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

By Shafiqur Rahman

Research & PlanningThe Research and Planning stages of our TV documentary was very important as this Contributed to the final finished production. A lot of the planning conducted was done Using media technologies such as INTERNET EXPLORER, SAFARI AND YOUTUBE.

Internet expolrer and safari are both web browsers which were a crucial part of our research and planning. They helped me research into my topic and find facts/statistics that we could use in our documentary. As well as looking for facts/statistics we had to conduct research into broadcasting channels such as channel 4,bbc three, bbc one etc, so that we were able to find a suitable channel for our documentary to be featured in. The web browsers helped us find what was most suited for our target audience/topic and we decided to go for BBC three as they often feature serious/factual reality documentaries and serve our target audience.

Youtube was something that was used a lot throughout our research and planning. When analysing other documentaries it was the first place to go as it contains a mass range of clips/items and had many trailers on there. It enabled me to also view conventions that other documentaries used, such as sounds/camera angles so that I could maybe reflect some of the norms into my documentary.

Google is probably the biggest web search engine, therefore we felt that the research we conducted will be best from there as they have some of the most reliable sources. Reliability was a very big part of the research we gathered as false information can mislead viewers. Using google we found verified websites such as ‘DirectGov’ and this gave us certainty and confidence in the statistics we discovered.

FilmingWe used a HD Canon HG20 video camera to capture all the footage and stills for our documentary. The camera was easy to use with its simple menu functions. One thing that caused problems at times is the lack of focus when we zoomed in. Because some shots came out blurry; we had to shoot again and this ofcourse wasted more time. The white balance was easy to change on the camera and this was highly valuable as it gave more of a natural look to the lighting. The camera was light to hold and this was good as we shot a lot of handheld footage. All of the vox pops were recorded using this handheld method and the advantage of this was that we could present more of a realistic view to the audience and this reflects on the informal styling which vox pops are.

Unfocused Close Up Focused Close Up

Filming…Tripod: A tripod was used in a lot of the filming. We found this piece of equipment to be very useful to certain aspects of our filming. For example a steady shot was needed for the formal interviews and using the tripod helped us achieve this. Also filming students walking up and down the stairs would’ve looked very unproffessional if a tripod wasn’t in use.

As well as using a camera and tripod for our footage, we also needed equipment to capture the sound of the recordings. A directional microphone was used to record sound for our interviews, script and radio trailer and this was successful as clear concise sound was recorded. Headphones had to be connected to the camera so that we could check that the microphone was picking up the sound we wanted it to pick up and also helped us avoid any added/background noise being recorded.

EditingUpon completion of all the footage, we uploaded all the clips onto apple Macs. We used these industry standard computers as they contained the best software whilst providing ease of navigation and quality. We were required to copy files over to our personal media drive. Overall using apple Macs was a positive experience as they were easy to use and gave us the opportunity to produce the best results

After copying all our clips onto the media drive, we opened up Final Cut Express (This is the editing software we used to edit our whole documentary. Firstly we had to ‘log and transfer’ the clips we could potentially use in our documentary. At this stage we also renamed the clips so they were easy to find when we went back to them.

All clips were imported and renamed into final cut express and ready to be edited. Every clip that we could potentially use was labelled so that they were easy to access. We were then ready to look at our story boards and initial research and planning so that we had a guideline to work alongside.

Editing…

The storyboards I created for the opening of our documentary was very useful as it gave us a guideline to work alongside as we were not too sure where to start. None of us had prior knowledge of final cut, therefore at first it was difficult to get the hang of. At this stage we had to experiment with lots of different editing processes. Some of the clips were to slow, such as the vox pop questions being typed onto twitter; this was speeded up. Other clips were too dark and the lighting had to be adjusted. At first all these changes were diffcult to solve as we didn’t know how to use the software but after we edited a few times it was much easier. Fading the clips from one to the other is something we did consistently and with this we had to make the sound/music do the same. Overall Final Cut was probably the best software we couldve used for the editing of our documentary as it had many tools and functions which added to how proffessional our overall product appeared

storyboard

InDesignThe production of our double page

spread was done on the creative software program ‘Adobe

InDesign’. This software had the tools to create a professional

looking article which allowed us to abide by the conventions of real magazine articles such as ‘Drop

Capitals’, ‘Pull Quotes’ and ‘columns’. I feel InDesign definitely

was a software that worked successfully in the completion of

this ancillary task we had to complete. It helped us lay out the article which gave us indication on where to edit further and where to place things . We added snapshots

from our documentary into the article to create a brand identity

and link for the audience.

Snapshot from documentary usedIn double page spread

GaragebandFor our Radio trailer we used garageband as it holds

the speciality for creating quality audio products. We recorded the script and put it onto final cut and then

transferred this into garageband. We made the decision to use the same backing track as our

documentary so that there was a link. In addition to the same backing track we decided to add ‘keyboard

clicking’ in between each verse so that more of a ‘cyber’ effect was in place.

The basis of our radio trailer was of a victim reading out their emotions about what cyber bullying has done

to them. We had to cut out parts from our documentary such as ‘Nick Waring Interview’ and find a place for them in the trailer. The trailer had to be no more than 30 seconds as this is the normal convention

for a radio trailer. Certain parts had to be cut in garageband and some had to be sped up/slowed down. It ended with the time/date/title of the

documentary.

Overall Garageband was an easy program to use as it had a simple layout and also helped us achieve the

results we wanted to for our radio trailer

scribdScribd is a social publishing site I

used to upload many of my tasks to my blog. It is a very easy software to use and you simply just upload the chosen files and they come out in a

organised format at the end. There is also options to share the documents onto social networking sites such as

facebook and twitter.

SlideshareSlideshare enabled me to upload

and share powerpoint presentations publicly or

privately. It also enables word documents and PDF files. All I

had to do was simply sign up for free and upload my documents,

after that I was allowed to embed my presentation onto my blog

and this set more of a professional look which was

easily accessible and viewable when uploaded onto the blog.

Preziprezi is a presentation software which enabled me to complete

many of my tasks in a chronological and creative way without much confusion. This

software was very effective as it allowed me to chsnge

themes/fonts/colours/paths and I also had the option to create my

own theme which helped because some of the themes were

not to my taste.

BloggerBlogger is the website I used to upload all of my work and blog entries. It is a site which allows the upload of text, videos and photos and I was also able to

embed videos onto my blog so that other softwares such as

slideshare presentations can be seen. Blogger was good and

easy to use and it allowed me to insert tags which would show that my blog belonged to me.

Blogger…1 2

Firstly we were all given individual groupsAs our coursework was a group based task.This Eased access for each group and enabledUs to navigate through our work and easily Organize.

Blogger was good as it enabled us to Organize folders for each group. It gaveThe option to view what each person hadPosted and this helped us figure out tasks Yet to be completed by each person.

3There was easy indicationsOn how to add new posts etc.The bold and simple layoutOf blogger is what made itEasier to use.

When I createdWork on

presentation sites such as

slideshare I had to embed it and

make sure it was on

‘compose’ mode.

Overall Blogger was very pleasantTo use and helped me manage and Organize the work that had to beCompleted . It also gave me the Option to easily look back and view Mine and my groups work andEdit if necessary.

I used youtube as it was a software/website that I felt many of my

target audience would know and be familiar with, as it is very popular

amongst young people. I uploaded the second part to question three on my evaluation and this was a very quick

process and didn’t take long to upload. Also a lot of the research and planning was done on youtube, such as ‘finding similar products’ (other documentaries

related to our subject).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gTBQU9j9Rw