Progress shots 31.10.17

Today I filmed and added in some more cutaways. I am filming my presenter shots later today so I will add those in tomorrow. I also found out how to cut out clips from the movie.

Progress shots 30.10.17

Today I imported cutaways I filmed during the half term and put the footage in as cutaways. I also filmed a few clips during the lesson to fit with what the interviewees were saying.

Audience research: target audience profile

My target audience is mainly adults, but it may interest teenagers and young adults too. I am going to be focusing on adults (25 years old +) and their viewing habits, and how I can incorporate audience behaviour into my products. I wanted to find out more about my target audience's TV viewing habits, and found this article on statistics of TV watching in the UK. One part of this article I found interesting was this statement:
"With the emergence of catch-up TV, the concept of prime-time is changing, primarily among younger people - those aged 18-24 are almost evenly divided on when their peak viewing hour is between 7pm and 10pm (with each hour getting 27%, 25% and 29% of the vote respectively), while those aged 35-44 were more in agreement that the peak hour is 8-9pm (with 40% opting for this period)". This shows that a large portion of my target audience watching TV mainly at around 8-9pm, which is when I have chosen to broadcast my documentary. This means that I am targeting my audience through broadcasting my documentary at a time when my target audience are most likely to be watching TV anyway.

I wanted to know what generation I am targeting with my documentary, and it is most likely to be 'Generation X', possibly the 'Xennials'. This is because these generations are most likely to have children at school, and they most likely didn't grow up with technology in education in the same way children nowadays have, so they are most likely to be interested in how technology affects education.

I researched 'Generation X' and this profile came up.

This shows the typical 'Generation X' male and female. This shows that TV is important to this generation, as well as messaging online and the news. This means that my documentary would appeal to this generation as these two categories are featured in the topic, and learning more information about the topic would appeal to their interest in the news.

Generic research: theory on Media in the Online Age

Today we learnt about the Long Tail theory by Chris Anderson, and also looked at the impact of convergence on the music industry and Clay Shirky's theories. I looked at how I could apply my documentary in terms of the film industry onto a tadpole shaped graph that illustrated the Long Tail theory. The head of the tadpole signifies the mainstream, popular products, which in this case would be Hollywood blockbuster films. The further other products and institutions are down the tail of the tadpole, the more niche they are. This theory suggests that the products in the niche end of this graph are becoming more popular and more accessible due to the internet. Documentary as a genre would be further down than TV series as they are less popular, and do not appeal to a wide target audience, depending on the subject topic. My documentary and the topics being technology and schoolwork would be a little further down the tail as it is more specific than just documentaries and this has filtered out any audiences that would not watch it. However, since these topics relate to a large portion of the Earth's population, it would not be as niche as a documentary aimed at just one age bracket.

Planning: risk assessment

Risk assessment 9.10.17 from Pernille Brown

This is my risk assessment for filming my documentary. There are a few risks involved with my filming, but it has quite low risks due to filming mainly inside and in quiet areas.

Planning: progress shots 10.10.17

Today I started my risk assessment for during my filming. I have only noted two risks so far, but I plan on noting down others such as slipping or tripping while walking and presenting my documentary. I will upload this assessment to Slideshare when it is finished.

Planning: arranging interviews

I used a daily planner to arrange when I'm going to film interviews and who I'm gong to interview. I need to contact these interviewees and arrange a place and time to film.

Planning: Questions for documentary

These are the questions I have written to ask my interviewees during the interview. I have made the questions as open-ended as possible to allow the interviewee to answer as they interpret the question. I have planned to be ask two teachers the question about distraction as a con of the impact of technology on schoolwork and the pro of having a platform where teachers and students can communicate. I may ask the teachers both questions aimed at teachers and the same for students and use the best filmed and answered questions in my documentary.

Generic research: more statistics

I wanted to find more up to date statistics, so I googled how many times a day people look at their phone, and looked for articles written this year. I found this website, which states that "On average, the typical mobile phone user accesses content on their phone as many as 150 times a day".
I also wanted to find out how many young children/students owned a mobile phone, so I found this report by Ofcom that detailed media consumption of 3-15 year olds. I found these character profiles most interesting:

Around 40% of 8-11 year olds have their own smartphone, and 12-15 year olds spend almost 21 hours a week online. This document also stated that more younger children are going online compared to 2016, for example almost half of the 3-4 year old population are online. I am going to include these statistics in my documentary.

Planning: test shots

Presenter location test shots

Inside locations

Outside location

I looked at locations that I could film the presenter at various points in the documentary. I wanted to film in a school environment as the topic is on schoolwork. I looked at both inside and outside locations. The inside locations were often dark but will not have wind in the background, muffling the noise.
Locations such as beside the coloured window were good as there was adequate lighting and would be framed by the glass wall. I decided not to film in the corridor (bottom left of the inside locations) as it was very dark even with the light on and it looks bare and dull. I also decided not to film on the stairs as there is an office behind the stairs and it distracts the audience form the presenter as there is a lot going on in the background.
The outside location was good in terms of framing because of the hedge and the building, but the weather on the day may interfere with the audio of the video.

Planning: script

While I was writing the script I realised that I had planned for the conclusion but there is not one as it is only the first 5 minutes. I wrote a script for the narration to co-ordinate with the cutaways I have planned. Any cutaways I film that aren't on the storyboard can be during this time too. The narration is only rough as there may be a link between interviews that I have not planned in the narration.

Generic research: statistics on technology as a distraction

I wanted to have narration over cutaways of students being distracted so I googled to find any statistics of distraction.



This website detailed a study conducted in America in 2013, and the same study was conducted 2 years later to compare the findings. They found that in 2013 students admitted to checking their devices in class in average more than 11 times a day, and some students said that 20 percent of their time in the classroom using their devices wasn't related to their work. This figure has inevitably risen since 2013, as the proliferation of smartphones and capabilities of laptops has enabled students to be more distracted.

Planning: shot list

This is my new shot list, including cutaways. I already have a few cutaways but will need to arrange a few interviews over the next week.

Planning: Storyboard

This is my storyboard for my re-drafted documentary. I have detailed what type of shot it will be and whether the camera will be moving. I have also put down which shots are cutaways so I know which shots are going to have narration over them, and this way of organising this also helped when writing the script as I knew what cutaways would be illustrated during that time. I also wrote which shots of the storyboard corresponded with the piece of script I had written so when I come to edit this it will be slightly easier to know which order it is in.

Planning: posing a new question

After some feedback from my footage so far, I realised that my documentary was not going to reach a definitive answer for my question. It was recommended to me to change the question I am posing, with a possibility of keeping some of my footage. The picture above has a few ideas that I could change my documentary to. There are a few ideas based on technology so that I can re-use some footage I have already filmed, and a couple of ideas that I would need to start again with.
With feedback, I chose to pose the question of if technology positively impacted schoolwork. With this idea, I can use some of my existing footage and I will have footage readily available to me as I can interview teachers and students on the usage of technology and the impact on their schoolwork.