This blog contains the final documentary introduction video and the thumbnail.
Thumbnail:
This blog contains the final documentary introduction video and the thumbnail.
Thumbnail:
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.
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.
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.
This blog contains editing process for the documentary project where it was made by Tisha.
This blog contains the behind the scene of my documentary project. This blog was made by me (Tisha) and Panji
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
Date: Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Location: School Field + School Hallway
Scene / Scene Number:
People / Actor:
Things needed:
Date: Thursday, 28 August 2025
Location: Classroom
Scene / Scene Number:
People:
Things needed: ( + Prop)
Date: Monday, 1 September 2025
Location: Classroom
Scene / Scene Number:
People:
Things needed:
(Only if the needed extra scene)
Date: Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Location: Classroom
Scene / Scene Number:
People:
Things needed:
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.
This blog contains the location scout with additional risk assessment for the documentary project, this blog was done by Kenneth and Me (Tisha)
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.
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.
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. | |
This blogs contains the theory and classwork that I have done in class that help me learn to create my project
1. Camera
This blog contains my research on the documentary project
Documentary Opening 1: Worst Roommate Ever | |
Before You Watch | |
Look only at the thumbnail and title.
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After You Watch | |
| Who is the target audience? Why do you think so? Give one example of each and explain the meaning:
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| Would you continue watching? Why/Why not? | For me I would want to watch it again as I was hooked with what the roommate did to her, but at the same time I am easily scared of watching documentaries so I might watch it with someone who also would be interested in this kind of documentary genre. |
Documentary Opening 2: What Jennifer Did | |
Before You Watch | |
Look only at the thumbnail and title.
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After You Watch | |
Who is the target audience?
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Would you continue watching? | I would because with the thumbnail and title of the documentary not matching the introduction of the documentary as there was a twist this makes me interested in wanting to watch more of it and figure out why the documentary is named that when they weren’t showing anything about what she did. |
Documentary Opening 3: A Deadly American Marriage | |
Before You Watch | |
Look only at the thumbnail and title.
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After You Watch | |
Who is the target audience?
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Would you continue watching? | In my opinion I would not continue watching, because I don't really enjoy that kind of storyline that has anything to do with a family where I am a teenager. It would not fit with what my likings are. This documentary showed a lot of real life footage which is not what I usually would want to watch, but i would suggest it for people who enjoy documentaries that are in detail. |
Documentary Opening 4: The Puppet Master | |
Before You Watch | |
Look only at the thumbnail and title.
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After You Watch | |
Who is the target audience?
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Would you continue watching? | I would watch it when I have free time but I would not want to continue watching, it looks like it was fully just conversation and interview. They didn’t add any context of images such as real footage or anything about who the puppet master was or what they did. This makes the documentary not the kind of documentary I would watch but it still interests me in wanting to know more. |
Documentary Opening 5: American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden | |
Before You Watch | |
Look only at the thumbnail and title.
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After You Watch | |
Who is the target audience?
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Would you continue watching? | I would continue watching, because this story involves someone historical that has done something to bali even not specific but this was related. I was curious on wanting to know more on what else did the person do and what happen to him. |
Here is my weekly progress and plan for the documentary project
Week 2: In this week we had a brief on our timeline of our project and we figure out how to manage our time in order to be able to do the plan. We also made a team which my team consist of 4 people, where these people are new people that I have never work with and I am excited to be able to work on the project and get to understand other opinions as well. In class we were given a documentary to watch to have an idea on what kind of genre and how a documentary is usually made. At the end of the day, my team and I had a discussion on our own ideas of what documentary that we have in mind. Which this allows us to understand everyones opinion and figure out a way to put all the ideas together.
Week 3: In this week we continue to do our research about documentary that we wanted to do and watch a couple more documentary and analyze them to understand what conventions do they usually use / add in a documentary. My group and I decided we wanted to do a mass murder documentary so we continue to talk about our idea in detail and think about what kind of mass murder we wanted to make, with an addition to what kind of characters and the storyline of the documentary that we want to do. We created our statement of intent and only added the ideas that is agreed by the group. We plan on continuing the statement of intent and finishing it before next week so we can start on our storyboard, script, and location scout.
Week 4: In this week we started working on our storyboard which it will be my part to do in the group, where the storyline of our documentary has been well planned and agreed by everyone. But we are working on our script along the way as it helps to match up with the storyboard as well. We also started on our location scout and we have picked a place for the location that we will do our shooting in, we've taken into consideration of our risk in the location and picked out someone who is responsible while shooting. We divided the thing that we have to do so we can finish the planning in a week so that we will be able to start on recording our documentary to get a head start. My part as of right now is to finish the storyboard and help our with the script as well so it matches with our storyline. I helped out in the location scout and risk assessment which it has finished.
Week 5: In this week I was able to finish the storyboard and started to finish off the script. My group and I had new ideas in changing how the story line so we decided to have the changes as it will create our documentary more longer than our original plan in the storyboard. This week as well we get to learn theories and the case of Jessica Wongso. We watch the case on Netflix, where this documentary gave us an idea on presenting the chats that we wanted to add on the documentary. By the end of this week we are planning on starting to record everything and finish off the filming schedule.
Week 6: In this week me and my group started recruiting people as actors especially with our documentary needing a teacher so we have asked several teachers to be the actors. We have started filming for the audio recording of the 911 call where we use several students and even teachers to be the one who is calling and the operator. We have also started doing film blocking where the actors are being told about what they have to do before the shoot so we are able to do the real shoot the next following day. We have also started researching on how to use AI as a help to create the bomb effect, not only does AI would be replacing the job to create the effects in the video it self we get to learn about how to edit things in that way. We will continue shooting our interview scene the next week as the teachers who will be interviewed are only able on that week.
Week 7: In this week we try to finish off our filming so we can start with the editing as our group is way behind on schedule because of everyone in the team are not available at the same specific time. In this week i edited the 911 calls by adding voice changer to make it sound realistic as well as creating the behind the scene post where I decided to make it all in a presentation as it would be easier to make it. I research a lot of tutorial in order to create effects on the audio as well as starting to research about the documentary title font as the font is needed to match with the overall setting of the environment.
Week 8: In this week I decided to take over editing where I added the edited narrator voice and audio call into the scene. During this as well I work on my editing blog post where I capture as many screenshot as I can with the editing that I have done. But filming was not done at all, so this week was also continuing the shooting for the interview scene and the CCTV scene. I started on the behind the scene presentation to be added into my blog post, as well as I started on my classwork.
Week 9: In this week it was the most hectic week, as there was a lot of things needed to be done. I had to finish all of the editing by this week as well as with the last minute footage to be added. I also needed to research on thumbnail for the thumbnail development research. I created my CR following the outline that my teacher give, it was very helpful as it was question that allow me to understand and answer it on my own. During the editing process as well, when I was putting more videos and images to the documentary edit, the older edits were deleted so I had to re-edit the footage again. This process took longer than expected especially it took a lot of my time when I could have used it for creating my blogs. At the end it was finished right on the due date, with the amount of time and the lack of people I was satisfied with the result.
In this documentary project, my teacher gave me a checklist. This was not really used because as per suggestion of my teacher we ask our team member to check our blog and make sure everything was there but because of my group's busy schedule I was not able to ask them.