Ancillary Task: Double Page Spread 4th Design

This was our fourth design creating a double page spread, after three attempts at adding detail and features, on this design we feel there is a good amount of detail within the double page spread. The images of the stadiums are smaller which was something we wanted to improve on, and the title is at the top middle, allowing people to see it as the first thing rather than previous designs where it was hidden away; there are features such as sub-headings, date and time, quotation sections, and also a did you know? section which we included in the design. The channel that the documentary will be shown on is also highlighted in this double page spread.

Problems - After three other designs the problems were minimal as we have learnt to learn from our mistakes and improve our replace some of our faults in previous designs. However there are still a few problems with this design such as the middle section is all occupied by quotes, did you know?, fact, and the information about viewing. But the fact box isn't informative enough becuase too much of the middle section is filled with quotes and the viewing information, therefore the fact box has minimal information and it is too vague.

Overall there are major improvements from this design to the other three designs, more features have been added, and we have finally been able to reduce the size of the images and made the title stand out more. However in the final design a few things such as space management, and factual detail will have to be looked at and improved.

Ancillary Task: Double Page Spread 3rd Design

This was our third attempt at creating a double page spread, various features have been added in this design such as the date/time feature, allowing readers to know when it is on, also there are sub-headings informing readers what they will be reading about and when, there are also more quotations boxes, enabling us to pick out the most important parts of the documentary and making them bigger with a different font so they stand out.

Problems - Similar to the first two designs the images take up too much room on the page leaving little room for information, also we feel the layout in this design isn't realistic enough because the date/time, and quote section being in between the text actually separates the two texts from one another and we did not want this. Also the title needs to be in a position where it can be the first thing readers see, it isn't big enough in the top left hand corner and from a personal point of view the first thing I see is the images; we want to see the title first otherwise the images have little meaning because people wont know what it represents until they see the title.

Overall the design is improved from the last two with added features such as date/time and more quotation sections, however it still lacks detail.

Ancillary Task: Double Page Spread 2nd Design

Our second attempt at designing the double page spread was better than the first in our opinion. We experimented with the layout in this draft to see which we prefer, we have chosen to place the images on the left hand side of the page, with the titles in between them. Reasons for this were to try new things, to gives ourselves not just one option of layout but a couple so we can see which one suits our documentary. The facts are on the far right beneath each other in this draft. We have additional features in this draft, with a box to show a quote mentioned in the main information section; we have added sub headings such as prices and values to let readers know what they will be reading about at what time. Furthermore we have added in the top right the channel that our documentary will be shown on, this informs readers where it will be.

Problems: There were a few problems with this documentary - firstly we felt that the facts section shouldn't be on the other side of the page to where the images are because we want a strong link between the pictures and the facts, however by putting them on that side this wouldnt work, also regarding the layout we felt pour double page spread would look better if the information was on the left hand side rather than strarting on the right. Again despite including a few additional features we felt it lacked deatil, with a lot of the page being occupied by the images.

Overall it was similar to the first design but with a few added features it looks more professional than the first.

Ancillary Task: Double Page Spread 1st Design

For our ancillary task we have had to produce 5 different designs of a double page spread which will advertise our documentary and tell people what it is about and what channel it is going to be on. Our first attempt was what we would imagine the 5th and final draft to be similar to with a few minor changes. In this draft we have got two large pictures of either stadium covering the bottom half of the page and in the top half we have on either side - Facts about each stadium. Across the middle section in the top half we have information regarding our documentary such as prices, value etc. The title is situated in the middle.

Problems - However there are a few problems with this draft that need to be addressed for the other drafts, they include: The title isn't big enough, it doesn't stand out and the writing is completely surrounding the title, but the title needs to be dominant, bald and eye-catching in order for people to read it. Secondly the images take up too much of the page leaving too little space for text, despite the fact that we want our images big, we dont want to overshadow the rest of the information. Furthermore we felt that the double page spread was lacking detail, it seems to be pretty basic.

Overall its a good first draft as we can build from here and slightly improve certain aspects as we produce the other drafts.

Double Page Spread Research and Analysis

Double Page Spread Analysis from ross95

Listing Magazines Research

Practice Documentary Summary

Practice documentary from ross95

Practice Documentary - An Interview with Lynda Berger

Demons and Thieves - Lynda Berger Documentary from Will Knight on Vimeo.

In our practice documentary we were asked to make a short 10 minute documentary on the author Lynda Berger and her latest book Demon and Thieves. The aim of this task was to try and enhance our skills regarding video production in order to produce our best piece of work for our final documentary on our chosen subject.

The main lesson I learnt was that you must use more than one camera when filming, the reason for this is because when we were interviewing Lynda Berger we did not realise that camera one was rather blurred because the camera was zoomed in, and as we didn’t have time to change it we had to put up with the blurred camera. However if we had only used that camera individually then we would have had a blurred documentary for the entire time. In the documentary the use of the second cameras angle was involved a lot because we wanted to see when it worked best. After producing the documentary we learnt that instead of transitioning to the second angle during questions it would work better to use the angle for the duration of the question and answer because constantly changing the angle affected the continuity and at times it seemed unnecessary. This has taught me firstly to double check all possibilities regarding camera positioning and secondly taught me to ensure I use more than one camera when filming my final documentary.

Will edited the practice documentary but I still personally learnt a lesson for the final task, Will used as many new tools as he could to see how they worked and the most effective scenarios to use them in. The tool he found most effective was when interviewing the third student he used what is known as a “screen on screen” where a mini screen appears in one corner of the screen whilst the student is still on the main screen. Furthermore, the tool had a similar effect to the cutaway tool but unlike the cutaway it can display both images at the same time.

Finally I learned something from the editing software iMovie. The cutaway tool was involved heavily in the documentary when Lynda is showing her artwork to the camera and also when we were interviewing the teacher and students. The cutaway tool allowed us to smoothly transition between the angles of the two cameras without affecting the continuity of the documentary. I really liked the effect the cutaway tool added to the documentary during Lynda's interview as it allowed us to show the close up of her artwork which camera one wouldn't have provided.

Overall I have witnessed things in this practice documentary that I will make sure won’t happen again in the final, on the other side of things I have learned that using the cutaway tool and the screen on screen tool are two effective methods of editing as they enhance the professionalism of the overall documentary and it shows that we are experiencing new technologies therefore improving our knowledge.
 

Documentarian Research #5 - Michael Moore

Documentarian Research - Michael Moore on Prezi

Documentarian Research #4 - David Attenborough