Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Documentary- Research & Planning stages
Research and planning stages was very important for

our documentary as it proved to be useful throughout all aspects. We created plans via a paper based system as well as using media technologies i.e. mind maps & storyboards to draft ideas down - this was very successful.
Various different sites have been used for searching current affairs of Social Networking and top news stories. We used Internet Explorer to search on engines such as Google, websites like the BBC and the Guardian as this helped us learn about up to date issues. By using sites such as the above we had facts & figures that we could use, we also looked on to YouTube, as this was a great way to find Social Networking patterns and how audiences utilise media.
Channel As well as primary and mainly secondary research on the topic, we had to look into certain channels that we could possible broadcast our documentary on, issues such as when? What? And if it was suitable to our target audience, due to the age range we could broadcast it before the 9pm watershed. Looking at websites of the BBC Three, BBC One, Channel 4, and ITV etc. We had to look at which audiences watched these channels in order for us to make an appropriate decision towards them.
Similar documentaries Ensuring we do the right channel research and follow typical documentary conventions we used online programmes such as BBC I player, 4oD & Virgin on demand to gain a better idea and to identify the channels. We looked at Supersize Me, Panorama and A Good Smack to follow these codes & conventions.
Poonam Parmar Question 4
Blogger All of the research that we constructed was tracked and logged regularly onto this site; www.blogger.com - this allowed us to cover all aspects of our research & planning of the documentary and look at our journey. This was useful as it allowed us to look at each others work too.
Sites We used sites such as Slideshow & Scribd as well as many others to upload our research from files onto the Internet and on our blog to give a different presentational view. Microsoft Office Word We created questionnaires for our audience feedback and this was improved as we could tailor the questions to our specific target audience that suited the genre of our documentary debatable & serious. This was a good way to meet internal deadlines set by each other as a group, it was a check/tick box format keeping our group organised. Below is our questionnaire, which I used Survey Monkey to create it online. www.surveymonkey.com.
Overall, to keep the group pleased and successful we has to keep each other updated on the tasks we have carried out, the best way to do this was through text message and emailing on www.hotmail.com in order to know how we got things done at what stage.
Documentary- Construction Stages After researching & planning our first 5minute opening we decided it was time to start creating our documentary. By basing at college we took full use of all the resources & equipment available. After all the knowledge acquired from the research stages we had to film appropriate content that would link to our overall topic. I personally think this was completed of high standard required.
Camera We used a Canon HG20 HD camera to film and video our footage. This was equipped with all features, manual focus ring adding us to pull focus in or give a loose frame. We changed the white balance to give us more natural lighting as lighting was a problem for us. Also the camera allowed us to zoom in and out, which helped give a variety.
The background is clearly blurred out with the frame being very loose
Shots We used a lot of handheld camera shots for objects because it was lightweight and easily hold able, however for expert interviews, vox pops and certain background footage, a tripod was needed so we could do steady pans left and right without the camera shaking.
Transfer We could easily transfer all film & still footage on to the Apple Mac ready for editing using the digital screen and USB ports on the computer.
Sound As well as using the cameras for filming & photography we used the equipment for recording, voiceover & background sound. We used a directional microphone for recording for vox pops, scripting and the voiceover. However, interviews used a clip on microphone to gain a better sound quality. We plugged headphones in to check the sound levels were suitable with no background muffles or noise. When we recorded our voice over we did this in an empty room to avoid background noise so it was clearly understandable. We had to plan and organise what edits we will have to put into the documentary and the sound so we produced manual edit decision and video log sheets.
On the right is part of our edits that we decided to use.
Editing Once we finished filming we uploaded all the visual footage on to the Apple Mac ready to start editing. We opened up Final Cut Express and first off were to transfer all clips that we possibly may use.
Here is the process of me logging and transferring all our footage taken into the program by adding it to queue, from our files. All of the footage is on the left, which we can start to edit. By it being an image its easily see able.
All of our clips are now added, to start the editing process.
Unedited footage
Viewing documentary window
Timeline
Toolbar
Audio clips
Visual footage
We used the toolbar to use the razor blade tool to take straight cuts of certain visuals and audio sounds, this allowed us to cut bits out and effectively and sound better.
We did add some transitions too make it a little more alternate instead of basic straight cuts such additive dissolve.
Another feature I developed was speeding up certain clips such as the people and buses in the town centre; we have increased this by 140.31% that had a huge impact on the overall footage.
Problems with the sound levels occurred during the editing process as we had filmed in
different locations. For example the vox pops were filmed outside so you could hear wind. This meant we had to cut certain bits out, in order for the sound levels to sync in with the background track. For this to change we had to bring the pink bar down to balance it out.
Some sound levels were manually easier especially for the music fading in and out we did this at the opening to fade the quieter sounds in because we wanted to attract our audience by being a little louder.
We added text on top of the footage for captions such as interviews and for when the voice over spoke about facts we wanted them to see it too which was voice of authority.
Wire focus allowed us to get rid of excess pieces of the footage for the different boxes
allowing the audience not too see the whole box but only 4 parts, but also to prevent the gaze not becoming distracted.
The title sequence was added throughout the documentary to give it a level of continuity, the title sequence was very different as it grew closer as you were watching it at the very beginning, however later on in the documentary it was a simple representation of the title.
We looked onto the media resources centre on the sixth form home drive to find some atmospherically suited tracks that would suit our documentary genre. However, to add a personal touch we edited it on Garage Band a mixing program then exported the made track from Garage Band into Final Cut Express and dragged it onto our audio timeline.
Radio Trailer- Research & Planning stages
Research and planning stages similar to the documentary we used convention lists sheets so we know what to follow and stick to the codes & conventions of radio
trailers. We looked at many different radio trailers to gain an understanding of what was needed such as: The Glastonbury festival radio trailer.
Radio Trailer- Construction Stages
For the Radio Trailer we completed it in Final Cut Express like we created the backing track in Garage Band like the documentary, as we kept the same track, which would give a level of continuity.
The controls above controlled the track from, playing, pausing and stopping.
We exported this as an mp3 track and added it. It was fairly simple to use as we looked at set tracks that were already there too giving us an idea of which ones we could have used for ours. The radio trailer was easily achievable as we used extracts from our documentary, such as facts, parts of the voice over, vox pops and expert interview snippets. We then placed it into different layers as some needed to overlap and exported this as an mp3. Adjusting the sound levels was similar to before however it was different for this as it overlapped.
TV Listings Article- Research & planning stages
Research and planning In order for us to produce a TV magazine article we looked at traditional magazines and the articles in them - this gave us an idea of how
we wanted ours to be like. We wrote up our article on Microsoft Office Word which checked for
errors and then pasted it into InDesign (the software program we used) We drafted 2-3 versions of our magazine article allowing us to organise our thoughts and ideas into which one we finally liked that suited our documentary and genre. We used Photoshop to edit and modify images, such as objects making it more appealing however due to our double page being text heavy it was easily achievable and not too time consuming. TV Listings Article- Construction
On the left we have modified our image to make it brighter, using Photoshop tools on the right.
On In Design we used we placed our images in, to further edit it with the text. We used something called the lasso tool
to crop images and cut around objects, as

originally we wanted to use just the computer screens however we felt it did not look appealing, so we left the chairs in the background.
We began starting off with a white coloured background , with the use of 2 columns and 3 for text, as we have seen that many magazine articles do this to ensure that the foreground is the most important after looking at examples we opted to keep the colour
scheme simple.
Below I show you some of the stages we went through, by resizing objects, placing images that gradually became our double page article. We took photographs of what we intended to place on the magazine double page but also extras in case the originals were not better suited once they were taken we opened up in Photoshop to manipulate them further and make it stand out.
Above is one of the conventions that Radio Times has for displaying its publication and date for its readers, so we used this for our audience too.
We created a Drop Cap at the start of the text which was seen in many articles and that follows the conventions of magazines.

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Evaluation Question 4

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How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and planning stages was very important for

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Poonam Parmar Question 4

On the right is part of our edits that we decided to use.

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Viewing documentary window

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Poonam Parmar Question 4

Radio Trailer- Research & Planning stages

Radio Trailer- Construction Stages

Poonam Parmar Question 4

TV Listings Article- Research & planning stages

to crop images and cut around objects, as

Poonam Parmar Question 4

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