Research

This will include all of my research during the making of the project

1. The Final attack on Wembley

1. What sub-genre of crime documentary would you categorize this as?
• The sub-genre for this documentary would be sports and riots documentary
2. Who is the target audience?
• Sports fans specifically football fans
• More to the British community
3. What typical conventions were used
• Policemen to convey that a crime was committed as police would only be involved if there was a crime reported. 
• Riot sounds are the sound of something breaking as a result of the riot. 
• Interviews of the people involved with the event such as the police, citizens, and others. 
• Actual footage of the accident
4. Did this opening conform or subvert the conventions for this genre?
• The opening confirmed the typical conventions of a crime documentary having all the aspects such as dark lighting, and police arriving at the scenes. With these interventions, the audience can imply that it is a serious problem and help them imagine how hectic the actual scene really is.
5. How does it create suspense using the following 
• Camera: Random movement when the actual footage was shown to make it more realistic and show the chaos happening. The scene also used several medium shots to make it seem more serious.
• Sound: Most of the sound uses both dietetic and non-diegetic sounds of the chaos recorded from the live footage and uses suspenseful music in the background of when it started happening. 
• Mise-en-scene:  It shows how disruptive the scene is after what happened in Wembley. Blood is also shown inside of the opening which makes it more serious and implies to the audience that there is something wrong in England causing unwanted things to happen. The documentary also showed flares used by football fans to imply how brutal the scene was.
• Edit: Most of the edits were straight cuts from scene to scene such as from the interview scene to the actual footage of the attack. Which makes it as simple as what documents should be. 
6. What parts of the opening did you find inspiring
• The opening uses actual footage of how great England was back then which made the audience think how great of a fall they have gone through. 

2. Worst roommate ever

1. What sub-genre of crime documentary would you categorize this as
• This documentary will be in the genre of violence, murder, and a missing person. The title implies how the roommate of the main actor did something horrible  
2. Who is the target audience?
• In both genders, people in their early ages range of 17 and above 
3. What typical conventions were used
• Nighttime, dark lighting, use of the color red, suspenseful, quick cuts of photos of the crime scene
4. Did this opening conform or subvert the conventions for this genre
• It confirms and tells the audience that the documentary will be about betrayal and murder. It is stated that the roommate did try to kill the main actor which conformed the conventions of an attempted murder documentary.
5. How does it create suspense using the following 
• Camera: Low angle of the house entrance, long shot of her kid playing with the swing, close-up on her BFF's face 
• Sound: Non-diegetic discordant sounds when the house is shown which makes the audience feel eerie and disturbed. When the audience feels this way the documentary does its job. 
• Mise-en-scene: Dark lighting which connotes negativity and implies to the audience that something is bad about to happen. The documentary also uses baby pictures of her which makes the actor seem more innocent.   
• Edit: Straight cuts of the crime scene from one scene to another to make it a much rather fast-paced documentary. 
6. What parts of the opening did you find inspiring
• Pictures of the aftermath of the attempted murder to make the documentary more realistic as actual footage is shown. 
• How it consistently stays suspenseful and eerie which is not every other documentary can do. 

3. The devil on trial

1. What sub-genre of crime documentary would you categorize this as
• This documentary would be about a murder documentary and thriller as some of the images are explicit showing the victim's blood and other organs. 
2. Who is the target audience?
• People who believed in god. As the documentary is related to satan and Christianity, people who believe in lord Jesus Christ would be interested in this documentary. 
• Both genders as representations of men and women are given in this documentary which makes both genders the target audience.
3. What typical conventions were used
• Nighttime, dark lighting, suspense, flashbacks.  
• This documentary uses typical conventions such as vulgar words which would be necessary when wanting to target an adult audience. The documentary also has interviews with the victim and others related to the case. The interview makes it more professional and makes the audience feel much more involved as it uses medium shot making it seem as if the audience are talking directly to the interviewee. 
4. Did this opening conform or subvert the conventions for this genre
• The opening confirmed that the movie was about murder and a devil-related case.
5. How does it create suspense using the following 
• Camera: Close-up shots of the picture when the kid was possessed. A pan and establishing shots of where the murder began. A Medium shot of the person called David Galtzel the kid who was possessed and was doing the trial. 
• Sound: Non-diegetic sound of the possessed kid in the recording. Eerie noises at the beginning of the movie. 
• Mise-en-scene: Dark lighting, Pictures of the possessed kid. The room that David Glatzel was in looked holy and there are props related to Christianity and the divine mother.  
• Edit: Straight cuts of the area where the possession happened. 
6. What parts of the opening did you find inspiring
• The photos shown when the recording was played are always related to what happened in the possessed kid's voice recording. This helps the reader to imagine with the help of the images how exactly accurate is the voice recording. 

4. How to rob a bank

1. What sub-genre of crime documentary would you categorize this as
• The subgenre for this documentary would be classified as robbery and trespassing. 
• This documentary would be classified as robbery as the title says which explicitly tells the reader
2. Who is the target audience?
• Both females and males, as both are represented in the documentary are quite vague as they used cartoon-style animation to attract the younger audience and actual footage for the older audiences.
• People of America is the location of robbed banks happen mostly in the states of America
3. What typical conventions were used
• Police, FBI,
• Actual footage of the robbery  
4. Did this opening conform or subvert the conventions for this genre
• The opening doesn't subvert any conventions as it tells the audience directly that it is about robbing a bank. 
5. How does it create suspense using the following 
• Camera: The documentary has a lot of close-ups of the person's undercover appearance which tells the audience that he is a professional robber. Static shots make it more tense as it is slow-paced.  
• Sound: Non-diegetic music in the background of the robbery uses happy music to show how relaxed the robber really is. 
• Mise-en-scene: The scene of the robbery in a typical local bank with less security and an easy location to execute the robbery. The footage shows using a close-up shot of the different appearance of the robber. 
6. What parts of the opening did you find inspiring
• The cartoon-style animation. They mixed both cartoons and live-action robbery which made the documentary less boring compared to other documentaries.  
• It makes the audience feel more involved as it appeals more.

5. American Murder: The Family Next Door

1. What sub-genre of crime documentary would you categorize this as
• The documentary didn't particularly mention that it was going to be about murder but the title suggested it. 
2. Who is the target audience?
• People of Colorado, People above the age of 16 that find documentaries interesting
3. What typical conventions were used
• Police in the actual scenes, 
• Using actual footage of the friend dropping the main character. 
4. Did this opening conform or subvert the conventions for this genre
• The opening slowly shows that it was about crime but doesn't directly show the audience what happened to the family. The family went missing so suddenly but the cause is not given. It was first shown how happy she was with her family adapting to the new environment as she just moved is supposed to be challenging but her family did it easily.  
5. How does it create suspense using the following 
• Camera: A close-up shot and panning shot of the family's happy scenes to show the audience that they were living their best lives. This makes the audience feel empathy towards whatever happened to the victim's family. The documentary also uses static shots of some of the scenes where it shows the family enjoying their time.
• Sound: The documentary uses happy music for the non-diegetic sounds when the happy moments of their family are shown. It then slowly diverts into a sad song changing the atmosphere for the audience. 
• Mise-en-scene: The first bits of the beginning show the colors used by Shannon Watts to be bright and colorful. This makes the scene much more happier and cheerful as bright colors connote happiness 
• Edit: Most of the scenes only use straight cuts to show simplicity and conform to another convention of a documentary.  
6. What parts of the opening did you find inspiring

• The opening included happy pictures of their family which made me realise how important pictures are in a documentary film. Pictures play a huge part in a documentary opening as they can represent the overall image of someone/something. 

Self Reflection:

Doing this research has inspired me to do several things and implement them inside of my documentary. This helped me with creating the documentary as I am planning to use some of these openings i find inspiring. Though finishing this research I had to use a paid membership and tiktok to find the opening of the movie consuming most of my time. This was very hard as some applications didn't have a good documentary with the genres I was trying to replicate. Solutions are easy to find as i have a lot of free time to complete this work. 

My Team

This blog will discuss all about my teammates during the documentary project

Bagus: https://agustina-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/ 

Bagas: https://bagasaja-regentsmediastudies.blogspot.com/ 

Saka: https://saka-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/ 

And this is our Team picture

Self-reflection:

I chose these guys as my team because not only are they my friends but they are capable of helping me achieve what I want as the final product of the documentary project. We had to face several challenges though as finding an idea that can include all four of ours is very difficult. We took more than 3 meetings to finalize what the documentary would be about which was longer than expected but the final video turned out well anyway. 

Weekly Progress & Plans

This is my weekly progress and plans for the documentary project

Week 1:

This week we were introduced to the new syllabus of media studies and were informed about our documentary project

Week 2:

During the second week, we did research on crime documentaries to use as references for our project. We analyzed the first 5 minutes of a crime documentary series/movie and wrote all the important aspects of a crime documentary. These important aspects include the mise-en scene, the typical conventions of a crime documentary what was inspiring to us, and what we could do for our documentary project. On the last day of this week were introduced to media regulations and how the audience is affecting the policies. We discussed rules done by the 4 most common social media, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. 

Week 3:

This week we did our statement of intent and chose to make a multitalented criminal documentary. We also chose our teams consisting of 4 including myself. We discussed how our documentary would be and the actors we needed to find to finish the documentary. 

To-do:

• Finish statement of intent
• Finalise documentary plan

Week 4:

This week we started making our script for the documentary project. As well as the storyboard and the location scout for the risk assessments. We finished up our statement of intent and finalized our plan for how the documentary will be. Other than the project lessons we learned a few more theories that could be used. We learned what power has to do with anything in the media and how effective it is.

To-do:

• Continue finishing script
• Take pictures of the location
• Find actors for the documentary project

Week 5:

This week we did the storyboard for our documentary and made a filming schedule for our team. This was kind of hectic tho as not all of us are as flexible as we want to be but accurately executing the recordings as followed in the schedule might be very challenging.

To-do:

• Continue storyboard
• Recording

Week 6:

Week 6 we watched a 1 hour long Netflix series titled Black Mirror. This tells the audience how much social media/technology has affected our lives. We then noted all the necessary information we could get related to our documentary project. We also introduced the critical self-reflection and discussed how to answer each question.

To-do:

• Connect any valuable lesson about the series we watched
• Notes on the several things we could include for our documentary

Week 7:

This week we discussed more media regulation and power in the media. Other than discussing that we continued our project and showed our progress to the teacher. We got feedback on what we should and shouldn't do which made the finalised documentary draft better.

To-do:

• Edit according to the feedback
• Research how power affects media companies

Week 8:

This will be our last week of the term, we asked the teacher for feedback on our final documentary video and asked if there are areas in need of improvement. We also made self-reflection to the end of every blog post we did which included the problems and solutions and much more.

To-do:

• Add a self-reflection for every blog post
• Finalised thumbnail and more developed research.

Self Reflection:

This weekly progress helped me a lot in keeping track of my work and made a to-do list for me. I needed this blog as it will assist me in completing tasks and will be a reminder to always finish tasks such as finishing research or continuing editing thumbnails, videos, or sounds according to the feedback given. Although helpful making this weekly progress can be quite troublesome as sometimes I forget to do it which makes the entire week blank. 

Documentary Project Brief

 This is the brief for my documentary project

Self Reflection:

The brief introduced us to the project and outlined the deadline for it. This project has my interest, as I have been watching some documentaries on Netflix that have inspired ideas for how I want mine to look. Using similar conventions and converted some to make my documentary much more professional. Surely there will be several challenges we will face as the members of my team will likely have different imaginations for their documentaries. We will need to find a way to use all four of our opinions and make it into one unified documentary.