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

evaluation stage?

Courtney O’Donnell

Microsoft Word and Style GuideDuring the production of my TV listings magazine and newspaper advertisement, this allowed me to format the text and titles of my article around my background image due to the wide range of formatting options, mirroring to the style of the Radio Times and Channel 4. The ruler tool of this software allowed me to precisely follow the exact positions and dimensions of my exhibitor formatting, which I measured with my deconstructions with my ruler of the Radio Times, and i Newspaper hardware, and the Channel 4 style guide PDF software.

Continued…The cropping tool of Word also allowed me to crop and move the font alphabet letters screenshotted with my Macbook hardware from the Channel 4 style guide, and paste and resize the Channel 4 logo from Google Images to further follow this precise format.

Within the journalism industry, Adobe InDesign software would be used by the Radio Times, Photoshop by Channel 4, and the Open Type font software for the Channel 4 newspaper advertisement font. However, due to my inaccessibility to the font despite my research, and greater familiarity with Word allowing me to create better ancillary products, I overcame these constraints successfully. Word also has the capacity to continue editing following my audience feedback improvements, unlike my editing software such as Picmonkey for example, which is a strength.

Final Cut ProI used this offline software during the planning of my documentary for creating my animatic, which was a strength for using this new media technology as it familiarised me in preparation for my documentary editing with this new software. Editing my documentary with Final Cut Pro was similar to the creativity and innovation of the television industry and documentary genre due to the professionalism of this software, which enabled me to use professional editing effects such as focus pulls and background noise reduction to create a documentary suitable for my professional Channel 4 institution.

Continued and ExhibitionThis will be exhibited on terrestrial Channel 4 television to connect to my TV listings magazine article, because this exhibition is conventional to Channel 4’s documentaries, and to reach my ABC1 target audience who consume terrestrial TV and TV on demand services. www.abc1demographic.co.uk

Furthermore, I’m also exhibiting through Channel 4oD online through their website to connect to my conventional website page short URL on my newspaper advertisement, following the conventions of Channel 4’s documentary genre, and to reach my more digitally literate, younger demographic.

Twitter and FacebookI used this online, social media software during the research and post-production stages to distribute and gather audience feedback (post-production) and market research from my younger demographic, as they are the primary consumers of this software. A disadvantage is that I’m limited to the people I know or that follow me, as in the television, journalism and marketing industries, this feedback would be gathered on a larger, more distanced scale.

BloggerThis online software was used throughout my research, planning and construction stages to present my work as a timeline of recorded progress. This software also allowed me to embed my interactive research and planning presentations and drafts of my products easily.

VimeoI used this online software during the planning and production stages as a platform to upload my focus group footage, animatic and drafts of my documentary to embed them into my blog. This software was effective as it could be accessed from the sixth form internet server conveniently, unlike YouTube, and creates high quality videos without ads. However, a weakness is that it has limitations on the storage/ upload allowances per week, which was a difficulty for this project.

Survey MonkeyThis was used during the research and post-production stages to gather market research and audience feedback through detailed, anonymous questionnaires targeted at my younger demographic as they are the most digitally literate audience, and are therefore most appropriately reached through this online software. A strength of this technology was the fact that it created graphs from my results to present and read these clearly.

Microsoft PowerPoint and SlideShareThe offline software, PowerPoint, was used during my research, planning and evaluation stages to present my deconstructions, storyboards and research in an organised way. I uploaded these presentations to the online software, SlideShare, which allowed me to interactively embed them to my blog, with this interactivity, as well as the ability to add active hyperlinks and images presenting a strength of the software.

Video Camera, Digital Camera and iPhoneThe hardware I used during construction included a HD video camera for shooting my documentary, as well as a digital camera for my ancillary text photography. Furthermore, I used the video camera during my location planning as a test for the quality of lighting and shots in preparation for shooting.

The digital camera was significantly more HD, however the video camera was similarly high quality in shots and audio, which allowed me to use professional effects such as manual focus pulls by covering my hand over the lens, and therefore create a professional documentary. Within the television industry, my exhibiting institution, Channel 4, as well as the BBC etc., would use microphones to enhance the sound quality professionally; however, as I didn’t have access to these, I overcame this constraint through using the reduce background noise effect of Final Cut Pro, and by planning locations and shooting times which were not overly loud and busy, such as the library during the morning.

Continued…Finally, my iPhone camera hardware was used for taking images of my research, planning, production and evaluation work such as my storyboard, shoot diary, and images for my evaluation presentations. This was significantly less HD than these other two hardwares, but was effective for this purpose. A strength of these hardwares, was the fact that they could be easily uploaded to Final Cut Pro or my online presentations through memory cards of iPhoto in the case of my iPhone.

TripodI used this hardware to stabilise my video camera shots, making them still, straight, less-shaky and therefore professional. The handle on my tripod also allowed me to create smooth, manual panning and tilt shots with a similarly professional style. Furthermore, the spirit level tool allowed me to effectively balance and straighten the shots for an aesthetically pleasing look.

This is a conventional production code to the television industry, however, for the documentary genre production codes which are often fast paced and move from locations quickly, shoulder mounted video cameras are used to prevent the weakness of less portability of tripods. Although as my documentary was planned in quite high detail, my inaccessibility to shoulder mounted video cameras was less of an issue.

PicMonkey and PhotoShopI used these online and offline softwares for editing the photography of my ancillary products, and whilst PhotoShop had more advanced and professional options for this which are more suited to the journalism, photography and print marketing industries, PicMonkey was accessible from my MacBook out of media studies lessons, and creates similarly professional images due to the wide range of editing tools, such as resizing to suit my exhibitor format, and blurs and blends to raise Rowan’s eyebrow and soften focus. A weakness is that it doesn’t have to capacity to re-access the editing after downloading, unlike PhotoShop which has re-accessible layers after closing.

Emaze and PreziI used these online softwares to present my research, planning, post-production evaluation work interactively. Strengths of these softwares include the ability to embed them into my blog and evaluation website, as well as embed videos, audio, images and SlideShares to enhance these interactive presentations.

YouTube and Channel 4oDFrom my earlier comparison to Vimeo, I decided to not use YouTube as a platform to upload my videos, but during my research and planning stages to research tutorials for Final Cut Pro, semiotics, and videos of uploaded documentaries to deconstruct which could easily be embedded into my blog.

Furthermore, I used Channel 4oD to similarly deconstruct documentaries, which was less effective as it could not be embedded due to copyright restrictions, and included far more advertisements. On the other hand, YouTube was often lower in quality, and featured fewer documentaries than Channel 4oD.

SoundCloudI used the online software, SoundCloud, as a platform to upload my non-diegetic music files emailed with Gmail from my musician, Maya Law, and embed these to my blog. A strength of this software was the download option, which allowed me to upload my non-diegetic music to my Final Cut Pro documentary edit easily.

Reading and Online ResearchFinally, I used the online software of research websites on sexism within the media industry and the documentary/ listings magazine/ newspaper advertisement genres (accessed by the gateway, Google Chrome), and the offline hardware of Laura Mulvey’s book on feminist film theory and a textbook on the documentary genre conventions. These allowed me to follow my genre conventions accurately, form my content, and add statistics and quotes to my documentary.