A2 Media Studies

My documentary develops and challenges many different conventions.

First of all the narrative of my documentary follows the Todorov theory; First of all there is clear conflict of interests between the owners and the fans, this is explained throughout the video but the overview of it is that the Allam’s, which are the owners tried to change the name in 2013 which turned the majority of the fans against the Allam’s. Throughout the documentary I interviewed a variety of fans and the clear message was that there is a clear hatred towards the Allam family. From Todorov’s theory there is an Antagonist and a Protagonist. In the documentary the antagonist is the Allam family; this decision was made due to the fact that most of the football community is against the methods that they take in running a football club. The protagonist in this case would be the fans; this is because they are seen as ‘right’ by the football community which includes other fan bases of other clubs. In this theory there has to be a disruption; the disruption in this narrative is the name change and all of the other new methods of owning a football club, their methods have come under scrutiny and have turned the fans completely against them. Todorov also mentions in his theory that there has to be a ‘quest’; the whole aim of this documentary, especially if it was produced on a professional level is to try and represent the fans opinions on the matter. I have tried to get a wide variety of opinions the majority have made it clear that they are against the Allams. The quest in this case is to try and spread awareness to other fans, there are a lot of football clubs that are going through a similar situation and you could argue that if this documentary was published that it would help to force the FA into taking action.

A massive convention of a documentary is the use of archive footage; the reasoning behind using this is that I wanted to use drone footage of the stadium as a way of setting the scene. This is a technique used in many different documentaries and has been used since the first the documentaries were published. Documentaries have often featured ‘real footage’ in the video, however, due to my documentary not being particularly based around that I decided to use clips of Hull City matches instead to keep the important convention in my piece. The effect which archive footage has is what makes it such an important convention; it helps to give your documentary an extra bit of credibility which is obviously important when the main purpose behind almost all documentaries is to inform the viewer, without credibility the documentary might not fill out its purpose.

The next convention is a Voiceover. The purpose of a voiceover is to guide the audience through the video, whilst also adding a bit of extra information to video. I believe that my documentary challenges this because instead of using primarily, just my voice I have also added in sections of other people talking; this includes Andy Comfort, who is a presenter on BBC Radio Humberside and Ian Wright from Match of Day. The reasoning for me choosing to do this was so the audience could listen to somebody a bit more ‘recognisable’, when I created my first draft I was the only voice which could be heard, I then decided to do my own miniature audience feedback which showed that they would have preferred to have listened to somebody a bit more ‘credible’; I then acted on this and opted to use a popular local figure in Andy Comfort and a Football legend, Ian Wright to help add a little bit of extra information to the documentary. Voiceovers help to add that little bit more credibility, which is vital for a documentary; as a result of this, the voiceover should sound authoritative in order to highlight the importance of the fact. I tried to put an emphasis on my voice when talking as it was important to make sure the viewer is listening, due to the complex nature of the situation.

When conducting my interviews I wanted to make sure the framing wasn’t repetitive, as a result of this I decided to frame each interview differently. It’s important that the framing of the documentary isn’t repetitive as you want the viewer to remain interested; therefore I have followed the conventions. Almost all documentaries have interviews included in them, the general framing of them means that the interviewer isn’t included; the reasoning behind this convention is so the viewer is fully concentrated on the interviewee; people don’t watch the documentary to see the interviewer. The media theorist Goffman has a theory on framing; he believes that framing is one of the most important factors of a video, with this in mind the faming of my interviews was set so the audience could see David Burns, but also see the area in which he works in. This in itself is a convention of not only documentaries, but interviews in general.

Lower thirds are a very important convention; they introduce the interviewee to the audience. They include the name and title of the interviewee. My use of the lower thirds doesn’t challenge the convention. For my lower third I used Hull City colours to keep a consistent colour scheme. These are important for any documentary as the audience need to know who they are, and why they’re relevant to the topic. An example of one that I used was when I first introduced David Burns; locally, he’s known well, but it’s unlikely that somebody from another area will know who he is.

I think that the way I’ve used audio follows the conventions of a documentary, in most documentaries there will be some form of diegetic music as well as the non-diegetic background music. The reasoning behind this is that the majority of the documentary will consist of archive footage and interviews. The use of non-diegetic background music allows me to control the volume of it; this was useful for me, because I wanted to keep the background music consistent throughout the documentary, whenever there no diegetic sounds, I raised the audio levels. This is used in almost every documentary; the audience expect to see background music, which is why it was important for me to use this convention. The piece would look very unprofessional without this which links back to the audience; a professional looking documentary will appear more credible which is important for every documentary.

John Grierson created one of the first ever documentaries, he suggested that it as the ‘creativity of actuality’. With this in mind it was an important convention which I had to stick with. A documentary has to be un-biased and as much as I tried to make this happen, at times the documentary may appear that way; to balance it out I tried to include some of the good moments that have happened during their time at the club, it was hard to get some un-biased interviews due to the fact that the majority of the fan base is now against the owners. The decision to interview David Burns was based on trying to give a balanced argument; he works for the BBC which means that he has to be impartial.

Media language, from my research is an important factor in creating a documentary. The first thing which I considered was the Mise En Scene; for this I had to make sure that the setting was related to Hull City, with this in mind I used the KCOM stadium as the background for a lot of my shots and vox-pops. With the David Burns interview, it was a little bit harder as for sound quality reasons I couldn’t shoot outside, however, the place in which it was shot is still related in a way; it’s shot in the recording studio in which he talks about Hull City on a programme called Sports Talk. One thing which was important for me was how the audience will interpret my Documentary, to help me with this is used Roland Barthes theory of connotations and denotations, I tried to use different technical codes in order to do this. I’ve used an amber and black colour scheme which represents the colours of the Hull City kit, by doing this the audience will connote that the documentary is about purely Hull City. Another technical code which I’ve used is lighting, by using poorly lit rooms it gives the effect of misery, which is generally the feeling of the Hull City fan base. The day in which is shot the vox-pops was a cloudy afternoon and it gave negative connotations.

In conclusion, I believe that I have kept the conventions of documentaries and not tried to challenge them, I feel like this important because without these conventions, would the piece appear credible? I don’t think that it would and as a consequence of that, I tried to stick with the key conventions.

For marketing reasons, a newspaper advert and a double page spread would be hugely important. That’s why I went into great detail in ensuring that my products worked together.

Newspaper advert

I designed the newspaper article so I could display the Allam’s at the centre of some smashed glass. I did this with Stuart Hall’s theory of encoding; he stated that when a producer constructs a text, they encode it with a message. In this case I did it so I could represent the border between the fans and the owners; there isn’t any communication between the two and I felt like this is the best way to represent it. The audience will instantly connote what the documentary is about resulting in higher views; the documentary doesn’t need to be explained on the advert as the picture should explain it enough. The colour scheme between the ancillary texts and the main product remains consistent, which should result in the audience knowing instantly what the topic of the documentary is.

I have displayed the time and the date in which the documentary will be aired, I have also displayed the channel ‘European sport’ which is a channel I created. This has an obvious effect in telling the audience when the program is on; if people don’t know when it’s on then they won’t be able to watch.

My first draft was fairly basic and I didn’t even display when the documentary was on, with this in mind I had to make changes. I made the date fairly large in comparison; this is because it’s important to catch the audience’s eye when it’s placed in a newspaper.

The colour scheme of my advert also helps in alluring the audience to the advert. The text which I used was fairly bold, combined with my colour scheme it should attract the audience to ultimately watch my documentary.

Overall my advert was designed to reach beyond the niche audience; the Hull fan base in comparison to the average football club is small. Not even the whole of the Hull City fan base will watch the documentary. I had to try and reach beyond this, by referring to it as ‘club in crisis’ people will connote that it’s about the ownership troubles. A lot of football fans, because of Hull City’s premier league status and the wide scale issues that the club has suffered this season, people will know who Hull City are. Other audiences which may become attracted to my product are fans of Blackburn, Blackpool and Charlton who have all suffered similar issues.

Double page spread

It was important for me to appeal to every football fan when writing the article, I rarely referred to the club as I wanted to reach out to all fans of football clubs. This is effective because if it was to be published it may attract a wider audience, which is obviously important.

By using a pan shot of the KCOM stadium, the audience will instantly recognize that it’s based on Hull City, especially Hull fans. Due to Hull City’s premier league status, fans of other clubs will also recognize that it’s based on Hull City. The first thing that they will look at when reading the article is the background picture as it covers the full page.

One convention of newspaper articles trying to advertise a documentary, or any piece of media is ratings, with this in mind I made two rating’s up. This would have a good effect on the reader because it will make them more likely to watch the documentary if it has good ratings.

I used a quote from a life-long fan. I did this because people who are reading the article are football fans; by displaying a quote from a fan of the club which it’s based around, it should appear to the wider audience that he is almost appealing for them to watch it and find out what’s really happening. This links back to the main purpose of the documentary, which is to raise awareness around the subject.