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

BLOGGERBlogger is the first media product that I used during each stage of my documentary coursework. Blogger is a site that is clearly defined by its name, it is where I blogged all my work from the start of my research and construction of my documentary work to my final productions and also the evaluating stages. Once I had created the blog, which I named ‘Lauren’s A2 Media Blog’, I began working through the construction, research and planning stages from my documentary.

Also while working on the blog we have had to upload images and videos onto the to provide evidence for my work and research. To upload image on blogger you have edit the post and then click a tab that says insert image.

This box then appears , and you can choose to upload an image either from the computer or ‘this blog’, ‘Picasa web albums’, ‘your phone’, ‘your webcam’ and from ‘a URL’.

Once the image has been uploaded and is on your blog, a small properties box will appear so that the images position can be adjusted, the size can be changed, a caption can be added and also the image can be removed.

This is the button you use to create anew post on your blog, all post will appear on your blog with a date and time that they were created.

As well as importing images to my blog, it was also important that videos where also imported. To do this from YouTube, I copied the embed code which is found underneath the video, underneath the tabs ‘Share’ and then ‘Embed’.

Before copying the Embed code from YouTube, it is important that in the tool you select the HTML, option.

After this I would press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘F’ to search and find where I want to upload my video, as it isn't clear to see with all the HTML codes. This tool bar then appears and allows you to search through your HTML codes for key words, so that I know where to post my video.

YOUTUBEYouTube has been useful throughout several stages of the research, planning and construction of the documentary. In the research stages, I watched several documentary's using YouTube, to begin to get an understanding of the codes and conventions of a documentary. It was also used during the planning stages of my documentary, for researching different achieve material that would be suitable for our documentary. I then uploads this watched videos on to my blog using the Embed codes for each.

As well as this YouTube has also been used throughout different parts of the production of my documentary, to upload different videos such as recorded questionnaires and audience feedback. The upload button can be found on the toolbar at the top of the YouTube page.

Once you click the link on the tool bar this screen appears and you can begin selecting files to upload from your computer.

By using YouTube on Firefox, you can also download the videos on YouTube on to your computer.

There are several different types and qualities of video that you can download the videos as, you can either upload as 3GP, MP4, AAC, MP3 or M4A, all at different qualities. This tool was particularly useful during the production of the documentary, where we got most of our achieve material from here and also the selected backing tracks for our documentary.

SCRIBDScribd has been useful throughout several stages of the research, planning and construction of the documentary. In the research stages, I used Scribd to up load all of my research word documents. In the planning stages I used scribd to upload all of the documentation we need to complete before filming. This included risk assessment sheets and reece’s. After the documents where uploaded I could then use the Embed codes for each and post them onto my blog.

SLIDE SHARESlide Share, is very similar to Scribd how it is for PowerPoint documents, it has been useful to me throughout several stages of my documentary coursework. In the research stages, I used Slide Share to up load all of my research PowerPoint documents, including my questionaire results. After the powerpoint documents where uploaded, similar to Scribd, I could then use the Embed codes for each and post them onto my blog.

ADOBE PREMIERE I used Premiere to edit all footage that we record for our documentary, put it together in the right order and add effects. It allows you to put it together how you want it and it is very easy to use one you get used to all the tools available.

The first thing to do in premiere is to import all files that are going to go into your documentary, these will appear in your production bin, which is in the top left of premiere. The project bin is where I stored all the elements needed to create the documentary. It can contain individual video clips, audio clips, titles, photos and graphical images. When you import new items they appear automatically in the project bin, it is from here that you can drag items onto your timeline.

The timeline panel is where your video takes shape. By dragging items from the project bin and placing them in the desired order, this is where you create a sequence of clips and events which play in the timeline from left to right. It is in the timeline, where most of my editing for the documentary took place. In the time line you can do many things such as, adjust certain points by making clips shorter, create multiple layers of video such as titles and superimposed images, create multiple layers of audio, such as voiceovers and music tracks, and also add transitions, filters and special effects.

There are several different tools that I used on premiere throughout the production of my documentary, all of which can be found in the tool bar but there are also keyboard shortcuts for them all.

Tools Keyboard Shortcut Description

V (Selection Tool) This is the default tool that I used to select clips in the timeline, using this tool I could move clips where ever I wanted to and add transitions and effects to the clips.

B (Ripple Edit Tool) I used a ripple edit when editing a point in the documentary cause there to be spaces in my timeline. This tool move the rest of the timeline to compensate for the spaces.

N (Rolling Edit Tool) I used a rolling edit to move an edit point without affecting the rest of the timeline. The first clip is made shorter while the second is made longer by the same amount.

C (Razor Tool) The razor tool was probably the tool which I used mostly during the production of the documentary, I used it to cut clips into seperate clips and remove shots that weren’t as good as others.

P (Pen Tool) I used the pen tool in Premiere to create and control certain points on the timeline.

H (Hand Tool) The hand tool was useful during the production of my documentary, it is very basic and just used to move the timeline from left to left and right.

Z (Zoom Tool) The zoom tool is used to magnify the view of the timeline, during the production of the documentary, I mainly used the ‘+’ and ‘-’ keys on they keyboard instead.

I used transition frequently in my construction of the documentary, a transition is the way one shot changes to the next. To make more interesting transitions such as dissolves, wipes and effects, use the transitions available in the Effects window. There are two types of transition: Video and audio, I mainly used video transitions however, I did also use some for the audio too. To apply a transition I simply drag the selected transition to the timeline at the point where the two clips join. It appears on your time line like this:

I used several video effects using Premiere in my construction process of the documentary. A selection of video and audio effects are available and can be added to clips on my timeline. Effects allow you to change the appearance of video or the sound of audio in many ways, from simple adjustments such to complex special effects.

On of the video effects I used was ‘Transform’, on an achieve image to make it zoom whilst it was playing. To do this firstly, I dragged the transform effect to the effects window, onto my timeline where I wanted it to appear.

After this, I then adjusted the transform in effect controls, where I adjusted the Scale Height and Scale Width to make the image zoom. To do this I selected a beginning point and ending point of the zoom and also the amount that I wanted to increase the size of the image.

Premiere allows you to create several different audio tracks, we used these audio tracks so that we could individually adjust the sound of each interview, and balance each sound perfectly.

Once the several audio tracks were created, it was then easier to view the sound levels for each individual track in the audio mixer. The audio mixer in Adobe Premiere is designed to be a visual representation of a real sound mixer. It features sliders for each audio track, sub-mixes and a master fader. The audio mixer provides a visual representation of the sound making it much easier for me to equal the sound balance throughout the documentary.

There were also sections of our documentary were still too quite in these places we use an audio effect called ‘EQ’.

You can then adjust the ‘EQ’ effect in effect controls using the volume section.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

To create our title for our documentary, we used Adobe Photoshop. Using a white background and a cut out of our title “produxions”, which we would over lay on to our documentary over some of our video footage. We also used this similar technique to create all our tittles using Photoshop.

Similarly to how we created our title for our documentary, we used a similar style in creating the introductions to each of our interviewees. Using a white background and a cut out of our their names, which we would over lay on to our documentary over some of our video footage. However, instead of using Photoshop, this time we used Adobe Fireworks.

ADOBE FIREWORKS

AUDACITYFor the recording of our voice over for the radio ad, we used a programme called audacity. In the radio studio, which was quite, so that we got the best quality of sound for our voice over.

The easiest way to control Audacity playback and recording is with Transport Toolbar. This offers buttons for Pause, Standard Speed Play/Loop-Play, Stop, Skip to Start, Skip to End, Record/Append-Record.

To record, we needed to set the recording level using the input slider on the Mixer Toolbar while watching the indications in the recording level meter on the Meter Toolbar. Every time you click the Record button on the Transport Toolbar Audacity will create a new track and begin recording on that track from the current cursor position.