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Media Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the

construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning

During our research and planning stages it was vital to getall the information we needed in order to film. Ourresearch consisted of type and style of our documentary,

relevant news or videos related to our topic of education,universities and unemployment. In addition, we started toget facts and statistics through BBC News, The Guardian,The Independent, The Telegraph and DirectGov. Planningconsisted of preparing ourselves with the type of cameraangles we were going to use, the location of the shots,and a schedule of when tofilm. All this planning and

research required the internet especially for ourresearch and then Microsoft Word to convey allour together so they were in a presentable orderfor our group.

With all these resources we were able to gather theinformation we needed. In addition to these resources wealso able to access Youtube, BBC Iplayer and the Solihull 6 th

Form Media Centre to researchand be inspired by the similar

types of documentaries that hadbeen produced in order to structure the fundamentalbase for our documentary, like the type, style,camera angles, what TV channel it was going to be

featured on etc.

After we presented our research on Microsoft Word or Powerpoint wethen uploaded them to Slideshare or Scribd in order for it to be visibleand neat when we present them on blogger. On blogger we are able tosee what our group has done without repeating the task and see whatelse needs doing, eg. more research. Wed even used Prezi, it is anonline presentation with lots of templates where you can customisehow you want your information to be presented. On blogger we couldalso upload videos and photos which was essential to our coursework as it wasused as a journal to log all the things that we had done.

Construction Filming

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Before we filmed we went over our research andour planning stages to grasp an idea of what wewere going to film, especially the storyboardsthat we had constructed to give us a guide ofwhere we needed to go and film in order to savetime. During the filming process we had to carryaround with us a Canon HG20 Camera which is

the main piece of equipment to film our documentary. With

the camera we could adjust the zoom, the focus of the shotand the exposure. Not only was the camera used forrecording we could also take photos with it which was quiteuseful for the magazine article. In addition to the camera wehad to carry a tripod. The tripod was another useful piece ofequipment whereby it allowed us to capture a steady shotand tilt the camera enabling us to obtain a high or low angleshot or a pan. Furthermore, with the tripod we were able toadjust the height so we could film eye-level with the voxpops and formal interviews.

Along with the tripod and the camera, theheadphones and microphones were used todetect any sound. Sound was very importantin our documentary, so the headphonespicked up all the sound that was being heardeven background noise. Whilst themicrophone picked up extra sound that thecamera couldnt pick up, this was verysuccessful during the vox pops and formalinterviews. We did not use the headphonesand microphones during the establishing shots.

Editing

When we finished filming we had to upload our footage onto the Apple Macs. This was quite difficult as we hadnever used the Macs before and we had to use a programcalled Final Cut Express. Firstly we had to connect a usbcable and a power cable to the camera then open up FinalCut Express, when we did that we had to Log andTransfer our data whereby we had to drop and drag thefiles from the Canon folder to the Log and Transfer page.

We had to copy and paste the AVCHD folder into our drive and rename the file.

After each filming day, we renamed thefolder and coloured the folder in order sowe knew when we filmed what and onwhat day. Back to Final Cut Express,after dragging the files that we want totransfer we had to add selection to queue.

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After we added all the clips into the queuing progress, we were able to referback to our storyboard and select the clips to be edited. Firstly we dragged theclip into the timeline where the clip could be edited, all the clips that wereimported onto Final Cut Express had already been named to specifically what thefootage was about, so when we imported the clips it was quite easy to findespecially when we imported the clips in date order from the first footage we

shot to the last footage. When we used Final Cut Express there were manytechniques that we discovered in order to make our documentary professional.This is what our documentary looked like after the whole process of making it onFinal Cut Express.

In Final Cut Express for ourdocumentary we started with oneclip. We listened to the clip inorder to find out what wasappropiate to fit in with ourdocumentary. To cut away thebits that we didnt want weused the razor tool on theright hand side of thedocumentary. In addition we

could the selection button inorder to see if we wanted bothvideo footage and audio clipto be deleted.

VideoFootage,all namedand infolders

Insert Textover thedocumentary

ConsistentSoundLevels

Audio clips withthedocumentary

VideoFootage forourdocumentary

Where the video is editedWhere thevideo is shown

Tool bar toedit thedocumentary

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We slowly gathered many more clips thatwe wanted and in order to make thedocumentary look presentable we useddifferent transitions to merge the two clipstogether. In our documentary we usedeffects such as a cross dissolve so that theend of the last few seconds of the first clipwould fade into the beginning of the second

clip. Transitions such as these are used inprofessional documentaries so that thefootage would run smoothly togetherwithout any juttering or black screens.

Furthermore for our documentary, we couldstretch the video footage that we had filmedso we could crop unwanted items out so thatit wouldnt be seen on screen. We could alsorotate the screen, so if we didnt manage tofilm the shot as straight as we wanted tothen we could re-angle the shot. We couldalso move the shot in order to position whereor how we would want the shot. For examplein the formal interviews we would use therule of thirds, so that was very useful whenwe were being precise with our documentary.

In addition, on Final Cut Express, I could speed up the

shot or slow down the shot and blur the focus on eachclip which would allow us to put writing on top of theshot. For the title weslowed the shotdown to 10%, inorder for the

audience to focus on the title and also thebackground of the people would be lessdistracting. It was also used when we filmedcollege students walking into the refectory,this footage was sped up in order to convey

the amount of students that were being affected by the changes of universityfees.

Once we had all the video clips in order, it was time to import music fromGarageband and our voiceover forthe documentary. When weimported a song we had to renderthe whole file in order to play theclip along with the documentary.When it was the rendered the redbar at the top would go greenand then we could cut and editparts of the voiceover or themusic that we created fromGarageband if we needed to.

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The last thing we needed to do for our documentary was to check the soundlevels. This was crucial as the sound in professional documentaries areconsistent. So therefore, we had to make sure that all the audio clips were onthe same level. We had to make sure that the all the audio clips matched thelowest audio clip. So to do that, we had to use headphones to listen carefully toeach clip and then move the pink line up or down to adjust the sound levels.

In addition, the background music that wecreated on Garageband had to match thevoiceover of the documentary and all the other

audio clips. In order to adjust the sound levelsfor the background music, we created dots onthe pink line in order to highlight the ascendingor descending of sound.

I decided to use Garageband tomake our background music. Istarted off creating a new file. ThenI used the music that was alreadyon Garageband to create our music.

Once I had all our clips together, Ilistened to the whole clip to see ifthe music was appropiate for thedocumentary.

Then I exported the clip asan mp3 file and used that inmy documentary.

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From there I could design ourmagazine article how I wanted tofrom my magazine draft. Firstly Iwould start with the title. For the title

I chose the colour red and white inorder to fit in the title of ourdocumentary which was also red andwhite. This would highlight the same

Once I had filled in all thepictures and the main basis ofthe writing for the magazinearticle. I then had to copy andpaste the magazine article thatwe did from Microsoft Wordinto InDesign. I had to createanother text box and once Ihad pasted the text it wouldcome up in one big paragraph.In magazine articles, everyarticle has columns andInDesign allowed me to createcolumns for our

Magazine

In our magazine article I used AdobeInDesign to construct our double pagespread advertising the documentary. Inorder to create a double page spread articleI had to create a new file and type in howmany pages I wanted and adjust the

settings accordingly. Once the page was setup then this is what it looked like.

theme so that the audience would be able torecognise the documentary easily. In orderto do that I had to create a textbox and change the colour of thewords using the swatches tool onthe right hand side. I then addedan outline to the word using the

two Ts.

Afterwards I then inserted a box. This highlighted where the picture is about togo. I found the picture that I wanted and then it automatically placed into thebox however sometimes the file was too big and then I had to arrange thepicture in order to fit the picture in proportion to the box.

magazine, following the codes and conventions.

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After I created our foundation and simple layout of our magazine I then had tomake our double page spread look professional. I had to use Drop Shadows tobring out the title of our magazine. I then enhanced our texts by thickening theoutline of the text in order to make them stand out when the audience read it.

Radio Trailer

For our radio trailer we mainly used Garageband and Final Cut Express. We usedFinal Cut Express to extract the clips of the vox pops and formal interviews thatwe wanted to use for our radio trailer. Then we exported that and then usedthose on Garageband to construct our final radio trailer. We wanted to usesimilar music that we createdfor the documentary. We hadto keep track of how manyseconds the radio trailerlasted for. Garageband was quite easy to use, we imported the voice over and

the extracts and incoropated them with themusic. We wanted the music to fit inappropiately with our radio trailer and we didthat by choosing the appropiate instruments.We used the dots inorder to adjust thesound levels becausewe didnt want thesound too loud whilstthe voice over or theextacts were talking.

Our radio trailer lasted 37 seconds which we were aimingfor as its not too short or too long. We then exported it as a mp3 file. Overall,we were quite happy with our radio trailer that we created.

I decided to add the picture of London tohighlight the working class people, which Itook myself when I went to London 2 yearsago. I added the drop capital at the start ofthe article so that our article looks efficient.

I also included the BBC One logo in the topright hand corner of the magazine so thereaders can instantly pick up that thedocumentary is on that particularprogramme. The still pictures on the lefthand page could be improved. Themagazine also consisted of page numberson the bottom left and right hand corner.Overall, it was quite a successful magazine,not as professional as I wanted it to be.