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

Our initial media technologies we used were for the research and planning process. For this process we used the internet, ILP to converse with teachers, the internet and the blog to upload our research and planning material.

Internet

Although we had watched various documentaries in class, we used and to get a further understanding and also watch documentaries which would be specific to us as a group.

Above are two screenshots of documentaries we watched in class but then watched again in our own time to make notes of codes and conventions.

We used BBC iplayer to watch a documentary called mixed Britannia, which was specific to our topic of integration on society.

We also needed facts and statistics of the population in England, as well as the population of different races of people living in England, and we got this off numerous websites on Google to check our accuracy.

As well as our previous knowledge of creating a magazine, from our as AS coursework, we also used the internet to look at real double page spread articles to note down familiar codes and conventions that we would use.

Blog

Our blog was an essential part of our coursework as it allowed us to share our information we had gathered with our other group members. For example, a documentary I had watched was then accessible to my peers and statistics they had found were accessible to me. Another feature of the blog was that it enabled us to embed YouTube videos straight onto it, and they could be watched on the blog which meant that we did not have to go onto YouTube and look for a video.

We used our individual learning plans (ILP) to converse with teachers and ask them if they would be willing to feature in our documentary.

After we had researched and planned, the next stage was the actual construction of the documentary. All of our work was done on Apple Mac computers. We used these as, they allowed us to use the relevant software, and it was also easy to upload our footage from both the documentary and radio trailer. We used the Macs for all three of our tasks.

To shoot our documentary we needed a camera, microphone, tripod, headphones and a voice recorder.

We used a Canon HD Video Recorder and it was a small hand-held size which made it easier to get a variety of shots. As well the shot variety we could also add special effects from the camera.

The Microphone plugged into the camera easily which meant that we did not have to first record the visual side and then the audio. We had to make sure that the microphone was out of sight so that it wasn’t visible in the documentary.

The tripod was used for formal interviews, as if we had used the hand-held camera on its own; the clip would have been slightly shaky and would not have looked professional.

Headphones were used for the person who was recording on the camera, so that they could hear the sound clearly, how it would be heard on the documentary.

For the narration we didn’t use a microphone, we used a voice recorder which was then added to the documentary later.

Once we had gathered our footage we had to upload it onto the Macs. The software we used to construct our documentary was called Final Cut Express. At the beginning of the process we had a large amount of clips, but viewing them on Final Cut Express allowed us to see which clips we wanted to use. We added effects such as transitions, montage’s etc, adjusted sound levels and also added background music with this software.

After we had completed our documentary it was time to construct the radio trailer. The software we used for this was called ‘Garage Band’. Garage band was similar to Final Cut Express, as most of the controls were the same, except it was slightly easier as there were no visual clips. Another feature of Garage Band was that we were able to find the same background music we had found without transferring it from Final Cut Express. Again we used the same voice recorder for the narration and voice over.

Viewer

Music and sound levels, we had two different sound clips as well as the voice over so that it would not sound monotonous.

Footage and clips.

The final task was the construction of the magazine. As I have mentioned before, we were lucky to have knowledge on this subject from our AS coursework. We used Adobe Photoshop, to edit our images and also add text onto pictures.

The majority of the work for the magazine was done on Adobe In Design. It was easier to use than Photoshop and it was the most appropriate software to use for text. We arranged the pictures with the text in a way that would make it look real, and resemble a real double page spread article.

There were numerous different effects on this software and these are just a few that we used. To add our Photoshop images, we had to click ‘File’, ‘Place’ and then click on the image and place it into this box so that it would not ruin the rest of the article.

There were many features on InDesign, including the ‘drop shadow’ effect where you could adjust the shadow to be smaller or bigger.

If we wanted to make all of the text appear in upper case or lower case, we didn’t have to type it out again, we simply clicked one of these buttons.

Here is a screenshot of the different swatches we used.