In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Before I began planning the actual film and filming it, I deeply researched the documentary genre with specific focus into the expository and observational modes of documentary. I initially figured that these two modes would reflect my film and its ideas and conventions, I planned to expose what life is like with Alzheimer's and its effects on my family through using conventions such as authoritative voice over's, titles, and my point of view, creating a more personal film. However it could be said that I challenged this form with the exclusion of one of its conventions, the nature of a strong argument being made through the use of footage. I felt that this element needed to be left out as the final footage resembled more of an observational approach thus why I combined both observational and expository modes into my film, thus developing the forms and intertwining them. The film itself allows audiences to "observe" how my Grandma lives now as well as observe and find out about the journey we have been on.
Specific research into Alzheimer's documentaries allowed me to view the techniques and ways of approaching the practical aspect of making my documentary, the techniques I observed had a great emotional impact on the viewer, which is something I wanted to capture within my film. I wanted to elicit a specific emotional and personal response, connecting with the audience on a personal level and I believe that I did achieve this as my audience feedback reflects this. Through researching Alzheimer's documentaries I studied the HBO Alzheimer's Project, which was a great example of what I wanted to create as it used extreme close up's of the subject and their family to capture their emotion as they discussed Alzheimer's disease, this is something I recreated when filming my Grandma in the care home. The use of extreme close up's allow the audience to build a relationship with the filmmaker and the subject thus eliciting an emotional response. Similar to this I used B-roll footage to create a more engaging experience for the audience. Through observing other media products that dealt with similar issues to my film, it gave me a deeper understanding of how I was to transfer my message and views onto the audience.
I knew that music would be a key focus in my documentary due to my Grandma's love of piano (hence the title) I wanted to use Ode To Joy as the backing track due to its relevance to my Grandma's name, and its relevance to my Grandma herself as the song itself was one of her personal favourites, therefore I believed that the music could play a key part in translating a message to the audience, as similarly seen in the documentary "You're Looking At Me Like I Live Here But I Don't", the quiet, gentle tone of the music sets the scene for the actual documentary. Therefore I felt that music was of vital importance in my documentary, as well as the diegetic sound of the interview as music helps to create a tone and a specific mood that can often reflect the actual film.
In terms of real media products, the most difficult aspect is the promotion and marketing of the product, therefore I believe that my product challenged those conventions due to its lack of funding and resources, yet used some conventions such as promotion through radio advertisement and magazine article. These two ancillary tasks reflect the everyday marketing of real media products. The purpose of these is to promote and advertise my product and gather audience interest in the film. Due to my lack of funding and resources my purpose was to not generate a revenue, but to connect with audiences on a broad scale, and in order to achieve this I believed that social media would play a large role. Through researching documentary film and their promotional campaign's, its clear that sites such as YouTube and Vimeo allow the filmmaker to broadcast and advertise their product on a global scale for a fee of zero, therefore I used the advances in technology to challenge and develop the conventions of real media product advertisement.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary task?
When I initially observed the ancillary tasks I saw them as a form of marketing and advertisement in a real world situation, the primary use of these ancillary tasks were to not only broaden my use of media, but through this broaden the target audience and thus gather more interest and potential viewers. Radio Advertisement can connect to a specific audience on a personal level and due to it being a film, I wanted to make sure the audience could visualise the setting and atmosphere within the film through the advert. Similarly I wanted to create this kind of tone through my magazine extract, therefore I approached it on a more personal level. Especially after observing the Sight & Sound interview with Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing.
This chart displays the effectiveness of advertisement through print ads (magazine extract) and radio advertisement. Although both relatively inferior to digital and television advertisement, when combining both, not only does it create a cheaper alternative but it can reach out to a broader scale of audience. The use of these tasks in order to promote the product however, is limited. Therefore I believe that if the ancillary tasks have the designated effect I attempted to create through them, then they can be a tool for creating a "buzz" around the product and thus enforce the use of word of mouth as a means of promotion, as perhaps this is the most effective method of marketing for a media product.
The radio advert itself was more of a broader and less personal promotion tool than the magazine as it had one purpose - to advertise. The use of an authoritative, commanding voice immediately attracts the audience to the subject at hand, and this is what I tried to recreate with my radio advertisement. It is difficult to successfully give the audience an insight to the film without visual representation as it is harder to understand the subject matter, but the use of additional voice recordings sampled from the documentary itself give the audience a deeper insight into the film and its topic and allows the audience to recognise the true tone and atmosphere of the documentary.
I used the radio advert primarily for promotion of the film itself, however the article allowed me to connect with the audience on a deeper and more personal level through the style of an interview with the director. My research had shown that successful film magazines often adopted this approach in order for the audience and reader to connect with the filmmaker and thus understand their aims, objectives and feelings around the film. The extract itself is a fictional interview with myself in which I give a backstory to the film, allowing the reader to understand my point of view and personalising the story as well, then talked about the creative techniques and ideas I used in order to capture emotion, so the reader can recognise how the film was made and why it was made thus adding more interest. I was able to talk about my inspirations within the film, I would like to believe that due to this personal tone, in a real world situation, the article would directly promote the film and ignite further interest in the media product.
Although not in a real world situation with real media products, I believe that combining the main product with the ancillary tasks would be highly effective in terms of marketing and promotion of my media product. The use of marketing on various other media fronts allowed me to reach a broader target audience and thus gain more viewers. I believe that the purpose of the ancillary tasks are to directly combine with the film itself and spread the media product across the market.
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