By George Parkin

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

Continued…(editing) Once we had finished all of our filming, we collected all of our

clips together and uploaded them onto the Apple iMac. This was very easy and straightforward to do, as all we had to do

was copy the files over to our media drive. With our footage now successfully on the iMac we opened up our editing programme.

It appeared daunting at first using the editing programme, as I myself had little experience with the iMac themselves let alone editing documentary footage on them, luckily we had a member of our group who was experienced on the iMac’s.

The editing programme we used was Final Cut Express, this is the specific piece of software on the iMac that we used to edit our documentary in its entirety.

In order for the editing process to begin as quickly as possible the first task we had to fulfil was the ‘log and transfer’ process, this involved selecting the clips we wanted to use (often out of multiple similar but overall inadequate choices) once we had selected all of the clips we wanted to available for editing (using storyboards etc to help the process along)

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

Editing… Now we had all of the clips that could possibly be available to us for

our documentary, we could now begin to edit, straightaway. All of our clips were now imported into Final Cut Express and

ready for editing. We labelled all of our clips so that we knew what was what, and could find the right version quickly, easily and efficiently each time we needed it. Once all of our clips had been ‘log and transferred’ , we had all of our footage and sound we needed to edit our documentary.

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

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

Effects – Here you can find all of your transitions, filters and generators, etc.

The programme is basically divided into four windows…

1) Browser.

2) Viewer.

3) Canvas.

4) Timeline.

This is were you drag in all of your clips

and sound for your movie.

Length of time runs across the top of the timeline.

Editing tool.

Simply, viewing windows.

Audio clips run along

the bottom.

Visual footage on the top of

the timeline.

Basically the final product window that everybody will

see.

Edit your work in the viewer and see your results over in

the canvas.

Editing… When began to fully undertake the task of constructing our documentary on

Final Cut Express we tried lots of different edits. Using Final Cut Express I was able to implement; cuts, trims, transitions and special effects to our documentary. It was especially necessary to do this during the opening reconstruction were various clips were edited so they overlapped each other whilst the opacity was alternating creating an almost ‘cloudy’ effect as certain images intertwined to the point that the images mingling on screen gave the impression of a ghostly-type figure as the constant stream of rolling clips meant the opening shots felt muddled, fast paced and difficult to focus in on, this was a desired aim as we wanted to make the reconstruction difficult viewing due to the sensitive nature of bullying in general:

Examples overlapping shots, as you can see the transition from

one shot to another is not smooth, rather the previous

image is left hovering over the screen for a time, creating the eerie ‘cloudy’/’ghostly’ type effect as I mentioned in the

paragraph above.

Editing… In order to achieve the overlapping of shots that can be seen on

the previous slide’s screen prints and also at the beginning of the documentary. In order for you to grasp the complexity of the tasks we had to deal with when undertaking the documentary – using the reconstruction as an example – I will describe just one small element that went into the creating a successful finished product.

When developing the reconstruction one tool was particularly vital, the zoom option. The reason this tool was so vital during the editing stages was because we were having problems correctly lining up shots so there was no gaps. If we hadn’t of found this tool during the task then there would have been blackspots in the documentary, this would of made it look unprofessional and poorly edited. The use of this tool gave us the ability to zoom in and out so we could implement cuts and trims for intricate areas of the documentary. Without this the documentary wouldn’t of had the smooth and professional feel it did have in the end.

In the end we found editing this part of the documentary with techniques such as overlapping shots very rewarding and were satisfied with the end result, however there was a lot more we wanted to try.

Here you can see an example of some of our footage once it has been placed into Final Cut Express , the visual footage runs along the top in blue and the audio can be seen below in green.

Double clicking the footage will highlight it as you can see below:

Once you have double clicked the footage (clip) it loads it into the viewer and you have options for various effects that can be added to the video.

There is options for filters and motions etc running along the top.

Selecting one of the options along the top will take you to a new window for example filters, they can be dragged across here into the viewer and edited specifically for your video.

There is also motion for things such as key framing and rotations. Key framing can be done in the video or manually in the canvas.

The viewer has a button which allows a shortcut to the video generator, this is a reliable and useful shortcut, it can be seen on the screen shot below, the read circle highlights the particular button and to the right you can see the specific menu you are greeted with once you select the button.

The screenshot on the right hand side shows what can be found using the video generator tool, one example is using it for shapes in this case a rectangle, as you can see the rectangle has been selected and is now present in the viewer .

You can see the smaller rectangle below being dragged down onto the timeline.

Audio… Getting the audio levels right on all of our clips was difficult, being

sufficiently able to manage sound that ran throughout the documentary at a consistent level was a challenge in itself.

We had particular problems with specific vox pops, often the sound for these clips was quieter than it was for the recording of the voiceover for example this meant that adjustments had to be made.

Due to the recording of the voiceover being done is a near ideal environment e.g. in a silent empty room with the microphone held up close in comparison to the vox pops for example that were conducted out on the street and had to contend with traffic noise, other voices and peoples hectic schedules which meant we often only had a few minutes at the most to interview them.

Because of the problems to do with the environment these problems had to be rectified during the editing process otherwise every time the voiceover cut it would be very loud requiring a manual volume adjustment by the viewer, this would be highly impractical as they would have to then turn it back up for the vox pops.

Audio… If we had left this problem it would have been a potential area that

severely let our documentary down but in fact it was simple and easy to rectify.

The sound levels often didn’t balance or match up. They often varied a lot from clip to clip, as you can see from the screen shot below all we had to do was drag the pink line up and down until it was balanced.

However, in some cases we did not always elect to balance the sound rather in some cases there was particular parts in an interview or vox pop were voices were suddenly raised sometimes because the interviewee began to speak louder or because there had been some kind of malfunction with the microphone if these areas served little purpose and could be effective cut from the interview we did this.

Using the razor blade tool as you can see on the screen shot to the left we were able to successfully and efficiently cut into certain parts of clips, break them up so they could be dealt with in separate parts once these adjustments made and the useless parts removed we could reedit the remaining sections back together, overall this was a very useful tool.

Audio… For many of these clips it was very easy and simple to adjust all of the sounds

levels to a consistent level, however sometimes it was necessary to manipulate the existing levels even if they were even for purpose of fading sound in and out.

The raising and lowering of sound levels was essential it wasn’t simply cutting the music out or stopping it abruptly is was all out easing it out slowly so that it was gradual, basically we wanted the background music to remain almost anonymous, we wanted the levels to rise and fall so naturally that the viewers didn’t even notice because they were to busy listening to the content.

One example of the use of fading sounds in and out can be found in the opening of our documentary, when the reconstruction is playing and the laughter can be heard (also in the background is the music) as the voiceover begins to speak the overall sound levels drop so as not to interfere with what is being said, later for example when the voiceover from that segment finishes and the title appears on screen and the laughter had ended the music that was previously resigned to background raises slightly to alert you to its presence as nothing else needs saying at this point.

Screen shot shows the pink line heading on a downward trajectory showing the direction the sound will go once the documentary is at this point.

Text… Another brief element I would like to discuss is the use of text, we had to add brief

snippets of text into the documentary, one notable example is obviously the large and focal point of the opening sequence the title; Bullying: The Truth Behind The Laughter as well as adding in the names of experts we interviewed.

On the left hand side we added in the name of our expert, ‘Jag Jagdev’ – we felt this was essential to making our expert interview especially but the documentary overall look professional, it was important to let the viewer know who they were and was as much a key element to getting the ‘feel’ right as framing and what could be seen in the background. It was simple and easy to add text into the documentary and therefore it would have been silly for us to leave out a convention so commonly found in professional documentaries.

We also noted the expert’s occupation and role at the college obviously this was very important otherwise the viewer would not know what field he was an expert in. We wrote underneath his name ‘Student Development Officer’ clearly identifying his role at the college, that he is somebody important, to be listened to and trusted as well as the fact that ‘Student Development’ clearly implies he is associated with the students on a social level, not just a simple teach-student relationship expressing an idea closer to that of a social worker somebody involved with youth and therefore more likely to have inside knowledge on the issue of bullying as students in the past may have confided in him.

Text… Adding these lines of text were extremely simple. Once we had

decided what needed to be written it was simply then a task of deciding how to present it, we were able to change the size, colour, font etc. so that what was presented was distinct, eye-catching and stood out strongly from whatever else was happening on screen.

Although in comparison with some other technological aspects we did not use much text in our documentary at all it is nonetheless a key convention of professional documentaries that we wanted to implement to help our product achieve the highest possible standard of professionalism it could.

Examples of onscreen text…

Transitions… Another skill that we developed whilst using Final Cut Express, was the

use transitions. We used straight cuts throughout most of the documentary as you will be able to see when you view it (although other techniques such as the shot overlapping/dissolves I mentioned earlier were used in the opening reconstruction)

The straight cut as seen in our documentary is perhaps the most commonly found cut used to transition from shot to shot in professional documentaries, it’s presence as a convention in many of the documentaries I watched made me sure that this would be the safest and tidiest transition to use consistently throughout.

Overall we felt the use of a simple straight cut presented our shots in the best possible manner, the transitions were easy to find use and implement, we simply placed them over the beginning and end of clips on the timeline, in between a break in clips or between any visual footage that we wanted to transition together.

There is one final element that needs to be discussed and is perhaps as fundamental as audio (i.e. voiceover) and visual footage, was sound (i.e. the music)

Sound/Music… Once all of the visual footage had been put together in a coherent and

organised fashion and had finished adding any extra clips, transitions, effects and in a visual sense the documentary was complete, along with some audio elements complete as the voiceover was ready to be added in places were it was needed the final construction process was sound.

After recording the voice over it was broken up into relevant parts and the unnecessary elements were cut out, the remaining segments were put into the documentary at the right points leaving areas were there was no voiceover needing to be filled with music.

Using the software application GarageBand, we set about creating a backing track for our documentary a piece of music that would run consistently throughout.

GarageBand is a software application for OS X and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as a part of the iLife software package on OS X.

Sound/Music… Being able to successfully use the mixing programme GarageBand

was pivotal in our documentary being a success. This was another new documentary that I had little or no experience

on meaning there was a substantial amount to pick up quickly, the learning curve was important as it proved essential to be able to use tools and programmes such as these effectively.

Using GarageBand we created a backing track of a few simple beats to run in the background of our documentary continuously (with brief exceptions during speech from members of the public/students/experts)

The track we constructed was around five minutes long, so it could run the through the length of the entire documentary certain areas were cut out when once it was brought into the documentary so the music didn’t for example play through speech by interviewees meaning in the end it would have been trimmed down to an extent, but still played for the majority of the documentary.

Sound/Music… Finally, when we exported the track it had to be a mp3, we then

opened Final Cut Express and dragged it onto the audio timeline.

I will now move onto discuss the media technologies used in the construction stages of the radio trail…

Radio Trail… For our radio trail it was completed in Final Cut Express, we created the

backing track that runs throughout the thirty-second advertisement in GarageBand, this process was reasonably straightforward and altogether quite successful.

We created our track on GarageBand, dragging the sound onto the track obtaining the desired beat/sound we wanted and then after that we followed an almost identical process for getting the music over into Final Cut Express as we did when transferring the music over for the documentary.

It was again exported as an mp3 track and was ready to serve as the basis for our radio trail, now elements from the documentary such as snippets of interviews as well as a piece of narration needed to be added in to complete it.

Overall GarageBand proved and extremely useful and generally an inspired piece of software, it offered a wide range of sounds and allowed us to view, alert and create musical sounds. The programme also offered music synthesizers allowing us to create the sounds of instruments such as drums and guitars etc. In conclusion, the programme was very easy to use and worked fantastically well, it enabled us to create non-copyright music tracks.

Radio Trail…

An example of the various synthesizers available on GarageBand, some of which I mentioned on the previous slide – Drum Kit, Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Bongos, Rock Guitar, Grand Piano and strings – the large amount of options available to us were utilised as much as possible although not all of these sounds and instruments made it into our finished radio trail all of them were certainly experimented with.

Radio Trail… As you can see from the screen shot to the right-hand side there are various

levels producing various different sounds combining to make the piece of music required.

To express just how simplistic and easy to grasp GarageBand was, when we wanted to repeat a certain track sometimes multiple times – a track being one of the four individual blue lines you can see on the screen shot on the right – all that needed to be done was to grab the edge of the track and drag it out as far as necessary.

These tracks could be stretched out as long as we wanted them to last. This was simple and easy to do and GarageBand, made this particularly simple because the programme naturally makes the tracks flow together effortlessly. The controls were not only easy to grasp but easy to use

too, the rewind and fast-forward buttons allowed us to quickly get to and listen to the right sections of our music.

Radio Trail… Overall GarageBand was a excellent tool to have at our disposal, it

enabled us to produce a near perfect piece of music for our radio trail and above all else it was simple and easy to use. We were able to find the sounds and tools to make the type of music we wanted to quickly meaning the whole process was efficient. There was plenty of choice and abundance of overall resources within the programme when it came to design and later construction process.

The main reason why the design and construction of the radio trail was so simple even though I was a novice at the programme was because most of the skills needed I had already picked up during the production of the documentary, although that process was done predominantly on another programme many aspects crossed over as well as the fact we made music on GarageBand beforehand, specifically for the documentary.

On the next slide I will define the final process now that the hard work was done (the music) simple finishing elements were required...

Radio Trail… We added clips from our documentary such as the overlapping of the

documentaries narration, complete with ambient sound. We wrote a brief script for the radio trail (which can be found on the

blog) and in the same process as the documentary we recorded it and imported it to Final Cut Express once we had what we ideally wanted.

Finally, all that was left to do was put these three elements together to complete the task…

We put the backing track together with the extracts from the documentary and then added in the recorded voiceover, they were put on different layers on Final Cut Express, we then exported the file and it was ready to play.

As the final stage took place in a programme we were already familiar with small adjustments were simple and straightforward, we simply carried on developing the skills we had already obtained. So for example adjusting the sound levels was the same as before and proved no problem meaning the final stage in Final Cut Express was quickly completed.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… When creating our magazine article it involved generally speaking just two

programmes both of which were essential in the construction process although not of equal importance one of undoubtedly more important than the other.

The two programmes in question were Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Word.

The importance of these two programmes and the role they played in the construction of the double page spread and magazine article will be discussed in the following slides…

I will discuss various different elements of the Double Page Spread and how it finally came to fruition as you see it now.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… The combination of these two very different programmes is essential

to understand the technologies used during the construction process of the final ancillary task.

The basic process involve the creation of the double page spread on Adobe InDesign and the article itself on Microsoft Word.

To create the double page spread we began on InDesign, we opened up a blank double page canvas for us to begin working on. I set the background to a very simple light shade of blue, keeping the colours subtle and low key in keeping with the style found in the Radio Times, the magazine that would exhibit our double page spread.

Simple tasks such as changing colours on InDesign is incredibly easy and the tools as you can see are clearly labelled with for example a the (T) button clearly standing for text.

In addition to the simplicity of the tools bars using these tools was also very straightforward for example shapes such as a rectangle covering the entire double page could be drawn and then simply filled in with a block colour allowing us to obtain our desired colour scheme.

Magazine Article/Double Page Spread…

Below you will be able to see a screen shot, this is how the double page spread looked when it had first been opened, the empty double page provided and excellent canvas and be began trying to implement our designs and ideas that were currently only found on paper and try and bring them to life.

Selecting this rectangle tool enabled us to draw a shape across the double page which could then be filled.

The screen shot to the left is of ‘Swatches’ these option can be found on the tool bar running down the right side of the double page, selecting swatches allows you to choose the colour you want to fill the shape you have drawn, in the case of our double page spread the shape we had drawn stretched across the entire double page and therefore we wanted to fill the entire thing with one block colour, a light pale blue.

Stretching the shape so it engrosses the entire double page.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… After deciding upon the colour scheme it was time to divide up the page

into the different sections so we had an idea of how it would look when it was finished and whether or not everything would fit in practise. We had already drawn rough examples on paper regarding the general layout of the double page as well as looking at many professional double pages in various T.V. listings magazines, especially the Radio Times.

We were able to use the column tool to divide the area were the article would sit into different columns and sections allowing it to flow continuously across the bottom, running across from the left-hand page to the right-hand side.

At this point in time the magazine article itself was still being written meaning we did not have a full length complete piece to insert into the double page spread, this did not matter as in the mean time we use a feature to fill up the columns with text. Known as ‘placeholder’ text, the features fill up columns with texts and allowed us to envision what the article would look like once it had been inserted. This tool was very useful…

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… …Mainly because it allowed us the chance to envision what our final

product would look like, in addition to that it also allowed us to make adjustments accordingly to the double page spread and the article, as the placeholder text had alerted us to any potential flaws that would be encountered later such as the columns not allowing enough space for the whole article, the result was being able to make these adjustments earlier before we had finalised elements of the design and the construction was near complete. This overall saved us time in the long run, it gave us a broad overview and incite into what our product would look like and gave us chance to plan ahead so we could become more productive.

Now at this point we had the substitute text and were continuing trying to recreate the layout we had constructed on paper on the computer programme. We were succeeding but now needed images to move around to help develop the layout further and decide what in our original sketches worked and what was simply not transferrable from paper to InDesign.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… By this stage it was becoming clear images for our magazine

article were essential. We took various photographs sometimes taking the shot multiple times experimenting with different angles and other elements we could manipulate in order to have a range of different shots to choose from when it came time to pick the ones that would make it into the final product (in addition to taking original images for the double page spread itself as I have already mentioned some of the images used and considered were extracted from the documentary – being stills actually seen in the documentary rather than a recreation of shots taken earlier)

All of the shots were uploaded from the camera onto the computer for consideration, and so began a painstaking process of deciding which images stood out above all of the others.

Once the images were selected and ready they were placed into InDesign, so that edits and adjustments could be made before finalising the process.

The process after both the text and images were on the double page was relatively simple and achieve quickly, it didn’t so much become a task of skills at this point as all that needed to be done was correct positioning of text and images in order to make the double page spread look as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… Once the images were placed into InDesign as you can see

from the screen print to the right this was a simple and straightforward process following this once the image was added to the InDesign programme the images could be cropped, resized and generally moved around until they were positioned correctly.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article…

In just a short space of time our blank double page had been transformed into a simple clear advertisement for our documentary…

…through the use of nothing more than images, text and colours teamed with innovate design techniques to produce an effective double page spread.

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… Having discuss the technologies used in the research, planning and

construction stages extensively I would now like to briefly mention some of the technologies used in the evaluation stage.

The technologies used in the evaluation stages are predominantly the same as those mentioned at various other points this PowerPoint and the previous one, however I will mention them nonetheless.

The internet was naturally key to conducting our evaluation it allowed us access to Blogger.com, Prezi, Scribd, SlideShare and various other sites used throughout the evaluation process. Naturally, along with the internet itself search engines were utilised in order for us to for example find images using Google Images, examples of this include the various logos for Microsoft Word, InDesign and Apple Inc. The majority of these images came from Google Images.

Besides the internet many other programmes, tools and technologies were used I will describe the ones I haven’t yet mentioned on the following slide…

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… One obvious technology used during the evaluation was the cameras,

tripods, microphones and headphones, all of which were utilised during the filming stage and become useful again in parts of the evaluation for example some of the images we had used earlier had been alerted and the originals deleted this meant we had to employ the use of the camera once again to re-upload these images to show what they looked like unaltered for the evaluation process.

Furthermore all of the programmes used during the design and construction phase were needed again for screen shots this included; Final Cut Express, InDesign and GarageBand. Besides them being extremely useful for screen shots they also helpful during early stages in the evaluation when I was explaining how certain techniques done during the construction phase, it was important to go back onto these programmes and refresh my memory before speaking about them in the evaluation.

I will continue to mention the technologies used in the evaluation on the following slide…

Double Page Spread/Magazine Article… Furthermore the only other technologies used in the evaluation stage

worth mentioning are those that are in fact used throughout the entire process of this unit of coursework these include Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and many other similar programmes used on the computers throughout the process, with their use varying from being instrumental to the completion of the products such as Final Cut Express, to only playing a brief role during on particular stage such as Notepad or Paint, which were used during the research and planning stage and did not make it into the final pieces as presented on Blogger.

Overall the technologies made available to use (Final Cut Express, InDesign, GarageBand etc.) and the ones in which we made use of our own accord(Prezi, Scribd, Slide Share etc.) were all on the whole easy to use and produced a good quality finish to the item we were trying to produce (be it designing, sharing or assembling of a product)

In conclusion these media technologies, tools and computer programmes were crucial to the whole project and the fundamental fact is, the entire undertaking would of ground to a half without them.