How did your research inform your products and the way they
use or challenge conventions?
Dziga Vertov used documentary story-telling as a way of
re configuring the dynamics of truthful storytelling. I was inspired by Vertov’s
use of creativity in his shots to convey his narrative, especially overlaying
shots that can be considered revolutionary of their time. My research on
Vertov’s shots in ‘Man with a movie camera’ (1929), inspired me to be creative
with my visual storytelling, thus I felt encouraged to include footage that
referenced his overlaying shots but in slightly re branded ways. I used the idea
of overlaying in a shot whereby my interviewee is sat with a projection of a
French flag over her face, and again in a shot where my other interviewee is
looking down into a broken mirror, which references a mirror shot that Vertov
used himself. In addition to the traditional documenters, I researched BBCIII documentaries
like, ‘Being British-Bangladeshi’ (2021), and ‘The Instagram effect’ (2022), as
both of these documentaries shared my target audience, and the former discussed
similar topics to my own documentary. I attained my knowledge of traditional documentary
conventions from my research of contemporary documentaries, such as ‘Blackfish’
(2013), which illustrated the conventional ways of interviewing within documentaries,
however I equally utilized my knowledge of those typical conventions to then
challenge them. I referenced Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (1925),
which demonstrated a use of montage that does not typically occur within a
chronological format of a documentary. I achieved this towards the end of my
documentary whereby I included a montage of one of my interviewees overlayed
with her interview audio, of which the shots in my montage were from different
filming dates and did not display any chronological relevance. I used the
theory of montage in my own documentary, which then defied the typical
chronological conventions of most documentaries.
How did your products represent social groups and issues?
My documentary Is based around the lesser told stories of
international students studying in England, essentially meaning that
representations were the key convention of my documentary. I use my documentary
as a way of challenging the under discussed stereotypes of international
students, in which they are classified as ‘unimportant’ and ‘abnormal’ in
regard to British culture and representing International students as outsiders
who mask their emotions in order to fit in and benefit from a superior
education in Britain. I have three main representations in my documentary: Age
(Young), nationality and gender (female). My products represent these social
groups combined, in an attempt to place an emphasis on the lack of importance
on the person, and the nation-wide focus on the limiting identities of these
young international students. My Social media minor task more represents the
young social group, as the contemporary illustrations of my interviewees on
Instagram resonates with a youthful representation, as well as my mast-head
being sans-serif along with my typography. My documentary primarily discusses
nationality, and the challenges that arise from being born from a different
nationality than your peers. I represent nationality through the discourse of
my interviewees, but equally through my visual representations and the use of
projection to convey the emphasis on national identity. Alongside representations,
my products discuss issues that accommodate young international students in the
UK, which are common among people with different national backgrounds. These
issues brand from cultural issues and language barriers to issues of racism and
prejudice, which are very prominent in the lives of international students,
however severely under-discussed. I represent these issues through my interviews
which are accompanied by multiple mid shots and close ups that resonate the
negativity surrounding the representation of international students
How do the elements of your production work together to
create a sense of branding?
My overall branding is driven by the key ideology of
nationality and the currency of important conversations being made by people
who can be considered to be in the ‘shadows’ of mainstream society. I aimed for
a brand of identity to be illustrated in all of my products, in order to achieve
that strong sense of branding. For my minor task I made choices that referenced
identity, for example in covering up the faces of my interviewees and placing
an emphasis on the importance of introducing each interviewee in regards to
their identity. My photos of people were all comprised of close ups, which
purposely positions the audience to consider the person they are looking at and
resonate with the significance of identity. I carried that message further in
my magazine minor task, whereby I took careful measures to ensure that my
magazine image reflected the same significance on identity. My magazine image
features myself, lying on a British flag with an American football helmet in my
hands. This was to reference my own nationality, and to convey they branding
throughout my minor tasks. I wanted my audience to engage with my media products,
through Blumner and Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory, as the audience will
engage with my media products as they resonate with the message. One successful
documentary marketing package was the marketing campaign for the ‘Social
Dilemma’ (2020), which engaged both traditional media formats such as magazines
and digital media formats such as social media. ‘The social dilemma’ includes Instagram in its marketing campaigns o
engage with its younger target audience, which can be considered successful as
the official Instagram page has over 90 thousand followers. Equally, the
documentary used magazines to increase their audience interaction and brand
identity, as the through utilizing both traditional and digital formats of
marketing allowed the documentary to become very successful.
How do your products engage with the audience?
My audience for this documentary was ABC1’s and 2’s with a strong
female skew, typically aged 16-34, who have common interests in politics and
social media. My primary audience would be young international students who
engage with my media product for its representation and discussion of narrative
that is relevant to their lives, through the uses and gratification theory as
proposed by Blumner and Katz. My secondary audience would be along the older
spectrum of my target audience, and engage with my documentary as a form of
educating themselves and learning about different viewpoints. This secondary
audience could be classed as ‘more mature’, as it would be comprised of people
who are interested in learning about new things that are unfamiliar to them,
and as Stuart Hall would suggest, the secondary audience would aspire to decode
the messages from my documentary as a form of educating themselves. In regards
to the young demographic of my target audience, the visual aspects of my
documentary would interest them the most, as some shots are artistic and
colorful, which attract the eyes of people, despite the possibility that
people can be easily distracted. I think that the visually colorful shots
would attract the young audience, as they have short attention spans and
require the media they consume to be instantly gratifying, which links to the
theories of Neil Postman, who argues that we are ‘amusing ourselves to death’,
suggesting that audiences are now looking for media products that prioritize
entertainment over education, which is what the younger audience could find in
my documentary.
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