Pre Production: Preliminary Research

 This blog contains my pre production stage of doing the preliminary research 

Weekly Progress

This blog contains my weekly progress for the Component 3, music video project  

My Team

This is my team  

Brief

 This blog contains the brief for the component 3 project

Final Documentary and Thumbnail

This blog contains the final documentary introduction video and the thumbnail.

Thumbnail: 

Documentary: 

Critical Reflection (CR)

This blog contains the critical reflection of the documentary project. 

CR 1 - How do your products represent social groups or issues?
CR 2 - How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
CR 3 - How do your products engage with the audience?
CR 4 - How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

My team and I produced a crime documentary opening titled The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds along side with a thumbnail. This documentary follows the incident of a school bombing that was caused by an unexpected student.

Branding is a way to create a label or identity of a certain media, and it is important because it gives the audience a main idea of what the product is about and audience will recognize the creation easily. In my documentary The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds, the thumbnail (fig 1) and the video worked together to create this branding; where both used muted colors to build a serious mood. Bold fonts and an "Alarm clock" font where it gives an effect where the text looks like a time to emphasize the text "thirteen seconds". A CCTV-style footage is used as a background to set the crime documentary tone, where during the making I added a glitch effect of a VHS to add the low quality camera of a cctv. This was done to add hermeneutic code where the unclear chaotic scene creates with a dark tone makes it a mystery and they would want to watch more. The thumbnail was meant to be the hook that introduces the main idea while the intro of the documentary explains the deeper meaning of the title, this is use to encourage the audience to stay until the end. However, because of the lack collaboration between my team and I with our own busy schedule we created the thumbnail last minute which took a lot of my time especially in helping with finding pictures while juggling to finish the editing. Even so, the idea of consistency between the thumbnail and video was clear.

(Fig. 1, Thumbnail)

As I research through different documentaries following the crime documentary tropes, these strongly influenced these choices. I noticed the way they used bold typography, eerie sound, muted color palettes, and glitch or CCTV editing to build suspense. I conformed to these conventions by using handheld shots during the scene of the students having fun, muted tones, and eerie background music to create realism and tension. The editing choices that I use for the edits was jump cuts which helped in going back and forth to the day of the event and the interview which create instability. At the same time, I subverted conventions by making the bomber a girl, which challenges the stereotype of male perpetrators usually shown in crime narratives. This mix of choices and challenging conventions made my product recognizable to the genre while creating the documentary to be unique.

The target audience for my documentary was teenagers to young adults of any gender with the age range of 14 above, because they are the most likely to watch documentaries and they are closest to the school environment. Having the age range to be 14 and above is used because my documentary contains scenes and footages that conformed the convention of most crime documentaries, where there may be unsettling and violent imagery that are shown. To appeal to them, I showed teenage characters by using handheld shot (Fig. 2) from school footage that was taken as well as social media chat overlays (Fig.3) to reflect their daily lives. Where in the thumbnail it uses CCTV footage, chaotic environment of students trying to run away, and the title choice is used to raise curiosity. These hermeneutic codes made the audience question who the blurred person was and what the title meant, encouraging them to watch further. The documentary follows Uses and Gratifications through personal identity, as young people can relate to the school setting and bullying and social relationships where this shows the dynamic between the bomber and the victim. 

                                                                 (Fig. 3, Social Media)                                                 (Fig. 2, handheld)

Finally, the issue raised in my documentary was about bullying and how it can affect people long-term, even leading to extreme consequences such as a school fights, cyberbullying and in this case school bombing. This issue was shown by the teenagers perspective where using handheld footage (Fig. 4 & 5) this shows both the happiness of friendships and the cruelty of bullying. In the documentary the choice of styling and uniforms was used to create realism, while from their behavior it showed both positive and negative sides from students life. Teachers were shown as authority figures who are close to students but fail to notice the signs, as represented by how they reflect on missing the warning signs and feels devastated. This representation shows that jokes and actions can have consequences, and that teachers need to go beyond their role to truly understand and help students before it is too late. 

                                                     (Fig. 4, bullying, fighting)                                                 (Fig. 5, happiness of friendship)

Thumbnail (Research & Development)

This blog contains the thumbnail research and development for the documentary project which was done by me (Tisha) and Kristine

Thumbnail is important to be applied into visuals, which in this case is the documentary. Before audiences open a documentary it needs a hook and a thumbnail is the first thing that they will see. Thumbnails are use to attract viewers as it gives a brief idea of what the documentary is about. To attract viewers are not only from the design but it has a lot more than that. The choice of image being use needs to be chosen carefully as it needs to be relevant with the content of the documentary and the style of font for the title of the documentary where a font can express the emotion and feeling of the documentary to the viewers. 

Here is a presentation that consist the research and development of creating the thumbnail.

Thumbnail Research & Development by Jyotisha

Edit

 This blog contains editing process for the documentary project where it was made by Tisha.

Pre-production: Editing by Jyotisha

Behind The Scenes

This blog contains the behind the scene of my documentary project. This blog was made by me (Tisha) and Panji

Documentary | Behind The Scene by Jyotisha

Filming Schedule

This blog contains the filming schedule for my documentary project, this was done by me (Tisha) 

The Final Bell : Thirteen Seconds

A Level Media Studies Documentary

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Date: Tuesday, 26 August 2025 

Location: School Field + School Hallway 

Scene / Scene Number: 

• 1 - 4 → Students in their usual day at school without the bomb
• 6 → 911 voice over phone calls
• Drone Shot of the school 

People / Actor: 

• Other students as background character

Things needed: 

• Camera
• Drone
• School bags
• Paper Plane 

---

Date: Thursday, 28 August 2025

Location: Classroom

Scene / Scene Number: 

• Interviews of the student & teacher 
• Drone shot of the school 

People: 

• Main student 
• Teacher
• Students 

Things needed: ( + Prop) 

• Camera
• Phone
• Drone
• Books
• Computer
• Pen & book / Stationary → represents student 

---

Date: Monday, 1 September 2025 

Location: Classroom

Scene / Scene Number: 

• Interviews of the student and detective

People: 

• Main student
• Detective 

Things needed: 

• Camera
• Phone

---

(Only if the needed extra scene) 

Date: Tuesday, 2 September 2025 

Location: Classroom 

Scene / Scene Number: 

• Additional scenes (students everyday life, empty footage) 
• Interview (Retake if needed) 
• Drone shot 

People: 

• Students

Things needed: 

• Camera
• Drone
• School bags 
• Phone

From this filming schedule, we had changes where our team was not all available during the time that have been made. So in order to keep going with the filming schedule there was a time when the whole team was not able to shoot we changed the day to a different day, where in some days they are recorded by either 1-2 people. 

Location Scout

This blog contains the location scout with additional risk assessment for the documentary project, this blog was done by Kenneth and Me (Tisha)

Script

This blog contains the script for the documentary project, this was mainly done by Kristine but Panji, Kenneth Lee and me (Tisha) helped in giving ideas and putting the dialog into the script table. 

Storyboard

 This blog contains the storyboard for the documentary project, it was done by me (Tisha) 

Before the storyboard we gather everyone’s ideas and match them together to create the documentary. 

After those ideas were settled, we created a draft of the plotline which acts as a guide in creating the storyboard. 

Using this guide, we were then able to create a detail storyboard. 

This style of storyboard was good as it has details of each shot, but it was very time consuming. So we decided to do a much simpler version for the rest of our storyboard. 

Additional notes: From the storyboard, shot 17 shows real footage of a photograph that was taken before the documentary timeline. Where shot 23 and 24 are stage footage, including shot 8 and 9. 

From this storyboard, it was a broad idea that we plan on doing. But with the change of availability of everyone we decided to create a much simpler version but still conforming and some scene still follows the storyboard. 

Statement of Intent

This blog contains the statement of intent of the documentary project that me and my group has discussed on

      Statement of Intent

Sub-genre (crime)
Mass Murder	Mass murder means it may affect a lot of people / a majority which makes it interesting to talk about as we can talk about the correlation between the people who died in the crime scene and the bomber itself.
Topic
School bombing
Primary Target Audience
Demographic Teenagers to young adult (15-25), can be in high school or even a university student	Reason Because not only the documentary will be majorly focused on bombing, but also talks about the school environment itself that creates these types of events from happening which will make them most likely to be interested as well these people are familiar with school setting which can stand out more.
Psychographic Interest in plot twist / shock factor True Crime Analysis	Reason The plot of the documentary story contains a plot twist of who the bomber is which will be good for people who enjoy plot twists as these people would want to be more engaged emotionally. The documentary itself will contain real footage and a complex story line of the situation which with a true crime audience who enjoys analysis would suit this as this will make them curious and wanting to know what happened and who did it.
Message (Dominant Reading)
Do not trust anyone around you.	This message talks about how the most unexpected people who may be someone you know have another side of them that you don't know at all. This explains it is better to be cautious because we don't know what will happen.
Characters
Students / Teachers Detectives Police
Representations (groups, places, events)
Groups: Student, Detectives (authority), School counselor (Teacher) Places: School environment Events: School bombing	Reason The documentary represents students as the groups because the students will be the main focus of this documentary as the plot twist of the main story is the student who made this school bombing happen. A school counselor is the closest to an adult that is close to students, as they are the ones who would ask and try to understand students. By having the school counselor to be represented in this documentary it shows the awareness of teachers with students actions and attitude but sometimes a teacher doesn’t know a full story or what has made them change. The detectives or an authority gives an outside perspective that does not only talk about the victims but also the suspects from this documentary. This shows how even if it happens at school it becomes a more serious matter that the impact has affected a wider community. The school environment helps in making the story to be more believable as it happens at a school. The school as well symbolises a place where it is safe and full of life because there are a lot of children but with this context it will be a very big contrast. This also allows our audience group may feel a sense of relatability as they know the feeling of being in a classroom which can make them feel more emotional about it. This documentary represents the event of school attacks which specifically talks about school bombing, where it shows how the event has escalated to something that was up until it was too much.
What will be the hook? (The mystery that keeps audiences watching)
The person wasn’t someone that the audience would expect, no signs that the person would actually be the one bombing as the person was the complete opposite of what a bomber would do.

Classwork

This blogs contains the theory and classwork that I have done in class that help me learn to create my project 

1. Camera 

2. Editing 

For editing I learned more through videos and understand them by seeing how other people use it, these were the videos that help me create my project.

Learned about what nesting is and how to use it: 

Learned how to do multiple caption: 

Learning how to use chroma key: 

3. Theories 

Power and the media is about who controls media, how it is used, and what effect it has on people and society.

Who has power:

•⁠  ⁠Companies – Own and run media platforms, choose what to show, and aim for profit.

•⁠  ⁠Government – Can control media through laws, censorship, or state-owned outlets.

•⁠  ⁠Individuals – Journalists, influencers, and audiences can create or share their own content.

Why it matters – Media doesn’t just show reality, it represents it, shaping public opinion, beliefs, and culture.

Media Regulation 

•⁠  ⁠Balance of freedom of speech – limits harmful content

•⁠  ⁠Protect consumers – ensures safe, fair media

•⁠  ⁠Ensures accurate information dissemination – promotes truth

•⁠  ⁠Addresses ethical issues – covers privacy and bias

⁠Livingstone & Lunt Theory

The theory talks about

1.⁠ ⁠Protect people from harm or bad content

2.⁠ ⁠Give people freedom to say what they want

Case Study: Southport Stabbing

4. Analyzing Documentary Tropes

Crime Documentary Tropes

• CCTV & Police Interviews

• 911 Call – audio played over crime-related visuals

• Courtroom Scenes:

• Photos

• Real footage (or a mix)

• Dramatic Statements:

• “I’ve never seen anything like this”

• Dramatic Music

• Social Media Evidence