For experts for our documentary we used an academic coach, Halyna

Wheatley and a phone expert, Malik Mahmood from Solihull shopping

centre.
We knew we needed to include experts in our piece as they are a reliable and
trustworthy source of information, we began filming Halyna Wheatley in her
office environment to emphasise the fact she is our expert. These office
surroundings meant that the information we were about to receive from her was
going to appear very valid and dependable.
She gave her point of view throughout her interview with us and we didn't
manipulate anything she said as we wanted honest answers, she gave the
responses we expected. We were aiming for our experts to be middle aged,
around 35-50 and we succeeded in finding two which fit this category. Reason
being for this age gap is because our main target audience is the younger
generation however we are comparing them to middle aged people, this is where
the experts fit into our topic. As well as providing trustworthy, expert opinions on
our topic the experts also provided us with a range of genuine opinions which we
will use in comparison to our Voxpops. Taking into consideration shot types we as
a group took on a typical code and convention of documentarys and aimed for
our experts to be positioned on the right hand side of the camera, this
consistency in both experts would appear professional. We positioned Halyna
Wheatley on the right hand side and using an over the shoulder shot, this shot
was to imply to the viewers that I and my group are part of this documentary as
well as the producers. Eye level was another key thing we needed to implement
and because our coach was sitting down while being interviewed this was easy
to complete as the tripod was able to be set up at the exact right height.
Malik Mahmood the phone expert from 'phone club' in Solihull was our second
expert. We knew he would have the knowledge and experience we needed in
order to make our documentary argumentative and informative. Again we
needed to implement the same typical codes and conventions as we did with the
academic coach, Applying eye level to our shot was more difficult as he was
placed on a higher chair, however we felt the background mis en scene made up
for this as he is placed in his natural environment surrounded by phones and
phone cases. Straight away the audience will notice the mis en scene we
purposely positioned to appear behind him as it links perfectly with our topicmobile phones. Mediation will be used to cut out any information or footage that
we don't need.
Our Voxpops came from Solihull sixth form students and the public In
Solihull.
To achieve a professional looking environment for our public voxpop opinions, we
placed and kept the camera in the same place and brought the public to us. This
meant that every shot would appear similar with the same background just
different people and opinions, making the professional aspects become apparent
while using a typical and commonly used code and convention of documentaries.
We aimed for our public Voxpops to be middle aged because if they had kids they

would have an opinion on phones from their point of view and an opinion on their
child's use of mobile phones, the middle aged public was in order for
comparisons to be made between our student Voxpops, we achieved this
however one of our public Voxpops was young which gives us a wider variety of
beliefs and thoughts surrounding our topic.

It was more difficult to accomplish eye level shots as the public were standing
up and the tripod wouldn't reach any higher, nevertheless we partly overcame
this by positioning the public further away from the camera and zooming out as
much as possible. The opinions we received were very helpful and honest and
will fit nicely in with our argument surrounding an obsession with mobile phones.
We used the same idea with the students, bringing them to the camera. We set
up the camera in the college canteen in order to set a natural mis en scene for
our subjects. This mis en scene also meant that we might capture other students
on their mobile phones in the background which would relate perfectly with the
questions being asked. We positioned the students sitting down and took a
medium shot of them, in two cases we had two students at a time answering our
questions creating a two shot. Again we used eye levelled shots as the audience
will feel more connected with the subjects as it will appear they are looking
directly at them. We wanted a range of answers from students and without
manipulating any answers our aim was still for the students to come across
being 'obsessed' with their mobile phones, one student went against this and
implied he wasn't obsessed with his mobile phone, however we won't mediate
this footage completely out of the documentary we will use parts for
comparisons to be made.
Over all I feel our documentary is honest, even though our final aim is to make
the younger generation come across as being obsessed with their mobile
phones, the answers and opinions we received were what we were looking for, so
without a lot of manipulation and mediation we gained more or less the exact
information we set out to. Levi Strauss was the theorist we were influenced by,
we wanted to create an argument that wasn't too bias yet had a winning side, by
using a variety of different age groups I feel we have achieved this and have a
range of different opinions and answers to work with. On the other hand we
didn't initially set out to mediate our argument but after gatekeeping our
recordings we agreed we wanted to portray a specific opinion surrounding mobile
phones and the younger generation. From research we discovered that viewers
prefer to watch their own age group, our target audience is mainly the younger
generation which is why we've included mainly younger people to keep the
audiences interest and attention. Our documentary will have two sides to its
argument but at the same time we will be influencing the one more forwardly,
we will try to do this without seeming bias.