Critical Reflection

Critical Reflection – Joe Bain

The most important aspect to documentaries is planning. Before I began producing anything I first put out a questionnaire which helped me find my best target audience for example my questionnaire was primarily answered by teenagers and pronominally males. The convention I have used which you see all throughout my documentary is interviews. Interviews are a powerful tool that, if utilised properly, is effective in a documentary's storytelling. When I was watching ‘Planet Earth (2006) I found that it was effective in having a voice-over while different shots were happening on the screen, I did utilise this technique in my documentary as I thought just having someone sit there for all my interviews would be dull for my target audience. At the start of my documentary, I use fast-paced clips with music over the top to draw the audience in my target audience. The music I used is fast-paced and under a genre called hardstyle this would instantly be recognisable for my primary audience as it would be what they listen to in the gym. In my documentary, I challenge the normal views on fitness influencers I did this intentionally because my documentary is an expository style. I also used the non-diegetic voiceover as this was a key code and convention I saw repeatedly used and I chose a male voice to offer the use and gratification of personal identity to the predominantly male audience.  I also researched the codes and conventions of Instagram posts and adapted my photography to their style by using bright colours and giveaways as well as links to helplines as is often used in programmes with sensitive issues which may affect the viewers.

With regard to the representations in my productions the main social group you stereotypically see in the gym are 16-25-year-old c d 1s and 2s; most of them are male. I kept with this stereotype for the secondary audiences however my primary audience is aimed and younger 16 – 18-year-old males. The reason I have done this is to show them that they don’t need to weigh themselves every day and track what they eat to compete with these influencers that are older than them and also show them that a lot of fake people out there who edit their photos. Blumler and Katz believe that consumers have an active role in selecting the media they consume, so by having young people in my documentary one of the interviews is with a 17-year-old. This is so the younger side of my target audience engages with it. I firstly represent hegemonic views of men as being tough and strong in the sequences where someone is working out  and the mise en scene of the gym which is used throughout would be very clearly relatable to the many young men who feel comfortable in this space.

Based on a younger target audience 16-25 the montage at the start is meant to be fast paced to draw them in the gym is quite a masculine place with the deadlifting competition cut into it. The reason that is cut in is because everyone loves competition. the use of the

Non diegetic sound used over the montage adds to the intensity of the beginning the music also caters to a young age demographic as hardstyle music tends to be only listened to by younger people that go to the gym. One of the main points for interacting with the audience would be the young people I used in my documentary I tried to make it so that the people in my documentary were relatable as possible by them wearing ordinary training clothes. The upbeat non-diegetic music is also very appealing to the youth audience and I have used modern fonts to keep it contemporary looking and this is carried out across all three products.

I have used stills and clips from my documentary on my social media and pictures of teenagers in my magazine. I use close-ups and mid shots throughout my documentary magazine and social media to get a clear view of the mise en scene of the gym. There is a binary opposition between the influencers and real people throughout all my work, which helps show my point throughout the documentary that people need to stop comparing.

themselves to these fake influencers. This message is also clearly portrayed throughout this whole project where I focus on ordinary young people training and contrast these to the hyperreal images created by fitness influences wearing skimpy clothes and with bulging muscles.  I feel that this is a key representation and ideology in my work – the contrast between real life and real people and the polished and unreal world of social media.

I feel that I achieved a clear sense of branding across all three products because  I clearly show what I want to portray which is that you don’t have to compare yourself to these influencers because in many cases they have not achieved it themselves and are just praying on vulnerable people to get as much money as possible. This message is clearly portrayed throughout this project and the key message of fitness being a personal thing and you should not compare yourself to unreal expectations being spread by influencers making money on social media, which could lead to all kinds of problems for young people. I chose Instagram not only because it is very popular with young people but also is a key platform for fitness influencers.  I chose Men's Health magazine for my article because this is an issue which predominantly affects men (which is reflected in my choice of a male interviewee Alex who appears across all three productions.  It also has the kind of contemporary style which matches my documentary and social media posts and I have made sure that there is a consistent style across all three which is easily identifiable.