Followers

Saturday, 25 December 2010

Final Product "Can You See Me Now"





Here is My groups documentary that we completed together for our A2 Media Coursework





Below is the Print Advert:

Radio Trailer Below:



Monday, 11 October 2010

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media Products?




Main Product - Documentary

In my group we had looked at the codes and conventions of documentaries so it would help us make are documentaries look similar to real doc's on TV. Below is a small commentary that gives a little information on why we did certain things in the documentary. It has music in the background to entertain you while you listen to the commentary because it is quite dull listening to the commentary. Adding to the video there is more detailed information on things we have conformed too in the commentary below.







The audio video below is talking about the meaning of the cinematagraphy of the filming etc:









One convention that we confromed with was the observations of the documentary.





Observational sequence of a documentary is where you are observing and being an eye witness to what is being seem on the camera. In my groups documentary we observed an optician looking at someone eyes while we recorded it as well as it being relevant to our documentary. Thats why we conformed with this convention because it makes the documentary make sense and emphasize what the theme of the doc is about.

Relevant cutaways is another convention that we comformed with because it helps make the documentary less boring and helps anchor meaning to what is being said by interviewees, narrator and just to give different visuals that will keep the audiences entertained while watching the doc.





Using relevant cutaways helps emphasize what is being said, so since our documentary is about site and at one part of the doc we talk about guide dogs we got relevant cutaways of guide dogs. The rest of a cutaways on sight like glasses contacts and eye exams. this makes my groups documentary look more professional and real just like the one on TV.
Now Interviews in a documentary are very important conventions otherwise you can't call it a documentary. So like all other professional documentaries, our group had to set up interviews to be filmed and captured and ready to edit into our doc.



So if you look at the images above you can see clearly that we have followed the conventions of getting the interviews. But also you have to get interviews from relevant interviewees who are either in the profession of what your documentary is about, so for my doc eye sight our group got an interview with an optician. Plus getting interviews with a blind pedestrian, someone who where contacts, someone who has had laser eye surgery and a pedestrian who is elderly to tell us about how there eye health has been over the years. To me conforming with this is vital because if you have random interviews your viewers will get confused on what the documentary is about as well as not believing what is being said if you haven't got an actual professional explaining the facts.Another important convention of interviews is the framing of the interview. You have to make sure that you interviewee eyes are the third of the way down of the frame and they have to be on one side of the frame. So in ours we again conformed and put our interviews on the left side of the screen and made sure there eyes are in the right position. Also confromed on the convention that thet interviewee should be looking past the camera as if she is talking to an interviewer instead of looking straight into the camera. Stuck with that because it made our interviews look really professional.

Evidence is a convention that you have to use if you want to prove certain facts are right to you viewers. Without evidence your viewers may think you a lying and will cease to beleive your documentary and end up turning it off.

I got evidence for our documentary so that audiences could see real facts for example I looked up on laser eye surgery. Found the website optical express that gives you the percent rating of how successful lasik eye surgery is. So I got those screen shots of the site and the qoutes of it success and its bar chart on the success rate. This makes our documentary look professional because it shows that we have done our research to make sure we don't give out false facts to our viewers.

Archive footage has always been in documentaries to show and and make sense of what is being said. For example like a simpson documentary they would have archive footage of the simpsons episodes. You can get other archive footage like music videos or adverts to stay in the theme of the making of your own documentary.








Since my documentary is on site and it talks about glasses we got a specsavers adverts just to show the viewers where you can go to get your eye checked up. plus it gives it a bit more of an entertainment factor, or a break from listening to the interview so you can stay a bit more interested and then be ready for the next interviews.

The convention of the begining of a documentary is that the doc starts quick pace and seems exciting and fun. This is because the excitement at the beginning is used to interest the viewer to take a look at the documentary and make them want to watch the documentary. This quick pace excitemeny sequence is usually the opening titles.

Again conform with the quick paced convention for our opening titles, we made sure we had exciting music that would attract you when you heard it. Then we had quick shot of specsavers store, contact lenses and then we had like a really quick paced glasses frame with low opacity layering over eachother. It is like a strobe light effect and then we had a quick blur in focus and out of focus on a close up of eyes and then oour documentary title comes up with a colour background. This makes the beginning of our documentary exciting and quick before it slows down so that the viewers are able to keep up with the interviews etc.

Besides interviews "vox pops" is a convention that is in documentaries that is like a small interview that give smaller anwers so that little snippets can be used just to get a wider audience opinion on the questions they are asked about. E.g. Do you Prefer glasses or contact lens? and they would say glasses or contacts. This lets the viewers see what other people think are better and then maybe relate to their answer. Furthermore the other conventions of having a vox pop is that you have to do the interviews in a public place with the interviewee standing because its only a quick interview. Plus you have to make sure you have relevant mise en scene in the background of the interview. So for my documentary we had an opticians store in the background since we where in Golden Square in Warrington. It important to have vox pops in a documentary as well because it helps fill in spaces and prepares for the next big interview and again a break from seeing the same interviewee for a long time.



Back to the interviews, an important codes and convention in the background setting (mise en scene) of the interview. This needs to be thought about in a documentary because you want to convey in the interviews the same theme that your documentary is about.



As you can see in the background of those interviews are relevant to sight and we made sure to keep comfrming with relevant mise en scene for our interviews. It helps anchor the meaning of the documentary.
However I did kind of challenge the conventions of the background for the interviews, but not really challenging it to the extreme. In two interviews our group did, two interviewees had the mise en scene background of the comfort of their own home. The reason for this is because we felt that these two interviewees would have felt more comfortable answering personal questions in their own home.
Also our group used blue screen as well to get a relevant mise en scene background, we liked the idea of using blue screen as well because we saw it on some documentaries so we comformed with that and used blue screen and since it was in the interview about lasik eye surgery our group decided to get an image that was gross just to get reactions from the audience for a bit of fun. Plus the image shows you what takes place in lasik eye surgery, so it could be an eye opener for people on the procedure of the treatment.

On the other hand our group decided to challenge the convention of simple text introducing interviewee. The code and convention for the interviewee text is simple and mostley white or black depending what works best. However our group wanted to have better text that looked a bit more complex since our target audience research said they prefer complex graphics.
Our group was going to use simple white text but we thought we need more to make it look more interesting and to make our viewers want to look at the interviewees name. When we did put the background on the text we didn't want there to be a blind spot on the interview so we changed the opacity so you could see through the rectangle background and it really work well. So even though we challenged that convention we still confromed with the introduction of the interviewees title to fade in during the beginning of the interview. It just makes the interview look more smooth and simutanious.



There is a code and convention that there usually has to be conflict in a documentary, like two sides so that the viewers can decide what side they agree with and can relate more too. In my groups documentary the conflict we had was what is better glasses or contacts lens.



Then later you see two other sides of conflict, basically on getting your 20/20 vision back and the other side where some people don't have the luxury of sight. Thise are in two interviews and they both say how there life is which there improvements/loss of sight. So it was good to conform with this convention because we can inform viewers the difference in lifestyles of some with sight and some one who hasn't got sight.


A main code and coonventions for a documentary that we also conformed with is the narration or known as "the voice of God" or voice over the documentary.
However with did challenge the narration abit because we didn't use a big authority vioced narration, we got a normal person so that we could have the narrations voice to be relatable to the viewers. Plus it will make the documentary more personal.



In the interviews there is another convention that you have to have the interviewee ask the question within their answer, so this had to be done on premiere. When our group captured our tapes we had to cut the foootage up to get rid of the interviewer asking the interviewee question. this had to be done because it makes the documentary look professional. So thats another thing that I have conformed with.



"Can You See Me Now" is what my documentary is called as is my main product that I am getting out if it was going to be a TV. now i am going to compare my documentary with real documentaries so that you can see what i have comformed with, by looking at images from my documentary and the real documentaries that have been on tv.















So the main product for the A2 media is the documentary that we have put together for our documentary. In making the documentary we had codes and conventions that we had to follow to make it seem like a professional documentary and to get the best grade that we could get.
My groups documentary has a lot of similarities to a real documentary because of us following the codes and conventions of documentaries.



Framing the interview convention our group did follow because we wanted it to look professional documentary if you look at the images below of a real documentary "Inside the Teeth of Jaws" image interview to our groups documentary you can see the similarities to the framing.



If you look at those two images again they both show the convention of the mise en scene background of having something relevant as the background that anchors the meaning of the documentary. Plus our group used blue screen because we saw it used on other documentaries.
Also my documentary has vox pops like in a real documentary because they are vital component to documentaries because they give you peoples opinions about whatever the documentary is about.
So our documentary vox pop is the elderly women and the The simpsons vox pop is the guy, and you can see that they look similar from the framing. Plus you can tell that they are vox pops because you can see the small interview has been done in a public place with the interviewee standing up for the interview.



In a real documentary our documentary has conformity of cutaway shots that are relevent to the documentary and to what is being said in the interviews or the narration.



These two cutaways above show relevant footage to enforce what is being said by what is said in an interview or by the narrator. The simpsons cutaway is emphasizing how big simpsons is and how they make donuts of simpson characters. In my groups documentary the interviewee talks about guide dogs so we put cutaways of guide dogs in our doc to give more meaning to what is being said.

If you look watch parts of the simpsons 20th anniversary in 3d on ice you can see cutaways of archive footage. Which is snippets of actual simpson episodes.
When I saw that documentary enforcing there theme of a simpson documentary by getting footage from there actual simpsons show, our group had to use archive footage to help enforce what our documentary is about. So in our own documentary we put archive footage of a specsavers advert to show viewers what the doc is about and informing them on where you can go to get your eyes checked up.

Opening Title sequence is another thing that is similar to our groups own documentary and a real one.
Our documentary's opening titles are similar to the real products because we have a title to present the documentary, it has a fast and quick beat to intrigue the viewer to watch. It has quick vox pop answers and cutaways to shows what the documentary is going to be about.

Like a real dcumentary, our doc has a narration over the footage, so if you look at the video to see you can hear it and compare it too a real documentary narration. Conformed with this because it helps to push the narrative foward and help introduce the next interviews etc.


Print Advert


This is what a real professional print advert looks like when it is promoting a documentary and in our groups we had to make our own print advert to make promote our documentary. Here is our one:

As you can see my groups print advert does not disregard any of the conventions of the print adverts. As you can see the most important thing that the print advert has on it like are does is a "IDENT" which is the logo of a channel. This is an important component to the advert because this tells the viewer of the advert what channel the documentary is going to be on, and as we know there are alot of channels and that means loads of logos to identify them.The other conventions of the advert is having one simple image as the background that enforces what the documentary is about and that will grab the attentions of the viewers. With our advert we had two ideas of what would catch the audiences eye. Since our documentary about eyesight the two ideas was one photo of a close up of an eye and an image of a street with people in it but the image is blurred as if you were losing your eyesight. In the end our group used the pictured thats looks blurred because it emphasizes what are documentary is about just like the example of a real one above shows you. Simple image that gives off an eye catching image that makes you want to look at it. Our groups print advert also follows the convention of simple text that presents the title of the documentary, the date and time and even the website. The reason for this is because you don't want the text to take any impact that the image gives off because that is what is going to get the viewers to watch the doc. So In our print advert we made sure it was purple text and not that big. The other conventions of the print adverts are the positions of the ident and the title of the doc. The ident has to be on the right side, middle of the poster. In our print advert we put the ident at the in the same position to follow the codes and conventions of print adverts. Then the title of the doc had to be on the bottom left of the print because again that matches the conventions of the print adverts. Its good that the title for my print advert is at the left bottom corner because it help with making the text less noticeable so that the people can see the image first before they decide to look at the poster in detail to get the information for when the documentary is on.







Radio Trailer










The main convention that a real documentary radio trailer has is a narrator that tells you the name of the documentary and our group conformed to this because we have to be able to tell the audience what are documentary is called so they can get an idea on what its going to be about. Plus the narrator also will say after the name of the documentary the time and the date of the documentary as well as saying what channel the documentary is on. Again our group conformed to this because we have to inform listeners of the radio so that we actually get viewers for our documentary. So our Radio Trailer is similar to a real one in those conventions that have been followed. Also we have conformed with radio trailers by putting those documentary details at the end of the radio trailer.



In a real radio trailer audio snippets from the actual documentary are used in the trailer like vox pops to give an idea of what is in the documnetary. Again our trailer shows us conforming because we took audio snippets from our documentary and took snippets from trailers to be used as well, this is important to follow because you are trying to give the audience an idea of what they are going top watch and hear.



A convention of the narrator in the radio trailer is that he/she asks questions in the trailer that don't get answered in the trailer which will intrigue listeners to go and watch the documentary to get the answers they want. We have again conformed with this convention because we need to make are listeners want to know the answers of the questions being asked.



A music bed in the radio trailer is another convention that our group followed because this makes the trailer less boring to listen and a bit more fun to listen to. plus the music bed should be relevant and make the listener enjoy listening to both the voice of the trailer and the music. We had to make sure that they blended well together so that the trailer didn't turn out bad.



Another convention that we would follow if we could would be putting the trailer on a relevant radio trailer that is going to get to are target audience for our documentary.





2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?


If the radio trailer doesn't work in the PREZI presentation there is a video trailer below the PREZI just in case, If the PREZI presentation doesn't work there is a HTML link to the prezi presenatation: http://prezi.com/l0pulcqq4mjc/evaluation-question-2/




The Radio Trailer


3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?




This is a video of a media student watching my groups documentary and giving us his feedback.







Now I am going to listen to this media students opinion and give my opinion on what he has said or support why we have done certain things in the documentary.



He says he like the blurs which is actually opacity and layers mixed together to get a cool little effect that would be fun to look at and it looks like that was successful. Then said that the was a jump cut but he didn't notice that is was in fact a dissolve to make the little vox pop look like time as gone bu=y to get to the next thing that the vox popper was saying. Plus also says that the cutaways of the contact lenses being opened turns blurry and is breaking the codes and conventions of the cut to cut shots in the cutaways. But our group decided to put a dissolve in the contact lense cutaway, of when he is putting the contact in his eye to make the whole cutaways look simutanious and smooth like you would do if you were making a seemless film.



Then he mentions the narrative being personal and that it should be impersonal. On the other hand since our groups audience research said that they wanted a relatable narrator we had to go with what the audience said so that we aren't ignoring what they prefer because if oyu put on what the audience what the chance that you will hhave more viewers.



I agree wiith what he said about the image quality of some of the images because some of them look pixelated, so if it came to ever doing this documentary again I would most definately look into finding better and higher quality images.



Agian says that the narration of the history of the glasses doesn't help introduce the next interview because it makes it look unrelated to what has just been previously said by the narrator. This was a problem for our group when adding the narration. Since we had limited space to put the narration we had to make sure we could fit as much narration as we could and try and make it relevant as much as we could. But that is helpful feedback to take in if it ever came to making another documentary.



The media student says that the picture that fades in the top corner of the opticians interview is unneccessary, but i think its because he didn''t understand what was being said by the interviewee and how that picture relates to what he is saying. that image is of a diagram of glaucoma and the interviewee talks about glaucome in his interview, so we found it relevant to show audience how glaucoma acts in the eye by showing this simple graphic image. I guess it just depends on how people see certain things in a documentary.

Gives feedback on the archive footage of the spec savers advert saying that it agina is unrelated to what the footage just before that and that we needed a slower transitions between the previous footage of the advert and the next foootage. However our group mostly linked the advert to the previous interview with Eileen to do with age and the deteriation of sight. Fuurthermore thought that the doucmentary has been quite serious for a bit and decied that a funny advert would give a viewer a break from the tension and a chuckle to get them ready for the next interviews and narrations etc.



Says that one of the vox pop interviews sound wasn't great, its proobably that we didn't turn it louder while editing or that we have turned it into stereo. So that would be something to look back on.



Media students mentions about Sue's blue screen background image being to distracting and taking focus away from the interviewee. I have to agree with this and that was always gonna be a factor that every media student probably pick up on alll the time. However our group wanted to get reactions from our audience by grossing them out with what laser eye surgery looks like, plus it is relevant to laser eye surgery. But maybe next time we should be more suttle.



He seems to notice the interviewee Sue glancing at the camera, this happens to be a factor that we can't change now and its really hard to nootice her glance at the camera since its so slight. Thats proobably why our group didn't catch it so it will just be a lesson learned for next time.



Says that the cutaways of the eyes are not relavant but I think they are because we want to keep enforcing that the documentary is about sight and then you can say that the many images of eyes can give high connotations of how important you eyes are to you.



Thats the video of audiecne feedback froma media student, very helpful to have this feedback.



This is the feedback I got from youtube.com and sadly didn't get a lot of hits on the site.



So I decided to get some feedback from the youtube audience, sadly since this video hasn't been up for long and the deadline for our coursework is in soon we can only look at some responses.



The only response we got on our youtube video is off a youtube user called "dannyhancox" who says that we have done really good work and have got some great shots in our documentary. Also that in the interviews and vox pops, we kept all the framing right throughout the documentary. So it only got one positive bit of feedback.



Analysing the Question Feedbacks



Explain Feedback Question 1:



In this question people said that our interviews and openening titles looked professional and I agree with that feedback because our group tried hard to make sure that our interviews framing was right just like a real documentary interview so it shows our group conforming to the conventions. We had people liking the graphics in our documentary and thats the feedback I was looking for because that means that they liked the different visuals in the documentary that help keep them entertained which makes it a success. People said that the narration was clear and our group made sure that our narrator pronounced what she said properly so that people can hear what she is saying clearly.



Explain Feedback Question 2:



This question was what wa the worst part of the documentary? Feedback we got was some people thought the narrator didn't suit the documentary, probably because the voice over was more relatable rather than authoritive like they usually in a documentary, but our research feedback told us to have a relatable voice over so our group follwed the research. Also that we had some irrelevant cutaways, this might be true but I think the cutaways still stay in the same theme of the documentary. I guess it depends on what people think are relevant as well as your own interpretation of what you think are relevant cutaways. Then there was an answer that said the volume was inconsistent, I have to agree with this I think our group might have over looked the volume and missed where the inconsistencies where. it would be something that i would look into in more detail if i did this project again.

Explain Feedback Question 3:

This question was asking if our groups print advert linked to our documentary. The feedback was that the image of the print advert links into the theme of sight and I agree with that because oour group wanted the effect of the image to link into the way your vision looks when you eye sight deteriates as you get older or if you don't get them checked up on. Plus that the title is on the documentary and the priint advert whichh also had to be done because its a main link too the products.



Explain Feedback Question 4:



This question is did the radio trailer make you want to watch the trailer. Feedback answers was that most people where intrigued by the trailer, we had answers like the dialogue gave out just enough to catch the listeners attention to the documentary and giving enough information without giving too much away from the trailer. I agree with that feedback because I made sure that the trailer asked questions about sight and what is going to be explored in the documentary without giving the answers out in the trailer. That would make the listeners want to find the answers, as well as giving out the important information dialogue of the ident of the channel its on and the name and times of the documentary.



Explain Feedback 5:



Question asks about seeing any editing flaws in the documentary. Answers that we got back were that there were small jump cuts, honestly I didn't really see them, but its most likely seen like small jump cuts because our group had a lot of interview footage that we had to cut down to five minutes, that took a lot of work. People said that there was a dip to black before the specsavers, I don't agree with that because I check for any black gaps between the footage, so it must be the black video from the archive footage itself which is no fault of our own. But next time I could cut the black part of the video from the footage just so no one can name that fault. Then there was an answers about the sudden cut at the end, I agree with that but we had to cut iit at the end because that was the five minute limit.



Explain Feedback 6:



Question asks does the ancillary texts, which is the print advert and the radio trailer, do they link together. Most feedback said that they did link because the slogan was said in the radio trailer and the slogan was on the trailer. This is important to make sure that all your products link together so our group made sure they linked otherwise veiwers and listeners might not think they are linked. feedback saying that they seemed profesional nad that was our groups aim.



Explain Feedback 7:



Asked the question of what would you change to our doucmentary. Got feedback that people would have wanted to see more interviews, but in my opinion we had a lot of interviews in our documentary and we did have a time limit to our doucmentary time so we put as much interviews in as our group could. Also feedback that they would change the end cut at the endd, but we had noe choice in that matter because our group had to have our doucmentary at five minutes and not too far over it. Also some feedback that they wouldn't change a thing which is niice to know some people liked our documentary that they wouldn't change a thing.



Explain Feedback 8:



The Final question was what did they learn from our documentary. So people said that they learned what laser eye procedure is like, the history of guide dogs and a bit of information on glaucoma, how that people prefer glasses over contacts. This is great feedback to hear because that was the aim to educate our viewers on different things on sight and its goood too know that the documentary taught our viewers a little bit about guide dogs, laser eye surgery etc.



Analysis on Video Feedbacks







She says she likes all our documentary which is a success for our groups documentary following the codes and conventions of an intersting documentary. She says that our print advert image links to the documentary because its relevant to sight which is exactly what they are aimed at which again shows that our group was sticking to our genre on site and making it educational. The feedback from her, she even notices how the slogan links to the documentary so if they notice it then again the genre is defined. She wouldn't change a thing about a documentary which is a compliment to our groups hard work. She messes up her answers about guide dogs but she was a little nervous answering the questions on camera but she did learn that guide dogs are not government funded, so since she learned something signified our documentary being an educational genre.



The interviewee gives feedback on the jump cut at the end was the worst part but thats because that was the ending of the 5 minute time line. She as has aknowledged the slogans in the products of the documentary which means success that people who see and hear the products slogan they will know the genre of the documentary. She also said she would change our archive footage because she thought that it was irrelevant but in my opinion it matches because its on an interview of and elderly woman abou her eye sight and then it goes into a specsavers advert connotes the elderly and how there eyesight is deteriates over the years, the codes and conventions to our group conformed with because its in the same theme of sight. She also says that she learn some bits about guide dogs so that again is a success on educating the viewers.



Might look like I am reading a script but I had no one to ask me the questions from the feedback questionaire so I just read them to myself just to make sure you now.

This is a video of me answering the feedback questions to give you my opinion on my groups documentary. I say the graphics are the best because I really wanted the documentary to look visually interesting so I made sure all the graphics in the documentary were excecuted properly. Again thats following the codes and conventions of the documentary having graphics to introduce people and makes certain parts of the documentary look more fun. The worst part I said was that the end was a sudden stop and doesn't really give the best conclusion, that kind of breaks the codes and conventions of a resolution at the end of the documentary but our documentary did have a time limit so our group made so with what we had. Our documentary was going over the limit so we had to cut out some of the ending, but a good result as a whole in my opinion. Also said that the print advert links with the documentary and our group made sure the print advert had an image that relates to sight, thats why it was a blurry image, it just gives connotation of bad eye sight. Since it is like a long shot image, signifies what a short sight person sees. Plus the slogan gave a hint that its about sight which will help the audience be more informed on what genre od documentary they are watching, this case educational because its on sight. I did have to mention the flaws, which was tiny jump cuts in the interviews, but they are there because we had to cut down our interview a lot and make sure we got important sections and did try to make sure that the documentary did flow. Lastly I did learn something from my documentary which was the history of guide dogs because I had to do research for our documentary because the codes and conventions says you have to have facts about your documentary that you know are true, so that you don't mislead your viewers.


Concluding Question 3






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


Below are all the technologoies that i have used to help and construct my documentary coursework:


BLOGGER


Blogger is the start of the media products that I used before I started doing anything for my documentary coursework. Blogger is a site that is clearly defined in the by its name, blogger.com is where I blogged all my work since the start of my research and construction of my documentary work. To be able to work on blogger you had to create an account which I had already done last year for As Media where I did the thriller film. So all I had to do was log into my old account and create a new blog and name it " A2 Media Blog" so i know which blog I am putting all my A2 work on. Once I had create the blog it was time for me to get all the sections of my blog ready so I can have every section in order and ready to start blogging my work straight into my blog once they are ready to be typed up and finished. So to know what to call each of my sections I looked at my task sheet which gave me all the information I needed to have my blog prepared and I have 24 sections of my blog and once it is complete it will have all my work that I have done on my documentary. Also while working on the blog we have had to upload images and videos onto the blog as well to be used as evidence for my work. To umpload image on blogger you have edit the post and then click a tab that says add image and you can either browse the images you have saves or get an image from the internet and use the "HTML."
Once you put either of them in you just click upload and then it will pop at the top of your blog entry. The problem with blogging an image iis that you have to drag down the image to where you want if and if you have written a long blog entry putting the image in the right place takes up a lot of time. I over came that problem though by changing the layout of the blogging from "Compose" to "Edit HTML" and finding the images HTML code and copying it and scrolling quicker to the place I want the image and then pasting it and deleting the other one I copied, this helps speed the process of putting pictures on my blog. I also had to upload youtube videos to help show and give more understanding to the person looking at my blog. E.g. a video too show an example of a fly on the wall documentary.
To add videos to my blog I would go onto youtube and then find the video I needed and then click on the "embeded" code and then I would copy it and then paste it into the "edit HTML" in the blog and then when you look at the compose section you will see the video that you have attached onto your blog. Only problems with this is that sometimes blogger would say that there is an "error" with the video code. To fix this I would delete the problem with the code that blogger has highlighted for me to fix.


DESKTOP COMPUTER

I used a desktop computer where I used lots of technologies such as blogger. Also used a laptop when I am at home to carry on my work when college time finished. Using the desktop I would use the internet to do my research part of my documentary which was required for our narration and section of the blog. I would use the internet to research up on abput sight and I would use 'google' to get a wide range of results for me to look at. What I researched was information on guide dogs like when were the first guide dogs trained and if they were government funded. Also researched on laser eye surgery to see what the success rate to help with our narration. Once I get the information I would copy the site and put it in my research for documentary section of my blog. I would also use the internet to find secondary images to use as archive material as well as using them to put in my blog as examples. To do that I would have to save the images in a file then import them or add them as an image to where ever I am putting them.



MICROSOFT WORD

Microsoft Word I would use to type up some of my work ready to transfer onto my blog, Microsoft Word is where you can write all your documents that you want and you can set your own layouts to how you want to present your work. Also used Microsoft Word specifically for the 'Running Order' that we made for our documentary. We set the running order by inserting a table and filling them in and giving them a checked grey and white colouring so that it looked professional. You can see the running order below:



PAINT

I also used PAINT not to do any drawings or graphics for the documentary, I only used it to turn print screens that I took of me working into 'JPEG' images. To do this I would click "print screen" on my keyboard and then go on paint and "paste" the print screen into paint and then click "save as" and save it into a file and then upload it into blogger and put it in my diary or another section that the image needs to be in.

CAMCORDER

To film we used that camera and when using the camera we had to get a booking out form from our college so that we could take it home with us. We had to take the camera out a number of time on the dates that we had interviews and on days we decided on filming cutaway shots. The camera was simple to use, all you had to do what turn it on in the recording button and not the playback setting you only use that if you want to look back at what you have filmed. Once you have turned the camera on, you would put the tape into the camera and take the lense cap of the camera. Then we would get the camera on the tripod and look at the LCD screen on the cam and when we are doing the interviews, we would make sure that we get the right framing that we were taught. Once the interview framing was done we would check if the MIC was working and attached it to our interviewee and then we would have headphones on so we could check the sound from the mic. Then as soon as that is done you would hit record and then carry out with the interview. The only problem one day of doing an interview was the lock button on the camera that kept making the camera stop working. It would only happen when I would accidently knock it but this problem would always be resolved properly.



JVC CASSETTE/DVD PLAYER


We used this JVC to capture our footage from our cassette that was filled from recording documentary footage from the camera we used. This JVC is connected to the Desktop Computer so that its connected to Adobe Premiere which is the software that we use to edit our documentary. Once we have transferred our footage from our cassettes to the computer and imported into Premiere we would then return the cassettes to the college. Luckily when using this device all I had to do was put the cassette in the right slot and then go on the computer to sort the rest. The only thing we really had to do on the machine was press the on button, press the eject button the claim the cassettes back and if the computer would say the JVC is offline we used pull out the wire that links the JVC and Computer together and plug it back in so reestablish the connection.





ADOBE PREMIERE CS5
Premiere is used to edit all your footage that you record and to put it togther in the right order and add effects if you want to. It allows you to put it toogether how you want it and it does take a little time the get used to all the parts of using Adobe Premiere.



Capturing is one of the first things you do before you start editing you footage because you need to transfer your footage from the cassette tape on to the premiere source tab so that you can drag it onto the timeline. To do this you just go to "file" and go on capture and the tape should be in the JVC and then you have to make sure that you rewind the tape or tapes to the begining and then to capture them you just click "SET IN" button and play the tape and then when it gets near the end click "SET OUT" then to log the the sets you click "LOG SETS" and then a tab will pop up then you will have to give it a name and then it will be ready to be edited. Another way you can do this is when the tapes are at the beginning you can press "REC" first and then press play and then press "REC" again when you are near the end of the tape.
Also you would have to import a lot of things, such as archive material and footage. Thats stuff like adverts that are relevant to your documentaries for example like mine documentary I had to import a specsavers advert for my eye sight doc.
The archive material would be images that you use for cutaways shot and to help give more meaning to whats being said. I did import a lot of images that I deemed relevant for my documentary. When you put an image on the timeline you can extend this on the timeline as much as you want because it is a still image and not a recording.
The Timeline is where you drag down all your footage that you have imported into premiere and the timeline gives you video tabs, so you can basically have as many layers of videos to stick different footage on top of eachother the same with the audio timelines. This makes it easier to do when putting cutaways in, instead of sticking in the interviews video 1 timeline you can stick in in another video timeline that is above it. This gives you more timeline to use and makes it easier on where you have put all your footage on the timeline.
Razor tool is used to cut up your footage to separate them so you can put them in different orders depending on what you have written on your running order. I would use the razor tool to cut up interviews specifically the parts like the question being asked to the interview sao that the interviewee can look like they are answering their question within their a answer. Also we would use the razor tool to cut parts of the interviews that we didn't want or need. This required a lot of sacrafice because we had to get rid of a lot of footage so that we could get the documentary in the space timeline on five minutes.



We could also use the razor tool to cut up the audio files that we imprted, so we could use different sections of songs instead of the whole song and we were able to unlink the cutaways audio and video files so that you can delete the audio file from the cutaways shot because you don't need there atmosphere sounds. Plus it makes it easier to navigate the timeline so that there isn't too many audio file and footage files in the way makes the timeline look more organized.



You can also add text to video footage by inserting a default title, which then brings up a small tab telling what your title is called. Then another tab will come up where you start to make the title the way it needs to be for your documentary.



For my documentary I had simple white text but to make it a bit more complex so I added a background behind the text with the rectangle tool and then added a purple colour too it and put down the background opacity to 80% so that you can see the video footage through the background still but still see the background colour. Once you have completed you text just click close on the title tab and then go on the source tab and find your title you have just created and then drag it to the timeline and put the title like a name of an interviewee in the video timeline above the interview and then that will appear in there interview to introduce them and what their occupation.
In Premiere you can also mess with the Opacity of the video footage and even images and text to add effects to your documentary and make look more visually interesting.
Also used the scale andd position effects that are on the video footage which helped a lot to make the documentary look better and fix framing errors. We had to fix framing problems with some of a footage because the video fooyage didn't fit the widescreen that we set in premiere. As you can see below:
So to fix this for most of the footage our of footage we just click on the video that needs fixing and then go on its effect controls and go to the scale and make it bigger and then you would look at the position of video and make sure the framing was right for the interviews and also had to increase the scale for some cutaways. But it wasn't that hard to fix them all.
This is what it looks like once we fixed the framing of the video if you look up at the image above. I also used the position and the scale to give effects to still images and even added rotations to some images.
The one thing I did with my pictures was move then by changing there positions on the timeline to give the illusion of a camera moving around the image. To do that you would just go on the effect control position and put markers on the timeline then it would move the image to what ever position you have set it. Same with scale, with this you can make the image look like you are zooming in or out of the image. Then with the rotation just to be a bit more fancier you would go on effect control and then mark down the first angle of rotation to zero anf then go to the end of the timeline and give it a full 360 degree turn to make it spin into the frame bt you would have to work with the position as well and have them work together at the same time so that they will spin and move into the right framing.



Once you have finished editing all your video and audio's you will press "ENTER" to render all your footage so that all the effects you have added will all work properly when you export your video.



CAMERA PHOTO TAKING Camera was used to take pictures for evidence of our group filming and editing our documentary so that we could put that in the diary of the blog. Here are some of the pictures.


Also used the camera to take photos for our print advert to get the right image that worked best and all the images would be saved on to a "SD CARD" that is in the camera. To transfer them from the camera to the computer you just have to take the SD card out then get to a computer an dput the card in a card reader and then you can put your images in your computer documents and then do what you want with them, like put the image son your blog or edit them if they have too.


ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS We had to use Adobe Photoshop to help put together our print advert for our documentary that would catch our audiences eye so that they would be enticed to watch our doucmentary. So to start the print advert we had to bring the photo we took and open it in photoshop elements so that it could be edited.
Now that we have opened our image into photoshop elements, the image now becomes a "layer" and is locked as the background layer. So its going to be the layer where we edit other layers on top of it. Now that the image is here the first thing we need is to follow the codes and conventions of print adverts. Which means we need to have the "IDENT" or "LOGO" of what channel our documentary is going to be on. So we had to get the "CHANNEL 4" logo and open that into element and edit that to get rid of the white bits of the image. To do that we would use the "Eraser tool" to rub out the part we didn't need in the logo. Then you would drag the edited logo into the background layer which is our image we have got. So we "Transformed" the image which is just changing its size and moving it, to the bottom right corner that goes with the codes and conventions as well. But it didn't work when the logo was black so we changed it the white. Once the "IDENT" was in place it was time to put the date & time, title and slogan of our documentary onto the print advert. To do this you would just insert a "TEXT BOX" and then position it where you want it, that would be at the bottom left of the poster to stick with the codes and conventions. Then the text would be white to be the same colour as the logo and the text would be simple so that it didn't take the impact of the image away from it. Once that was complete you can see that there are three layers, the image, the text, and the logo. You can now merge all those layers together by highlighting them and then right clicking them and just "Merge Layers" and then you don't have to worry about accidently moving what you have done in the wrong place. Since it is ready you can now turn it into a "JPEG" image. You go on file "SAVE AS" then cjange the "PSD DOCUMENT" into a "JPEG" and then save it and then you can choose the quality of your image to high or low and then it will be saved as an image. If you want to aslo save it as a "PHOTOSHOP DOCUMENT" keep the setting to "PSD" and make sure your layers aren't merge because that means you can go back and edit the image later if you need to make corrections or changes. Then you will have your completed print advert for your documentary.

ADOBE SOUNDBOOTH CS5

This was used to help create the radio trailer for the documentary, so before we could import the audio and start the trailer we had to get a narrator. Once that was done you had to open up the narrator and get the background music and then get the vox pop audio files from the documentary to add to the trailer to stick with the conventions of radio trailers. We would use a razor tool on the audio files again and then put all of them in the right order for the trailer and once you like what you have created you would export as a mp3 and then put it into the blog.




MY USB PEN DRIVE'S





These our my pen drive that i have been using to help me with our documentary research planning and construction through this coursework. The "Phillips" drive was used for putting word documents that I worked on for the documentaary so that I could take work home and then bring it the work when completed to share with my group. It was also used to put all the screen caps I took for myself so that i could fill in my diary of the editing process of my documentary. The "Memory" drive is the usb that contain all of the music that I owned, I brought the drive in for my group to listen to the music on it to see if we could use any of it in our documentary.



SNIPPING TOOL



I used this snipping tool to help get archive material meaning images for my documentary cutaways. To use this I would open it up and then you would click and hold and drag what you want to cut out for an image. Its like print screening but instead you can take out parts specifically no and it can be small image or text from a site or the whole website wiithout the windows bar. I used this mostly to create pictures off websites that would be relevant to my documentary.


PREZI.com

I used prezi to make my question 2 of my evaluation into a clever presentation, this was fairly easy to use. You would add text to any where on the page, and to insert an image you would click insert and from folder and then it will download it into the prezi space. You can resize it easily adn rotate it and move it where ever you like. You can even upload youtube videos which is appropriate and handy since I needed to show some videos in my question 2. With prezi you can scatter text, pictures and videos anywhere because once you put a path on it you can choose the order that your presentation is going to be in and then it will make you presentation look brilliant. Me I would put in the text, add a path put the next text on, add a path, add a picture, create another path and so on, so that I didn't mix up my order of my work.