Forms and conventions

Forms and conventions:

• Interview teachers (possibly kids as well)
• Different set of questions each time
• Different topic (new media in general)
• Discussing issues like behavious, creativity and learning difficulties in new media

Representation:

• Ideology - set of ideas
• Point of view/perspective
• Dominant ideas
• Residual ideas
• Emergent ideas

Look at

• Social groups
• Social ideas
• Messages + values

Setting + everything else

Children should perhaps be in a classroom, so that they are in their own environment. Teachers would be interviewed in office.

Angles:

• Mixture of close ups and medium shots
• Maybe start as a close up then zoom out once the interviewee starts talking

Music:

Possible idea of having music at the intro to liven things up

Plan for poster + ideas for magazine

We need to advertise our documentary in a poster

Some ideas that have crept up are:

• Colours - possibly blue + white
• Model - have a photo of a child on laptop/reading a book/on phone/playing a game...... to promote documentary
• Font - bright colours, big, simple nothing too fancy, eye catching for target audience
• USP? example a wordle?
• Single/double sided? Double sided might be better
• Photo of child in middle/ on each side with some quotes from the kids + statement from teacher of what they thought of it

Need to think up of a slogan - something catchy nothing too boring

Magazine ideas:

• Children's magazine "Aquila" for 8-13 year olds. "fun challenge and inspiration." In this magazine Puzzles, challenges and articles help children with their thinking skills. (http://www.aquila.co.uk/)

• A magazine that is suitable for both genders
• "Creative Steps" uses the child's creative skills for 0-11 year olds. Different parts for different ages, helps them in KS2
• Keep it CBBC/Cbeebies based - listings are featured online and in the magazines (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/about/whatson/tv/)
• CBBC - listings are shown online but not in the magazines. It only shows what is coming up the next day and also what was shown the previous day, whereas Cbeebies shows what's coming up all week. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/whatson/?tab=whatson) Also shows what's on in morning and afternoon/early evening
• Cbeebies - too young of an audience so basing it on CBBC instead
• Doesn't have to be broadcasted on CBBC, can be on BBC1/BBC2
• Magazine called "Envy" gives listings of CBBC

Layout of article

• 2 page spread
• quotes

To be included

Ilearn is a new documentary series about how young learners are using new media in a positive way. Most media coverage of childrens relationship with media suggested that it's either dangerous or a waste of time.

Panaramas recent investigation (12th dec 2010) suggested games were addictive and not targeting kids.

Ilearn will explore childrens interaction with new media and its benefits. Most parents have limited idea what's going on in a childrens classroom, why would they be better informed about media in a classroom?

Are new media just extentions of traditional eductaion tools? Do they help kids to be creative, to develop relationships, to learn how to behave appropriatly? We will be hearing from kids themselves of what they make of their media world and how it helps them to help themselves grow.

Each part will be based on something different, ie creativity/ relationships/improved behaviour and it will be shown every Thursday at 5pm. We are trying to get people in to the idea, especially parents, that new media can be a good way forward.

What we're trying to do is to make parents less concerned about what their child is doing on the computer and make it so that new media is seen as a positive thing

Introduction

This is going to be a documentary about new media, called ilearn and how it is represented in primary and seondary schools.
We will investigate the roll it plays in their lives and as part of their learning. It would be part of a series focussing on different topics like behaviour, creativity, relationships, emotional development and different levels of ability. We could put it on Teachers TV, but we want to attract children so we're looking for a broader platform so that the children would want to watch it.

Audience/documentary Research

We have decided to make our documentary viewable to kids and teachers. We have thought up of questions to ask them both, so that we can get teachers and kids' opinions on this. It's going to be based on education and things in general.

For the questions for pir audience research, we have decided that our target audience are the children as that is who the documentary is trying to get at.

Questions for audience (kids):

• Do you tthink a documentary about new media (in general + education) is a good idea?



• Do you think 5/5:30 is a suitable time for it to be shown?



• Would you want to watch it?



• Would it be eductaional enough?



• What would you like to see in the documentary?



• Do you think your parents would want to watch it?

Questions for audience (adults):

• Would anyone be interested in watching it?

Parents and children would more likely watch it, teenagers/older generation less likely

• Do you think parents would watch it?

Yes, definitly

• Have you seen anything like this before that you thought was good?

No

• If it was shown at about 5, do you think that's a good time?

Yes, gives the children time to come back from college

• Do you think anything else should be included?

More info on the smartboards

Questions to be included in documentary

Questions for teachers:

• How do you introduce new media to the children?



• What media do you use?



• Do you have any problems with it, what works well?



• What's your favourite media to use? Why?



• How do you use media to deal with behaviour?



• How do you use media to deal with learning difficulties eg. dyslexia?

Questions for kids:

Do you use media everyday if so what kind?

Most of them answered computer

Do you use new media at school and at home?

Both

What do you like about it?

Playing on games

What don't you like about it?

Freezes sometimes

When did you start using new media?

Reception, age 4


We also found out that the children would have a go at playing a variety of educational games based on a subject if they were being advertised by their teacher/on tv. There was a game they were all quite interested in called Club Penguin. It was made public October 24th 2005 and is for 6-14 yrs. Players create their own penguin avatars and then start playing games in the created visual world. It was developed by New Horizon and in August 2007 was purchased by the Walt Disney Company.


Aleks Krotoski explores the ways in what technology can give us and the increase of blogs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2010/03/100311_virtual_revolution_how_and_when.shtml

Idea

Misbehaviour on primary school children (education). Go to different schools to interview teachers/ students with a set of questions, take photos where posssible.

"Amazing Stephen" makes learning fun in his shows by using magic as a tool to teach the kids. http://www.magicmystery.co.uk/schoolshows.htm

Strengths and weaknesses of different modes

Expository

This is the opposite of observation, as it relies on the narrater to tell the story. The strength of this is that you have someone to explain it to you, so there's no trying to work it out with just visuals to help you. The bad thing about it, is that it can become boring if we just rely on the voice over.

Observational

This can be good although a bit unusual for a documentary, as you can only know what's going on by what you see. It can be good as it makes you think more about what's going on rather than having someone explain it to you word by word. But the weaknesses are it can take a bit long and sometimes if it's narrated, you can understand it more.

Participatory

You can interact with the character (like seven days) which is good as you get a sence of knowing them personally, however you need to know whats going on with the story line and also need to commit to keeping in contact.

Different Types Of Documentary

There are many kinds of documentary, for example:

• Listen To Britain - Observational
• London Can Take It - Expository
• Camouflage - Reflexive
• Man On Wire - Elements on Reflexive
• Seven Days - Interactive/Reflexive

The Five Modes Of Documentary Typical Conventions

The Five Modes Of Documentary Typical Conventions

View more presentations from Catford High School.

Man On Wire


Man On Wire is a contempory documentary and is about this man Phillipe Petit, who became a ledgendary tight rope walker. Below, is the trailer of the film.

We were told to research the channel 4 documentary called "Seven Days" where we have to choose a character and write comments on their pages suggesting what they should do next. I chose Susanne, whose 27 yr old son is still living with her.

Producer of Seven Days: Stephen Lambert

Here is the link of Tim Dowling's review of seven days: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/sep/23/seven-days-tv-review

"Old fashioned docusoap" - 5th paragraph sentence 3.

We can see chararcters react to audience feedback.

Someone called justrestingmyeyes: http://www.hecklerspray.com/tv-review-seven-days-channel-4-wednesday-22-september-10pm/201051191.php

He/she thinks this documentary is really bad and puts negative comments, but backs it up by making it entertaining for the readers.

Negative publicity about Seven Days: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1318865/Big-Brother-style-Channel-4-reality-Seven-Days-sees-ratings-halve-just-650-000.html

So, why was Seven Days a flop?

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/05/seven-days-channel-4


• http://artofconversation.typepad.com/art_of_conversation/2010/10/seven-days.html


• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/the-painful-reality-no-one-is-watching-seven-days-2100992.html


• http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/drama/tv-news/news/channel-4s-seven-days-welcome-to-a-new-reality/10330


• http://www.beehivecity.com/television/channel-4-seven-days-notting-hill-soapopera40987/

This new documentary only managed to survive 8 weeks on our screens. The first episode got roughly 1.7 million viewers, but after that the numbers started to plummet down hence the show being cancelled. The producer Stephen Lambert blames marketing for failing the show , as it made people believe it was going to be some kind of sequel to the reality show Big Brother, however when it was dicovered it had nothing to do with that they didn't bother watching it. Also people who liked interactive shows didn't bother to watch it as they didn't know that was what it was.

Lambert realised that the location of the documentary Notting Hill, was a complete mistake as he didn't realise that people weren't in to the Notting Hill lifestyle and so they got the wrong people to watch it.

The first episode did quite well in terms of viewing figures, it got 1.2 million, however in the 2nd week it got 670,000 viewers. In the 3rd week, the show was moved from Wednesday to Tuesday, but it plummeted down to 646,200 people watching.

The documentary started on 22nd September and finished 9th November.

In what ways are "Listen To Britain" and "London Can Take It" different?

Listen To Britain:

• There's no voice over


• Wider range of locations


• Linear structure - more transitions are unexpected


• Sound collage - it's sound led as there's no commentary


• Natural ambient sound with the noise, voices and music


• Diegetic sound all the way through untill the end

London Can Take It:

• Factual footage, although some of the scenes might have been staged


• Diegetic sound all the way through apart from the commentary and music at very end


• Voice over - done by Quentin Reynolds


• Images provide us with the truth which the commentary confirms


• Linear narrative/structure

This is the website for the documentary I will be following: http://sevendays.channel4.com/