QUESTION 4How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

TECHNOLOGIES WE HAVE USED…Evaluation • Prezi • Emaze• Visme• PowerPoint

Research and planning• Powtoon • Internet • Slideshare• Email• BBC iplayer • YouTube • Blogger• PowerPoint• Word • Excel• Sound cloud • Prezi• Emaze • Visme

Production• Premier pro• InDesign • Photoshop• YouTube • Sound cloud• Slide share

Communication• Twitter• Gmail (Email)• Tyber (college

email system)• Telephone Calls• MAC (contact

section and live chat)

Hardware• Camera • Audio recorder• Smart phone • Computer/mac

PRESENTING RESEARCH ON THE BLOG

To present our research we used a range of software in order to make the information more interesting than using just word and PowerPoint. To do this we used powtoon, visme, prezi and emaze which are all PowerPoint style software which makes it easy to present information in an interesting way additionally, these software's present the information clearly. We also used word and PowerPoint but in smaller quantities and put these on our blog using slide share. Our blogs are all on blogger, another way we posted on here was through the use of sound cloud where we was able to upload audio clips and YouTube for our production diary. We used our production diary o keep an up to date log of what we did so that we was therefore able to track our process.

HOW WE GATHERED RESEARCH

We gathered our primary research through the use of questionnaires which we then analyzed on excel and power point to put onto the blog. We also conducted focus groups which we recorded on an audio recorder. We used sound cloud to put this onto our blog.

For secondary research we used the internet which allowed us to watch previous documentaries, YouTube clips, find statistics and facts all into our chosen documentary topic.

COMMUNICATIONAnother way we gained research into our topic was through expert interviews, to do this we used a range of communications to get hold of experts for example; Twitter to message beauty bloggers, Gmail (Email), Tyber (a college emailing system), telephone calls to department stores and beauty companies and we also tried to message Mac through their contact us section on their website and also in a live chat with a Mac representative who explained how she was unfortunately unable to help with that type of enquiry. However, we were able to gain the information we needed from the two expert interviews we did get.

HARDWAREWe used a camera to get images for our listings magazine article and to look into shot types within the research stages. The audio recorder was used to record our focus group and radio trailer. Smart phone to ring up different companies for research purposes and also the computer and macs for getting all our work on to the blogs and putting it together.

PREMIER - DOCUMENTARYAfter putting all of our recorded clips into premier we started to build them up in the time line of the premier software. This soft ware also allowed us to edit and crop our clips until we had the right footage in the timeline for our documentary. Also on this software we were able to create a time lapse as inspired by the Connie Fisher documentary that we watched and blur some footage that we were able to put statistics on top of.

ADDING PHOTOS TO DOCUMENTARYTo add in photos to one part of our documentary we had to insert them then change the size of them placing them where we wanted them on the clip. However we wanted them to appear individually so had to have them all on different rows on our timeline so we could therefore have their length different to create the effect of them coming on one by one to slowly fill the screen with images. We gathered the images from Google that were all relative to the theme of our documentary. We felt this was a successful technique to portray our documentaries theme of beauty.

AUDIO LEVELSWe had to alter some of our audio levels through the documentary in order to ensure that they were all to the same/similar level. To do this we used the Audio Gain Tool which allowed us to heighten or lower individual sound levels by Db. We aimed to get all our sound levels between 12-18 to ensure they were all equal. When watching back through our documentary we noticed some sound levels were not equal so went back to change these to ensure the highest quality in the final version of the documentary.

TEXT IN THE DOCUMENTARYTo add text over the top of expert interviews including the name and who the expert was we had to add text to the documentary. This was to help inform the viewer when watching the documentary. We added text using the text tool with the experts name being in a larger font than their role. When watching the documentary through in our preview we noticed that some of the text was too far to the left so was able to resolve this problem before the final version was submitted.

INDESIGNWe wrote the text for our listings magazine article on word. We then copied and pasted this text into InDesign using a drop cap to start the text. Within the text we also chose to pull out a few key quotes which we then made larger and the colour of the title in the same colour theme. We chose to have the text in three columns as this is more visually pleasing for the reader. On our main image we included background information as this is key code and convention of magazine articles. We also had the date, time and what channel our documentary will be shown on in a separate text box from the rest of the text directly below the title. We chose to do this so that it would stand out and be one of the first things seen when looking at the article as it is the most important factor.

TEXTFor the title of our listings magazine article we used dafont.com and chose the Amethyst font which we downloaded from the site and added to the fonts section on InDesign. We chose to do it like this because when screen shoting the font from dafont we found it more challenging to edit into the listings magazine article. We then made the font the same colour as the on screen presenters leather jacket, this was to create a house style and colour theme.

PHOTOSHOP - PEN TOOLAs we wanted to include screen shots from the documentary along the top of the left page on the listings magazine article we needed to use the pen tool so that these images did not obstruct the face of the on screen presenter in the main image. To use this tool we had to cut round the shape of the on screen presenters head to remove this part of the screen shot images. This worked effectively and gave a professional look to the images on the listings magazine article.

PHOTOSHOP - MAIN IMAGEThe original main image we took using the DSLR cameras came out with a very orange based tone due to the lighting in the photography studio we used. Therefore in the editing process we had to rectify this, to do this we used Photoshop starting with the brightness/contrast tool we then went on to use the levels tool to get the image to a professional looking quality. Additionally, we used the spot healing brush tool to give a Photoshop finish to the onscreen presenter in the main image.

PREMIER – RADIO TRAILERWe used premier to create the radio trailer as we were already used to the software after using it to create our documentary. This allowed us to be able to create the radio trailer a lot quicker than making it on a software we were not used to. It also meant we had ideas on different techniques to make the radio trailer better that we learnt when making our documentary. In our radio trailer we included a exponential fade using an effect within the premier software.

BLOGGERTo keep a record of our progress we created a production diary on our blogger account where we uploaded an up to date diary on everything we did in our project. This included a video diary which we filmed to give an overview of our progress halfway through the project.