Welcome Message

Hello and welcome to my blogger page for my Research unit 3 and Factual unit 46. In my blog I will be sharing all the work I have done for this unit. All my research will come under the name 'Unit 43.2' followed by what that piece of work is. For example, all my research that comes unit 43.2 will be either: secondary research, primary research, audience research, market and production research followed by the results I got from the questionnaire I had given the general public. Other work I did earlier in the unit will come under a slightly different name. For example, my research techniques essay will come under unit 3.1 and my presentation which has been embedded to slide share is under unit 3.3.

Pre-production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

Pre-production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

Understand requirement for a specific media production

Type of production 

TV factual has specific needs as to compare to other productions; these types of programmes are created to inform, entertain and educate whatever target audience a particular factual is made for. An example of an entertaining factual would be David Attenborough - Blue Planet; as well as this being entertaining to the viewers it is also an observational documentary. This is because David Attenborough is well known for observing animals in the wild, it is also aimed at all audiences as it is appropriate to all ages. He is well known for observing different animals and the way they live, he creates these documentaries to expose to the audience what happens in the outside world. The documentary I am going to create is going to be an expository documentary; although my documentary will not be to expose wildlife, I am going to make a factual about a young boy that was attacked by a dog, Im going to film it going to be about him, his journey and when he got attacked. I am going to make this because I am going to try and make it aware to people how severe these attacks can get, and by making this will hopefully help the audience to understand the dangers of this happening to them or someone they know and expose how threatening these attacks really are.

Finance

There will be no funding needed in order to create my documentary; I am making my TV factual based on a project assignment I have been given therefore there will be no funding needed. A major part of making a TV factual piece is the process of generating funds from various sources to get it done. For example, ITV get sponsors from advertisements in order to fund their factual, but BBC on the other hand get their funding’s from a TV license. Filming a documentary for television will cost money to produce. For example some of the things that will be needed in order to make one would be: equipment. This will include microphones, lighting gear, accessories for your camera; for example for when the weather isn’t particular right or if you need different lenses, (e.g. protective rain coat, wide angle lens), travel costs, production crewe, music rights, location, etc. The paper work needed for finances whilst creating a factual programme would be check lists and budget sheets. This is to make sure that all financing is organized properly and know exactly how much money you have spent creating a TV factual piece.

Time

When making a TV factual piece, sticking to the deadline and keeping things organized are the most important things to stick too, to avoid spending more money when it is not needed. When using your funds to rent a piece of equipment for example a certain camera, you have to make sure you want to film what you need with that camera before the deadline; this saves money and gives you a bit more time to re film anything that you don’t like. It is very important to keep the people you are filming happy, and keeping this up means getting everything done on time, making sure that all paperwork is correct and professional. By getting the whole production done on time means there will be no extra costs needed to spent, and you will have made everyone in the production team happy and also you will not have to pay anything extra out.

Facilities

When filming a documentary, you have to be aware of the facilities you are using no matter what type of documentary you are creating. My documentary “Louis Story” is going to be about a young victim of a boy when he was attacked by a dog; the facilities I will be using are my house and the perimeter around it. There will be no costs or funding in the making of my documentary. Usually when productions decide to create a TV factual they will go to facility houses to get all their equipment; for example equipment might include cameras, green screens, tripods, multi cameras, lighting and microphones. As I am making my documentary based on an assignment from college I will use all my facilities from the college itself. If any equipment wasn’t available for me use I would have to wait for it on a waiting list or go to a facility house myself to then get the equipment that I need; which is what would happen when making a documentary to go on television.

Materials

For my factual piece I will use images of the victim from the Internet and also some that were taken through the whole time he was in hospital. Some of these images included him when he was in hospital after he was attacked and also graphic pictures of his wounds taken whilst in the ambulance. To find some of these images, I will not need the internet to find them, however some of the images I am going to use in my factual are from News websites where he had been in articles and how severe the attack as it was enough to make a story in every newspaper in the country. For audio materials I will use a H2 recorder, as well as the camera to get a better sound. I am going to get Louis to talk into the H2 recorder, talking about his scars and what the dog did to him. I think that by getting him to talk into a H2 recorder and showing the images on screen at the same time, I would use this as a voice over to make it more personal and dramatic. Also throughout the documentary I am just going to only use Louis voice, and my voice isn’t going to be used that much, the majority will be just Louis talking about journey throughout his experience of his time being attacked and his time in hospital and also what it was like when he got home; I think with just Louis speaking throughout the whole duration of the film; It would be much more personal and much more emotional to watch.

Personnel

From directors to producers, to Volunteers, there are many different people that make up a production team in personnel. Throughout the duration of the making of a TV factual there are a number of different people all there to do different jobs, from editing to directing, and everyone in-between. In every production team everyone is there to give a helping hand, no matter if one person is hired to one job and one job only, everybody is there for one reason, to help create a successful documentary. Depending on the length of the documentary will depend on who you need in order to make it. For example if you was to make a factual that was ten minutes long you will need less people in your production team rather than if you was to make one that was one hour long you will need a lot more people to help make the documentary a successful one to put on TV; this means hiring more people to help out with the making of the film and also ones that are sure do a good job.

Contributors

In my TV factual piece I am going to use one interviewee throughout the whole documentary. I am going to interview a victim of a dog attack, as I don’t need any extra people while filming my documentary. By doing this, I will make my film much more personal as the whole film is just about him, how he went through it and how he coped.  When keeping account of contributors in real, professional factual pieces, paperwork is needed to account how many people are actually in the film you are creating; these include actor release forms. Actor release forms have the name of the contributor, their address and a signature to certify they took part in the film. In real life situations, the producer will look for contributors with contacts numbers and email addresses to ask if they want to take part. As I am making a film for an assignment I got at college, I will need to fill out an actor release form for the victim but as Im not needing anymore people in my film, I will need contact numbers to get hold of anyone in particular.

Codes of practice and Regulations

In order to obey the codes of practice and regulations you need to follow certain rules and regulations; most of which is just basic common sense. For example, if a programme is being shown before 21:00pm, any swearing or bad language has to be blurred and censored on screen. Another example is that in order to make a good programme means everyone in the production team has to be professional. This includes everyone you talk too or interview has to act in a professional manner. In my film, in order to stay professional I will talk to the victim of the dog attack in a professional way and ask the right questions because the interviewee is a young boy, and I have to be carful what I ask with out being it being to emotional, but emotional enough to make a good film. However there are different rules and regulations in every television production and have to be followed in order to avoid the documentary being cancelled. This is so when making a factual piece, no one will get into trouble. To make sure this doesn’t happen one of the main things to worry about whilst creating a documentary is to avoid copy write. In order to this, release forms are there so you can fill them to use music that other artists have either written are sung so you can use them in your film; this is what I did to include music in my factual piece. 

Unit 27/ Terminology and Referencing

Source 1 - Audience

Haralambos and Holborn, Michael Haralambos, Martin Holborn, 2008. Haralambos and Holborn - Sociology Themes and Perspectives. 7th ed. London: Michael Haralambos.

"Audience analysis. This approach overcomes some of the audience the problems of earlier approaches by focusing on the mass media" Page 843.

Source 2 - Textual Analysis

Haralambos and Holborn, Michael Haralambos, Martin Holborn, 2008. Haralambos and Holborn - Sociology Themes and Perspectives. 7th ed. London: Michael Haralambos.

"Textual analysis. This approach involves examining the lingustic devices within the documents in order to show how texts can be influential in encouraging a particular interpretation. For example, it looks at how different words are linked together so that readers will interpret stories in a particular way." Page 842

Source 3 - Impartiality

The Guardian. 2014. Objectivity and impartiality in digital news coverage. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/jun/12/objectivity-and-impartiality-in-digital-news-coverage. [Accessed 14 June 14].

 "Are the traditional journalistic disciplines of objectivity and impartiality relevant or wanted in a digital news environment? Many practitioners and commentators argue that they are not – that editorial approaches suited to the middle of the last century, with a scarcity of bandwidth and in an age of media concentration, are now redundant in the digital age of plenty."

Source 4 -  Objectivity and Subjectivity

Angelique Caffrey. 2012. Objectivity and Subjectivity. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.explorewriting.co.uk/objectivityandsubjectivity.html. [Accessed 28 August 12].

"Neither objectivity nor subjectivity is "better". Both are useful in their own rights, but they must be used selectively. To become a more competent writer, you need to know when to leave your own opinions at the door and when they are necessary for the tone of your article or essay. Rest assured that as you grow as a writer and become more comfortable, you'll find yourself naturally gravitating toward the best one to use for the piece on which you're working."

Source 5 - Balance and Accuracy in Reporting

Library of Congress Web Archives. 2001. Accuracy In Media - For Fairness, Accuracy and Balance in News Reporting.. [ONLINE] Available at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/lcwa/mrva0017.1337/default.html. [Accessed 14 December 06].

"Non-profit, grass-roots citizens watchdog of the media promoting fairness, balance and accuracy in the news by critiquing news stories,clearing up slanted news coverage and exposing liberal media bias. Accuracy In Media, publishes the AIM Report, which exposes liberal and conservative medi biases. Accuracy In Media, distributes a weekly column about media error and distortion"

My Radio Podcast

Unit 3.1/Research Techniques Essay

In this essay I will describe and investigate the advantages and disadvantages of different research techniques and show an understanding of the nature and purposes of research. Also, to be able to present results of research in the creative media industries. There are lots of different types of research including: primary and secondary, audience, market and production research and qualitative and quantitative research. Primary research is a group of original data that researchers have to look for, for example, questionnaires, audio recordings and in depth interviews.

Primary research is often used when in an interview and is more reliable because the researcher has to look for his own information. For example an in depth interview consists of open questions, which gives the researcher a wide range of answers and information from the interviewee. Advantages of this type of primary research is that you can interview and research what and who you want and in your own time. May. T (2002) “the interviewer is freer to probe beyond the in a manner which would be appear prejudicial to the aims of standardization and comparability. Information about age, sex, occupation, type of household and so on, can be asked in a standardized format. The interviewer, who can seek both clarification about elaboration on the answers given, can then record qualitative information about the topic” This quote relates to what I said, it shows that by interviewing another person, the information given from the interviewee could be beyond your expectations.

Secondary Research is different to primary research. Where as primary research is information taken from an interviewer or a questionnaire, secondary research is already existing information. RAJAR a reliable website that shows how many listeners are listening to a radio station. It is very up to date and gets updated every week or so, which what makes it reliable information. This is a method of collecting data that has already been collected by some one else. This consists of getting information from books, magazines, journals, newspapers etc.  McQueen and Knussen (2002) states “The scope of secondary data will often exceed what the individual might achieve on their own” This is showing that secondary research is useful, quicker and easy to research, however the information you find may not be as reliable as primary research; but doing secondary research is better than doing no research at all.

Audience research is a type of research that categorizes the people the product is aimed at. ‘BARB’ shows the viewing figures of different television programmes each week. It is very useful to advertisers in terms of audiences, as it gives numerical data and advertisers can quantify the audience. They can look how many people are watching a certain a programme and where to put an advert at the right time. It is important for advertisers to get the advert in the right place at the right time. For example, an advert about a piece of furniture would be placed on TV in the mid evening schedule in between soap operas, as the whole family at this time will be watching the TV and the target audience at this time would be potentially married or single people. Haralambos and Holborn (2008) states “Audience analysis. This approach overcomes some of the problems of earlier approaches by focusing on the mass media” This quote supports what iv shown, as it proves that audience research is very useful to market researchers because without the research, market researchers will find harder to find the audience analysis.

Qualitative research is a source of non-numeric data and a text-based source of information where as quantitative research is the opposite. Quantitative research is type of numerical data. Research companies like BARB are useful to market researchers as it shows the viewing figures of specific television programmes. Different researchers use this information and put them into bar charts, graphs etc. Market researchers, may feel that quantitative research is useful and easy for them to get to get information for, as well as this, researches may think that it is a very reliable source of information. McQueen and Knussen (2002) state, “Discourse analysis is carried out using either a piece of text, transcript of spoken words, and it can be combined with other qualitative methods.” This supports what I have shown because; quantitative research may be used in different ways but can be used in other methods of research like qualitative research; it isn’t what is said, it is how it is said.

Qualitative research is a text based source of information and different to quantitative research because this type of research is non-numeric. Qualitative, is a source of primary research, so it is very reliable. Semi structured interviews are often used as a type of qualitative research in open questions. This could help in any lots of different types of interviews such as: Structured, semi structured and grouped interviews. McQueen and Knussen (2002) state, “Structural questions which invite the interviewee to explain how things happen”. The quote took from Mcqueen and Knussen supports what I have shown. This is because it shows that if the interviewer asks structured questions that have been said or written in depth, you will get relatively structured answers from the interviewee. This will be useful because, instead of getting simple answers like yes or no, an in depth answer gives you more of an idea of what the person thinks and understand a bit more about there views on that particular subject.

Production research is research that looks into all the different issues that is within making a product. For example, when making a television programme such as Made in Chelsea, you would have to look into the issues of copyright, location, facilities, financial and the set dates and times you have been given. Copy write issues could be for example, using a company in the programme like ‘McDonald’s’ or another brand without their permission. In a television programme like ‘Made in Chelsea’, or the ‘The only way is Essex’, if you get caught for copy write, the company responsible will cause many difficulties and could also affect the company’s deadline. When making a production or television programme, the importance of all the paperwork involved is extremely essential. Recces, call sheets and production schedules are important, as well as the risk assessments, the cast and crew and equipment used. If the company is caught copy writing, it could end the production due the fines they need to pay, with just a little mistake like copywriting a lot of paperwork gets involved when its not really needed. So it’s the company’s responsibility to make sure they avoid copy write.

Marketing research involves researching what the audience are interesting in. One of the most useful market research websites would be RARJAR. RAJAR surveys are used to find out how circulation figures each radio station has; this is useful for market researchers because they can see which radio station has more viewers and will help to find out which radio station the listeners prefer.

Megan Duffield

Bibliography

www.BARB.co.uk

Haralambos and Holborn. Seven edition Sociology – (2008)

May. T (2002) Social Research. Open University Press, Buckingham.

McQueen and Knussen (2002) Research Methods for Social Science, an introduction. Prentice Hall. London.

www.RAJAR.co.uk

Unit 43.2/Secondary Research

Another interesting statistic that can be gleaned from these figures occurs in the age group 0 to 9 years.  The media has consistently given maximum attention to the attacks of vicious dogs against innocent and defenceless children.  This has always struck me as an attempt to create an unnecessary panic in the populace.  I was therefore somewhat gratified when the statistics show quite clearly that dog attacks and collisions involving children in this age range have actually declined by approximately 18% over the last 10 years.

http://dangerousdogsact.com/43/dangerous-dogs-act-information/

This bar graph shows how dogs target young children rather than old. The most targeted age group is children aged 0-4. The website is reliable to trust because the website is called 'dangerousdogsact.com' and specifies in dog bites and dog attacks on young children.

Unit 43.2/Secondary Reseach/Statistics

Statistics on dog attacks.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/mar/27/dog-bites-data

Unit 43.2/Editing in Garage band

I am editing three different interviews,  I interviewed my brother, a local resident who owns a dog herself and two students from Hyde Clarendon Sixth Form College. I am very impressed with the interviews as they were quite detailed and acceptable to put into a radio podcast. I am still waiting to interview the local resident but should be done and edited by the 6th Feb.

From all my research, my interviews and the questionnaires I gave out, I feel more people agree with the fact that when dogs are vicious, its because of how the owner has brought them up, and it isn't entirely the dogs fault when it attacks someone else.

Unit 43.2/Development/Danielle's Interview

This interview was also with a friend who studies media at Hyde Clarendon, she gave some really detailed answers and so I decided to use it in my final podcast. I feel if I would of responded better I would of got more answers from the interviewee, however the questions I did ask I got really good responses for. To make this interview better I feel it should of been longer and got more information out of the person I interviewed.

Unit 43.2/Genres and Formats

My radio podcast could be a mixture of 3 different formats of a radio show. The formats that my radio show that could fit my subject are: documentary, investigative and discussion. The reason why my radio show fits an investigative format is because I am investigating whether or not people agree to have every dog licensed, and by doing this I have created three different questionnaires for three different people; one for my brother who was attacked, one for the publisher from the Manchester Evening News newspaper and also another questionnaire for the general public. My radio factual could also be created in the format of a  discussion because i will be discussing with the interviewees their views and opinions of licensing dogs. However I have decided to do my radio factual in the format of a documentary, because if I attempt to create a radio show with a mixture of different formats, It will be a lot more complicated, and I feel a documentary best fits my subject.

Unit 43.2/Secondary Research/Freesound

Here I am researching different sound beds for my final piece. I found a website called 'Free sound' and I am using this website to download my sound beds for my radio podcast. I have found a lot of different sounds that I have found for my radio documentary and I will be using it in my final podcast.

Unit 43.2/Secondary Research/News Paper Report

Article about a young girl that was attacked in November, and statistics on how many people have been attacked this year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/10432379/Should-dogs-and-small-children-live-together-The-statistics-dont-look-good.html

Unit 43.2/Editing in Garageband/Louis Interview

I interviewed my brother from home and i was impressed with the responses i got from him considering the questions i asked were quite detailed. It was difficult trying to get him to talk about what happened to him however he did speak about a little. I asked him similar questions i asked the local resident, his overall opinion of it was that, if dogs were licensed or even checked over by the police, he would feel safer walking around the streets or playing out with friends, because he wouldn't feel as scared. Louis isnt fully against dogs, however he prefers small dogs to bigger ones.

Unit 43.2/Editing in Gargeband/Courtney's interview

The final interview i did was with my friend Courtney, she owns a dog and had a personal story that she said she didn't mind talking about in the interview. The interview was approximately 3 minuets so the interview lasted a while which was good because we had a lot to talk about. Out of the four interviews i did, this was the best one, the responses i got were very detailed and i felt i did well when responding back to what she said.

From all my research, my interviews and questionnaires i give out, more people agree with the fact that when dogs are vicious, its the way the owner has brought them up, and it isn't entirely the dogs fault when it attacks someone else.

Unit 43.2/Editing in Garageband/Sophies Interview

This interview was with a friend who studies media at Hyde Clarendon, and we were practicing how to interview people and getting to know how the H2 recorder actually works. I ended up interviewing my friend and the answers she gave ended up being really detailed, so i decided to use it in my final edit. I interviewed my brother and he talked a little bit about when he was attacked however he is only 13 years old. Unexpectedly, Sophie told me she was also attacked when she was little and felt completely comfortable talking about it, although the news was shocking and horrible to hear, it was a personal story and i felt like it was a good opportunity to hear her opinion about licensing dogs. The interview was quite tricky to edit as there were other sounds in the background, however you can still hear the interview quite clear. The sound isn't quiet and it was done in a public area, but i decided that it would be better to say it was a live interview and keep the interview due to the fact that the answers that were given were really good.

I wanted to keep this interview because even though i used it as a practice, I feel the responses were really good so I decided to use it.

Unit 43.2 /Interview with my brother that was attacked.

While interviewing my brother, i interviewed him 3 times so i had a choice of which one was the best to use in my final podcast. I did this because my brother is only 13 years of age and was quite nervous talking about dog attacks in general, and also because this is only the second time he has ever been interviewed and felt like he was on a lot of pressure however, the answers I received were very detailed.
He didn't talk about what happened to him that much but he did talk about how he would feel safer if dogs were checked over by police or were licensed. It was very hard for Louis to talk about it so I diverted the questions i planned to ask him and ask him other questions to do with dog attacks in general and not just about his story. Although Louis did talk a little bit about what happened.

Unit 43.2/Audience Research

Audience research

The radio podcast that i am going to produce is about the wether or not dogs should be licensed; the evidence to back me up will be a young boy who was attacked himself and other members of the public that also agree with it. The target audience for this podcast will be ranging from 18 years upwards; due to the fact that that the subject isn't suitable for younger listeners and i feel the subject is too serious to be listen by anybody younger than 18. I also believe that if anyone younger was to listen to this podcast, they would be confused on the subject matter.

Unit 43.2/Editing in garage band/Introduction

 

 

For my introduction, I stated what the topic of this radio podcast was going to be about, who i am interviewing and a little information about who I am going to interview. The introduction is around 20 seconds long, I recorded different sections and edited it all together on garage band. I did this because i wrote a script to follow and I felt that if I did the recording all at once it would sound a little robotic, so i decided to split the recording up and edit together in garage band. I have decided to call my radio podcast 'Radio 43.2' simply because the unit we are currently doing is called 'Unit 43.2' and I took it from that.