I have used newspaper articles, photographs, archival footage, which shows Lauren’s life, this shows the media cycle that celebrities like her, are involved in. I have learnt about the relationship between the media and celebrities from our studies, in how the media portrays the celebrities to keep the crucial interest in celebrity lifestyles appealing to audiences.
My documentary gives a brief insight into the story of a new young singer, which is what I aimed to portray through the use of my documentary using some codes and conventions such as interviews, voice-overs, photographs, talking heads, and music backgrounds.
The documentary has successfully completed its purposes that I proposed in my brief, which was firstly to promote Lauren as a new singer as a marketing purpose. It has gave samples of her music, shown footage of her performing, used interviews with her manager and other musicians to interest people into accepting Lauren as a new artist and making people want to listen to more of her music and therefore buy her records. I feel I have done this well and my documentary will persuade people to support Lauren with her music. My second purpose was to entertain and inform the audience about Lauren’s life. I think I have shown this well as I have shown her as a normal day-to-day young teenage girl, just a normal teenager with a talent. I have shown her in school, listened to her talk about her life such as going out with friends and arguing with her brothers just everyday normal things that people can relate to with her.
I created my documentary using Microsoft Windows Movie Maker on the computer; this was an easy to use programme allowing me to edit my film and my photos effectively. For the photographs I have used a digital camera along with a USB chord to attach the camera to the computer, however some of the photos are archival photographs that I have been provided with. I used sound clips in mp3 formats for background music. A voice over narration was provided for the introduction which was recorded using Cool Edit Pro programme also on the computer with a microphone connected to the computer.
The actual content of my documentary is very successfully presented using titles, and scrolling titles on different visuals so the audience knows what is happening. Special effects have also been used in the way the visuals are shown on screen. I split my documentary into the introduction, which used background music of Lauren, newspaper articles and photos as the visuals and a voice over narration. Next was a title page for ‘The Singer’ this bit used archival footage and photographs of Lauren’s singing, interviews with talking heads and background music. The next section was another title page for ‘The School Girl’ showing footage of Lauren, Photos of Lauren at school and a background voice over from Lauren herself talking about her school and her normal life. Finally to finish was the credits and thanks, which scrolled up over footage of Lauren performing.
To also make my documentary successful I made sure I included the effective codes and conventions that I have seen in previous documentaries. I decided to use some archival footage plus some photographs. I used talking heads of various people to comment on Lauren, such as Lauren herself, her family, her manager etc. There is also the use of a voice over narration to introduce parts of the documentary. The people used in the documentary are all real and I have used interviews with them throughout. There is also music samples played of Lauren’s singing in the background when some visuals are shown. Archival footage of Lauren that has been provided for the documentary has also been used.
By looking at other documentaries about famous personalities, I have distinguished the conventions and I feel I have used these well in the making of my documentary. I have titled my documentary quite simply ‘The Lauren Waterworth Story’ and the documentary itself lasts around 10 minutes. I feel very happy with the outcome of my practical production I feel it has met all my points that I made in my specification brief and it works very successfully and effectively. If I were to do this project again I would not change much of it because I think it fulfils its purpose quite well. However I would make it last longer, include more interviews and improve the footage for ‘The School Girl’ section and also make more use of voice over narrations throughout instead of just on the introduction section.
