Land Documentary and Analysis

The original plan for our project was to base it on William Cobbett and Rural Rides. This meant that we would do all of our filming in Hampshire, both the countryside and the towns, juxtaposing together. We also filmed in Salisbury too as Cobbett spoke about this town. We planned a sunrise so as the sun was rising and time was moving on we would have less of the countryside and more and more of the towns. Please refer to Appendix A to see our entire running order for the documentary.

We agreed that we needed a historian to talk about Cobbett and pull the documentary together. Richard Ingrams wrote a biography about the poet entitled, ‘The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett’. He would have been able to give the documentary much more knowledge and a famous name. We were not able to get him, through many different communications so we decided to try and find a historian on campus. We did feel that our documentary just needed someone to talk about Cobbett and not necessarily be well known. Dr Jean Morrin agreed to be filmed and said that she knew quite a bit about the poet.

Her interview went really well but when we started editing we realised that there was a grain on her voice that we could not rectify. As we were short on time before showing our rushes we decided to keep it in but re-do it later. Having her in the rushes just showed what she looked like and the knowledge of Cobbett that she had.

We picked some of our best shots for our rushes but I found that our shots of the towns, such as Southampton and Winchester just were not as nice or as well filmed as the ones of the countryside. We had a lot of problems with some having lots of the public in that were recognisable and even though this was an art documentary we were still aware of showing peoples identity.

After we showed our rushes I felt a lot more confident in our project. We were told to scrap the interview with Dr Morrin, there were sound problems, and she waffled a lot. We needed succinct sound bites to be used throughout our documentary and not told a story. We were also told to cut out most of the city shots, to get rid of William Cobbett completely and to make it all about the poem; The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley and the music, Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

This worked out well for us because we had Professor Anthony Dean recorded reading the entire poem all ready. His voice was very clear and he put emotions in to the poem at the correct parts.

We started again placing every best shot we had as well as filming in the fields on the outskirts of Winchester. We felt we needed some more simple shots of the countryside and more colour. We started with the pictures instead of the music or the poem. We are always told write to the pictures but in this case, the best parts of our documentary were the poem and the music and we needed to lay them down first; however we did not realise this until Professor Chris Horrie pointed it out to us. They were our strongest points and so they needed to come first.

We cut up the music to stings, themes, pattering and the bed of the music. Second, we chose the best stanzas of the poem, the ones with the most emotion and drama. We laid these down and put a sting after every stanza Professor Dean spoke. Then we put in the bed and mixed the two together. Lastly we put in some themes and some pattering in places we thought were too quiet. Once we had done this everything else flowed so smoothly and I think we now have a much better documentary.

To explain the poem we had an English student, Hollie Ward record a script we wrote for her. The script is in Appendix B. We did not use everything; just some parts we thought were necessary and tied her parts in with the music and Professor Dean. Originally we were going to have stanza’s, 10,11,12,39,40,41 and 91 but when we changed our focus we changed the stanzas too. However our script for Hollie still made sense so we did not have to re-film her. Lastly, we laid the pictures in, making sure for some of them that when there was a sting the picture changed.

We were advised to cut the sunrise out at the beginning as it was not telling a story but as a group we decided to keep it in. It was no longer the beginning of a story but starting our documentary and the poem. It was really beautiful and went with the music amazingly well. I decided that our pictures juxtaposed with the poem and what was scripted for Hollie. Both were about riots, starvation, deportation and feudalism, put against a backdrop of beautiful pictures and music. This is why I thought that the sunrise should stay.

I think that our documentary started to look better as soon as we focused on the music and poem. We understood them both and knew exactly what we wanted to do with it. When we were trying to focus on William Cobbett we were always a little confused and I did not know how to show it though pictures. Our plan was hazy and not very artistic, it was very plain and I do not think it would hold anyone’s attention for five minutes.

Since our focus changed the documentary started to look better and better. I found the locations for filming and think that these locations worked well for both the documentaries we did but they really stand out in our final documentary with The Mask of Anarchy and Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis.

Magazine Spread Analysis

My first magazine spread is a confessional about throat cancer. I decided to do this because a confessional is very structured and I had an acquaintance that had had cancer. I did now know until I interviewed John Atkinson that he had had cancer three times but it made the article even better.

Whilst interviewing Mr Atkinson I had questions prepared and I tried to make a timeline as he told his story. This helped immensely when writing the article. I took notes and recorded him whilst he spoke; I then loosely transcribed the interview and combined it with my notes. 

As it was a confessional I tried to get him to remember how he felt during his experiences. I noticed that he seemed very reluctant to try and remember his feelings and at one point I found I had pushed him too far and he needed a break. At this point I did get the feeling that the article, if written right, would show emotions to the reader too. 

When writing the article I kept the main, distinct features of a confessional in mind. That it should be written in first person, should have a general beginning, have drama throughout and that it should end on a high and have the whole story wrapped up in the last sentence. Following this structure meant that I was sticking to the confessional criteria throughout the article. 

Once I had the article I started to put the spread together in Fireworks, I wanted this to look like a confessional in a type of ‘real life’ magazine. To do this whilst making the spread I looked over magazines such as, ‘Pick me Up’, ‘Closer’ and the confessional spreads in ‘Cosmopolitan’. They all stuck to a simple spread of just a couple of pictures, a headline and then columns for the story . 

Some of the magazines had dramatic lines picked out of the story and placed in bold on the page and I decided to do this too. Mr Atkinson had a difficult and shocking experience during his time with cancer and I thought it may help to pull the reader in with the headline, “My Triple Cancer Hell, but I’m still winning!” and bold quotes such as, “a steel plate, staples and stitches held my jaw in place. 

I kept it on a white background to accentuate the words and keep the attention on the article and the pictures of Mr Atkinson. It was quite hard to put the article in columns and keep the columns a certain size, without it all looking squashed and a little boring. I think I managed it well and I do think that this spread could easily be found in a magazine like, ‘Real Life’. 

My second magazine spread is part review/part general feature. I wanted to write something about Rome. It would mean that this spread would draw the reader in with the pictures and the look of the spread as opposed to the story itself. I visited Rome last summer so I was able to use my own pictures, which meant no copyright. 

In class we had no focused on the structure of a general feature so I tried to find my structure in other magazines that I thought my spread would appear in. To get ideas of travel features I looked through Tattler, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire. In Tattler I found that their spread and introduction was about the Caribbean Islands but they then went in to detail in to each Island and separated them with little lines. I thought that this would be perfect for my travel article. 

I picked four main areas to focus on based on my best pictures. They were Pompeii, The Vatican, Rome itself and the Trevi fountain. As with news I thought that it would be best to write to my best pictures as this would be what pulled the reader in. 

I laid them out in the same way as the spread in Tattler looked and then wrote my article for each section. I did not want to write in first person saying, “I did this,” and “you have to try that.” I wrote in third person giving facts and examples. This meant that the reader would learn about Rome, what there was to do there and how to do it without getting an opinion from the writer. 

This spread would be found in a lifestyle magazine for people that could afford to go on holiday and would look in the magazine for things to do whilst on holiday. I found this spread a lot harder to do than my first with Mr Atkinson as there was not much structure and it was mostly based on the spread itself than the article.

I do not think that both these spreads would be in the same magazine, they are tailored to two different types of magazine reader. The first is more of a real life magazine whilst my second spread is more for a glossy magazine with readers that have money to spend on luxury items.

Please find both my magazine spreads in the previous two spreads.

Magazine Spread - My triple cancer hell, 'but I'm still winnng!'

John's story is very sad and for a few years death was at his door but he is fighting fit now and ready to take on anything.


Please click on the picture to see the spread in full.

Magazine Spread - City Escape: Roma!

Please click on the picture above to see it in a larger format. If you need any additional information about Rome I have another blog about it in December 2011.


Tell me what you think about my first Magaxine Spread.