Codes and Conventions of Print Adverts

As mentioned previously on this blog, we chose for our program to be broadcast on Channel 4. Therefore, we felt that it would be best to note the Codes and Conventions of this media outlet's print adverts. Each program follows a set code designated by the broadcaster in a handbook. The program's creator's are allowed to design the advertisement providing it meets all of their guidelines. This code applies to any genre of program shown on Channel 4, not just for documentaries. Below are the Codes and Conventions of Channel 4's Print Adverts. 

Lighting

At the audience's first observation of this advertisement, they are made aware of who the central subjects are due to bright lighting being shined to the centre. They are aware of the other characters, although their vision is focused on the centre until they read the logo, the title and the scheduling information. 

Image Colour

The bright colours of the character's clothing in the image sets a positive impression on the audience relating to the themes of the program. This is enhanced by the central lighting, as discussed above.

Font

Channel 4 always uses a constant font in the graphics for all of their print adverts. This is a font which was purposely created for Channel 4 to use on their own Television Advertisements (for content due to be aired on Channel 4) and for their print adverts in newspapers, magazines and print advertisements. The idea of having a constant font such as the one used above is to help engineer and promote a brand identity. The name of the font is 'C4'.

In this case, the font colour is relevant because of the program's title, 'This is England '86' relating to the colours of the English flag, which are red and white. These also blend in to the bright colours seen in the Image.

Sponsor

Not all of channel 4's print advertisements have a sponsor, although when they do, their logo appears in the top left corner of any print advertisement. This is so that the sponsor does not distort too much of the message promoting the program relating to scheduling, the image, and the Channel 4 logo.

Logo

The logo will always appear on the central right corner. Again, this is to help promote the brand identity and the program being advertised. In the case of this advertisement, some of the logo is transparent, although in many other advertisements for other programs, this area is black. There will always be white areas in channel 4's logo. The logo never: 

• is distorted
• is placed inside a box or frame
• contains text inside the '4'
• has tone added to areas where the white is supposed to be
• has an outline sounding the '4' logo

Typographic Hierarchy

There will never be more than three levels of a typographic hierarchy. The first line will contain a strap line (not always included), the second the title, and on the third line, the scheduling information including the date and time. In the case of the print advert above, there are only two lines. This is the title of the program, strap line and the scheduling information. The later two of the three have been mixed into the second line at the bottom. 

Typographic Flexibility

Channel 4 allow some for some flexibility relating to the location of the typography. Although many of them appear on the bottom left hand side, it is allowed to appear in the top left and also central left. This is providing that the logo and image advertised is not being covered up by the typography.

These are some other examples of print advertisement which were made for Channel 4:

Copyright Issues

Emails that were sent to recieve Copyright permission:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to request copyright permission for our student documentary which we would like to include  short segment of Eat It - "Weird Al" Yankovic, this video will only be shown to the exam board and will not gain any financial profit. Thank you.

A2 Media Students at Priestley College; Sophie Riley, Daniel Orr, Robert Young and Samuel Taylor

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to request copyright permission for our student documentary which we would like to include  short segment of a Just Eat advertisment, this video will only be shown to the exam board and will not gain any financial profit. Thank you.

A2 Media Students at Priestley College; Sophie Riley, Daniel Orr, Robert Young and Samuel Taylor

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to request copyright permission for our student documentary which we would like to include  short segment of a Burger King advertisment, this video will only be shown to the exam board and will not gain any financial profit. Thank you.

A2 Media Students at Priestley College; Sophie Riley, Daniel Orr, Robert Young and Samuel Taylor

Filming Diary

Sunday 23rd October 2011

We arranged to meet up in Culcheth to film an interview with a takeaway worker and some shots of the takeaways around the area. We planned to film outside The Raj and the Village Pizza. A lot of the filming we did was done in the afternoon. This was because we hoped for the natural lighting onto the outside of the takeaways would be much better in the daytime than it is in the afternoon. This also meant that we wouldn't have to wait long before we could order a takeaway delievery in the evening. However, the weather on this day was not brilliant. It rained for some of the time. This limited the amount of filming we could do. Also, we did not have a cover for our camera when it rained, so whenever our filming was interupted by the weather, we were forced to quickly put our camera away again to avoid damage to our camera. We eventually brought an umbrella and held it above the camera so that there was some filming that we could do.

We interviewed Andy Harrison, a part time takeaway worker who also fitted into our mostly teenage target audience. This meant that he has an understanding of young people's attitudes towards takeaways. We filmed him at the side of the Village Pizza takeaway. There was a roof at the side which protected our camera from getting damaged. We focused our camera at a medium close up with the camera facing upwards to demonstrate power. However, this shot is something we will not use because we decided that the mise-en-scene was too irrelevent. We felt that the lighting was too dark and that because the background of the shot was a road with cars driving past, it had no relation to our exposition. Andy was also wearing a dark red hoody because he was off duty. This too, was not relevent to our exposition.

We filmed some panning shots of takeaway signs and still close ups of takeaway menus. The menus in particular were used as a bridge for the next part of our filming: Shots of people eating chinese takeaways at a house. We wanted a variety of close up shots on different types of chinese food. Often, we used a downward tilt on the camera with an extreme close up shot. The extreme close up demonstrates the importance of the food in relation to the exposition.

Wednesday 26th October 2011

We went back to Culcheth the following Wednesday to re-film some of our shots from more than one angle. This gives us a better choice during the editing process of the shots we could use for the finished piece. Although we already had an interview arranged with the owner of The Raj takeaway, we tried to ask some of the other nearby restaurant owners if they would like to be interviewed. We asked in Village Pizza, although they were forced to decline because the owner was not present at the time. We also asked at the Indian restaurant next door to Village pizza. In this case, the owner was present, although he declined after reading our question sheet


Sunday 30th October 2011

My group filmed an interview with a mother who we plan to use as a reprentative of home cooking. We asked her the following three questions:

1. Do you think young people consider about their diet when they order a takeaway?
2. Do you think young people order a takeaway when they're alone, with friends or in need of a quick meal?
3. Why do you think teenagers choose takeaways over home cooking?

I was not able to attend this interview, but I feel as though the correct questions were asked and that there were no problems with the footage on this occasion. From watching the footage that was filmed, I observed her comments on how teenagers sometimes prefer to be social with their friends and decide get a takeaway. This is as opposed to being with their family. Personally, I do not believe that the lighting was in this shot and the mise-en-scene was not relevent. 

Tuesday 1st November 2011

On this night, we filmed an interview with the owner of The Raj indian takeaway restaurant, Anhar. We made sure that we followed the codes and conventions of documentries; more specifically documentary interviews. My group constantly thought about our mise-en-scene to try and establish that it was correct in this sense. The interview was filmed outside The Raj Takeaways's kitchen. It was clear to the audience that it was near a takeaway kitchen because of the glass windows on the doors in the background which looked inside. He answered all of the questions we asked him. 

Tuesday 8th November 2011

We re-shot some of our cutaway shots from Chilli Grill, a restaurant near the centre of Warrington Town. These were mostly various types of close up shots of the food and beverage that we bought for filming.   

Thursday 10th November 2011

We began editing our documentary despite not filming vox pops yet. We cut the questions being asked off from the interviews with the two parents and the owner of the Raj Indian restaurant. The aim of this was to simply create a rough cut of what we had got so far.

Monday 21st November 2011

We filmed five vox pops interviews. We did say that we would like to film three more vox pops interviews with females, as we interviewed four males and only one female. Unfortunately, we lost some of the footage during the capture process. The sound quality on these clips was also very quiet and if we tried to make it more audible then the amount of white noise would dramatically increase. Therefore, we thought it was best for these these vocks pops to be filmed once more.

Tuesday 22nd November 2011

We found five more people to interview as vox pops. This time, there was no problem with the capturing process or in the audio, so these were included in our documentary. Like yesterday, these interviews were filmed using a blue screen.

Inital Plan

After a thoughtful analysis as to what our documentary topic could be, we decided that our documentary would be on the topic of takeaways. We chose this topic becuase we felt it is something that every member of the audience can relate to. We felt that it would be easier to collect data related to this topic because of the large number of takeaway shops in the the local area. Therefore, it is easier to find people who are 'experts' on this topic. 

We learnt about the scheduling in documentaries on many TV channels. This is so it gives us a good idea as to we when could schedule our documentary. The types of scheduling can be found below:

Inheritance - This is when the channel controllers air a documentary on after a popular show such as Coronation Street - in doing so, people may feel the need to leave their television on so that the documentary can 'inherit' the audience of the more popular show.

Pre Echo - Works in the opposite way to inheritance; a documentary could be put on before a popular show such as Coronation Street. The audience waiting to watch Coronation Street may turn the channel on early so to not miss the start of Coronation Street, and in doing so may end up watching part of or the entire documentary.

Hammocking - A sort of combination of inheritance and pre echo, where a documentary can be sandwiched in between two popular programmes on a channel and may gain extra viewers via both or either of inheritance and pre echo, and also viewers who leave the channel on after the first show as they wish to watch the second popular programme.

We also were familiarised with the types of documentary featured on different British television channels.  

BBC 1 - These documentaries tend to be aimed at families.

BBC 2 - These are often the most educational documentaries out of the five main channels. However, these a sometimes more explicit and less suitable for children than the documentaries shown on BBC1.

ITV1 - The friendliest of the five channels. They are less serious documentaries than the ones aired on BBC1 and try to appeal to all audiences. ITV has shown serious documentaries in the past, including the controversial 2007 film 'Malcolm and Barbara Lover's Farewell' by Paul Watson. This documentary caused a scandal regarding the false death of Alzheimer's patient Malcolm Pointon, who actually died three days after his "death scene". Despite this, the film did raise awareness for Alzheimer's which some would argue was original goal of the documentary. This documentary was shown after 9pm to avoid upsetting any children. 

Channel 4 - Many of Channel 4's documentaries are aimed at students and younger people.  Often, they will have some comedy elements to them, such as in 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'.  

Channel 5 - These documentaries are aimed at families, although Channel 5 as a whole is thought to not differentiate it's programs enough from BBC1 and therefore does not gain as much of a large audience. 

After some discussion, we came to the decision that our documentary would be called 'Tastes Like Teen Spirit' and that we wanted our target audience to be mostly students and drawing some attention from adults. The title of our documentary is a take on the world-famous Nirvana song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. We felt that this would be a good title as it will appeal to our target audience who will most likely be aware of the song and how the title is a play on words. We decided that it would be best for our documentary to be shown on Channel 4 on a Thursday at 8pm. This would Hammock our documentary in between the seven o'clock Channel 4 news (who are likely to have slightly more mature viewers) and Educating Essex, a documentary that is likely to be aired after ours. We decided that 8pm would be a good time to broadcast our documentary as this is a time when we believe that a large number of young people would be watching television. Many students are busy with education or work during the day time. We felt that Thursday would be a the best day because at the weekend, a lot of our target audience enjoy socialising in the evenings by visiting clubs or bars.

Initial Documentary Content

Once I had been put into my group, we had a large discussion to brainstorm possible ideas for a reasonable topic for our documentary. We created a long list of ideas - some of these ideas were linked together if we could think of some sub-ideas. The initial list of ideas can be seen here:

• Concerts (or music festivals)
• Sport (different types of sport, fair play in sport, prejudice in sport, etc.)
• The elderly
• Teenagers
• Prejudice (racism, hair colour, sexism, etc.)
• Social networking (dangers)
• Holidays
• Accents (regional, international, etc.)
• Holidays
• Public transport (trains, buses, local, etc.)
• Shoes
• Fashion (different generations of fashion)
• Music (different eras of music, different types of music)
• Tea and coffee
• Television and film (different eras and types of television)
• Games (different genres and eras, the evolution of games)
• Allergies
• Fruit and vegetables
• Technology (iPods, phones, computers)
• Recycling (land refill sites)
• Drugs (legal and illegal) 
• Sleep (dreams)
• Clubbing (underage)
• Birthdays
• Parties (occasions celebration)
• Body-building (gyms)
• Takeaways (fast/junk food)
• Christmas (beliefs)
• Sandwiches (lunches)
• Money (finance)
• Drinking (alcohol)
• 3D (television and other technology)
• Obesity/anorexia 
• Cinemas (film)
• Pets (animals)
• Pies (bakeries)
• Phobias
• Obsessions (stalking, paedophilia) 
• Stereotypes
• Tattoos and piercings
• Plants (trees)
• Food (different types of food, cultural food)
• Shopping (for various different things, for example clothes or food)
• Seasons (what changes in separate seasons)
• College life
• Litter (and recycling)
• Comic books (old and new - history)
• The human body (different aspects of the body, differences between people and genders)
• Laughter (emotions)
• Feet (certain parts of the body)
• Water (liquid, hydration)
• The high street (differences between countries, regions, etc.)
• Relationships (differences in cultures, mutual relationships)
• Gambling (betting)
• Ghosts (beliefs, otherworldly beings)
• Paper
• Make up
• China
• Time 
• Mediums (religion)
• Idols (role models)
• Halloween (annual events)
• Fireworks (dangers)
• Religion

Single frame storyboards

In our first frame, we are interviewing a local takeaway worker, Andy Harrison from The Village Pizza.

The second frame shows mother Janet Orr, who, in her interview, explains why she prefers home cooking to buying a takeaway.

Storyboards

Page 1

Page 2

 Page 3

Page 4

Research Interviews

As well as our initial research questionaires, we recorded interviews with two members of our teenage target audience. These were two males and females and both of them were students who were asked the same questions:

1. How often do you have Takeaways?
2. What type of Takeaway do you prefer?
3. If you were on your own, would you order a Takeaway over cooking?

These are the responces they gave us:

Blank Questionaire

Questionnaire on Takeaways (Circle your answer)

1.       What is your gender?

Male       

Female

2.       How old are you?

16-20

20-25

25-30

30-40

40+

3.       How often do you have takeaways?

Never

Once every 3 months

Once every 2 months           

Once every month           

Once every 2 weeks           

Once a week           

More than once a week

4.       Would you have a takeaway as an actual meal or just as a quick alternative?

Meal           

Alternative

5.       Do you find takeaways expensive?

Yes           

No           

Some

6.       Do you prefer to get it delivered or to pick it up?

Delivered           

Pick up

7.       What type of takeaway do you prefer?

Indian           

Italian           

American           

Thai           

English            

Chinese           

Mexican           

8.       Do any special offers ever tempt you?

Yes           

No           

Sometimes

9.       Do you usually have one with your friends, family or on your own?

Friends           

Family           

On my own

10.   What type of takeaway is your least favourite?

Indian           

Italian           

American           

Thai           

English           

Chinese            

Mexican           

11.   Do you tend to order the same meal or go for something more adventurous?

Same meal           

Something adventurous

12.   What is the maximum amount you’d spend?

£0-£10           

£10-£15           

£15-£25           

£25-£35           

£35+

13.   Do you buy a drink(s) with your takeaway?

Yes           

No           

Sometimes           

Rarely

14.   Do you usually order one on a weekday or at the weekend?

Weekday           

Weekend

15.   Are you always satisfied with the service you receive with your order?

Yes           

No

If not please explain why…

16.   If you were on your own would you order a takeaway over cooking?

Yes            

No           

Sometimes           

Rarely

17.   Do you order one in the day or at night?

Day           

Night

18.   How often do you watch television?

Every day           

Every other day           

Every couple of days           

Every few days           

Only to tune into a particular programme

19.   What font do you prefer?

Arial            

Times New Roman           

Comic Sans           

Impact           

Lucida Handwriting

20.   Do you prefer to have a male or female voice over?

Male           

Female

21.   What music do you prefer to listen to in a light hearted documentary?

Classical           

Ambient           

Pop           

Jazz           

Acoustic           

Rock           

Electronic

22.   What is your favourite colour?

White          

Black          

Red          

Blue           

Green          

Pink          

Orange          

Yellow          

Purple

Running Order

Here is a chronologically ordered list of the techniques in which we plan for our documentary to be. This included shots, timings, narration, advert breaks and the total length that we planned for our documentary to be. This came to 26 minutes. However, we are only producing the first five minutes of our documentary, so there is a border at this point on the sheet.

Location Sheets

These are our location sheets. They show different locations on each sheet; each diagram is labeled explaining where all of the rooms are on set. The first sheet demonstrates the location of the ground floor of sophie's house so when we begin to film our group will understand their surroundings and be able to work in them. On the second sheet, there are two different sketches. The front of The Raj, which is a local Indian takeaway/restaurant in Culcheth and then a bird's eye view of the same location. Similarly to the house, our group will have a better understanding of The Raj when we start to film.  Both sheets provide notification of the dates we will be film on both locations, Health and Safety and the address. We can therefore consider any important factors in each area pre-filming.

Research

I have linked our external research sources sources which have aided us in our website:

BBC GoodFood: Easy sweet and sour chicken

BBC News: Takeaway dishes high in Colourings

BBC News: High fat found in takeaways

IGA's Fast Food table

IGA: Why is fast food bad for us?

The Independant: Families 'spending less on fresh food than on takeaways'

Just Eat

myfitnesspal

Saja Forum: Comparrison of a takeaways and a supermarket indian meal

Kim's Kitchen Culcheth (The Pack Horse)

The Raj Culcheth: Menu

DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS - Detroit Lives

TYPE OF DOCUMENTARY

This was a mixed documentary that strongly favored cutaways, reconstructions and interviews as methods of presenting factual accounts to the audience. 

THEMES

All of the sub themes were constantly related to one main theme of the past industries in Detroit from 1945-1972 after post war America. There were sub topics of how art and music are trying to recreate opportunities to Detroit. There was also some mention of how the media only generates negative publicity towards Detroit because of the drug infested neighborhoods and the many abandoned factories. 

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

The linear structure of this documentary was led by interviews. There was no 'Voice of God' that some mixed documentaries choose to present their information by. Instead, Jackass star Johnny Knoxville was the most common figure on camera and he acted as a presenter in this Detroit Lives. The exposition of this documentary is established within the first minute of edited footage by Knoxville. He tells the audience that he is going to find out about Detroit's industrial problems and if they can be solved. The leads towards the middle of the documentary, where there is an analysis of Detroit's possible opportunities and how music could create opportunities for the city. By the end of the film, the audience is left to decide whether Detroit could one day have a future similar to its 'Boom Years' of the past. 

CAMERAWORK

As soon as Johnny Knoxville mentions that he is in Detroit, there was an establishing location shot from a moving car of some of Detroit's buildings. This is very justifiable, straight to the point and in some ways the perfect way to open a documentary. The camera is canned up slightly to allow the audience to understand how large some of the buildings in Detroit are. There were some panned shots in the cutaways. Most notably, one of the panned long shots was used to create a comparison between one of many old factories and a new school in Detroit. The age on these buildings was made more obvious because of this. Some of Detroit's super long shots were taken from a helicopter. This was despite the location already being established earlier in the documentary. 

Not all of the interviews used a tripod to keep the camera steady. Often, when the interview subject was standing up, no tripod would be used. When an interview subject was sat down, there would be a tripod to keep the camera steady. This does not just add variety to the interviews, it adds some personification to the camera angles. This is a code that Detroit Lives sticks with throughout. Interviews varied in terms of angles. There were some full body shots of interview subjects that cut to mid close ups ups. In car that Johnny Knoxville was driving, there was a fixed camera with a microphone facing towards the inside of the car. 

MISE-EN-SCENE

Bright colours stood out among darker backgrounds. This helped in keeping the audience interested in what was happening on screen and tried to elaborate on Detroit's potential. The clothing that some of the interview subjects wore was one factor that contributed to this. One elderly African American male subject wore a pink shirt. In some ways, it helped make what he was saying much more relevant because of the Racial tensions that occurred in Detroit during the downfall of its industry. 

At one of the interviews in a darker area of the abandoned theatre, there was a door that had been opened wide to allow natural lighting to shine to where the camera was focused on.

SOUND

Whenever Johnny Knoxville appears in the classic Cadillac car, rock music was always played at the same time. The pitch of some of the music from a bar was briefly raised in a cross cut from an interview. This was relevant because it was just what the subject was talking about. The same music then fades to the level it was at before so that the subject could carry on talking. There was some diegetic rock music from the local band 'The Dirtbombs' when they were performing at Scion Garage Music Festival. There was some bad language in this documentary, usually coming from Johnny Knoxville, but it was censored by a bleep.

EDITING

In terms of editing, its style was very repetitive. The pace was almost always at a medium level except for when there was a short montage of artists who had performed in Detroit in the past. Cutaways were almost a constant feature of this documentary and to some this could be seen as boring. On the other hand, this could be seen as creative because of everything the editor cut to being relevant to the discussion on screen. 

ARCHIVE MATERIAL

The very first clips in this documentary are archive footage from news agencies who are reporting about Detroit in a negative way. This is pre-evidence before the mention of News agencies having a negative and biased attitude towards Detroit in modern times. There was a montage of artists who had appeared in Detroit in the past. This included The Stooges and Alice Cooper. Separate from this montage, there was footage of MCS playing in Detroit in 1970 and short clips from two music videos belonging to the rapper White Milk. 

There was archive material that was used in a re-constructional manor too. It helped the narrative explain to to audience that industrial car companies such as General Motors and Chrysler used to be based in Detroit during the industrial boom. 

GRAPHICS


Like many other documentaries, white text on a black or transparent background is a common feature here. The opening credits are in these colours and are animated. Sometimes, when a new location appeared on screen, in the bottom left corner small and white text appears to help establish the location. The graphics for the names and titles of the interview subjects appeared on the left or right side of the screen, depending on the camera angle.