UNIT 9- SOCIAL ISSUES

My Own Documentary/Homelessness

Secondary Research

All four countries in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) have segments of the population struggling with housing and homelessness.

England’s overall homeless population in 2021 was 274,000, according to the homelessness charity shelter. Of this total, “rough sleepers” account for the most noticeable sub-population. These are individuals who sleep outside on the streets, doorways, benches, etc. Statistics show 2,688 rough sleepers on the streets of England on any given night in 2021.

In Scotland, The Homelessness Monitor: Scotland 2021 reported that nearly 27,571 households were “legally homeless.” Approximately 13,000 households were in temporary housing, which was well above the previous peak of 11,665 in 2020. In Wales in 2020-21:

• 7,290 households were at risk of becoming homeless
• 13,161 households were assessed as homeless
• 3,795 households were homeless and in priority need
• 3,729 households were in temporary accommodation

In Northern Ireland, reports listed around 15,991 households presenting as homeless in 2020-21, and 9,889 households were accepted as “Full Duty Applicant” cases

ORGANISATION RESEARCH

The big issue is a london wide magazine vendor company which focuses on homelessness awareness
The big issue offers employment opportunities to people in poverty.

"Now more than 30 years on, our vendors come from a variety of backgrounds and face the myriad of problems associated with poverty and inequality. They buy the magazine for £2 each and sell it on for £4 – making each seller a micro-entrepreneur in their own right. For our bumper Christmas magazines the price of the magazine is £4.50, offering vendors the chance to earn an extra 25p for each magazine sold. It’s important that you take your copy of the magazine when you buy it because our vendors are working not begging."

Campaign pitch

This was the feedback to my campaign pitch in which shows how well i got my ideas across. I also received a bunch of helpful sources and more ideas or my campaign. 

•  Main goal: to spread awareness about all the things that can lead to a rough way of living and eventually homelessness. There's loads of things that surrounds london that can bring someone down the rabbit hole of poverty.
• Key message: Steer clear of bad habits and addiction.
• Background: From my research on the big issue, ive had an insight on the rise of homelessness and i'm knowledgeable of the plenty of reasons that can lead to it.
• Target audience is aimed at everyone but mainly young people.

CAMPAIGN IDENTITY     GRAPHIC EXPERIMENTS

My campaign name is gonna be called 'Homeless:London'. I was tasked to think up two names but this one clicked to me. Here's the feedback i received.

Ahmad-"Great campaign logo" Kamil-"Great name".

The class seems to take well to it and i think it'll do a good job at catching an audience. I also added a slogan 'surviving the streets'. Below is a logo i designed using different shapes resized and warped. As i wanted to keep a minimalist style

This was one of my first experiments with my logo, i aimed for a simplistic look as i always do, but as i went along i noticed that i could try and incorporate themes of my campaign into it. It was then i added the roof graphic and the bottom half to make the look of a house. 

The colours were also a thing i had to change as i thought black was too harsh and fought the blue in a sense so i decided to change the black to white. I also changed the font to a softer style rather than the abstract alienated one.

FINAL POSTERS

TWITTER MOCKUP

I like to keep a consistent minimalist style for my products and i wanted to do the same for my poster but also get a message across using type. I decided to use word clouds which are shapes made out of a bunch of different words surrounding a topic. The topic at hand is homelessness and the words are a bunch of things that can lead to it

RISK ASSESSMENT 

 LOCATION RECCES

DOCUMENTARY QUESTIONS

On average, how many homeless people have you seen on the streets in the last 3 years? if you have describe their conditions on the streets, if you haven't describe what you think their conditions would be and the effects.

name architectural features that intend to deter homeless people on the streets.

Have a brainstorm and think of ways or factors that could lead to homelessness.

drugs childhood trauma birth poverty

out of those which do you think is the most common cause.

Name a few ways homeless people could better themselves.

STORYBOARD

DOC-FOOTAGE

Here's all the footage i recorded and used for the documentary.

ROUGH CUT OF DOC

https://youtu.be/XsPXhc0rEmE

^^^^^^^^^^^LINK^^^^^^^^

I wanted to keep my documentary far from heavy editing and special effects, wanted it to speak for itself. The only edit i made use of was the "cross fade" transition just to keep the general flow of the documentary and stop the cuts from clip to clip looking choppy and abrupt. Overall my time up until the rough cut wasn't hard at all but it was tedious and it's all down to a knowledge issue. For example there was an invisible barrier around my text which stopped me from moving it to where i want it to be but i eventually worked around it using anchor points. The most interesting thing about it is the sound editing i had to do to make the sound clear as our surroundings were noisy. I enjoyed the depth and freedom i had when changing the dynamics etc. Im proud of how the rough-cut turned out but i'm even prouder of the final product. As you can see there is some unfinished parts like b-roll placeholders.

With my rough cut being complete, i asked a couple of my classmates to give feedback for a SWOT analysis that i made.

The idea i had for my documentary was to have serious tones and incite sad emotions in the viewer using a combination of music and dark lighting, it was a simple effect to achieve

FINAL CUT

https://youtu.be/b7vIhw-UCq0

^^^^^^LINK^^^^^^

OVERALL CAMPAIGN EVALUATION

the main research sources for my campaign was The Big Issue. this helped me understand the severity of homelessness all down the the raw numbers providing me greater insights that i can include in my documentary. I chose a documentary as i feel like that's the form of media i can express myself the most using shot choices, colours, angles and especially in post production. Getting my word across feels easier using documentaries.

My posters aim to attract others towards the documentary, and the documentary delivers the message.

The difficulty resided in choosing how i wanted my documentary to be laid out as a whole ranging from questions to location. It was difficult to land on something unique but i found my style eventually 

The part i consider the most successful was the documentary. I enjoyed every last the post and pre production.

The graphic design side of my social campaign was the part that i enjoyed the most. When i create and design i love to keep my work and style minimalistic as i think in today's day and age companies tend to steer away from complex and intricate designs and draw nearer to simpler designs by the day. for example pepsi mcdonalds burger king dominoes and much much more. 

My logo consisted of two shapes forming a house with the logo streaking through the middle horizontally. I think my minimal style attracts people judging from how multiple big companies attract so much with barley any complex design (probably because of the product they offer).

The planning i did

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FREE SOLO

The filming of Hannolds climb or to even go through with the idea in the first place isn't morally incorrect but in some people's eyes the idea seems crazy. The circumstances being that any small mistake could cost him his life changes the entire dynamic of the filming process as at first they weren't aware they were filming this death defying stunt. One of the film crew quoted "it’s like participating in an Olympic sport, but if you don’t get the gold, you die."  At the risk of his own life he pulled off a feat no one had done before.

If i were the filmmaker, id have immense doubt at first but eventually id give in but probably with a racing heart. There's a bunch of things that could've gone wrong and in addition to alex himself, the film crew would have lost their lives.

The mode falls under the perspective mode as you can see, alex's climb and his POV throughout is the main focus. The aim for this documentary was to demonstrate risk taking and fearlessness which is what alex strives for as a solo climber. The doc has no story, no narrative, just a journey and thats what i like the most about this documentary. To conclude, i think this documentary falls in the ethical books, it marked history.

TASK 1  Analyse documentary review

David Attenborough's wildlife series "planet earth 2" is a wildlife series which is loved by many worldwide. Alongside the various animals in their diverse environments, attenborough's beloved commentary is what brings it to life. This how is the perfect display of life outside city walls for an animal and the common game everyone plays at least once, survival of the fittest.

Looking through, ive found two reviews opposing each-other.

1st review : 

This mystery person uses the previous installment of the planet earth series as a quality comparison saying that planet earth 2 is is a "much more advanced and technical spectacle". Using this i can gauge this person's feelings as i know the first planet earth was very well received. He says how every scene is "Prudent and meaningful,"

2nd review (NEGATIVE)

This persons bad review lacks detail and is empty in comparison to the good ones. The first negative the person states is that it "isnt my thing or something" which has zero detail and the second isn't any better as the person says the cinematography was bad but doesn't say which parts or what about it. 

PSYCHOGRAPHICS AND DEMOGRAPHICS

Psychographics refers to a method of singling out an audience based on their characteristics and traits
such as goals, desires interests and lifestyle choices. The biggest factor can be whether they are introverted or extroverted.Things like these can be used to predict audiences or opinions.

Primary Research

is data collected that isn't from another source like a blog or newspaper article. Ways to conduct primary research can range from interviews, polls , questionnaires and many more. The benefits of primary research can be having more control and flexibility with the information you receive and don't have to spend forever looking for a good source, it can save you a bunch of time and even give you content to use.

Secondary Research

is data collected from external sources which aren't yours. This method of research can be extensive and tedious but can allow you to get information from professionals and specialists on the topic at hand. You may even figure out some things you wouldn't end up finding out if you were to research the topic on your own

Qualitative research

Refers to spoken word, such as in person interviews, questionnaires and quizzes. This form of research allows more room for in depth responses giving you more to work with.

Quantitative research 

Refers to stats like percentages or charts, just everything to do with numbers.

DEMOGRAPHIC

In media the things we produce won't appeal to everyone. This issue brings about the importance of taking into account and researching about your chosen demographic/ audience. These can be defined by age, gender, income education and occupation.

Media producers categorise their audience through demographic profiles.

• A: Upper middle class-  Doctor, Lawyer , Banker
• B: Middle class- Teacher , Architect , Computer programmer
• C1: Lower middle class- Shop manager , Office manager , Social worker
• C2: Skilled working class- Joiner , nurse , cook
• D: Working class- Waiter , Labourer , Shop worker
• E: Low level sustenance. 

Psychometrics play a huge part in demographics as they allow people to pinpoint their target audience further than the traditional categories.

 They define an audience on how they think, their values , attitudes and lifestyle.  VAL for short.

• The aspirer- The status seeker. Often investing in brands or luxury goods that show their place in society. Trendy, influenced by celebrity endorsements.
• The mainstreamer- Less of a risk taker and sticks to tried and trusted ways of living, they seek security.
• The reformer- High self esteem and driven by self improvement, not influenced or impressed by status and they are not materialistic. socially aware. They seek enlightenment 
• The struggler- A "live for the day" mindset and doesnt think about the future. They seek to escape. 
• The succeeder-are those who stand high in society and are in control of their lives with nothing to prove. They seek control.

 What makes a documentary, a documentary?

A documentary consist of fact based political topics or history conveyed with interviews, statistics, footage all contributing to its legibility. They are made to inform educate and make others aware. The conventional expectations are to be "un-staged" and non fiction. By un-staged, i mean that footage can be twisted and altered to fit the documentaries narrative and result in a false sense of realism or send an audience the wrong way.

To push forward this sense of realism, there is a whole bunch of movie magic that can come into play such as using a free hand to record the topic at hand or using set-up scenarios.

archives/stills add authenticity. this can be mugshots , cctv footage or home videos.

Documentary

• Mockumentary- A documentary with parody and comedic tits

• Crime-seek public support for or reccomend a particular cause or policy.
  crime docs fascinate an audience with their representation of the dark side of man (brutal murders), the corruption of powerful individuals/gorups and the failures of the criminal justice system

• History- old times

• Docudrama- Features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events.
  focuses on the facts of an event.

• Nature-about animals plants and ecosystems related to human beings.

• Science-along the same lines as nature

• travel- where people travel the world and speak about culture and their journey

• Rockumentary- biography about musicians and iconic figures

• Biographic- about the life of an individual

• ethnographic- historically deals with non- western people and is sometimes associated with anthropology (evolution/humanity) originally produced by ethnographeRS

Documentary Modes

A conceptual scheme developed by american documentary theorist bill nichols that seeks to distinguish particular traits and conventions of various documentary styles

• Poetic mode -Moves away from the "objective" reality of a given situation or people to grasp at an inner "truth"

• performative mode- emphasises the subjective or expressive aspect of the filmmaker own
• engagement with the subject and an audience's response to this engagement. Rrejects notions of objectivity in favour of evocation and effect

•  reflective mode- calls attention to the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary style film making. Questions the power of the cameras gaze to represent and misrepresent, others.
  these films set out to heighten our awareness of the problems of representing others as much as they set out to convince us of the authenticity or truthfulness of representation itself.
•  may discuss industry organisation and structure. For example who is funding the documentary.

• expository mode- a more rhetorical or argumentative frame than an aesthetic or poetic one.
  this mode addresses the viewer directly, with titles or voices that propose a prospective, advance and argument.

• observational mode- fly on the wall style
   long non cut shots

• participatory mode- cinema verite.

Documentary conventions

 

Archival Footage and Photographs- Consist of old or outdated pictures video footage and even fiction films. These can be used in history or crime documentaries to prove authenticity in a documentary and its usefulness as a source.

Talking Heads-  interviews to talk about the subject of the documentary. These are usually done in offices for like dentist documentaries where the official speaks. The person speaking is usually an expert in the field of the given subject or has experienced a great amount of the subject like war or a crime victim.

Re-enactment - A staged act of an event that has already happened due to its nature possibly involving death, a thousand year old war, or something to do with some vikings which we obviously can't experience. These can be used to help an audience understand visually what is being spoken about.

Real people- using real people...

Voice over -Is when a voice is heard on the soundtrack without a matching source in the image. In other words we hear the voice speak but we cannot see the speaker utter the words. The voice often explains or comments on the visuals.

BLACKFISH ANALYSIS

DOC 1

B-ROLL

    Refers to accompanying footage intercut with a main shot in an interview or documentary,

your interview subject talking to a camera is your A roll. any alt footage, such as cutaways to surroundings or significant places, is your b roll. its like a burger to your bun.

they can also be used to cover up any errors or mess ups in the footage.

The A-roll in this case is a group of people answering a bunch of questions regarding bullying, 

to help the audience understand the questions at hand, they use a B roll to show them.

The documentary is more of a talking heads though as they don't really feature any of the things being spoken about like bullying. I would have expected a re-enactment

Each subject keeps a consistent set up by looking to the right while answering the questions

The B-roll which is the abrupt cut to black with the absence of sound in this case feels to break the flow

"Bullying"

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DOC 2

 B-rolls flood the first few minutes of the documentary showing all the subjects of the documentary.

Then graphics of statistics and videos of models and walkways to portray the "beauty standard".

The A-roll then comes in of the people discussing the topic at hand.

The subjects are all looking to the left which is a great display of consistency. id say this is a talking heads style documentary

Social media and advertising campaigns

Social campaigns use social media as one of their main vessels for promotion and getting their word out. Although some platforms have certain requirements or restrictions like time limit file types resolutions and a bunch more.  It's important to reach these requirements to ensure your footage is at its peak just the way it was when you created it, no one wants to watch a blurry or stretched mess, presentation is important.

Below are some of the requirements for different platforms!

CASE STUDY-  just skate.

This documentary aims to educate and inform people about the history of skateboarding and how its influenced our youth. 

 The genre of this documentary is advocacy. They speak on a well known activity that has grown and evolved into a culture and uses this opportunity to educate others on its history and present times.

This doc features the observational mode. They show hundreds of people doing, learning and enjoying the topic at hand during which there are minimal to no cuts.

The conventions in the doc consist of testimonials and footage to back up the topic. The director interviews a dozen of people who skate and their age groups vary which shows how skating has spread far.

i think it could've been improved with less talking and dry or longed out spots in the documentary.

it got the message across well, but most of the interviews were the same things

CASE STUDY  - HAPPY,  A Mental Health Documentary

This documentary falls in the genre of interviews and the sub-genres Performative and participatory. This is reinforced by the narrator/ director is taking part in the documentary themselves seen in 10:40-11:40.  Evidence of the Performative strand is shown throughout the documentary as they reach for an emotional response and construct or convey social truths.

The conventions used are talking heads(interviews), Voiceover narration and real people. These in combination with the sensitive topic at hand helps push the authenticity and sensitive atmosphere of the documentary. Using real people suffering from the Real social issue gives the documentary a boost in its authority so to speak

Me personally, i feel like the pacing, sound lighting and narrative fit perfectly  with the topic at hand. in a way i felt like things were planned out slowly with lesser edits to maybe materialise the feeling of depression in the documentary.

SAV RODGERS

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DESIGN AND IDENTITY

Identities serve as a big waving flag to identify companies or organisations. Like maccies with the M, the xbox logo playstation logo and so forth. logos and branding can also tell what their company is about with just a few shapes and no words.The elements can consist of.

• Brand logo
• Brand color palette
• brand typography
• shapes and pattern
• consistency.

For example, this logo uses varying colours and logos of people to represent diversity which is what their organisation wants to deliver. These guys give the youth a space to go that isnt out on the streets doing whatever but are given a chance to socialise with one another.

EXPERIMENTAL JETSET

- is a small independent graphic design studio founded in 1997 by someone called marieke stolk. This company is focused on printed design and they like to "turn language into objects". 

“If humans are shaped by their environment,
then this environment has to be made human”
Marx and Engels, ‘The Holy Family’ (1844)

Here you can see that they use text in varying ways while still putting forward a powerful and effective message.  This encourages us to read and think hard instead of it being right in front of us

I wanted to create something meaning ful and have the text sort of wrapping around it to make it look like the egg, i made frequent use of the pencil tool and even managed to warp some of the text. oh and also the paintbrush too!

CONSTRUCTIVISTS 

Is an earlt 20th century art and design movement created in 1915 by vladimir tatlin and rodchenko.

they aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space.

Solomon Telingater

Born in Tbilisi in 1903 and moved to baku in 1910. He worked in graphic design, illustration printing, typography and book design. Along with many others, he was a founding member of the october group, a hive mind of constructivist artists formed in 1928.

Mayakovsky

was a Soviet and russian poet, playwright artist actor and graphic designer. He was a prominent figure of the russian futurist movement and wrote poems, directed plays, appeared in films and edited the art journal LEF and most importantly, produced posters like the one above,

Im a fan of the very abstract design, its like you dont know whats going on.

Rodchenko

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning             to photomontage and photography.

My own Poster inspired by these three

Seeing as the three artist used mainly shapes, that's what i wanted to incorporate also. My social issue revolves around knife crime in the UK being as common and frequent as seeing a tesco's every 20 minutes. I made frequent use of the rectangle tool and text to form these boxes and toyed around with opacity. Here are the features of my poster. As these crimes happen mainly around the ages 12-17 i aimed to use something school related hence the periodic table. 

• 55.847 being the number related to iron, the main material of knives
• Fe being the symbol of iron
• The dates representing stabbings around london
• the location where they happened

SURREALISM

surrealism intents to spin up and twist the norm. surrealism is often linked with dreams where things are often distorted or doesn't align with our reality. Artists often use this to express their wild and wacky ideas without having to abide by the laws of physics in their painting. 

Sometimes they can convey social issues like Lex Drewinski when he showed the hunger issues that revolve around africa.

Lex Drewinski 
11 September 1951 -age 72 years Szczecin ,Poland 

Lex Drewinski 

This poster was created to show the hunger crisis that plagues over africa. 

This can appeal to people with an intricate mind and who like to think outside the box.

I think the poster is smart and creative using dead space to create shapes.

Surrealism in advertising 

Can be used to convey messages about their product and encourage people to take part! For example, the entire red bull give you wings idea which clearly can't happen, but they do it to create a little surreal tagline. 

One i wanted to highlight was a milkshake advert called Crusha. During these adverts, they animated cats doing human like things such as playing instruments, being bipedal and lots of other things.

This can tell viewers that the milk is so good (being commonly related to cats preferred drink) that they act unnatural and go "crazy" for it 

The target audience is mainly for children as people promote milk as a factor for healthy bone grown hence why the whacky graphics and childish tones are present in this advert which like i said before, is aimed directly towards a younger psychographic/demographic.

MY OWN SURREAL CREATION

I attempted to make my own surreal image through photoshop but i wasn't too confident in my skills. I made a discovery of combining the lasso tools with the content aware fill feature to replace parts of an image which is what i did here, i replaced the river water with the clouds and added unnaturally tall mountains and an aurora in the background for a northern light look in the far background to achieve a surreal feeling.

The messgage i wanted to put forward was to keep our rivers clear and clean like clouds, hence the water i replaced with clouds to represent cleanliness 

MY CREATION

My Surreal Type Poster

Here i used a light blue and white color pallette to show purity and freshness alongside the surreal effect of flowers growing out of clouds. what i did wasn't too complex, just one use of a gradient background, text warping and use of pngs.

DESIGNERS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Designers can use their work to talk on social issues that vary from race to political troubles in various ways like shapes and type. Ill be discussing a select few below

ADBUSTERS

is a non profit, pro environment media organisation based in Canada and was founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver. They act as a hive mind consisting of varying types of people ranging from students, artists, writers , pranksters and many more. They aim to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. One of their campaigns was to go against consumerism

(the theory that individuals who consume goods and services in large quantities will be better off.)

The same can be said with this

This poster here shows a burger of unnatural proportions with the text "are we happy yet?". What isn't displayed here is the text saying america in the top right which is a clear indication of how america's fast food chains are often seen as "too much". This poster aims to find out where "the line" is when it comes to fast food in america. I think these posters are effective at displaying 70% of america's fast food chains today

BRANDALISM

Founded in 2012, UK activist collective Brandalism focuses in subvertising protest art and culture jamming or guerrilla communication. They mainly come up with parodies and play ons of real companies and place them in common public areas.

These ads they place note to issues in the real world.

art like this is aimed to target climate issues like high carbon lifestyles, frequent flyers and luxury passangers. Brandalism stated “Advertising plays a crucial, but often overlooked, role in fueling the climate crisis. By pushing high-carbon goods, such as cheap flights, advertising is complicit in driving carbon emissions higher at a time when we need to see an urgent reversal. Just like cigarette advertisements were eventually snuffed out from the 1980s onwards, governments and regulators need to step up to stop these companies polluting the planet and public space."

INFO GRAPHICS

Are a format of conveying info using charts and graphs which results in minimal use of text which can come across as easy to read. In media, eye catching and engaging visuals can be a great way to communicate vital details clearly and quickly. In info graphics, what matters most is simple and easy to understand design.

In these two examples, the same style of graphic design is shared. In both of them, simple but effective drawings are used to describe the topics they speak about like how on the right they used drawings of houses, shopping carts and price tags to talk about poverty hunger and debt. The same sort of thing goes for the right and how they use fish, beat up turtles and pipes to describe pollution all while the text being in a big blue. water pipe.

They've made the page accessible with the large text , a simple layout and a fair use of images.

• Extreme long shot- Features a great amount of landscape in one shot and is mainly used in action films to establish a location where the characters of the film are going to or are already at

• Long/Wide Shot- Gives watchers a more detailed view of the setting and or subjects and can also be used to show buildings.

• 3/4 or the American Shot- is a shot that cut off just above the knee. It was dubbed the American shot as it originated from western cowboy films and was used to reveal a holstered weapon in a cowboy duel.

• Mid Shot/Two Shot-Features characters from the waist up to focus on their facial expressions and is mainly used in conversations or scenes where emotion tells most of the story.

• Shot-Reverse-Shot- used during dialogue with two subjects and is shot directly over the shoulder depending on the speaker/ listener. This shot comes with a rule called the 180-degree rule.

•  Close up - a direct camera shot only featuring the base of the neck upwards (in most cases). This is used either for suspense or emotional scenes as it's used to capture said emotion.

• Extreme close up- A shot focused on one feature of the face (mainly the eyes) to engage viewers with the audience and is mainly used in horror films to boost tension/suspense.
  

Camera angles

• High angle- Looks down on one or multiple people with the effect in mind to make them look weak or small

cinematography's purpose in the film is to drive the narrative forward without dialogue.it allows viewers to know what's going on in the scene and the effects it has on the characters which gives a feeling of immersion to the viewers.

My favorite shot is the ECU because I like the tension effect it gives off.