Supporting Pieces - Newspaper Article

This is the final of our newspaper article. We have created questions which we feel will show the overall effort and consideration we have put into the documentary and how we planned the documentary to base it around a balanced argument and that it was not one sided to make our audience want to view the documentary because of our non-biased nature.

Audience Feedback

We showed our documentary to a group of year 12 media students to gain their personal feedback on how the documentary came across to them and whether or no the message was clear.

Prezi Evaluation

For my evaluation I have used both Prezi and Microsoft powerpoint.

The evaluation shows the other documentaries that have inspired our documentary and the documentors who have helped us to make our own decisions of the documentary.

We have also included our supporting pieces with a background to how we planned and developed the pieces.

We have also shown the new equipmentb we have used this year and the differences to last years work.

Voice Over

Charlie: In today's society, television is seen as the gateway to learning, with such shows as family guy do we really know the real effects TV has on children? What do they see? And what do they learn? What's really going on behind the screen?In this documentary we will be investigating the causes and effects these shows have on children.

Kate: From watching TV with friends to family, do we really know if its really acceptable in modern day and if children should actually be watching it?

Charlie: So does TV influence children's behaviour in the classroom?

Kate: But what happened when TV first emerged?

Charlie: With children watching an average of 19 hours and 40 minutes of television per week could it really damage their future lives? Or are programmes educating our children? If so, what shows do children watch?

Kate: In Australia a child spends an average of 18,000 hours watching cartoon. this is the same amount of time spent behind a school desk up to the age of 18. Is this good for education?

Charlie: With exams and tests at school , is TV a bad distraction during revision or does it help to teach important skills?

Kate: There are many shows such as The Simpson's that teach real morals, but what do the children really think of the cartoons?

Experimenting with Word Clouds

Newspaper Advert - Supporting Pieces

This is the new newspaper advert that we will use to show the audience what style of documentary we will show and to put across the message of safety to parents concerning TV.

The poster uses the image of an innocent children with a negative quote, displayed in childish font to make the quote seem a realistic quote from a child, to display both the positive and negative effects of TV.

The image of the child shows that children are naive, promoting the message that children will copy the actions of what they watch including "humorous" fights in cartoons.

This message should prompt the parents to consider their own children and whether or not they are watching sensible cartoons, encouraging morals or cartoons which encourage bad behaviour.

The statement next to this image quotes that the child will watch a cartoon, believe the results will end in humor and act out the watched sequence.

This, along with the image, shows how easily children can copy their TV heroes because of the laughter that they feel when watching the cartoons should be repeated if they act out violent actions.

Poster - Supporting Pieces

This is the new poster that we will use for our supporting pieces.

The poster uses the iconic image of a popular children's' TV show asking the parents if their children show more attention to TV instead of more important topics.

Although this posters may be simple, we feel that a blunt message is being put across to the audience and that they will understand, before hand, the nature that the documentary will take.

The idea of the rhetorical question in the poster is effective to make parents think whether or not their children watch too much or may too little TV.

We have made the poster to include both the positive and the negative effects of TV.

The poster includes a negative suggestion but includes the image of something positive such as the smiling cartoon. The image of the smiling cartoon makes the poster suggestive in a way that parents must think what cartoons they let their children watch and whether they are safe to watch beacause some cartoons could influence their behaviour for either negative, or in this case, positive purposes.

Individual Work

The supporting piece that i contributed to the project was the article.
The article contains photos of both kate and me, still of the doumentary and behind the scenes photos showing the audience what equipment we used, both cameras and computers.
The article contains feedback from both kate and myself describing the planning, preparation, construction and further work on the documentary starting with how we started with a completely different idea to the topic we have noe decided on and how we came to choose the new topic because we found that we had a better idea and grasp for the balanced topic.
Initially we began to make plans for both sides of the arguement and making a list of all the possible people to get information from who would support our documentary.

Supporting Pieces - Final Decisions

We have finally decided on our 3 supporting pieces:

• The first being a newspaper advertisement which consists of a black background and a side shot image of a young child, who is lit by minimal lighting, and by the side of image is the statement: "Next week I'll hit my brother, just like they do on telly" highlighting the innocence a child portrays cartoon characters and how the actions behind his behaviour are influenced by TV. The advert will be Kate's individual work.
• The second will be of a magazine article which describes our journey in making the documentary and our influences towards choosing the topic that we investigated. The article will consist of 4 photos, two of us working and the other two of just us. The article will be photo-shopped into The Guardian's Weekend magazine. This will be my individual work.
• The third will be a poster, advertising the documentary. The poster will ask the audience, mainly targeting parents, whether they really know what their children are watching and whether it is safe for the children to watch. This will be our joined group work.

Archive Footage

The material that we would like to include in the documentary are:

• "The Chicken Fight" from Family Guy to show the negative effects of TV and the violent behaviour that encourages young children to behave similar.
• A section of "Lisa vs. Homer & the 8th Commandment" from The Simpsons to demonstrate the more positive effect TV can have and the moral values that the TV programmes can offer.

These clips both analyse the topical argument of TV effects of children so that the audience can make up their own minds - the intended wish we wanted for the documentary.

Secondary Editing

After we had preliminarily edited our documentary we found that the full film totalled to 5:49 minutes, very much over the time limit that we had been initially set.
We began to cut out material that was not necessary or irrelevant to the film so that we could keep and develop material that was useful and relevant.
We still need to add the archive footage of clips from TV programmes. We have decided to look at clips that promote violence and other clips that promote morals and good behaviour, balancing out our argument topic.
We are also hoping to add clips with statistics on them so that the previous/next clip can be supported, either in a good way or a bad way. For example, we are using a clip in which a grandmother is describing her views on how much TV young children should watch, our next clip is then the statistics of how much children really watch so that a contrasting reality can be shown to the audience.
We have currently cut down our footage to 4:42 minutes which has substantially helped us in managing our time for the final product, by allowing us to find space for new material and cut down any further material that we can deem irrelevant.
Hopefully we are aiming to make the finished product around 4:30 minutes so that the documentary is not too long but also does not lack the crucial information that we want to provide to the audience.

Thursday Interviews

Today we conducted the last of our interviews with Ken Grunbaum - a parent to 6 children to give his wide opinion of TV and the effect it has on children and Sheila & Roger Jones - both grandparents and people who have witnessed the first outburst of the TV creation and how it has progressed over the years.

Final Interviews

On Thursday 11th February we will be interviewing Sheila and Roger Jones, who will be giving their opinion on Television and it's content from the very beginning when TV was first established to today's TV content and how it has changed over the years. We will be asking them how they feel the content of programmes effect the younger generation of today's society, both positive and negative points.

We will gain the experienced opinion from two people who were there to witness the historical moment TV was created and how people were effected in the process , so we are guaranteed an expanded account of how television has changed.

Interviews

We have arranged for two interviews that will go ahead this week on our final pieces of material that we will add to the film.
The three people that we will be interviewing are:

• A parent with children in both secondary school and infant school so we can get his point of view on how the older children have grown up with TV and how the younger children will grow up with TV and if he believes TV is beneficial or a disadvantage.
• Two people who have experienced the beginning of TV and how it has changed throughout the years, who will talk to us about their past and present views on TVs content and how they believes it effects children. We will also ask for their opinions on whether or not they are for or against TV.

The interviews will add a more personal touch to the documentary, showing the audience that we are not just using archive or used material but that we have gone to the public and asked for their honest opinions, good or bad.

Supporting Pieces - Poster Ideas

These are the three poster ideas that we are using to promote the documentary.
One is using the typical image of children's obsession with Television and the other symbolises the similiarity with well known violent characters that cause concern with today's society.
We wanted to keep both of the posters simle and interesting so that not too much information was given so that the article would act as the secondary part to the campaign of promotion.

We have also catered to the positve sides of television with our third poster portraying the suitable characters and themes the children "should" learn from or look up to.

The posters are all subjective to the audiences astes. Some may agree with the Itchy & Scratchy poster whereas others may agree with the Spongebob poster.

After discussions with our teacher we discovered that we could not place dispatches on the posters due to copyright laws, so we decided instead to replace it with "march 2010".

the resulting posters ended like so.....

Added Interviews

Over the Christmas period we conducted two more interviews that will be added to our documentary.

The first interview is with Sheila and Roger Jones, who gives their opinion of today's TV that is viewed by children and how they feels these shows have an impact on the younger viewers. By having grandchildren themselves, they aired their thoughts of the shows that they have watched and whether they are seen as good or bad influence on children.

The second interview is with a parent who describes their thoughts and concerns to their children's safety as they watch violent shows. Some of the shows mentioned depicted violence and some inappropriate language. However not all the shows where of a negative view and some where of a learning and resourceful nature. Once again proving the balance in our argument of TV because of the pros and cons in the viewing material.

By adding these interviews to our documentary we will have the full perspectives from parents and teachers to people who were around when TV was first created, this will give our documentary more material to work with so that we can get our message across to the audience.