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.
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
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