The Nature and Purposes of Research Essay

Documentary and Research Assignments - Harvard Referencing for Both Research Dossiers from Each Assignment

Page 1 = Research Assignment Research Dossier Harvard Referencing

Page 2 and 3 = Documentary Assignment Research Dossier Harvard Referencing (Also Included for Research Assignment Research Dossier too)

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research - DEPICT Essay Bibliography

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 7 - Secondary Research from Screenplay Research Dossier

Finally, the last secondary research I acquired for my screenplay development and for the assignment as a whole as well as for this research task is the secondary source inspiration from my screenplay that I documented into a research dossier. As I mentioned during the research portfolio of my primary research, this is once again a successful piece of secondary research. This is where I had to document my inspirations in both a primary and secondary source sense for my screenplay assignment about how I created and developed my screenplay in terms of my thinking and research altogether. This was very successful secondary research and a good example due to the way these two inspirations of the Nicolas Winding Refn film 'Drive' from 2011 and the NHS website allowed me to produce an in-depth cinematic narrative of the moral, betrayal with added authenticity of the drug addicted character that is the main character's neighbour. Along with the primary research of my imagination and Paul Hannaford. This further develops the authenticity through certain cinematic aspects, like the character's persona and the mise-en-scene. Whilst also using 'Drive' to familiarise myself with the aims of my screenplay as this secondary research produces the closest narrative to my imaginative primary sourced narrative. Causing these two successful secondary sources to be able to allow me to visualise back to my primary source experience of the dream and the assembly. Evidently, allowing these secondary sources to be very good examples in terms of its visualisation, use and key relation to back-up my primary source experience.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 6 - Screenplay Layout Research

This secondary research from my screenplay assignment was a slightly less successful and a more poor example of good secondary research. Firstly, this research was all about the screenplay layout conventions and the different types of layouts and their conventions in the film and TV industry. The reason for its lack of success was simply because of the fact that the different types of scripts weren't particularly necessary for this screenplay assignment. Especially as we used a piece of online software called 'Celtx' to develop the screenplay layout for the assignment.This almost causes this type of research to be irrelevant towards the production of a screenplay. On the other hand, even though this research was useful and knowledgeable to some extent. I do believe that this piece of secondary research is deemed unnecessary for my screenplay assignment, causing me to have used more time researching and developing my concept to the screenplay and short film a lot more instead of gathering information about a topic that is essentially laid out for me during the production process. As well as this, the unsuccessful aspect of it is then further developed through the use of no links to any of the information I gathered from the booklet that was given as a source, causing me to be unable to look back on the research when looking further into the topic. I also can't even look back into the example scripts either all due to the fact that no links were produced during this research task. Concluding me to learn from this element of research to next think whether it is vital to my assignment/task and to ensure I have links or the use of Harvard referencing for all the secondary research I managed to gather during a task.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 5 - Documentary Research Dossier

In this particular task for my documentary assignment, these pieces of secondary research were vital in terms of initiating my documentary on racism in football with a lot of racism recently occurring in the 2018/19 football season in which I was passionate on making a documentary about. This led to me looking at news articles on the England vs Montenegro game, the England vs Croatia game, Danny Rose and his urge to quit football along with Moise Kean being criticised for standing up against racism. These were all good examples of secondary research that explored numerous aspects of racism within football for me to present to my target audience within my documentary. This secondary research also produced a small sense of a shock factor through the concept of a footballer threatening to end his career over racism on social media as well as putting games behind closed doors all because they can't rely on their fans to not be racism in the modern day game. A piece of secondary research that I still find shocking today. As well as this secondary research, I also watched a documentary for my documentary production called "Out of their Skin" from ITV. This is where presenter and ex-footballer, Ian Wright discussed racism in the English game with past and present footballers. This secondary documentary source was the perfect piece of research that I produced within my documentary research. This was due to the fact that I could be inspired by the cinematography and editing within the 2-part documentary as well as think about the factual content and interviews in the very similar documentary that I intended to make. This caused the documentary to be inspirational from both a factual, topical and technical point of view, as it produced a great starting point from the history to the present of racism in English football for my racism in football documentary.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 4 - Unilever Re-Branding Product Pitch

The Unilever re-branding pitch task used quite a lot of secondary research to allow myself to get to know the product a lot more as I presented it to the class as producers of the TV advert production as well as using secondary research to gain an understanding of the future of the product and who I want to re-brand it to. This is where I had to research into numerous key secondary factors, such as Unilever as a product, Pot Noodle prices, along with BARB figures and information about Pot Noodle, the product I was re-branding. In which all this secondary research was very successful and good examples of secondary research. This was due to the fact that I was able to present my re-branding TV advert concept in the form of a pitch with confidence knowing that my research was correct and reliable by the fact that the majority of the secondary research was found through their official websites that branded the Pot Noodle product, such as Unilever. However, I do believe that this TV advert secondary research was not as good as my TV advert analysis research. This was since that I could not really transfer much of the secondary research like I could with the TV advert analysis. This is all because the secondary research was all based of Pot Noodle and Unilever itself. A concept I couldn't integrate into my Surf TV advert, compared to the research of BARB figures and the BCAP regulation codes that could be transferred from the TV advert analysis all the way until the TV advert evaluation that finished the entire assignment altogether. Causing this research to only really be a good and successful example in terms of this particular task and not through a more transferable element of skill and knowledge.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 3 - TV Advert Analysis

During my TV advert analysis, I actually had to produce quite a lot of secondary research throughout the task. This is where I had to research about BARB figures and TV listings as well as researching Ofcom and ASA/CAP to ensure what type of viewing this Nike World Cup 2014 TV advert would actually gain. This particular secondary research was in fact very successful. Even though it wasn't actually my TV advert I was analysing. It allowed me to think about the regulations and air time my TV advert should be producing. This was simply by looking at all of the rules and regulations within adverts from Ofcom and ASA/CAP as well as looking at the popular programme show times for my re-branded teenage audience with BARB and the TV listing figures. All allowing me to gain some successful quantitative secondary research. Which all then helped further during my next task that was the re-branding a Unilever product pitch. A task that had to ensure that your proposed TV advert would be successful as well as being suitable under the Ofcom and ASA/CAP regulations. Whilst promoting the right air time for the TV advert to the right target audience to the producers of the TV advert. This all caused the TV advert analysis to produce some significant secondary research findings for not only this task, but for up and coming tasks too.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 2 - Small DEPICT Pre-Production Research

The second aspect of my secondary research that came from the Depict assignment during pre-production was from a piece of inspiration by director: 'Tom Tykwer' who directed 'Run Lola Run' from 1998. However, the inspiration came from his French short film called 'True'. This is about a blind man dating a woman who looks to have been in love for quite a while. Although, during this phone call it seems like they are breaking up, which causes the blind man to produce a montage about how they loved each other and the moment in went down hill in a time lapsed montage. This film ends in happiness with his girlfriend calling him again asking why he hung up after she was practicing her drama performance. This piece of inspiration allowed the Depict project to develop a thorough narrative with the concept of a teenager wanting and desiring to be with his best friend's girlfriend. This triggers a montage of the teenager and the best friend's girlfriend being together in a dream. In which it finishes off with his best friend's girlfriend waking him up in a slightly unhappier ending. This story concept is very much similar to Tom Tykwer's French short film with the montage aspect of my production, an element that would have never been thought about if Tom Tykwer would have never appeared on the scene. Overall, this secondary source research ultimately produced a very successful source that allowed my group to produce and develop an authentic teenage love narrative to create a largely successful Depict short film.

Research Portfolio: Secondary Research 1 - DEPICT Essay

The first piece of secondary research I conducted was all about the pre-production process in my very first assignment called Depict. This is where I gathered research into numerous different pre-production processes from financing to personnel to simple location scouting to explain how significant each part of the pre-production process really was to a film production no matter what size of the project. As well as this, I also gained an insight into what went wrong when the pre-production process was not produced correctly to the professional standards with budgets being broken and a loss of actors since they were moving to other projects. This is especially if the production schedule does not go to plan. This could even cause a complete abandonment to the entire filming production. Overall, this type of secondary research was very successful as I managed to get a very detailed insight into what the film and TV industry are really like in terms of the pre-production process. Especially as the importance of pre-production within our generation is thought to be very low and is sometimes even regarded as a 'pointless' procedure. So enabling a chance to really get an insight into the importance of it as well as positives and consequences of pre-production really produced an eye-opener on both the film and TV industry as a whole. With the attention to detail and significance of everything within a production.

NOTE: Referencing is produced in a Bibliography within the DEPICT Essay due to the amount of secondary research links I had to produce throughout the task.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 7 - Primary Research from Screenplay Research Dossier

Finally, the last piece of primary research I have produced is from my research dossier when gathering inspiration for my screenplay assignment during my second year on the creative media course. This is where I gathered two specific pieces of primary research for my narrative and context elements of my screenplay. Firstly, my very own imagination. This particular piece of primary source was a very successful one. In fact, it was so successful. I was able to develop a narrative of my screenplay through a detailed dream I once had with me being the main character. This is along with the moral of betrayal being produced with the concept of me helping out a neighbour to get them out of debt in a similar scenario to Nicolas Winding Refn's film 'Drive' from 2011. This dream that featured betrayal allowed me to produce a perfect and successful starting point to my screenplay project that I then developed an ending to when I thought about it in even further detail. The second successful primary research I gathered was from a school assembly with famous ex-drug addict called, Paul Hannaford. This is a person who would go around schools teaching them the harsh reality of knife crime and drug addiction causing young children to think of their actions. This primary source was very successful due to the way that the main character's neighbour is a drug addict and had just been released from prison recently. This successful primary research allowed me to get a really detailed insight into what being in prison was like as well as what being a drug addict was like too. This could cause me to think about the mise-en-scene even further of the neighbour's house as well as his persona as a person who is highly addicted to drugs with features such as scars being produced all around his body due to the addiction. This overall successful primary research really enabled a sense of authenticity to be produced within my screenplay along with a detailed visual narrative too.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 6 - Ian (Local Football Secretary) Interview

The second interview I conducted was also just as successful, but from a different point of view within football for my racism in football documentary. Instead of professional football, I then started to pursue for the second half of my documentary, racism in the grassroots football game. This is where I was lucky enough to interview Ian who is a local grassroots football secretary and has been secretary for around three years now. This caused my interview to once again really produce a more authentic insight into not just professional football, but also racism in football at a more local amateur level. Which I believe should be regarded just as important as the professional game. Once again, the interviewee's passion towards stopping racism in football was just as great as mine. This also caused me to learn new aspects about the grassroots football in terms of racism, just like elements where the local secretary admits to racism consistently going on in grassroots football every weekend and match day. A primary source that still shocks me to this day within grassroots football. Allowing the research to still be highly successful to me and my target audience to this day.

Note: Image Lacking in Brightness and Quality for Unknown Reason.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 5 - Lewis (Norwich City Season Ticket Holder) Interview

The first interview I produced within my creative media course for my documenting was a very successful one. Especially as I believe this is the most significant piece of primary research that you can get. This is where I interviewed a Norwich City season ticket holder about racism in and around football and how social media can be used to promote the use of racism in football by hiding behind a phone screen. This piece of research was very significant for my documentary production as a whole. This is because it allowed me to get an insight into a real life experience of someone who goes into football stadiums and witnesses not just racism on social media, but also racism at football grounds in person too. As well as this, the interviewee also had a very strong view on stopping racism with the same amount of passion towards this documentary as I had too. This all generated a successful interview that produced further authenticity towards my racism in football documentary as I really was given a perfect insight about racism in the football grounds. This caused the documentary to be even more successful as I particularly don't watch football in the grounds as much as this interviewee does either, allowing me to gain further information on racism in football as well as the target audience of the documentary. Just like when the interviewee talked about how anxieties can be just simply be thrown out of the window, when you're on your phone, hiding behind a screen.

Note: Image Lacking in Brightness and Quality for Unknown Reason.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 4 - Budget Sheets

In terms of a budget sheet, these types of primary sources are less significant in a low budget college film compared to a high budgeted blockbuster. This is simply because of the concept that as a college student. We don't have any money to simply spend on products for our work, whereas big blockbusters have to spend their money very wisely to give them the biggest chance of profit as well as having a larger spend on other aspects of the production that could gain more of an audience, such as specific high profiled actors. Although, these budget sheets can be successful when calculating cost of travel when having to film in a certain location. The very best example of my work being the documentary budget sheet. This is where I had to make a 30 minute travel to Norwich to the football ground that could be done with £3.50 on the bus carrying loads of equipment or via a friend's car. As I decided to use my friend's car for the pure convenience factor. I then had to calculate how much it would cost for him to get there and back, which estimated to around £5. An amount my friend was happy to lose. Evidently, this meant that without this budget sheet. This type of calculation and planning would never have been recorded, in which could have led to a high production fee for a college film if my friend wasn't happy with paying for the petrol. Overall, causing the budget sheet to be a primary research success as my interpretation of the travel costs allowed me to save money during the filming and the production of my racism in football documentary.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 3 - Location Recces and Releases

Location recces and releases have been crucial throughout my creative media course and not just within the documentary location recces and releases shown above. These documents are legal proof that a filmmaker/producer/location scout has been to a location, observed it and gained legal access to film in that area in a form of a signature from the owner. This particular primary research is crucial to gain a personal imagination of what you want to do with the location when filming. This is where the primary research considers its size, accessibility and its overall chaos during certain days too. If you're filming in a 'quiet' amusements. Don't film during the weekends when everyone is out and are likely to go to the amusements. Location recces and releases are successful and critical pieces of documents to fill in when producing a film. The best two examples of my own production using location recces and releases is during the documentary and single camera production assignments. Firstly, during my documentary assignment. I had to scout for locations that were going to be big enough to film in for interviews as well as using other locations as a form of iconography. In which was the reason behind me scouting Carrow Road (Norwich City's football stadium). This enabled me to look at specific locations around the ground to film in, which gave my shot list further detail too. However, the one aspect I didn't think about during this scouting routine was the idea of the sound during windy atmospheres. This was because I ended up filming on a windy day with the disruption being relatively high when I began the editing stage. Even though I did manage to overcome this, it was a difficult aspect to deal with that could've been avoided. As well as this, the police car location recce and release during my single camera production assignment was also just as significant (found below). This allowed me to gain a legal document that it was all okay for the police car to be filmed in, especially if there was an emergency he had to go to and we didn't end up having an legal document to gain access to filming in the police car in the form of a location release. This could have caused serious legal issues and circumstances too. Causing the location recces and releases to be a very significant element within a film production process.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 2 - Documentary Questionnaire

For this second piece of primary research, I managed to produce a slightly different questionnaire that was produced before the production of my three minute wonder (3MW) documentary. This type of pre-production paperwork was very successful and allowed me to really take a look into what my target audience and appropriate aimed audience actually wanted within a short documentary. This was especially difficult as I aimed to educate a youthful teenage audience about racism in football. A very dark humored joke that is horrifically rumored around in our current generation. In which this specific questionnaire was very successful, it allowed me to get a real insight into specific features that is popular and engaging within a documentary for the teenage audience. This was with credentials, such as humour as I decided to produce some elements of humour throughout the documentary. As well as this humour aspect being produced, the factual content was also evident to be a crucial part within a documentary for racism in football. This is where I decided to produce both primary and secondary sources of this in the form of interviews with season ticket holder and a local football secretary. In addition to researching into Raheem Sterling and the talisman he has been for racism over the past couple years in the light of the media. So overall, I do believe that this primary research questionnaire was very successful, which allowed me to incorporate my target audiences' decisions, like the humour, factual interviews and research into my documentary. Compared to the TV advert questionnaire that ultimately gave me feedback that I couldn't do anything about, causing this questionnaire to be the most successful so far in my creative media career.

Research Portfolio: Primary Research 1 - TV Advert Questionnaire

 The very first piece of primary research I produced within this course was from the TV advert assignment when I had to create a questionnaire for my teenage target audience to evaluate the success of my re-branded Surf laundry capsules TV advert. This example of primary research was very successful. It enabled me to learn from my mistakes for future productions as certain people from the audience criticised specific elements of my TV advert. These were features, such as the skateboard scene cutting too quick as well as the ending sequence being relatively poor to finish the TV advert. All great pieces of constructive criticism that I could think about when creating and developing any type of production again. More specifically, a TV advert. However, even though this feedback was great to evaluate my production on. I do believe that the questionnaire would've been more successful if I was given a chance to create another cut as I aimed to improve the advert more for the teenage target audience. Essentially, saying that my finish product could have been a rough cut and then a final cut could have been produced after the feedback from the questionnaire, almost in a similar way to the re-submission scheme of BTEC. This is where I would've believed that the production could have been more successful as I would have adapted some features like the skateboard and ending scene to develop the TV advert even further for the teenage target audience. This would have ultimately developed a more successful TV advert production. All due to the timing of the questionnaire and being given more time to improve the TV advert itself. Allowing for more re-shoots and editing time. Although, this successful questionnaire still enabled me to produce a very well structured evaluation that I was allowed to explain certain stylistic decisions for the advert as well as elements of where I went wrong too.

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