Research & Contextual Analysis

What is a documentary?

A documentary is a "movie" usually with a scene based on a specific topic and the scene is explained by a voice over. Most of the times there is more stuff included such as sound effects, sound tracks, visual effects etc. Documentary is a term to describe non-fiction movie that intends to show off an unknown angle of a subject, a hidden story of someone and so on. Documentaries usually capture reality and most of the time it brings its audience into a new world and gives them new experiences about different topics. In my opinion a documentary with a horror topic is going to make me more interested and also is going to bring me more into the "new world" that the documentary has created.

I don't usually watch documentaries but if I was to watch any documentary, I think I would have chosen any documentary with "historical" sub-genre as I am kind of interested in what happened in the past and how the society used to be in the past.

Documentary modes:

·      Poetic mode – relaxing music, feeling the atmosphere, it is not narrative

·      Performative mode

·      Reflective mode – increases our awareness of nature of the film

·      Expository mode

·      Observational mode

·      Participatory mode

What is your favourite documentary film and why?

Analyse the film for its sub-genre, use of documentary conventions and use of documentary modes.

We have watched an expository mode documentary in today’s class. I know it is expository documentary because it increases our awareness of nature of the film since the beginning. It is an expository mode because a crime is involved during the documentary.

I watched a few documentaries but I don't really have a favourite one. However, I did watch a documentary in where three girls disappeared and they were found again after 16 - 20 years, I don't remember exactly. I liked the documentary because it didn't have only the voice over, it also had interviews with neighbors, policeman, the girls that went missing and also it had videos and pictures from the house where the girls were hidden (the girls were captured by a man for about 20 years). 

     The documentary about Bi-Cultural Identity has a sub-genre about biographic. The conventions used in this documentary were interview, dialogue and narration. The documentary modes used are: reflective mode as the people interviewed and they summed up their life since they moved to another country (UK), and how hard it was for them to accommodate especially with the people with similar age as them. However, the student could added an image with the question asked before the people's answer.

I don't like the fact that in this interview, the light was very bad, the image quality was very poor. The person who has done this documentary should have thought about the lightning before doing the interview.

The documentary sub-genre for the documentary made by Jake Earwaker is Sport, because it involved skating, and skating is a sport. However, the interviews were casual and every person who has been interviewed spoke very relaxed and it gave me the feeling that they spoke from the heart and it gave the feeling to the public that they weren’t recorded.

I really like the fact that the person who has produced the video has introduced a quick intro about how the skateboarding has started since its beginnings.

The conventions used in this documentary were interview and dialogue but were also short clips with sound track. The documentary modes used are: observational mode and performative mode. However, the student could have improved the video and audio quality but however, probably he didn't want to spend too much money on this project as it was a college project.

The documentary about mental-health has Biographic/autobiographic sub-genre because it involves people talking about their mental health problems. The conventions used in this documentary were interview dialogue, narration, but a good soundtrack was also included through-out the whole clip. The documentary modes are reflective mode and participatory mode. It is participatory because the person who created the clip also included himself in the clip (in the latest parts). It is also reflective mode as the people within the video talked about their life and they were basically reflecting their mental health problems. How could have been improved in the clip was the use of font-type. In my opinion the font types weren’t the best.

I think the person who has done the documentary about mental health has done a really good job with this design to show the statistics. It looks very impressive and it makes the audience to understand better because of the graphics.

Rules of typography

There is some "rules" that every designer might consider to use to make their works look greater. After reading an article on this topic, I have done a summary about the most important stuff in my opinion that I and/or other designers should respect while doing social media design.

Don’t use fancy fonts because probably it will not look nice and it will be hard to read.
Elegant typefaces such as “Trajan Pro” should be used in short texts, e.g. as a header/ sub-header etc. Also keep the typography simple as it will look greater, this applies overall.
Do not mix more than two fonts. Even if you mix two fonts you should be really careful as the fonts might have different x-height and you should correct it. Therefore, better use only one font as it will be less work. However, if you really want to have an elegant piece of work, instead of writing numbers like this (1, 5, 36, 44 etc) you should spell the numbers because it will make the text look elegant and professional. However, if they are large numbers, you might consider to write the numbers instead of spelling them.

In today’s lesson I have learnt about the importance of identity. Identity can be used for example in a social campaign, a company, a shop, restaurant etc. For example in a social campaign the identity should represent its audience and its goals. By having an identity it makes easier to recognize and it stands out for the public. An identity can be represented by a colour, a slogan, a specific design (e.g. logo), and lower/uppercase letters. All of these can add up to a strong identity which will make a campaign easier to recognize.

After learning the importance of identity, I will try all my best to create a powerful identity for my social campaign. I am not sure yet how I will do it in terms of what colour or what words for my slogan or the logo itself. However, I will research on my audience and I will create something that will stand out for my audience.

From my research I infer that “constructivism” was an artistic and architectural philosophy that started in Russia. It began in 1913 by Vladimir Tatlin, it also had great impacts on the modern art movements of the 20^th century. This philosophy became popular worldwide with major effects upon graphic design, film, fashion, dance etc. The whole point of constructivism was to “construct art”, as it had social purposes.

The constructivism is a different type of art that is represented by capitals. Main colours such as red and black, different shapes, the text is usually aligned in vertical and diagonal and it is usually sans serif. The design is often asymmetric. 

Gustav Klutsis

“Fulfilled Plan, Great Work”,

The hands in the poster is Klutsis own hand but in the design it has the goal to represent the workers, a massive part of the communist movement goals. He also added in a few faces of social workers, he added them as being part of the collective mass instead of individual faces. Klutsis created the image by using the process called “Photomontage” and afterwards “Litograph”. (Litograph is a printing method)

Aleksei Gan

Stenberg brothers

Experimental Jetset

I like Experimental Jetset as it is universal. The design is very unique for each poster. The positive elements of an Experimental Jetset are the helvetica font type, huge font sizes, flat color. I think these types of posters are my type as I like the posters with a huge message because it is more visible than a normal poster. Probably, I will consider having a poster like this in my future projects. 

Lower thirds

Lower thirds is a title card in the lower third of the screen presented

I have watched a few YouTube videos to see different examples of lower thirds and so far, this one caught my attention. Most likely I will use this design if I will do a documentary. However, I will probably change the animations and I will create something different. Probably, I will put the opacity to 0 and then slowly to come at 100 (for the texts) and for the line between texts I will just drag the line with the help of an animation.

Task 6

Review on Documentary "Fed up"

The title of the documentary that I watched is “Fed Up”, it is a documentary about obesity problems in our society and it was released in 2014. Overall, the documentary was great in terms of production value. They had high quality lighting for their interviews and famous interviewees former President Clinton. The content lacked useful information for its audience. For example (...) The audio and lightning was always high quality. However, what I did not like about this documentary is the fact that, in my opinion, the people interviewed gave wrong facts. For example, a person said that by eating sugar and fats we gain weight, which is completely wrong. Another person said that by drinking sodas we increase our chances to become obese, which is again wrong as soda does not make us gain weight. In fact there is not a type of food/drink that makes us gain weight. What really makes us gain weight are the calories taken in.

Task 7

As I am doing a social campaign about “obesity” I wanted see what people think is the reason for obesity. I didn’t want to have a question where the answer could be just yes/no, therefore I came up with the question “What do you think is the reason for obesity?”. I received a lot of different answers but mainly they all came to the idea of “education” and “unhealthy food”. By education, my interviewers meant that children should be taught in schools that unhealthy foods such as crisps, chips, pizza, fast foods as a whole, aren’t the best choice for them. However, unhealthy food is usually cheaper than healthy food, and probably most people choose this option as it is cheaper and they can save money for something else.

Task 8

Age - In my opinion, my primary target audience will be people aged between 11 and 70 years old. I would say my audience will start from 11 years old as this is the time were children start to worry about their look, they start to worry more and more if they are overweight and it will end at 70 years old as probably at this time, they will want to just leave the rest of their lives peacefully without worrying about the looks.

Gender - My audience will be both, men and female as obesity can happen mostly to everyone.

Nationality - My audience will mainly be people from UK and probably United States as my documentary will be in English. My audience will be people who are speaking English.

Social Status - Probably, most of my audience will be made of people in a lower social class such as working class because the healthy food is more expensive and junk food and fast food is cheaper most of the times, so they choose the cheaper way.

Task 9 

“You are what you eat.” Are you happy with how you look right now? If the answer is “no”, you should change something, probably you should change your lifestyle. (...). I will add this phrase at the start of my documentary to try and make my audience realise that food makes a real difference in someone's lifestyle. I will also use the lower thirds to introduce my interviewees. Maybe I will also add another phrase at the ending of my documentary for example such as "Food is a priority." 

Tibor Kalman (AIDS, 1994)

This design really inspired me because the text "AIDS" is aligned very unconventional and it just fits perfectly with the idea of the magazine which is written at the top "a magazine about the rest of the world". By having the letters aligned with different angles heights gives the idea that people have different opinions. Also what I like about this image is that it is written in two languages, English and Italian.

Adbusters (Big Mac Attack)

In this design I like the way the designer used the McDonald's logo (the M) to replace it with an E. It is really smart in my opinion. However, about the message of the design I like the way the designer expressed his message towards the audience by saying in simple words that by eating constantly or consistently fast food  you will increase your chances of dying at a young age. The word "fast" is meant to represent the massive increase of chances of dying because of processed food from different fast foods.

David Gentleman - (Stop the war coalition, 2003)

This design looks simple but it has an important message that can be understand by a large variety of people as "NO" is a simple word which mostly everyone can understand that by saying "no", you mean to stop something. Therefore, the simpler it is, the more impact it will have. Also, the red spot inside the O really gives the idea of war and it's consequences. 

Surrealism

Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth; stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, in order to evoke empathy from the viewer. (copyrights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism)

Mindmap

This is the mindmap, I have created for my documentary. Most probably my topic will be about obesity as in my opinion it is a social problem nowadays that keeps increasing each year.

3 elements that make Barnardo’s campaign recognisable. 

Different scenarios in every image, type font, type size. For example the type font is aligned on the right side of the image in every picture. Type size is all the same in all images.

Research the organisation, what does Barnardo’s do?

Barnardo’s campaign is trying the give all vulnerable children a chance for a future life and they believe that they can help and will try to help every children, no matter what their issue is.

What are my thoughts about Barnardo’s campaign?
It is my first time when I hear about this campaign but after doing a bit of research on it I really think that the campaign has good motives to help children in need.

These are some photos from the Barnardo's campaign. They all have the same type font and type size. The text is aligned on the right side of the image and also in both images there is a low key light. These things are appealing to the audience of this Campaign and keeps its audience more interested. Also the logo is in top right corner in both images.

Multicolumn grid:
- provide flexible formats for publications
- the more columns the more flexible is going to be

Designing with a hang line:
- you can split up the page horizontally to add in another paragraph or an image

1.       Yes, there are more types of grids, for example “Multicolumn grid” and “Golden section”.

2.       I found about them that the Golden section is used in more basic format and from my opinion it can be used in books, blogs etc. Also, there is Multicolumn grid which separates the page in more columns e.g. three/four columns, by having more columns you are more flexible with the design, you can add in images and don’t have to worry about the space between grids.

3.       Grids are most used in magazines, blogs, newspapers, posters, and websites.

4.       Also grids are used in Web Design.

5.       A grid can be useful for the design as it catches the audience’s attention. By having a magazine using multicolumn grid, having for example 5-6 grids it will be unique comparing to others magazines which usually have only three grids and the audience will be more interesting to see what other things are different in the respective magazine, not only the grid design. Another way a grid is useful is that it isolates information and it easier to be understood by its audience.

6.       By breaking the grid in a successful way, will bring you so many benefits, one of them and the most important will be an increase in the audience. By breaking the grid you will unfollow the “unwritten rules” of a magazine for example and you will be able to express your unique design.

I researched a leaflet that has two sides, one side is about being a “Scope” to try and help disabled people. The edition that I red is from 2018 and is especially trying to help a girl called “Mia”. This also tells us about the fact that “8 out of 10 parents of disabled children feel their child has less opportunity than other children to fulfil their dreams and ambitions”. However, on the other side its explaining how to join a jackpot that is only £1 per entry and it listed the prizes, for example, the 1^st prize is £10,000 or a brand new Hyundai i10, 2^nd prize £500 or a leather massage chair and so on.

The other campaign I have red was “Amnesty International” it is about the fact that minors shouldn’t be miners. The main goal was to send letters towards the Microsoft, more specifically to Satya Nadella, CEO. However, this campaign not only wanted you to send them the letter, but also send it beside a donation. They mentioned that they will send in all the letters together for a greater impact.

Here is my Social Campaign Identity feedback that I received from my class. 

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Secondary research % of children and adults obese.

Worldwide there is about 13% of adults aged 18 years and older that were obese in 2016. 13% is a big number for obese adults, but in reality 39% of adults were overweight in 2016 which is shocking. Approximately more than one-in-three (36%) of adults in United States and about 10 times lower in India (3.9%). As you can see here, the relationship between income and obesity is in fact true. At the bottom were countries from Asia such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore with low levels of obesity but however, high levels of income. Right at the top we have poorer countries such as Nauru and Palau with 61% and 55% obesity rates. Therefore, the income of a country does affect the obesity rates. As the answers from my documentary said that the healthy food is more expensive than the cheaper food and it shows up as poorer countries are having bigger obesity rates than countries with higher income of money because people with poorer incomes will most probably pick up the cheapest food over the healthy food (which is more expensive).

If the adults are defined as obese if their BMI (body mass index) is higher than 30 and overweight if their BMI is higher than 25, for children is quite different as the World Health Oraganization (WHO) Growth Standards are stating that a child is defined as overweight if their weight for height is more than two standard deviations from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards. The percentage of adolescents aged 5-19 who are overweight or obese has increased from 4% in 1975 to about 18% in 2016. In many countries every third or fourth child is overweight.

Reference: https://ourworldindata.org/obesity

For my interviewees I aimed to have less questions but where the answers couldn't be yes/no. Most my questions were like "What is your opinion/What do you think". My questions were:
1) What is your name and how old are you?
2) What is your opinion about obesity?
3) What is the reason so many people are obese?
4) How can we avoid obesity?

Unit 12

Positive Representation of Race in Black Panther

Point – Black Panther has a positive representation of a Black Superhero when Black Panther jumps on a grenade to protect Nakia and Okoye.

Evidence – When Erik Killmonger is coming to save and get back Klaw, he throws a grenade (image one) and Black Panther, the superhero saves his friends (image two/image three) by jumping on the grenade (image four).

Explanation – These actions represent that black people are equal to white people and can be heroic.

Link to topic – This is a positive representation of race equality Black Panther is the good character who saves his friends where as Klaw who is white is represented as the antagonist.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Black Panther

Target audience  12 – 20 years old.

Point: A generic convention of Superhero films is dangerous and heroic acts that usually take place in car chases, on top of buildings.

Evidence: The primary target audience of young males are attracted by the car chase where different models of sport cars are involved.

Evidence: The primary target audience of young males are attracted by the car chase where different models of sport cars are involved.

Explanation: The primary target audience of young males are excited to watch the sport cars pursuit that happens in Black Panther and their appeal increases as they would also like to drive cars similar to the ones in Black Panther. For example, the image below increases their appeal to sport cars.   

Link to topic: The mise-en-scene directly appeals to the primary target audience’s interest that is car pursuits using sport cars and in the image above, even cars with “superpowers”

One campaign that I found out about is “5-a-day” campaign that was produced in 2003. As the name suggests it is recommended to eat “five (fruits/vegetables) a day”.