3MW Documentary-The Sugar Tax

An Introduction to the News

ITV News Weekend Teatime Sunday 17th June 2018

The stories covered were pressure on the NHS and the prime minister’s response with information about Brexit for an NHS Budget Boost, 630 migrants on a rescue ship finally docking in Spain after a week at sea, rebuilding Glasgow’s School of Art is likely to cost more than a million pounds, MP scapegoated does agree with criminalising up skirting but doesn’t agree with how it’s being done, mother of a boy with severe epilepsy wants government ministers to meet her to discuss changing the laws on the medicinal use of cannabis, Mexico winning against Germany in the World Cup and information on other matches, England’s preparations for the World Cup.

In the starting sequence the reporter gives an overview on stories that will be mentioned in the broadcast. The visuals and audio have been used to make it dramatic and to get people’s attention so that they will watch the broadcast.

The newsreader is Lucrezia Millarini, Lucrezia is female and 33 years old.

The role of Lucrezia is to present the news to the general public over the television. 

Reporter include:

 -Angus Walker. Angus is male and around 40-50 years old. 

-Chloe Keedy. Chloe is female and is around 30-40 years old.

-James Gibson. James is male and around 30-40 years old.

-Emma Murphy. Emma is female and is around 30-40 years old.

-Steve Scott. Steve is male and around 57 years old.

Skills that are necessary for newsreaders are confidence, good research, accuracy and attention to detail, a clear speaking voice and calmness under pressure.

News ordering is what news channels/companies follow when they would like to make their news headlines or stories more appealing to the audience.

The term given to a list of stories that will most likely appear in the broadcast is the headlines, they're usually in order of most important or relevant.

A story that will most likely be shown first would be something more important by the news' standards than anything else. For example possibly something about Brexit would be first in the news as it is a more important story than maybe football scores.

Other stories are still in a sort of order, it's still the stories deemed most important first but they begin to become scattered further into the news report.

It's important to think and act quickly in the news as it's is never the same, once one story is read another could become more important and news readers have to be ready for new news as well as the news they've done research on.

A slow news day is when nothing nationally or locally that is worth being televised.

The final story on a news report is usually upbeat so that the news isn't being left on a bad note, to get the audience feeling a little bit happier otherwise the news would be sad to watch.

News values are general guidelines used by media outlets to decide how much prominence to give a story.

Galtung and Ruge wrote about news values
News values include:
-Negativity. Negativity is about bad news, maybe including death or destruction, tragedy, bankruptcy, natural disasters or political upheaval.
-Personalisation. Personalisation is actions of people as individuals, an institution may be personalised to a prominent person.
-Reference to elite persons. Reference to elite persons is if person are more powerful they're more likely to appear on the news than ordinary people.
-Reference to elite nations. Reference to elite nations is when events are more likely to be reported if they occur in the developed world.
-Composition. Composition is is to provide a balance, for example good news with bad.
-Continuity. Continuity is once a story has achieved importance it will be covered for some time.
-Unexpectedness. Unexpectedness is the rarity of an event which leads to it's circulation in the public domain.
-Consonance. Consonance is when the familiar is more likely to be thought than the unfamiliar.
-Meaningfulness. Meaningfulness is when things are divided into two categories, an example would be cultural proximity.
-Unambiguity. Unambiguity is when events don't have to be simple but do still need to be accessible to the general public.
-Threshold. Threshold is how the size of an event indicates it's importance.
-Frequency. Frequency is how frequent a story is, if it happens a lot it most likely won't be televised as people already know about it.

News stories do fall under bias, they only really show one side of the story, and because they talk so much about one side the reader often agrees because it just makes sense. Bias can happen in the order of stories shown, the stories at the start of the report are more likely to get the most attention as they're first and deemed as 'most important'. Bias can also happen through Selection and Omission when the editor can remove parts of the story that they don't like and can actually leave out important parts of stories. Most news headlines are bias, especially on newspapers, the newspaper itself gives it's own opinion but doesn't give the opposite opinion. Newspapers can also be exaggerated which would make people reading the newspaper maybe agree if they have points to back up their story and there obviously wouldn't be an opposite opinion to contradict the newspaper's bias opinion. Shot selection and camera angles are also important when a news report is bias, the editor can cut interviews for example to show interviewees in a bad light. Parts of major events can be cut to make them look better or worse than they are. If different shots are taken and ordered differently the story formed by editors could be completely different to the original. The use of names and captions can be bias too, if someone has a job title within their caption this could make them more important than someone who could just have their name in the caption. Captions to pictures in newspapers can be completely bias, the editors could say a certain thing is happening as that is what it looks like in the photo but it may be something completely different and this could also bring us back to camera angles as photos can be taken in a certain way to show something that may not be completely correct. A photo could be of two people talking, but because it is taken from behind one person it may look like they're kissing and a news story could be made from that photo which is actually just an innocent conversation. Language can be used to persuade people that a certain thing is true or false for instance news readers are quite trustworthy and usually if they tell us something is right or wrong we will believe them, because why shouldn't we? Headlines can also be changed to give certain viewpoints a man could win an award but unless he's famous his name won't be in the headline, you'd have to read the story to find out who he is, if his name was included it would be giving him more recognition. Language can also be used to tickle people's emotions especially in news reports, a child could have a fatal disease and the news readers have to use the correct words in order for it to remain sentimental and respectful of the family of the child at the same time.

Documentary Mini-task

A documentary is a short film about a certain subject although documentaries can be long.

Expository documentaries expose a person or topic.

They usually include: 

-A commentator throughout

-Facts and opinions

-Persuasive techniques

-Rhetorical questions

An example of an expository documentary would be 'Nanook of the North'

Observational documentaries are when a documentary maker follows someone or something around to observe the events that happen in their life.

They usually include:

-Hand-held cameras

-Long takes

-Synchronous sound

-No voiceover or interviews 

An example would be '16 and Pregnant'

Interactive documentaries are an experience that gives the audience an active roll.

They usually include:

-The filmmaker’s point of view

-Immediacy

An example of an interactive documentary would be 'Bear 71'

Reflexive documentaries are when a filmmaker acknowledges their presence in front of the camera and provides a narrative.

They usually include:

-A film crew

-Hand-held cameras

-A filmmaker who narrates as well as being in the documentary.

An example of a reflexive documentary would be ‘Louis and the Nazis’

Performative documentaries acknowledge the emotional and subjective aspects of a documentary and address the audience emotionally.

They might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to posses a specific perspective on the world.

An example of a performative documentary would be 'Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied'
Dramatisations are used in documentaries that are prejudice or bias, they are used to exaggerate a certain view. We can expect an exaggeration built up in a documentary and a bias opinion on a certain view.

I don’t think it is always necessary to present accurate and factual information, although it does depend on the style of documentary and what the documentary is about. If it isn’t too serious a bit of humour makes the documentary more interesting.

Mind Map for 3MW

Pre-Production Paperwork for 3MW

ERIN AND KATIE research

Proposal for Documentary

Proposal

-In documentary form, a serious subject, sugar tax and the affect it is having on people, customers and consumers. I am working with Katie for this assignment.

-It will be an educational documentary, it will presented in a expository format the genre will be infotainment, it will include interviews and voiceovers

-The primary target audience would customer and consumer, including most of the population.

-The aim of the documentary is to show the affects of the sugar tax on the public as a whole including companies that sell products including sugary drinks. We hope to show awareness for the tax and prove that it is a good thing.

-We will be able to film most of the documentary in college but we plan to interview a manager in a company that is affected by the sugar tax.

-We will need to interview people that the sugar tax has affected, I don’t think we need experts or witnesses especially for this topic.

-Some sample questions:

“What type of effect has the sugar tax had on your company?”

“Do you think the sugar tax is a good idea?”

“Has the sugar tax affected sales?”

“What are your opinions on the sugar tax?”

-We will need cameras, microphones and lighting. We will not need any costumes. We will be using college cameras and microphones. We won’t need to by anything in.

-We do not have a budget as we will not need to spend any money

Rebranding Simple Skincare

TV Adverts Feedback

Pre-Production Paperwork for TV Advert

Evaluation Of Television Advert Task

The Brief
-The brief was to rebrand a Unilever product.
-Our chosen product was Simple Skincare, we chose Simple by putting our own product ideas from our TV advert analysis in a hat and picking something out as we couldn't decide straight away which product we wanted to rebrand.
-The current target audience for Simple is women over 30 but we chose to rebrand it for teenagers as we knew more about that target audience and we wanted to use a teenager in our advert.

The finished product and feedback

-I asked some people to watch the advert and let me know what they thought of it and whether they thought it was suitable for the target audience.
The Feedback-
"I thought it was very informative and pushed the point of the product forward."
"I think it was suitable for the target audience because a teenager was used in the advert."
"It was obvious what the advert was for as the Simple bottle was focused on a lot."
-I believe we managed to get the main message across to the target audience, the advert shows a teenager confidently walking out of the bathroom after using Simple, ready for the day ahead. The advert would have had an appropriate affect on the target audience because they would like to be confident like the teenager in the advert and can rely on Simple in order to be confident.
-We use a lot of close ups in our advert, mainly of the Simple bottle to show which company we are rebranding. We used panning when I walk down the stairs and as I walk into the bathroom. There is a long shot when I am waking up and most of the shots using the product are mid shots. The mise en scene is showing happiness, the bright colours portrayed a lively and happy mood. Before using the product the lighting is quite dark but after using the product its lighter to show the change in confidence of the teenager and showing you that you will be lighter, brighter and happier after using Simple.
-I believe the finished advert sells the product to the specified audience.
-The sequence of the advert shows the morning routine of a teenager, getting out of bed and going into the bathroom to wash their face, then coming out ready for the day at college, school or wherever they're heading on the day.
-The narrative throughout is giving the target audience information about the product to let them know what it is and what it contains in order to make your skin look better and make you feel more confident.
-The persuasion techniques used are the use of the teenager in order to promote the product, the typical Simple advert usually stars an older woman 30+ using the product but ours uses a younger woman to change the target audience and make it clear who the product is for.
-We were trying to show that Simple isn't just for older women to use as portrayed by the adverts, which are all very similar. We tried to make it relatable to the target audience to get the point across we just used a teenager who uses Simple in her daily morning routine.
-I feel like our advert is fit for purpose, it isn't misleading and the product and it's uses are shown without editing to make the product look better.
-We don't have any obvious exaggerations as we just show what the product does without going mad on how good it makes you look and feel.
-Our product is not described as 'free' or 'without charge' because there would most likely be extra charges than just the charge for the product.

Personal Reflection

-Our original idea was for a teenager to be using the product but we didn't think into what would be around the use of the product. We the came up with the idea of a morning routine, for the teenager to be waking up looking tired and a bit annoyed because she has to get out of bed but once she uses the product she feels better and more confident in herself to take on the day.
-I do like the final version of the advert, I think the different scenes work well in maintaining continuity and overall the advert itself is very good, using lots of different shots and camera angles. If I had to do the task again I would take the different shots at least 3 times each as some shots had to be re-filmed at different times and the lighting was different. I would quite like to rebrand a different product maybe a food item and see how I could have rebranded that and see the similarities in the different advertisements.
-My involvement was the actor in the advert, I use the product in my daily routine and it was like a normal day(except it was being filmed). I don't feel like I exaggerated the work of the product and the advert itself is quite natural, nothing absolutely crazy is happening as its just a normal day in which teenagers can relate to.
-I also helped with the editing, putting all the different shots together and adding in the voiceover. It took some time to get the voiceover in perfect harmony with the music but I think the music and voiceover work well together and they both make you want to listen to the advert and what they have to say about the product being used.

Assignment 1 Feedback Sheet