Article Draft + Final

 This part of my blog will be for my article's development

Behind the Scenes

 This section of my blog will be for the behind the scenes of my magazine photoshoots

Learning Summary

This part of my blog will be a summary of everything I am learning so far during my self-studies to keep track of my academic progress in AS level media studies

A Level Media Studies - Documentary Final Submission

 Final Thumbnail

Final Documentary

In case the link malfunctions, here is the Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IK1mrj4wqQwQDvDg2Pdl_ma744h-g8PR?usp=sharing

Critical Reflection

 This section of my blog will detail my critical reflection

Since the format is not functioning properly on my blog, I've provided the link to my critical reflection inGoogle docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qKRAPdLSHcndQOuk6DG81RssEi9Sr8uL-HQh9AVKg1o/edit?usp=sharing

In media, branding creates a sense of identity in products which helps attract target audiences effectively making it a crucial part of any good film. Through branding, we can also better encode the meanings we intend for our audience to decode (as according to Stuart Hall’s reception theory. Medicine and education are pursuits that are associated with purity as they are things that help the human race advance as a species. However, we wanted to show how such things could also be tainted through human desires. This is because our preferred reading is to convey the message that students should be treated fairly or they could fall victim into doing harmful actions out of desperation as they too are human and to be human is to be imperfect no matter how ‘pure’ our pursuits are. This meaning shows in the branding we try to create. Both our thumbnail and our video feature white/blue colour palettes as they are often associated with medicine and education (white symbolises purity, blue symbolises trustworthiness) which we contrast with darker elements. For example, in the thumbnail, a white & blue prescription paper is placed in a dark setting with a spray of blood tainting it. The blood here is more symbolic than it is literal, as medicine tampering does not cause bleeding, to show the lives that have been lost due to this incident. The prescription paper can also symbolise the school and the field of medicine and the way it’s been stained by the incident. As you can see, the prescription paper is in fact blank rather than a used one from one of the victims which shows that this incident will still affect the future due to the mark that’s been left by the incident. As for the video, we start by showing the school in a positive light before it abruptly cuts to the news reports of the poisoning to communicate how sudden and unexpected this was for the school. Then, towards the end, our lighting becomes darker as the mood shifts completely which shows the originally positive untainted environment being changed by the poisoning incident

To better understand how we could ensure the meanings we are trying to communicate gets decoded by the audience, we did research into the crime documentary genre (especially into the medical crime documentary subgenre). We noticed that there were certain conventions that commonly appeared and decided to conform to them to appeal to our target audience. These included:

• The usage of interviews as they allowed a narrative to be formed through the different perspectives of characters involved allowing the audience to deduce it themselves which creates a strong sense of engagement that’ll keep our audience watching our video. It also creates a sense of tension and mystery as the audience isn’t directly told the information

• Archival content. We used fake news headlines and news reports from similar cases to not only make it appear more realistic but to take the audience into the perspective of what happened when the events were unfolding which creates a direct mode of address that can subtly invoke suspense.

However, we chose to subvert from these conventions as well. As according to Steve Neale’s genre theory, by subverting from genre conventions, it ensures that a media text stands out and remains interesting. We did this by:

• Using our colour palettes. It’s common for crime documentaries to use darker palettes as the audience would associate it with the darker content. However, as mentioned previously, since ours involved the ‘noble’ pursuits of education and medicine, we decided to show how that has been tainted by using blue/white colours which we then contrasted with darker lighting and colours

• Lighting. We used bright lighting as medicine and education are ‘bright’ pursuits and showed how the event has ‘darkened’ this by shifting our video’s lighting darker the closer we get to uncovering the suspect towards the end as they are being revealed

The subversions are inspired by medical documentaries such as Our Father and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley as I found it interesting how they were able to create a meaning regarding the ‘purity’ of medicine and the way it’s changed after a crime.

Thumbnails are very often the first impression imprinted onto a viewer therefore we recognize that this is a deciding factor in attracting our target audience and we need to create a thumbnail that can attract our audience effectively. As we want to attract audiences who enjoy thrills and mysteries (especially students, educators and medical professionals that do) our thumbnail features a dark background that illuminates a sense of darkness associated with mystery. The spray of blood may become a hermeneutic code as we imply that something terrible has happened which may provide a sense of thrill to the viewer. The usage of the word ‘Deceit’ implies to the audience of a concealed truth which further amplifies the mystery. Meanwhile, the usage of the word ‘Prescription’ as well as the prescription note may attract the attention of those interested in the field of medicine.

Representation is an important step in ensuring that our meaning gets decoded effectively by the audience since according to Stuart Hall’s representation theory, media creates meaning rather than reflecting it through representation. The most important representation we present in our documentary is the student’s representation. Our preferred reading implies that they are relatively normal people just like everyone else so when they feel desperate they may also do bad things which we show by including other students in the video that the audience can compare. The one shot we have of him is a close up that does not include his face which makes him more mysterious. Another important representation is the nurse. Through her, we represent people who have been wrongly accused. We use a medium shot to best highlight how much being wrongly accused has impacted her as the audience can observe her body language and expressions better. We also try to avoid stereotypes to create depth and realism in our meanings, however, we did show the school investigator as the stereotypical detective. We felt this was best in order to satisfy the target audience through a stereotype often found in the mystery genre.

Statement of Intent

 This part of my blog will detail the statement of intent our group has created for the documentary

• The statement of intent was really helpful, especially since we're working as a team, as it helped us put our ideas down and understand the direction we wanted to be heading in for our documentary
• We had a preferred reading of "treat your students well or it may push them to be desperate and do stupid things" which I don't think carried on very strongly. This is due to prioritizing the tone we were trying to create with our intro. An intro is a crucial part in any sort of film as it's where an audience is first introduced to the film which means we need to give them reasons to stay so, as this is a crime documentary, we prioritized introducing the overall plot while maintaining a good sense of suspense. In the end, our message became a little neglected. 
• I feel like this is also partly due to the perpetrator not actually having any lines or showing up beyond faceless reenactments. As we prioritized the sense of suspense, we kept them faceless and let them live through the words of other characters and the audience's own deductions which encouraged mystery but through this we have neglected their personhood and experiences. Through that, we were unintentionally dehumanizing them therefore not really allowing the audience connect with that message

Filming Schedule

 This part of my blog will detail our filming schedule

Reflection:

• Our original schedule was too packed together which caused some issues as we discovered that some actors/team members were not available on that day which caused us to have to continuously change filming dates and rush towards the end of our recordings. There should've been more communication on this part between parties involved
• Although there were a lot of changes, the filming schedule gave us a starting point and a rough idea of what we should be doing which kept us organized

Terminology

 This part of my blog will detail all the magazine terminology I have learned

Masthead: The name of the magazine usually displayed on top with large font

Selling line: Short text describing the 'identity' of a magazine. Usually placed below/on top of the masthead

Main image: The image that fills the cover of the magazine.

Coverline: Teasers for the articles in the magazine used to catch reader's interest

Typography: The style and arrangement of the text

Font: The design, style and size of text

Drop cap: Enlarged initial of the first word in an article used to grab attention

Pull quotes: Enlarged quotes from the article used to attract audiences by showing the content

Byline: Name of the article writer

Main cover line: Featured article

Mode of address: The way the magazine/article addresses the audience. (Including formal, casual or direct)

Barcode: A code for retailers to use

Skyline: A list of featured keywords to attract audiences

Prop: An item in an image

Puff: A circle smaller bit of image/text that that stands out from the rest of the information

Boxout: A square smaller bit of image/text that that stands out from the rest of the information

Buzzwords: Exclusive, free, new, special edition

Banner: Block of colour with info inside that usually stretches the width of the cover

Caption: Information about an image

Spread: Magazine pages that should be viewed together

Border: Empty spaces around the edges

White space/negative space: Empty space in the spread usually used to break up content 

Location Scout & Risk Assessment

 This part of my blog will detail my location scout and risk assessment

Location 1: Sister’s room

Location assessment
Purpose of the shoot	To take a picture of the model (my sister) in a blank white wall background
Media language	My model will be staring straight to the camera, creating a direct mode of address with the audience which will form a connection with the audience and make them feel involved
Pros	-          Good lighting -          No need to travel
Cons	-          Lots of items -          Less control over lighting
Alternatives	Rent a studio, living room
Risk assessment
Potential hazards	Items in room
Evaluate risks	May cause injury (tripping over, bumped), may cause damage to equipment
Control measures & implementation timeframe	-          Keep room tidy, keep out unnecessary items if possible 1 day before shoot -          Keep aware of self & equipment in environment during the shoot

 

Location 2: Bamboo Forest

Location assessment
Purpose of the shoot	A picture of a bamboo forest to relate to the Monthly Monster article as the Jiangshi is a Chinese cryptid and bamboo forests are associated with China
Media language	A slightly out of focus canted angle to stimulate a sense of uneasiness in the viewer
Pros	-          Good natural lighting
Cons	-          Need to travel -          May have a lot of people -          Less control because a natural setting
Alternatives	Forests
Risk assessment
Potential hazards	Potentially harmful flora & fauna
Evaluate risks	May cause injury
Control measures & implementation timeframe	-          Familiarize myself with local flora & fauna to understand how I should act towards them a week before the shoot -          Be careful and avoid touching things I am not familiar with in the shoot

 

Location 3: Ipo’s (Grandma’s sister) house

Location assessment
Purpose of the shoot	Take some shots of the model ‘ghost hunting’ which will relate to the content of my article
Media language	A candid shot to make the subject appear more natural which I will achieve by having the model play a game where she tries to look for things I have hidden. This way her body language and expressions will appear more natural
Pros	-          Not far from where I live -          Good lighting
Cons	-          Requires permission from ipo -          May disrupt the other people living there (ipo, cousins, etc.)
Alternatives	My house, friend’s house
Risk assessment
Potential hazards	Objects around the room
Evaluate risks	-          Injury -          Equipment damage
Control measures & implementation timeframe	-          Remind myself and the model to beware of surroundings during the shoot -          Be careful when handling my equipment during the shoot

Magazine Development

 This section of my blog will detail my magazine's development

Name Development

Initially, I wanted a two worded name so I started noting down everything I could come up with. I started shifting into trying to names that started with the same initials so it sounded better

However, I ended up not liking any of these and feeling like they're too long so I started thinking about single worded names. I looked up synonyms for the word 'paranormal' on the Merriam-Webster dictionary online to see if there's any that I liked.

I felt like I really like the word 'mystic' so I decided to use Mystic as the name for my magazine.

Coverline Ideas

• MAN EATING COFFIN: Real or Myth?
• Family's Dead Cat Returns 'Wrong' Reports Neighbors
• Zombies: Are They Possible?
• Exorcism All Over the World
• Monthly Monster: Jiangshi
• The History of Ghost Hunting
• Allegedly 'Haunted' Vase Destroys Marriage 

Cover Development

For my cover, I immediately knew I wanted the main image to look like it was being seen through night vision goggles as ghost hunters mostly go ghost hunting at night so needed to wear night vision goggles so I started with creating some quick small sketches of potential front covers to explore what I wanted and practice creating front covers. 

I realized I liked the bottom left cover most since it involved a person holding a camera as if in attempt to capture supernatural phenomena which I felt best suited my magazine and since it also looked a bit retro which is one of the paranormal magazine conventions I intend to keep (because retro-styled images are often associated with spookiness due to it appearing older). So I went on Ibis Paint X to sketch my idea in greater detail. I felt I wasn't satisfied with how the colours turned out so I watched this video about colour theory to better understand how I can utilize it. 

So far, I like the lower right magazine draft most as I really like how the green stands out against the monochrome grayscales. I think that will be the one I end up going for but I intend to do some further experimentation to confirm this choice.

Typography research

I have very limited typography knowledge so to combat this and ensure that my magazine effectively resonates with my audience, I did some basic typography research.

Definitions:

• Typography is a component of design that refers to the art of arranging letters based on composition and style to create a cohesive and appealing display.
• A typeface is a stylized collection of letters. Each typeface can communicate different connotations (for example, serif fonts are often used in paperwork as they are associated with formality)
• A baseline refers to the invisible line that a text is placed on
• A cap height refers to the height of a typeface's capital letters measured from the baseline
• Weight refers to the line thickness of a font. Typefaces usually come in 4 to 6 different weights, from light, regular, medium and bold.

Typefaces mainly come in these types:

• Serif fonts are fonts with little shapes that appear at the beginning or end of each stroke on a letter. Well known examples include, Times New Roman and EB Garamond. Up until the 19th century, books and pamphlets were only ever written in serif fonts thus creating the psychological association with formality.  It communicates stability, intellect and authority.
• 'Sans' is the French word for 'without' so, sans serif fonts are fonts without the little shapes on serif fonts. Examples of sans serif fonts include, Arial and Helvetica. Sans serif fonts were invented in the 19th century but only become popular in the 20th century as a part of the modernist movement. Culturally, sans serif fonts represent a break from tradition and have created the psychological association with progress and modernity. These make them excellent for creating bold and innovative typography.
• Handwriting or script fonts are unconventional fonts that mimic natural handwriting. Examples include, Indie Flower and Dancing Script. Fonts mimicking calligraphy usually invoke a sense of sophistication and luxury while fonts that mimic regular handwriting are more informal and invoke a sense of creativity and youth
• Display fonts are fonts that are typically only suitable for large point sizes and mostly used for its stylization to make a design look more eye-catching. Examples include Lobster and Silkscreen. Different display fonts could mean different connotations but generally, as they are used to catch an audience's attention, they are created to stand out meaning they can make a design appear more exciting and interesting while creating a sense of individuality.

Typography Conventions in Paranormal Magazines:

Mastheads:

Most of paranormal magazines mastheads are made up off of serif fonts and follows the rule of thirds by being placed on the top of the front cover. They are usually followed by 

Cover Drafts

I wanted to do some drafts of the cover before the final to ensure that this idea is effective for my magazine

I have 3 cameras I could use as potential props in my magazine. I wanted to see which of them best fit the composition of the cover so I created a draft for each of them

After my experimentation, I concluded that the first camera would act as a prop the best. Its size makes for better composition and as a vintage camera it suited the retro look I wanted to apply to my magazine.

Next, I decided to see how the image would look with the colours I wanted to use for the cover so I edited the images on Ibis Paint X

Statement of Intent

 This part of my blog will detail the statement of intent I have created for my magazine

In case the embed fails: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oVFO555L3NvoWPYbv_7jXtW0wnCPORHLQJ5PoV64xlI/edit?usp=sharing

Editing

 This part of my blog will detail the editing which is done by Regine

Self  Reflection: 

• The entire editing process was done by Regine. My involvement only extended as much as checking on her progress to understand if things were working well. Admittedly, I wish I could've helped by being more involved but it's impractical as it would've made it harder, due to technicalities, to edit so we trusted Regine to take on the process on her own. In the end, her work had exceeded our expectations. It was really interesting to see how the our previous work (storyboard, screenplay etc) was put together into a single cohesive product.

Thumbnail

This part of my blog will detail the research & development for our thumbnail which is done by me and Beatrice

Research

As we are doing a medical crime documentary, I looked into medical crime documentaries specifically to better understand what their conventions may be. 

From here, we can see that, for medical crime documentaries, white is more commonly used compared to crime documentaries from other genres. I assume this is because white is associated with medicine as people often use it to symbolize cleanliness and purity which is what the field of medicine is expected to be. This white is usually contrasted with darker colours which may show this 'purity' being tainted. Medical-related props are also often shown (pill bottles, statoscopes etc) which further emphasizes the medical setting. 

After that I decided to do a more in-depth research. I decided to pick Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders as our documentary was inspired by the Tylenol murders.

Liked:

• The Tylenol murders case is a case of medicine tampering that killed people through the Tylenol that people bought and unknowingly consumed. If you look closely, the dark background is actually a map. This paired with the contents of a broken pill spilling out all over it may symbolize how the medicine tampering has affected various people across a certain area.
• The 'PAIN-' half of the word painkiller is coloured red while the '-KILLER' part is coloured white. This parallels with the pill shown on the cover

Disliked:

• It's not really clear that the background is a map unless you look closely as it is quite dark and the text on the map is quite small. If I were the one creating this thumbnail, I would have made the details on the map (text, roads, etc) in white so that it contrasts with the black and becomes visible.

Conclusion:

I quite enjoy this thumbnail overall and I might be taking inspiration from the broken pill part of this thumbnail for my own. The map bit also got me thinking about ways I could show that this affects an entire school. 

 

Development

After conducting research and reading Beatrice research, we gained a better understanding of what we wanted to do for our thumbnail. However this was met with the realization that we had not come up with a name for our documentary. Beatrice reminded us of this and we immediately started coming up with names.

I rushed to my phone's notepad to immediately start brainstorming name ideas

However, none of these particularly stood out to us. After that, Beatrice sent us her ideas

She asked our group for our preferences and Regine & I found The Silent Dose, The Lethal Remedy, Prescription for Deceit and Misdiagnosed to be most compelling. However, after some further discussion and teacher feedback, we decided to go with Prescription for Deceit. This is because the word 'prescription' provides the audience context for what our documentary will be about while 'deceit' adds an element of intrigue.

Thumbnail Photography

We started by taking some pictures in school during lunch. However, we had some issues with my camera's setting which took up some time to fix and since we had limited time, our end pictures were rushed. 

Some of the blurry pictures

After that, Beatrice focused on developing potential directions we could go with for our thumbnail. Taken from her blog:

"The following day, I began sketching potential concepts for the documentary’s thumbnail, planning to draft four designs using the images Aurel and I captured as references. However, Regine proposed that we re-shoot the images and contributed two additional concepts that she had sketched. Below are the ideas we've developed through our sketches.

[Regine's sketch]

We used Regine's thumbnail concept as the foundation for our re-shoot. Learning from our previous challenges, Regine and I opted to conduct the re-shoot after school, allowing us more time to set up the mise-en-scène and explore different camera angles and compositions. We utilized a phone camera for the re-shoot, with Regine directing the process, articulating her vision for the imagery while taking the pictures. My hand was used to model for the thumbnail, maintaining continuity with my role as the perpetrator in the documentary. However, since one of Regine's ideas involved using medicine or pills outside of their packaging, we decided it would be safer to capture this shot at home to avoid any potential risks. This allowed us to ensure a controlled environment while adhering to safety considerations. 

Thumbnail Image Selections 

Here I will be showing the selected images that we ended up using to develop as potential thumbnail.

Images taken by Regine ↓

These are the images captured by Regine at the school clinic. Similar to our previous concept, we aimed to convey the idea of the perpetrator tampering with the medicine through the imagery. To achieve this, we experimented with multiple shots, exploring two different ways of holding the medicine packaging to better communicate this narrative element.

These are the two images we ultimately considered for our thumbnail. I personally prefer the bottom one (the 5th image) due to its more balanced composition. However, Regine favored the top image (the 2nd image) as she suggested altering the word "Panadol" to "Deceit," which adds a deeper layer of meaning to the design. Furthermore, it presents a more conceptually compelling and thematically relevant idea for the documentary.

Images taken by me (Beatrice) ↓

Initially, I captured a variety of images, experimenting with different camera angles and lighting techniques, as demonstrated in the following example. However, I had to narrow down the selection by deleting some images and choosing the ones that best fit the intended visual narrative of the thumbnail. Below are the images I considered for further development.

These are my initial composition ideas. Aside from the third image (which was taken towards the end of the shooting session), the arrangement of the medicine / pills are intentionally disordered to suggest the pills have been scattered, reinforcing the theme of tampering. However, towards the end of the shoot, I had the idea to arrange the pills in a 'P' shape, symbolizing the title of our documentary, Prescription for Deceit. For compositions 1-3, I considered placing the title in the top-right corner, in line with Regine's sketch. On the fourth image, which features a close-up shot from a higher camera angle, I thought of placing the title in the center, inspired by the 'The Business of Drugs' documentary.

These are my second composition ideas. I decided to remove the cap and the yellow medicine packaging to place more focus on the pills themselves. By using a higher camera angle, I felt this better emphasized the pills while also showcasing the date on the packaging more clearly. This could serve as a subtle narrative device, linking the event’s timeline to the date on the packaging. For instance, the 14/9 appears unpressed, suggesting it should have remained unopened—aligning with our documentary’s storyline, where September 14th marks the day the student suddenly lost consciousness and was rushed to the hospital.

This is my third set of composition ideas, where I employed a similar technique to the second composition by focusing on the pills with minimal distractions. However, this was also when I began experimenting with arranging the pills into a 'P' shape (and re-shooting image 3 from the first composition). Despite these efforts, I find the compositions in this set too orderly, which doesn’t effectively convey the sense of chaos and disruption associated with the tampering of the medicine. Therefore, I’ve decided not to develop these images further, possibly with the exception of the first image.

These are the four images that I plan to further develop. Together with the image that Regine took, I will be experimenting with the placement of the documentary's title to determine which two images are most effective for the final thumbnail. This process will help refine the selection and ensure the most suitable visual representation for our project."

While she was doing this, I was thinking about what I could do for the thumbnail. I thought about how I could relate the thumbnail image to the name to better indicate what the content of our documentary would be which would help attract our target audience better.

Since the title was Prescription for Deceit, I started thinking about how I would be able to involve a prescription in our thumbnail. So, I started creating some fake school clinic prescription templates

Although prescription notes are typically black & white, I picked a turquoise colour to match our school's theme (since that's where the plot takes place) and because it was a colour often associated with medicine. I also planned to print it our put fake blood on it for the thumbnail so I believed that this cooler colour would contrast well with the red of the blood as they are complimentary colours which made it more eye catching. However, Beatrice suggested a more blue tone and created the draft below

I agreed with her decision as blue was more often associated with clinics than turquoise is while still being a complimentary colour to red so I decided to go with her idea.

After that I printed it out. I used old paper rather than using a brand new one as it made the prescription note look more used. Then I applied red food colouring on a paint brush and flicked it at the paper to create a blood spray effect. These are the examples of what the pictures ended up looking like:

After that, we tried to experiment by creating mockups:

Using the mockups, we experimented text placement (such as seen in the above where we were trying to decide whether the text looked better tilted to follow the paper so that it looks like the word 'deceit' would appear as if it were directly on the paper or not) and how different effects (shadows, colours) would affect the thumbnail

We decided to go with this one for our thumbnail. A cooler tone was edited in by Beatrice as cooler tones are more often associated with medicine and gave our thumbnail a 'colder' feeling

We decided to conform to typical crime documentary conventions by using darker colder tones as it suggests the 'darker' contents of our documentary to the audience. Blood is also commonly seen in crime documentaries. Here, we've decided to use it as a symbolic code to show how the medical field (specifically in the school's), shown using the prescription, has been tainted by a gruesome incident. 

Although we mainly conformed, we also subverted a little by not including a person in our thumbnail. This creates a sense of mystery as the suspect's identity is obscured which we feel would better attract our mystery seeking target audience

Self Reflection:

• Thumbnail research helped us understand what we needed to attract our target audience's attention
• I think I should have experimented more with different directions I could've taken the thumbnail by sketching different mockups. However, since we were rushing to get the thumbnail done as soon as possible so we could move on to our critical self reflection, I just immediately started working on my idea as soon as it came to my head. Next time, I think I want to start creating the thumbnail earlier so that I don't have to rush the process