Evaluation question 4

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

Reshma Chitroda

Research and Planning.The research and planning for our documentary contributed significantly towards the production. As a group we created a mind map of potential ideas of what we could base our documentary on, some of these being the music industry, unhealthy eating and smoking. We chose to base it on university fee’s in the end as we felt the information and recourses were much easier to find as we were restricted to transport to travel our of Solihull. Once we had our idea, we had many storyboard sheets so we could start planning our documentary shots where we hand drew all the drawings and wrote the text.

As part of the research we had to find our more information such as up to date statistics about the topic and its current affects. We researched on the BBC News website and went onto UCAS to find our university fees and how much it would cost current A level students. By using resource's such as books, internet and Connexions we were able to make sure our research was very accurate to avoid false information. We also looked at Panorama and the type of documentaries they created so we had a potential documentary to follow as we had a serious topic. We also researched the weekly listing all the channels to see which would be suitable to broadcast our documentary, in this case it was BBC1. All the research we carried out was uploaded onto our group blog so to show that progress we were making each lesson with regards to this task.

Filming• After doing our research and planning, we started to film our footage following the

storyboard. With our professional, high quality camera, which we learned many things so we were able to carry out shots which consisted of focused and out of focus shots. As we had other equipment such as the tripod and the microphone, we were able to travel comfortably around to get the shots we wanted. For professional shots such as the vox pops and expert interviews we used the tripod to keep the shot stable and to keep the rule of thirds in mind along with the mise-en-scene. we sometimes had lighting difficulties in some expert interviews, however we were able to overcome them. Also, when we were asking questions, in order to check the sound was clear we had to plug our headphones into the camera and aim the microphone directly towards the direction of the speaker. To avoid the microphone from picking up any unwanted noises, especially in the expert interviews we used a quiet room which was available, and would arrange that before hand to avoid any time wasting. We also made sure all our interviews had been pre-arranged before the day and had a conformation that they were free to avoid rushing the interviews. We had planned the questions as a group and used whatever answers we felt contributed to the documentary.

The different technologies we used throughout the process.

• Scribed• Slideshare• InDesign• Photoshop• Microsoft Powerpoint• Microsoft Word• Youtube• EdExcel• Recording studio• Final cut express• Garage band

The equipment used during the process

• Camera• Microphone• Tripod• Headphones• Apple Mac computer• Mobile phones• Printer

Screenshots of Final Cut Express- Editing Documentary.

This screen shot shows that we have bent the sound levels to keep it all stable and for the documentary to flow together. It also shows how we experimented the sound levels to see how they all sounded.

This shows we have used transitions to allow the documentary to dissolve into another scene. the purpose of this was to keep to the conventions of a documentary and also by keeping it professional.

This shows we have used a variety of techniques to follow the typical documentary conventions. By having this shot sped up allowed the shot to be in sync with the voiceover.

We created a logo for our documentary to make it more realistic and for it to typically occur in the documentary.

This shows the variety of transitions we used in between our clips to convey time pass and also keep the documentary interesting instead of using all straight cuts.

Shows we exported our video to YouTube to make it easy to view for other people.

The editing toolbar that was used throughout the creating process.

This shows the transfer process with the clips.

Shows the folder created with all the extra fillers that had to be filmed to finish the final few seconds of the documentary.

This shows the texts and spaces between the clips when placed on the timeline.

This shows the list of clips we had filmed for the production of our documentary, we had many vox pops, interviews and fillers which were all appropriate for our documentary, however we were unable to repeat some clips therefore had to go and film a few more..

Placing text onto the clips.

This shows how the text was placed onto the interview to make it look professional and to follow the conventions. We were able to choose the font, colour and backdrop to make it look realistic.

This shows the opening 15 seconds of the documentary giving the groups information.

Both of these print screens show the text paced on this folder clip and the sequence of different text placed to show up to date statistics from our research.

Print screens of music and radio trailer creation.

Shows the final creation of the music.

This shows how the sound levels for the music was managed well to keep it balanced and we adjusted it wherever we felt needed. This shows the different music

extracts used and how they were looped to create the music for our documentary and radio trailer.

This shows the music for the radio trailer was exported so we were able to have a clear listen to it and upload it onto the blog for viewing purposes.

This shows we successfully exported the radio trailer and was saved into our folder.

This shows the full radio trailer project and shows how it has all be put together.

This shows the fade at the end of the radio trailer to give it a smooth finish and avoid it from just cutting off.

This shows the radio trailer sounds levels and the different sound involvements.

We completed our radio trailer in Final Cut Express which allowed us to use extracts for our documentary. The background music which was created in GarageBand was the same as the documentary which we used for consistency purposes. This was kept on a loop to keep it short and simple and to avoid it from going off scale.

The radio trailer was simple to create as the majority of it was extracts from the documentary, we decided to use a female voice as we had a male voice for the documentary voiceover and it would have clashed. We had the correct sound adjustments for the music and voiceover which was created in the music studio and ended with the date and time of the broadcast. We chose to keep it simple for it to appeal to the audience and for them to be intrigued to watch the documentary.

Double Page SpreadTo produce our double page spread we used Abobe InDesign which allowed us to use a variety of professional skills to make this look as

realistic as possible. For the article, we used Microsoft Word and then imported it into InDesign.

Firstly, we had the main image placed after we had taken the image of our group member standing in front of the projector to create a silhouette, we then placed it into Photoshop and edited it slightly to make the figure turn completely black. We then added the text in and added the minor images in and the pull quote to fill up the blank spaces. However, the article still was not looking appealing, we then decided to change the background colour from white to

grey and it automatically looked much fuller.

The conventions we followed

These are the few main conventions for the TV& Satellite magazine we followed as we wanted it to look realistic as possible and keep the house style consistent.

The new documentary box with the time and date

A images placed in a circle to follow the conventions with a caption written on it.

The magazine logo on each page.