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

evaluation stages?

By Nathan Green

Research

Research

My research and planning had a significant positive effect

on my overall production. I firstly got together with my

group and we laid out many different documentary topic

ideas. Furthermore we also put our ideas into sub areas of

research (The music industry got broken down into CD's,

Streaming and pirating. By doing this we all clearly saw

areas of interests with the most potential for content in

our documentary. We wanted to aim our documentary

towards teenagers/ young adults, which meant using the

internet to research interests on each area targeting

teenagers. Therefore within our planning stages we could

clearly rule out topic areas which teenagers have less of an

interest in. For example picking the topic jobs seemed to

appeal less to our target audiences teenagers.

The importance of the internet (Google Chrome) meant that we could find out what are target audiences are interested in today, which ensured that we could suit our documentary to them.

Planning The Content For The Documentary

When we where carrying out our research we used trusted websites such as articles from The Guardian. This gave us a clear indication into the music industry. From this we could clearly see what format people where listening to their music on as well as the age range of people using them. Researching into our target audiences was heavily reliant on using the internet and carrying out many questionnaires to those of our target audience age.

Research

Research Into Our Target Audience

We also draw out a rough plan better known as a storyboard for the structure of our documentary. By doing this we could quite clearly deiced what shots to get for our filming days. Furthermore we could have an idea of what has worked previously and apply these techniques (such as mid shots during interview) to our product. We felt that be planning out our documentary as much as we could would offer a more affiant and organized result. In addition to that we also planned our film times- when and where we would shoot certain sections within the documentary. We also planned out our double page spread to have a better insight of what it would look like and fit the article style codes and conventions in them. We did stick to the storyboard as a baseline for our documentary but felt that alterations needed to be made and different clips where better suited elsewhere. A photocopier was used to get the drawing onto blogger, which came out more clear then the picture of the drawings we had.

Research

Storyboard

Research

Research Into Other Documentaries

We also looked at other documentaries for our research before

going out and shooting the documentary. By doing this allowed

ideas from professional documentaries to be shown and possible

apply these to our own. Developing that point we had a much

better insight into the codes and conventions of documentaries. We

could then conclude weather or not we wanted to apply these

conventions within our documentary and if it would suited the topic

area or not. In addition to that we could equally see what

conventions we feel didn’t work or wouldn’t work in our

documentary. We could then decide if we wanted to challenge

some conventions within documentaries. Firstly we looked at the

documentary Super Size Me and clearly picked up on common

conventions and features within documentaries such as vox pop

interviews, titles on screen and even animation we wanted to follow

onto our own documentary. Super Size Me was watched via DVD in

contrast to the other documentaries we studied on YouTube.

Research

Research Into Documentaries On Our TopicBy looking at documentaries such as “Music Streaming” and “Face The Music” gave a clear layout of both conventions used within documentaries as well as an insight into how our topic area is being portrayed within documentaries. We could clearly see what went well and what didn’t and why it didn’t. For example we notice our target audiences wants to consistently be engaged with short and snappy fast editing. The documentary “Music Streaming” was missing just that. We understood that our documentary needed to be less reliant on long interviews as it doesn’t interact the spectator as much. By watching both of these documentaries we furthered our knowledge in planning our own documentary whilst picking up on key featured we wanted to develop. Thankfully due to the software YouTube we could easily get a hold of these documentaries and study them in further detail.

Planning

Planning

Planning Our Interviews

Planning Our Interviews

Planning

We made sure we contacted the people we where hoping to interview in advance of our filming plan. By doing this we could base any other film preparation around when we’ve got the expert/ artist interviews. We also made sure we either text, email or message the interviewee beforehand (if they did agree to meet) that they’re still okay for the interview. Furthermore we also sent the questions we would be asking them in advance so they could get prepared to answer the questions in advance. This led to in depth response, which aided the documentaries content and sophistication. If the interviewee didn’t fully answer the question or we wanted a more detailed answer from them, we planned a follow up response related to the question that would hopefully further our intention of the question.

Research And Planning

Research Into The Documentary ChannelsWe looked at what channels delivered similar content to our documentary as well as them attracting our chosen target audience. The channels we mainly looked at where BBC, SkyArts, ITV and channel 4. They all offered a range of different positive and negative elements for putting our documentary on them. We used catch-up programs such as ITV Player and BBC iplayer online to watch previous documentaries and have a understanding of the types shown on the channel.

Itv was seen to be limited on documentaries and didn’t offer the audience we where aiming for in our documentary.

BBC attracted our target audiences and is known for trusted documentaries on BBC2. We picked BBC for our channel broadcast.

We found that channel 4 is the most successful for documentary broadcast that we looked at but didn’t feel that our topic would appeal to the target audience we wanted.

Sky Arts seemed to have the most music documenters shown but appealed to an older audience.

Research And Planning

Planning In Our Groups/ Communication Staying in contact with each other in our groups help our organizational skills and helped the planning process of our products. Using social media to stay in contact with one another made it finalize decisions when we where not together. In addition to that we could also make sure that everyone is aware of where, what and how we would be filming upcoming dates from our filming plan. We used many apps on our mobile phones such as Whatsapp Messenger, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Social Media also help our documentary research as we found celebrities such as Kanye West’s viewpoint on our topic. We managed to look in further detail, which help play a big part in our documentary.

Research And Planning

The Software We Researched And Planned WithWe used a range of different software's to present our research and planning. With that being said we made sure that everything we did would get added onto Blogger as a hub for all of our process in creating the products. We also used slideshare to convert (embed) the likes of PowerPoint and Microsoft word over into our blogger. We mostly used Microsoft word to produces questionnaires for our target audiences as well as audiences feedback from our documentary. We also used a printer hardware to give out the questionnaires to people. Furthermore after gathering our results, we used Microsoft Excel to collaborate the content into a pie chart/ bar chart, which clearly laid out the answers- making it easier to apply their feedback. We also used multiple other online software such as Prezi, Emaze, Wideo, Slides, Scribd, Soundcloud and YouTube to convey our research and planning.

Filming Our Documentary

Filming Our Documentary

Filming Equipment In order to film our documentary we used a range of different filming equipment. When we went out to shoot our documentary vox pops we used a canon camera, boom microphone, tripod and headphones. The canon camera was used during all the filming of the documentary which kept a consistency in quality throughout the overall product. We found that by using the boom microphone created a more crisp sound due to no wind interruption. This was made clear during the editing process as we couldn’t fault the sound quality. The tripod was also used during all the filming of the documentary due to how it offered a steady shot and equally kept the consistency throughout the shots used. When filming our expert/ artist interviews, we used a clip on microphone to ensure that we could clearly hear what the interviewee was saying without any background noise.

Filming Our Documentary

Location RecceAfter using Microsoft word to plan our filming time sheet, we took our filming equipment out to possible locations that we where going to film our documentary. We also used a risk assessment before going out to these locations to prepare for a situation if it was to go wrong. We took shots outside our college, canteen, music department and also computer shots. This helps us in making sure what shots worked well, following on from that what shots we could use for our final product. Furthermore by doing this we actually didn’t use most of these locations (only used the Computer shot), this is due to how we felt it wouldn’t be effective in our documentary.

College

Music Department

The Canteen

Computer Shots

Risk Assessment

After research and planning our storyboard for the documentary it was time to start filming. We used the storyboard as a basic idea of what shots to get as well as the content itself. In addition to that we also used our location Recce to result the best possible locations to film in. By using the canon camera we could produces high quality content with the audio focus during interviews and manually pick to have shots out of focus. This help offer a range of different shots which brought much more to the documentary. The out of focus shots helps create a manual blur effect to the shot which was our intention. Furthermore due to having the tripod, we could create slow and fast pan shots. We found this to be extremely useful in our product as it allowed slow pans to have precision as well as equally offering a range of contrasting shots.

Filming Our Documentary

Filming The Documentary Panning Shot

Manual Out Of Focus/ Blur Shot

Editing

Editing

Before putting our clips onto the timeline, we first needed to know what clips where useful as well as what section within the clip we needed. We had a timing sheet which help visually see at what point during the certain clip was at any use for our documentary. We added onto this sheet what time the information was useful to what time we wanted to stop the clip. This helped organize our clips in a more structured fashion as well as making it easier to know where to trim clips on the timeline itself. However some shots where of no use to us, which meant we could leave these clips in the project section and deiced if we wanted to reshoot similar/ better footage. All of the Adobe content was edited on a Apple Mac Computer.

Our Project (All of the clips)

The Documentary Timeline

The ones highlighted in blue where the clips that got put onto the timeline

Editing

The time reference sheet we used on what clips where useful and clearly laid out the times within the clip that where of importance. We hand wrote out the information as we where watching the clips but used a photocopier hardware to upload it onto the Blog. By doing this we can clearly read the information, which aided the editing process as we could quickly look the blogger at what time a certain clip was useful.

Editing

Using Premiere Pro CC to actually edit our documentary product on, was quite successful. We used both Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition to check out the sound levels where consistent and could equally hear what the person/ interviewee was actually saying. We started using Audition to have a base of a clear sound level during our first interview with Nick and our vox pops. We used the software mainly for our vox pops to block out any background noise hared on camera. We didn’t stick to using the Audition software as we found the audio gain the controls within premiere pro more straight forward and easier to use.

As shown in the picture above, we edited the sound levels on Premiere Pro by moving the yellow line up/ down to change the sound level of a certain clip. We mostly used this when we where fading an interview out or simply lowering the background music down to increase the volume heard on an interview.

We also used Audio Gain to increase/ decrease the volume of a certain clip if the overall footage was hard to hear.

Adobe Audition

Premiere Pro

Editing

Adobe After Effects was used to edit out a white mark during the opening shot of our documentary. The white mark appeared on a completely black background just after a stop motion footage of the CD’s. We used a black fill out tool to change the white mark into a black mark which suited the background. This worked exceptionally well as it was unclear to any white mark in the first place (when covered). We where not used to the software at the time and debated to re-attempt shooting the whole stop motion section again. Luckily we got more comfortable with using the software and had no need to reshoot the footage.

Where The White Mark Was

We altered the brightness as well as the focus to highlight what was shown upon screen. By using Premiere Pro Effects Control section, allowed us to slowly blur out the main clip as well as darken it whilst dissolving a image of Kanye West’s tweet. We could also pinpoint the time within the clip that we wanted to blur the image and out. This made the documentary have a smoother feel to the overall product. We mainly used film dissolve as it offered a professional look to our documentary and felt that it worked well with keeping our target audience engaged.

Editing

On Premiere Pro we also used text overlays to create our interviewee’s information as well as title sequences shown throughout the documentary. We made sure the titles during the interviews where within the second inner line (in the text overlay box). This simply made the text throughout the documentary consistent through height, length and font. We used a shadow backdrop on the text to make the text standout more. By doing this made it seem more professional as well as it sticking to the codes and conventions of real life documentaries.

Our Radio Trailer and The TV Listings Page

I’m quite used to the software GarageBand and equally comfortable to use it. The software wasn’t too difficult to explain to the rest of the group also. We record our radio trailer on GarageBand and used a recorded to create the voiceover in the trailer. We mainly used pull quotes from our documentary consisting of rhetorical questions and professional interviews/ vox pops. We added our backing track from the documentary over purely to create our brand identity within the trailer itself. We also managed to alter the sound levels of the music to not overpower voiceover. We kept the Radio Trailer short and upbeat to fully lure in our target audiences and equally aid the intention of it being interesting to listen too. During our first recording of the radio trailer, we noticed a slight fan that got picked up in the background noise. With that we deiced to rerecord the voiceover as it wasn’t worth trying to cover it up.

The Radio Trailer

The TV Listings Page

We used InDesign to create our TV Listings Page. We found that an article style layout would best suit our topic and content. With that being said our group decide to layout the article into columns with pictures breaking up the text. We used still images from our documentary to support the article as well as creating a bold textbox that looked similar to the parental advisement sticker shown on CD’s. This help suit the topic as well as allowing it to fully standout from the articles text. InDesign was a new software to us, which made the process longer to create the TV listings magazine but very successful. We also use the rule of thirds whilst creating the article and a lined template helped aid a clear visual of this when producing it.

The Evaluation Technology

For the Evaluation I used the following software’s; Question 1 I used Soundcloud as I wanted to present the question through an audio recording. Question 2 I used Prezi as it offered a different style of presentation and worked well with showing the content of my three products. For question 3 I used Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel purely because I feel that it was easier to present the feedback I got from my focus group, questionnaire and target audiences in text form supported by graphs to illustrate my points. And question 4/ this question has been down on Microsoft PowerPoint and uploaded to Slideshare as it’s a software I’m familiar with and feel confidant to produce the content. All of the questions are put onto blogger with question 1 and 2 being embedded straight from the site.

The Software We Used

•Adobe Premiere Pro•Adobe After Effects •Adobe InDesign •Adobe Audition•GarageBand •Blogger•Slideshare •Microsoft Word •Microsoft Excel •Microsoft PowerPoint•YouTube •Twitter •Facebook Messenger •Whatsapp Messenger •Snapchat

•Instagram •SoundCloud•Emaze •Prezi •Scribd •Wideo •Slides•The internet/ Google Chrome

The Hardware We Used

•Apple Mac Computer

•A Windows Computer

•Smartphone

•Canon Camera

•Clip On Microphone

•Boom Microphone

•Printer

•Photocopier

•An Audio Recorder

•Headphones

•Tripod