which explores how the internet has become much more popular than how it used to be in terms of the usage of social networking websites such as Hi5, Bebo, MySpace etc. As you can see by reading the title of the documentary it can clearly be acknowledged that our documentary has something to do with the world wide web, this therefore relates to our primary target audience of teenage girls because most of their time is spent on the internet and therefore alerts our target audience that this documentary tackles certain issues in relation to the ever growing internet and persuades them to watch it.

Whilst we were planning our practical production, we had decided that we are not going to give each other specific responsibilities because we believe that all of the members of the group should be involved in each part of the production because if we all work together there is more of a chance for a successful production. However, this was hard to do due to the fact that the amount of input put in by each group member depended on who was available at the time and the clashes in availability leaded to disproportionate input from the members in the group. On the other hand, whilst we were editing, we did not have a lot of major problems in deciding certain aspects of our documentary such as the structure. This is because we had already explored and analysed a great number of other documentaries and therefore had a good idea of what we were looking to do. I think that my role in the group remained consistent as I tried very hard to meet up and edit whenever I was free and had no extra work to do after school.

Our documentary opens with a fast-paced montage sequence which consists of a number of different shots showing a great number of websites showing logos of social networking sites, along with the profiles of different students, implying how decoratively the profiles have been created in order to attract others to view the profiles. This has been done in order to show the popularity of these social networking sites amongst teenagers and to show how much time and effort is spent in creating these profiles therefore implying how much time is spent on the internet by the target audience. Furthermore, shots of internet café’s have been used from the inside and outside. We have shown shots of the internet cafes from the inside in order to illustrate how much of a high demand there is for the internet and how much it has grown that it is now being sold in the shops to use. We have used non-digetic sound playing over the opening montage sequence; we have used a song called Slash Dot Com by Fatboy Slim as it is a fast paced instrumental and so it would immediately attract the audience and capture their attention. If we used a slow song to begin our documentary, this would not grab the audiences attention as it would sound boring, therefore we have used an upbeat rhythm in our opening montage sequence. Towards the end of our montage sequence, the sound slowly decreases as the voiceover begins explaining how our lives have been taken over by the internet.

We have used a number of different shots throughout our documentary in order to maintain a high standard and to make it look authentic. For example, we have used a silhouette shot during our interview with a victim. Due to this, you can not see the face of the victim who is being interviewed therefore enhancing the authenticity of our documentary as we are respecting the privacy of the victim. These types of shots are often used in documentaries in order to hide the person from the public possibly due to fear or ethical issues.

In our documentary, we have used non-digetic sound over an msn conversation between two people to prove a point, similar to how Michael Moore uses non-digetic sound when wanting to create a point in Bowling for Columbine which we studied in Module 2. The point we are trying to prove is how easy it is for a paedophile to capture the victim into its trap and end up meeting them. Whilst the conversation is taking place, we have the beginning of Usher’s song called dotcom, the lyrics to this song has a lot in common with the thoughts of a man and therefore fits in perfectly with the footage it is played with as the lyrics implicate what a man would sexually want to do with a woman. This song also is used as it appeals to our target audience as a lot of teenage girls listen to Usher’s music and can therefore relate to it.

Whilst we were editing our interview with CEOP, we outlined tips for our target audience on how to stay away from paedophiles, these tips created a problem during editing as we could not decide on a suitable colour and font, we ended up choosing a typewriting font and the colour we settled for was black. This colour was chosen as we wanted a strong and bold colour which is seen as serious as we are tackling a sensitive issue. If we chose a colour such as pink, it may not be taken as seriously by our target audience of teenage girls as they may find it too colourful and therefore could also make our documentary look cheap.

Towards the end of our documentary, we film the girl who goes to meet the paedophile in Ealing town centre, in this scene, although the paedophile does not show up, he is seen as the Proppian villain, this is because we all know what the intentions of a paedophile is and therefore the target audience automatically decide for the girl to be the ‘good guy’ and the paedophile to be the ‘bad guy’, as Propp states.

In conclusion, I think that Dot Com has met its aim to inform, educate and persuade our target audience of young teenagers of the kinds of people on the internet as it uses a number of different documentary conventions which aid the success of this documentary.

KUNAL

Evaluation - SONIA

I worked in a group of four to produce a short investigative documentary called ‘Dotcom’. As the enigmatic title suggests ‘Dotcom’ is about the internet and focuses on the dangers of using social networking sites such as ‘Hi5’ and ‘My space’ therefore the title itself appeals to and grabs the attention of our teenage target audience.

At the start, we had decided that every responsibility will be shared within the group so that everyone’s talents can be combined. However, it later became evident that most of the work was being done by me and another member of the group and one person in our group hardly put any input to the ideas, filming and editing. Even so, I had contributed fully to the ideas, logging, filming, acting and editing. Although we faced many problems while editing, I believe that was our biggest strength as we were able to fully explore Adobe Premiere Pro to give our documentary a professional look and make our ideas explicable.

The documentary begins with a montage similar to the ones in ‘Man with a moving camera’ made up of quick shots of internet sites including ‘Hi5’, ‘My space’, ‘Bebo’ and ‘Pictari’ corresponding to the parallel song ‘Slash dot dash’. As the documentary begins with a fast pace, an MTV look is created hence instantly appealing to our target audience of teenage boys and girls aged. The fact that the shots are all ‘Hi5’ or ‘My space’ pages of teenagers presents the stereotype that they are the people who mostly use these sites therefore successfully conveys our message that teenagers are most vulnerable to paedophilia on the internet. Also, as well as the shots of internet pages, the typography contributes to the purpose of the opening which is to introduce the fact that our documentary is about the internet. This is because the word ‘Dotcom’ is shown in white against a black background and has a white glow around it, making it seem like the glow a computer screen creates. Similar to ‘Dying to be thin’, the sped up low angle fly-on-the-wall shots of Internet Cafes gives the internet a glorified look as it represents the fact that many people use it and it has become a big part of people’s lives.

When filming the vox pops, we selected backgrounds with computers in them in order to show teenagers as being computer mad. We also broke these scenes up with shots of students wearing uniform with the school in the background to imply that teenagers are most vulnerable to online sexual abuse. This also allows our audience to identify with them. Additionally, we shot the vox pops at slightly low angle shots in order to present them as thinking they are superior when most vulnerable.

As defined by Grierson, documentaries are “a creative treatment of actuality” and are always mediated. Therefore, in order to be conventional we selected the parts of the vox pops that portray the idea that teenagers are always using social networking sites and that they are not aware of the dangers of meeting strangers. Although this response is constructed, our audience can relate to them as they may think the same way, consequently at this point they feel secure. However, in order to create a turning point to the narrative, we have edited the last person’s response to make it echo as the repetition of “just link ‘em sometimes” creates a sound bridge to the next scene which shows a series of newspaper articles illustrating stories of teenage victims of online sexual abuse. The fact that the words echo creates a bigger impact as it represents the consequence of this attitude (paedophilia-as shown by the newspaper articles) as occurring very often. Also, as the articles appear, the non diegetic music becomes tenser stressing the seriousness of the matter and highlighting the turn in the narrative where the audience will be shown the opposite of their idea of these sites being safe.

We decided to have an active role in the documentary as did Michael Moore in his investigative documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine’ in order to prove our point to the audience. We placed a non diegetic love song ‘Dotcom’ by Usher on the MSN conversation (construction scene) in order to convey heterosexual ideology and make it appeal to the audience. Although this song is parallel in the sense that it creates tension and corresponds to the speed of the images, it can also be seen as being contrapuntal. This is because the lyrics create irony as they all have a double meaning where it sounds like it is about computers but has a deeper and dirtier meaning in each line, hence fitting perfectly with our concept. Also as the conversation continues and we arrange to meet up with the teenager, the song gets faster. This firstly creates even more tension but also illustrates how quickly and hastily teenagers are willing to give in to people they do not know and meet them, hence reinforcing the message we are portraying. We also used cinema verite by constructing the scene and making this evident through point of view shots.

Subsequently, the teenager is seen to be waiting in Ealing. We placed the main character in the centre of the shot in order to make the audience focus fully on her and this technique also made her look more isolated thus reinforcing the danger. Also, we shot this at a low angle and added a few cross dissolves to show time passing and make her look even more vulnerable. By having an asian girl act this scene, we are challenging the stereotype by showing that even an asian girl can innocently go to meet a stranger. This again creates a bigger impact on the audience as some can identify with the girl and understand our message better.

To create a contrast to this construction scene, we showed the next scene as being a real life story of someone who has experienced sexual abuse by a paedophile online. We showed this character as a silhouette in order to show another documentary convention by protecting her identity. Also, we decided to do it as a silhouette instead of the typical shadow to represent her as being a real person hence emphasising to the audience that this is the reality. Throughout the interview, a slow non diegetic parallel instrumental can be heard in order to emphasise the gravity of the story and add emotions. Nearer to the end of the scene, the lyrics “I guess it’s time we move on now” can be heard. These reflect her emotions as they underline how badly it has affected her life and make the audience feel sympathetic towards her condition. They also hint to the audience that the next scene may be about moving on hence help introduce the interview with our expert.

As Todorov stated, every text has a narrative structure: Equilibrium­­­­­­-Disruption-New Equilibrium. We also gave our documentary a clear narrative where the introduction and vox pops remain as the equilibrium but as soon as the newspaper articles are shown, the disruption occurs as the audience is shown the dangers of meeting strangers online. The disruption continues until the end of the real story where the lyrics “…move on” move the narrative to the new equilibrium which is the interview with CEOP. This interview can be seen as the new equilibrium as it is a solution to the dangers presented previously and aims to provide help and advice to the audience. It begins with a few establishing long shots of CEOP in order to show that it is a professional place and while Sarah Bickers is giving a summary of the organisation, it is at a medium shot. This is done in order to gain our audience’s trust as they can judge by the background that they are professional in this field. During the advice, she can be seen in a close up and is looking directly at the camera in order to build a relationship with the audience and make it seem that she is talking directly to them. We also placed a lot of cutaways between the interview such as archive footage in order to keep the audience’s interest maintained. Also, to allow the audience to visualise the tips, we made them appear on the screen in a typing affect to again link with the theme of the documentary. Although the interview seemed slightly long, we decided not to cut it too much as it would have lost its importance.

In conclusion, I think we have produced an effective documentary that successfully informs, educates and entertains our audience by sticking to the typical documentary conventions and having a clear narrative structure.

SONIA