Our trip to London

On Wednesday the 10th of December we decided to go to London to film for parts of our documentary. As we live close to a train station it was easy to access London. We thought this would be a good place to film as there are people from different countries, cultures and have many different styles.

As we were passing through Liverpool Street we saw a camera crew and a celebrity who has inspired us a lot throughout making this documentary. We thought this was a perfect chance to actually get him to talk on our documentary. Gok Wan was filming his programme 'How to look Good Naked', which is where Gok Wan helps women get over their low self esteem and how to love their body. We tried to have a word with Gok Wan as we thought we could reach out to our target audience if we had a Celebrity like Gok Wan. Unfortunately he is a celebrity and his body guard wouldn't let us talk to him, even when we told him about our documentary on self esteem. Although we did manage to get footage of Gok Wan filming but could not carry on filming as we were told to turn it off by a member of the film crew.

After filming in Liverpool street our next stop was oxford street. We decided to film in London for the Miss-en-scene. Although it was kind of staged as we knew where we wanted to film there was spontaneity as we didn't know who was walking past, what they were going to where and most of all seeing Gok Wan. Also as London is the capital of fashion therefore there is variation of dress sense, and many shops for the target audience to relate to as they are well known and they shop in them.

In addition we planned to ask the public questions on the spot as it would be spontaneous and great footage for our documentary. Unfortunately we did not have the equipment at our school so we are planning to do the public questions at Enfield Town at a later date. This will then be added into our documentary as last minute filming.

Written by Chloe Kidd and Chloe Wall, Filmed by Chloe Kidd and Chloe Wall

notes:

This is the group working on uploading and editing the footage for our documentary.

At this point we were uploading footage of an interview with one of the teachers from school.

One of the troubles we had with filming is that the people we were filming for a documentary would go off topic into random tangents. The result of this is that there is plethora editing to get the segments of the interview relevant to our documentary.

Also with in the picture we can see Chloe wall browsing the website audio.lgfl here we were looking for uncopywrited music we could use in our documentary. 

Interviews

When planning for these interviews we had to be very careful with certain elements such as the Hawthorne effect as we did not want to convey interviewer bias. Therefore our outcome would not have been accurate and give a true representation of topic.

Interview one:

Conducted by Chloe Kidd and Chloe Wall.

The first interview conducted was with our schools art teacher who wishes for a level of amenity. The focus of this documentary was body confidence from an older woman's view. Also due to w

orking within a school envi

ronment in a creative department could give us a detailed and rounded view.

Questions asked:

- What do you think is the mai

n reason of low self-esteem?

- Do you think the media is to blame for women's low self-esteem?

- What do you think when you look in the mirror?

- What's your opinion on airbrushing?

- What celebrity do you think low sets a good role model for young women and why?

- Of what age do you think low self-es

teem has more impact?

- What do you think of this?

- If you cold give someone a confidence boost how would you do so?

We understand that there is a plethora of questions being asked and that we only have a five minute time slot to fill. Therefore even though the elements touched upon are relevant within the editing process we shall condense this interview do fill the criteria of the topic being discussed.

Positive:

From this interview we feel that we gained more than enough footage, even more information than was generally predicted in the first place. From this an in-depth analysis can be made in

interpret or begin to the focus of this documentary.

Negatives:

When conducting this interview we did not detect the light rays coming through the blinds.

This was only when we uploaded the footage we realised that the lighting wasn't as successful as we hoped. As we are only using a couple shots from this interview we didn't feel the need to shoot it again. This could also take away originality and give the interview a staged effect.

Actor annotation:

For this interview due to the formal surrounding of a school the conductors we dressed in formal artier. This showed and conveyed us as professional to our interviewee. Therefor the topic could be taken seriously.

Interview two:

Conducted by Chloe Kidd, Chloe Wall and Chrishelle Henderson

Interviewee - Francisca McCachrtha

This interview was aimed at finding a negative correlation between the media and self-esteem. Here we touched on the emotive issue of bulimia. This is relevant to our target audience because, even though a small

proportion of the population approximately 1-2 percent of UK women suffer from bulimia and there a

re as many as eighteen new cases of bulimia nervosa per 100,000 of the population per year, it may give a voice to the amount of people who do not speak out or give a sense of belonging (you are not alone and this is how you may reach out).

Questions:

Due to this being an unstructured interview there were only a couple of questions prepared. We acknowledged that with this interview type that the interview may go off into random tangents. But decided that this was the best method for a more convectional approach to create a friendly atmosphere. This also is a better way of reaching the interviewee due to her age as teenagers are generally more conversational and open in an unstructured surroundings.

Positives:

Due to us using the mis-en-scene of the interviewees house, there was a more relaxed feel to the interview. This impacted the interviewee feeling more at ease with answering our questions and as a result of this we feel that we got a genuine view and answers.

Negatives:

With this interview we found that due to her accent and low decibel of her voice that sound may be an issue with this segment. To combat this as a group we have decided that subtitles may be used if raising the volume of the clip distorts the sound.

Actor annotation:

Our artier for this was smart casual. We had sure that our body language was open, this was to insure that the interviewee did would not feel pressured by any questions or feel that anymore was passing judgement upon her.

Interview three:

Conducted by Chloe Kidd and Chloe Wall

Interviewee - Toby Langdon

This interview was important due to the fact that it is from a males point of view. The other interviews are all from a female view point, here we could get a rounded view and see if there is any correlation or consensus concerning the topic of media and self-esteem.

Questions:

- Do you think the media is to blame for men's and women's low self-esteem?

- What do you think when you look in the mirror?

- What's your opinion on airbrushing?

- What celebrity do you think low sets a good role model for young women and why?

- Of what age do you think low self-esteem has more impact?

- What do you think of this?

- If you cold give someone a confidence boost how would you do so?

Positives:

from this interview there was a brake way from how it make you feel to why it was done. The findings were that of product and image. Essentially what's being produced affecting the was a product is sold. What they produce not what they look like.

Negatives:

With this interview however there is a plethora of footage. Some of the footage is irrelevant or the interviewee felt need to constantly elaborate on points. This is a positive quality as we get a rounded view and understanding to evaluate and analysis however presents us negatives due to the fact that footage must be condensed and a lot of it may not even be used. This creates an ethical issue with our time concerning the editing.

Interview Four:

Interviewee - Charlotte Durber

Conducted by Chrishelle Henderson

This interview focused on the issue of weight in terms of self-esteem and the media effects.

Questions:

This was again an unstructured interview with in the interviewee's home. The same positives and negatives were acknowledged for this interview type however wanted to create a convectional open interview to get the most out of the interviewee.

Positives:

Information taken from the view of a plus size person who has body issues, this is giving a voice to somebody who may or may not be acknowledged with in society.

Negatives:

This is a sensitive issue therefore some of the questions and topics had to be quickly brushed passed.

Written by Chrishelle Henderson

Barbie Research

Does Barbie influence children and can it lead to low self esteem?

Whilst researching i came across a website that had sources on Barbie influences and on what could be causing the influence.

In 1965 'slumber party Barbie' was released.Barbie came with accessories for her slumber party. The set came with Pink scales set at 110 lbs and a 'How to lose weight' booklet. Although the set came with a ken dole which had milk and cookies; sending out a totally different message.

One woman was influenced by Barbie so much so that she has had 20 plastic surgeries and ended up spending about $55,000 to reach her goal of becoming Barbie.

This picture shows a comparison an of an average women compared to Barbie if she was human.She would be very out of proportion.She would be at least 35lbs underweight.

These sources were found from:http://www.teen-beauty-tips.com/barbie-body-image.html

By Chloe Kidd

Planning and Research

Research:

Although we seemed to have a plethora of ideas for what the subject of our documentary should consist of as a group we had to do some background analysis on how we could construct our ideas into our ancillary text (our documentary). Below is a brain storm from my notes looking at different types of documentary. To understand how to construct, use or avoid certain conventions we had to evaluate how successful or un-successful they were in other products.

We looked at a few theories one of witch being the Hyperdermic needle theory. When analysis certain documentaries for example 'Supersize me', the truth that seemed to be uncovered made many of us think twice about what we were putting into our mouths. There for essentially we are taking what we have learnt or interpreted from this documentary into our lives. We saw that there was a common consensus with most documentaries looked at for example 'underage and pregnant', showed teens the reality of having children why there were still growing themselves.

Therefore due to finding this we decided that the methods and conventions of documentary that we chose would have to be carefully selected due to impact upon the target audience.

Next we were brought into the world of Michael Moore to see how he used the conventions of documentary. Here we could evaluate what would be appropriate for our target audience. (below are some of the notes that I took) Bowling for Columbine:

We found that Moore took a very spontaneous angle to his work and also was quite pro-formative. This was effective in creating audience suspense and making the target audience feeling involved with the documentary when it come to them passing judgement on what/ the views they are being exposed to.

Also we found that when conducting interviews that it was common that a mid-shot was taken to a slight angle of a persons face. (This has been noted for our documentary due to this being a successful aspect and is a common convention in many documentaries.)

Planning:

This image is a photograph showing the planning stage for our documentary and pitch.

Here as a group we brainstormed ideas such as our target audience, interviews and inspiration.

The above image shows a plan of how as a group we wish to structure the documentary.

This helped us as, once planned we had to consolidate our ideas for the docuemtary, such as content so as a group we could give a solid understanding in our pitch of what we are documenting to our target audience and how we are going to make this possible.

Below is a video showing original storyboards.

Written and video blog by Chrishelle Henderson

Does Beauty Advertising Destroy Self Esteem?

The documentary is about self-esteem and why it affects women so much, our aim is to try and understand why self-esteem has become such an issue to young girls especially.

Our documentary is a very serious matter as it affects so many young girls worldwide. We are going to explore if the media influences women’s body confidence if so how it does and why. In addition we are going to explore how the media (in particular magazines, music videos, adverts) has changed their representation of women throughout the years and why.


What type of Documentary is it?

Interactive as we will be getting involved with our documentary and being represented in our documentary. As well as observational mode when interviewing. We will be using a hand held camera to capture action as it happens.

What Documentary inspired you?

A documentary-film inspired us to do this called ‘America the beautiful’. This documentary is about how America is so obsessed with beauty. Another Documentary that inspired us was ‘How to look good naked’ which is directed by Gok Wan who has a campaign to get self confidence to be taught in schools. Also he tries to build women's self confidence throughout his programme

Is it Viable?

Making this documentary is highly feasible as we have access to a lot of the elements which we need to create this documentary. E.g.; Leicester square, Interviewees, Magazines, e.t.c. Also as we are in a school enviroment we have acsess to many age groups to see what age groups are influenced the most by how the media (magazines, billboards and advertising) and how it portrays 'beauty'.

What locations will you use?

We intend to film in our school, London Oxford Street, Leicester square, Enfield Town, Local Fitness Club, interviewees home. We will be going to London Oxford as we can see various body shapes, fashion styles and our target auidence. As well as many high street shops that we can explore.

Who will you approached for interviews?

We will be approaching various women to interview to get their opinions on media influences (magazines, billboards and advertising) and how they portray 'beauty'. As well as teachers and students. We will try to interview a head of a magazine company. We also have planned an interview with a recovered anorexic to look at the extreme sides of self esteem.

What further research will be required in order to be well informed?

In order to be well informed we will need to research the history of the media (in particular magazines, music videos, adverts). In additon we will be looking at modern advertising and how that influences young women. Also through questionnaires we will get a lot of reseach as well as researching statistics.

How will the 5 minute fit into a longer whole?

There is loads of paths we could go down. As well as many interviewees that we could interview. In addition there is history of the beauty advertisment that we could explore. We could also look into the mind set of the people who are involved with modeling or self esteem ie Dove campaign,Gok Wan or beauty padgents or plus size modeling. As it would make our documentary more personal to our audience. Lastly we could expand our target audience to younger girls to pensioners.

Who is you target audience?

Our demographic audience is teenage girls from the age of 13 to 18 aswell as women from the age of 18 to 30. This is because our demographic auidence would be quirky, ambitious and suceeder. As the suceeder would be someone who works in the beauty industry, ambitous would be somone aiming to work in or around the beauty industry and the quirky audience would be young girls who belive they are different and are inspired or influenced by how beauty is portrayed through the media. If we were to go by the theory that was created by Galtung and Ruge. Lastly we could expand our target audience to younger girls to pensioners if we were to do a longer documentary.

What channel would commission your documentary and why?

Channel 4 or BBC3 would comission our documentary as they have shown documentaries that are similar. For instance BBC3 have had documentaries like Teenage parents and Snog Marry Avoid? which have the same demographic audience as our documentary. Also other programmes like Family Guy and Russel Howard Good News which also has the same demographic audience as our documentary. In addition BBC3 show promgrammes that are controversial which our documentary could been seen as. Channel 4 would also commision our documentary as they have commisioned such documentaries as 'My beautiful Face' 'How racist are you' and 'how to look good naked'; which looks at boosting self confidence levels which is our aim for our documentary. They also have a campaign inwhich they are trying to get self confidence taught at schools. this has inspired us to meet up with students in the years below to find ourt their views and opinions on self esteem and how they are influenced with the way they look. Again this channel is highly controversial which could or could not fir into our 5 minute documentary. If we had more time on a longer whole we could make it extremely controversial.


Is there a global market for your documentary?

Of course theres a global market for our documentary, everyday in everyones lives they are bombarded with advertisment showing them how to look and dress. The media portrays this certain 'beautyiful' image that is extremely pressured onto women or many ages. We are going to look at the damage it has done to the age group closest to our own as we can relate to them, which is from 13 to 18.

Chloe Wall And Chloe Kidd

Defintions

Documentary Definition
A documentary is a programme about actual things what will effect viewers and make them think about how they can change the world.Chloe Wall
Posted by A2 Media Students at 09:24 0 comments

Documentary Definition
A documentary is spontaneous, informative information programme or film, which may present highly controversial issues to the demographic. The information presented may not always be solid truth but opinion. Lastly there may be many ambiguities where the audience must come to their own conclusions to the issue being presented.Chrishelle Henderson
Posted by A2 Media Students at 09:21 0 comments
Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Documentary definition
A documentary is a spontaneous realistic film based on anything. From which one researches to make their own conclusion.
Chloe Kidd