Progress update 7

During this week, we continued editing our documentary and re-recorded our over voice for our documentary. This reason behind this was because we weren't completely happy with the pace in which our narrator read out the script. So, the second time round, the narrator read out the script clearer and at a slower pace thus creating an authentic over voice similar to those of professional documentaries.

Also, we started to go through different types of background music that we could use in our documentary. Our decision was based on our target audience. As our target audience are young, we decided that our choice in music should also be young. Music that is current, edgy and upbeat will be perfect for our documentary and relate to our audience.

Progress update 6

We started to put our clips together, creating areas of fast editing and even worked with transformations and split screens(during our makeover footage). It was clear that it was a challenge to make the clips blend together and be effective in displaying our chosen topic.

We removed the audio from a lot of the background footage in order for the voice over to be affective. A lot of our background footage was of mumbled diegetic talking of students in areas around college.

During our makeover footage we sped up the clip so it showed the transformation and how easy it is to transform yourself and present a completely different stereotype. We also extended music out from one of our archive footages(St Trinians). This helped the clip have more impact and was more approachable to our target audience as it is fairly new and so would attract youths attention.

Initial Technical Decisions.

Progress update 5

During this week, we have been getting our clips and creating a log sheet. To do this, we watched over each of a clips and cut them to find the parts of the clips are going to use in our documentary. From doing this, we have discovered that we need a more effective opening, and to do this we will need to re film people say the different stereotypes.Also, along side this, we created a story board to capture our vision for our documentary. After we did this, we started to note down ideas for our script that we would record a voice over for. Finally, we started to practice editing using 'Adobe Premier' to build our documentary.

Script for the Voice over in our documentary

Script

A stereotype is a thought that can be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things.These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately reflect reality.

When asking students for the definition of individual social groups such as "Chav" or "popular" they all replied with similar stereotypical representations. For example, for "Chav" students described them as "rough people who only wear tracksuits" and for "popular" students described them as being "Stuck up" and often the "bullies of the school". 

Do these well known social stereotypes actually exist, or are they something that has been crafted by the media based on a subjective and negative opinion. We wanted to know why certain appearances and ideas have been linked to these social groups. 

To find this out we spoke to Students from Solihull 6^th Form who gave us their verdict on whether appearances affect what social group you belong to... 



We spoke to Julie Maitland about the affects of conforming to social groups and the impact that these stereotypes can have on students...


We also spoke to Nick Waring, about the influence the media has on the existence of stereotypes amongst society...

Stereotypes are usually judged upon appearances, but appearances are subjective and are easily changed, so why do (enter statistic) of the people we asked feel stereotyped due to their appearance? And why do society place labels upon people with such a lack of validity?

So, lets ask again, who are you?

Storyboard

On our storyboard we decided on a order for our clips in which to show the different stereotypical groups as best as possible throughout. There is variation though out between male and female voxpop interviews to highlight the different opinions between each gender, also there is the expert interviews which give detailed and accurate information about our topic. 

Video Log

Stereotype make over

Upload images

Editing Stages

Here is an example of how we are starting to edit our documentary. We dragged the clips that we cut from our 'Project' and dragged them onto the documentaries time line.

Here we are watching back footage, in order to use the 'razor tool' in order to cut and tighten up the clips, so that the main part that is needed is kept and the wasted part of the footage is deleted, so that our documentary can keep up with its fast pace editing.

Here we have looked at out achieve footage from the film 'Mean Girls' and cut the clip to the parts that we need. Then, to make the exchange of clips smoother, we used the video transition tool 'dissolve" so that the clip changes smoothly and isn't a jump cut. By doing this, we have improved the consistency of the documentary, by eliminating the harsh jump cuts.

Progress Update 4

During this weeks lessons we have been watching and selecting the footage we are going to use in our documentary and logging the timings of certain quotes we would like to include. However, unfortunately, during this process we found that some footage; archive footage in particular, was not recorded successfully and the camera was slanted. This has delayed our documentary as we are now having to re-record the footage. Overall, the footage we have collected is good with good quotes making the ideas we should share and discuss in our documentary extremely vivid.

Potential Background Music for 'Makeover' Footage

Common Opinions Shared by Interviewees

Progress update 3

This week we arranged our expert interviews with Julie Maitland, a student councillor and Nick Wareing a media teacher at the Sixth Form College Solihull. These interviews are going to be used in our documentary in order to back up our idea that stereotypes can affect the way that people see teenagers and young people in society. The media is a main way in which people are influenced into having these opinions due to the stereotypical cliques of people which are featured on the tv and the negative stories in the news. Julie spoke about the impact that negative  stereotypes can have on young people in the college and how it can lead to bullying within the students. 

Answers to the documentary questionnaire

Answers to topic questionnaire

Stereotype Quiz

Quiz

The main purpose of this quiz is to take the different social groups and create an answer that is a stereotypical connotation of that social group. For example, the colour black is linked with the social group of "Goth's". During the vox pop interviews, we will ask individual what social group they think they would belong to and what their answer on the quiz suggests they belong to. 

Progress update two

In our second week of filming, after having to rearrange our expert interview with the Sixth Forms Councillor we decided to gather background footage.
In our background footage we attempted to get clips of each stereotypically social group amongst the Sixth Form to emphasise the segregation of the groups and vast diversity of people at the Sixth Form.
While filming background footage we decided to ask people what social group/stereotype they belonged too by asking the critical question; 'What social group/Stereotype do you belong too?' However, when asking people this critical question, it became apparent that people found it hard/awkward to categorise themselves.
Which lead to us to the investigation of another point in our documentary of stereotypes not being created by the individual themselves but others around them.

Interview Planning- Expert interview Questions

Progress update 1

In the first week of filming we started off by filming a lot of our voxpop interviews with people around college and also we created a video of one of our arranged features in which we made a girl into each of the stereotypical groups that we wanted to explore, we did this in order to show exactly how easy it is to change your appearance and to change the way different people perceive you.

Arranging an actor for the documentary

 These screenshots show evidence of us arranging with Emily Steele to feature in our documentary, acting out the different stereotypes which we are exploring.

Planning Locations

In planning our background footage, we felt that having looked at our specific stereotypes that a library pan shot would be successful in our documentary, in showing the representation of the 'geek' stereotype.

We also thought of using a zoomed pan shot/establishing shot in order to resemble our different stereotypes as the canteen is the location in which you see most stereotypes. It also the location of most social meetings. We choose this particular area of the canteen as we found that in our focus groups, and later on, in our vox pops that many people mention/negatively stereotyped people sitting in this corner of our chosen location.

In our documentary script, we mention the participation of students from Solihull Sixth Form, in terms of vox pops and social grouping. We thought an establishing pan shot with a zoom cut into the college sign would be effective in order to represent this participation.

This is an extreme long shot of the 'smoking area' in which most of our 'rocker' stereotype hang out.

Mood board

Here we have put together a collection of images which link to the topic of our documentary. All these images have an association with social stereotypes.

Risk Assessment

Student Risk Assessment

Arranging Expert Interviews

In our documentary we needed the opinion of people that work with our target audience (teenagers) daily in order for them to have a direct link to our chosen topic. 

Firstly we Tyber messaged the Sixth Forms student councillor in order to gather her opinions as she may have been faced with bullying issues due to our chosen topic and the negative impact that stereotyping has on teenagers. We also sent a copy of the questions we were planning to ask in order for her to think and have answers ready for the interview, to make sure we received the best possible information.

We followed the same routine but instead messaging the lead teacher of Media Studies at the Sixth Form in order to receive information/opinions on one of our key point in the documentary;  The impact of the Media.

Vox pop Interview Questions

Voxpop Interview Questions

Expert Interview Questions

Filming Schedule

Date

Possible archive articles/websites relating to topic

For our documentary we wanted to include facts and statistics. In our expert interview with Nick, lead teacher of media at Solihull Sixth Form, we arranged our questions to gain information on his opinion towards the impression/influence the media can have on society. We asked about the influence of music on impressionable members of society, especially our target audience (teenagers). 

With this, we wanted to find articles/news evidence to back up these opinions. In this post we have featured possible articles/ statistics that can be used in our documentary. 

This article by the BBC suggests that a study found that 90% of people judge others on face value.

Footage of websites such as WikiHow would also be effective in our documentary as it shows the procrastination and satirisation of different social groups and suggests that people have to teach themselves to be a certain type of person, rather than just themselves.

Archive footage evidence and screenshots

All our archive footage was filmed from a computer screen using a camera, tripod and microphone held towards the speaker.

(All this footage was filmed/taken from youtube clips)

High school musical:

For our archive footage we wanted to show how media can embed the idea that young people need to fit a certain stereotype in order to fit in and for society to work as a whole. In oder for society to work there must be a divide. In our opinion, High School Musical was a prime example of this. In particular the scene/song of 'Stick to the status quo'. This illuminates that people have to stick to a social group and should hide what makes them different. With this being a film aimed towards children. This idea is clearly embedded in them to think this way at a young age, meaning they will grow up with this idea that society must be put into groups and that they must fit in with them. 

Mean Girls:

Mean girls also enforces the rule of segregation of social groups. While also exaggerating stereotypes we are including within our documentary; in particular, the 'popular girls'. The film talks of these stereotypes negatively, with all social groups talking negatively about others. The film is extremely popular with our target audience and has a lot of success around the world. This means that its influence is extremely effective. 

 The film creates a 'social group map' in order to tell the new girl which group she fits into, expressing again that she must fit a specific group.

This screenshot in particular, shows the exaggeration of social groups (jocks) within the film as it expresses them as overly masculine. 

Glee:

However, we also wanted to argue an opposing view, by showing 'Glee' as an example as in this, the programme encourages the acceptance of groups and shows people should break away from conformity. Particularly shown through the relationship between Jake(Jock) and Marley(Geek), which influences the acceptance of each other.

Bratz The Movie:

We also thought of using footage from 'Bratz' as throughout the film there is a strong link to stereotyping and social grouping. The film encourages stereotypes until the end of the film where everyone conspires against them. This again, is a film aimed at young teenagers and so our target audience is hit by this film and so this film could have an impression on them.