Media Evaluation -How did you use media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluating stages?

Researching

When researching previous documentaries about gigs, I used software such as Internet Explorer – using YouTube, and then watched to find the characteristics of a documentary.

From there, I then went on to use sites such as Blogger to record my findings, and so I could refer back to it at a later date.

We also used Microsoft Word to record our findings from our questionnaires, and made graphs to show their results in a visual manner.

Mozilla Firefox

In our documentary, we wanted to use some archive professional footage. We found relevant footage on YouTube, then used the add-on ‘Easy YouTube Video Downloader 6.7’ from Mozilla Firefox. This allowed us to download the MP3 version of Alex Clare’s song “Too Close” and some mp4 videos which we wanted to include.

Sony HXR-MC2000EFor filming our documentary, we filmed on Sony HXR-MC200E cameras. These cameras are 1080p quality & solid state therefore, they were the best cameras we could use. For our filming of the gigs, we emailed the managers vowing to use this standard of camera. Within our interviews, we also used these for our interviews, due to our expectations of being on MTV LIVE HD. We therefore filmed our footage in HD, to make it the best standard that we could.In order to make our documentary

as professional as possible, we practised prior to the ‘official’ filming to ensure we knew what to do, and how to use the cameras. By doing this, we then made our documentary as professional looking as we could, by having steady camera work, appropriate zooms and eye level interviews.

Panasonic Lumix FZ45

As well as using Sony HXR camera, we also attempted to grasp the audience aspect, therefore used a smaller camera such as Panasonic Lumix FZ45. This camera was small and was able to stay within an audience, to create a variety of shots. We also used this as it was HD therefore continued our high quality documentary.

Equipment

In addition to the Sony Cameras, we also used equipment such as a Manfrotto tripods, Boom microphones, Clip on microphones. By using a tripod, it allowed our videos to be steady, and therefore more professional.

We used a mixture of microphones to give a different effect. Clip on mics were used mainly for voice overs and interviews as it was specific and allowed focus on the speakers voice.

Whilst filming footage for our gigs, we used boom mics to ensure to record the ambience sound from the performer and crowd.

The last piece of equipment we used is headphones, which we used whilst filming. We did this to ensure the sound quality was right, and everything which needed to be heard, was.

Software PREMIERE In order to make our documentary, we had to

use numerous amounts of software, on a XPS Dell Computer. The most important software we used was Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, which we used to edit our documentary. This software gave our documentary a professional look, and also provided us with effects, transitions and audio adjustments.

These included fill left - to ensure sound is heard in both headphones (mainly used for voiceovers and interviews) and transitions such as fade to black.

Poster

Software PHOTOSHOP

We also used another aspect of Adobe – Photoshop – to make our advertisement. This was also professional, and therefore allowed our poster to be created like we had planned. We used tools such as the Magic Wand Tool which we used to remove large parts of the MTV logo.

We also used tools such as the Polygonal lasso tool. This allowed us to carefully outline the image parts which we did not want, and then to delete it. This was most used when we removed the inner parts of the logo and to remove the background in particular places.

Within our poster, we carried a colour scheme of yellow. Therefore we wanted to add some colour to our MTV logo to carry the themes, and to make it bright. For this, we used ‘fill bucket’ which filled certain parts of the logo, into the colour we wanted.

Software PHOTOSHOP

Once added the Alex Clare photo, we wanted to add an overlay to ensure a more exciting and relevant poster. We then took a Bitmap image from our Alex Clare master shot then added that upon the image.

XPS Dell Computer

All of editing and research was done on an XPS Dell Computer. This PC was able to hold all of our files, as well as the software we needed. Due to the work being in a group, it also allowed us to put the work on a shared drive, so we were all able to access it.

The computer also has USB ports, which was essential as we always needed to import footage via the USB cable.