Institution Research

I have researched 3 documentary production companies below to gain a better knowladge of these institutions.

Raw TV

Raw TV is a television production company that started up in 2001 producing mainly documentary based television shows and series. Raw TV has produced shows for internationally known broadcasters such as CBS, BBC, Channel 4, Five, Nat geo, Discovery and others. Their library of documentaries covers an extensive range of topics from crime and high profile court cases to aliens, airports and smoking.

RAW also produced one feature length documentary in 2012, “The Imposter” which won various awards such as the highly coveted Bafta.

 

Mosaic Films

 

 

 

Mosaic films are a UK based documentary production company that has been operating since 1974. Mosaic films have created documentary features for all of the major UK broadcasters such as BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and so on. The company prides itself on using pioneering techniques in documentary film making, including an award winning animated documentary series “Animated minds” that tackled mental health issues and their taboos.

Vice Media



 

Vice Media is an online production company that expanded from a 1994 magazine of the same name. Vice Media is unique in that all of its videos are accessible and posted directly online. With studios operating in 36 countries, Vice creates documentaries focusing on a number of different unique and hard hitting topics that may not be suitable or possible for widespread television broadcasting. This online platform gives Vice Media a wider creative freedom when deciding what subject to create a documentary about.

 

Main Task Deconstructions

Below are my main task deconstructions of 3 documenteries and also what I have taken away from these deconstructions to improve my documentary.

Main task 1 deconstructon draft 3 from JCRamsay

Advanced Portfolio Chosen Brief

A2 Advanced Portfolio Coursework Briefs

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;

• a digipak for the album’s release;

• a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the film;

• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;

• a poster for the film.

A promotion package for a new soap opera, to include a TV trailer, together with two of the following three options:

• a listings magazine front cover featuring the new soap;

• two hyperlinked webpages (with video extract) for the soap’s website;

• a poster for the soap.

A selection of materials related to an original children’s TV drama, to include the title sequence to the TV programme, together with two of the following three options:

• the front cover to a magazine for the series;

• a DVD cover for the series;

• a radio advertisement for the magazine.

An extract from an original documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:

• a radio trailer for the documentary;

• a double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary;

• a newspaper advertisement for the documentary.

A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• a poster for the film;

• a radio trailer for the film;

• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

An extract from a radio play, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:

• a newspaper advertisement for the play;

• a double-page listings magazine feature about the play;

• a page from the radio station’s website promoting the play.

The first four pages from an original regional magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style), together with two of the following three options:

• a radio advertisement for the magazine;

• two hyperlinked pages from the magazine’s website;

• a billboard advertisement for the magazine.

The Brief I have chosen from the selection above is the original extract from a documentary TV programme with a double page spread from a magazine and a newspaper advertisement for the documentary, as highlighted above. 

I decided to chose this brief as I personally enjoy documentaries as they give an insight into the incredible and interesting things that occur around the world. I am going to cover the very current topic of immigration in my documentary extract.

Video Skills Development

Video Skills Development

As a part of a group I helped to create the video above whilst developing my video editing and filming skills. To create the video we used a standard camera and video editing software Adobe premier pro. We first collected a number of different shots to get experience of filming using various angles and shots. Next we used the editing software Adobe premier pro to put together the shots that we wanted as well as incorporating title animations and transitions between shots.

Camera Shot Research

In preparation for making my documentary I decided to watch a music documentary, "The Shady Records Story". This documentary focuses on the success of Eminem's record label, Shady Records. Although I am not planning on creating a music documentary this documentary still featured relevant shots and camera angles that I would be making use of.

Camera Shots Documentary

Reflection on AS Media Portfolio

Last year at AS Level I created a music magazine aptly named "Self Made" that focused on Hip Hop and Rap music. I learnt about and used various technology whilst creating my magazine and I also learnt a lot about how to manage a media project. No doubt that these skills will be a great help when studying A2 Media.

Technology 

Whist creating my magazine I learnt how to use various technology such as photo editing software (Photoshop) and digital design software (Indesign). I also used hardware such as a digital camera and various lights to create the featured photographs in my magazine. Finally I made use of online technology such as Blogger to share my posts and updates on my project, I also used a site called survey monkey to create an online survey to amass feedback regarding what to include in my magazine.

Managing a media project

Managing a media project wasn’t an easy task and took good organisational skills as well as creative skills. I learnt that keeping track and documenting changes made to my project efficiently was necessary to ensure that I could successfully analyse my project from start to finish.

Critical analysis of final project

If I were to redo my media project again I would firstly consider taking more photos in different locations rather than just taking all of my photos in one shoot; this would make the magazine a lot more interesting and hopefully ad more eye catching colour to the project. I would also consider editing the colour scheme as my current colour scheme is very dark and does not catch the eye as I would has wished.

How I will improve this year

I will improve this year by:

1.   Constantly drafting and redrafting my project so that I can be sure that I am 100% happy with the result before submitting it.

2.      Committing more effort outside of the class room to my project.

3.     Ensuring that all my work is submitted on time.

Advanced portfolio initial ideas & Audience Feedback

Media ideas jr from JCRamsay

Audience Feedback
5 out of 6 of my audience feedback sheets prefered my first Idea (immigration documentary) because they found immigration to be an interesting topic. My audience feedback also suggested that most of them enjoyed watching documentaries which strongly suggests that my first Idea would be the best idea to go ahead with.