1. Q4) How did you use media
technologies in the research and
planning, construction, and
evaluation stages?
A2 Media Evaluation 2013
By Ferdous Audhali

2. Research and Planning
• Of course research and planning is a core and fundamental part of the project, it is
the first stepping stone towards the completion of the product and without it,
there would be no effectiveness and the end products would never be sufficient
enough.
• It is at this stage where all the ‘information gathering’ for our documentary
began.. And where is the first place a media student would go?  The Internet.
• The internet has such a vast amount of information available for the topic of
Underage Binge Drinking, and it was due to this extensive amount of information
that it sometimes became a bit overwhelming. However, we tackled this by
splitting tasks between the 4 of us and researching on specific topics using specific
media outlets.
• For example, at one point, in the beginning stages, my job was to look at short
films/clips on Youtube that discussed underage binge drinking and make notes on
them.
• Later on in this stage, I was reading article after article in regards to the up to date,
accurate, health implications of the topic, statistics or legislation that has recently
been passed via websites which host their newspapers online (eg. BBC News, NHS
website and the Guardian)

3. Why the internet?
• The internet plays as a huge medium in accessing all
kinds of information, from visual, to audio, to written,
to transcripts, to PDF files of archival documents..
Whatever it is.. The internet will most likely have. Even
newspapers (like I mentioned) are available online
(even old papers can be tracked down easily)
• However, one must be careful as not ALL the
information is 100% valid and a lot of inaccurate
information can be found- hence why when finding
statistics or key pieces of info, I made sure to double
check it by looking at other sources to see if they could
support the findings I had found. This is very important
as documentaries can only show/provide real facts.

4. So... what channel?
• The choice for which channel we wanted to air
our documentary on was quite tricky as each
channel had their own pros and cons. However,
the main 2 were BBC three and Channel 4.
• This was because from our research, we found
that young people tend to watch these two
channels the most and it was through them that
documentaries for young people are aired.
• We chose channel 4 due to its experience in
informative, ground-shaking wide
range of documentary hosting.

5. How did we access old
documentaries?
• Many of the documentaries we watched via
‘catch up’ websites, such as ITV player, BBC
iPlayer and 4oD (On Demand)
• These are brilliant websites where all shows, both
old and current are accessible to watch online
and of course when it came
to researching and analysing
previous real media texts, this
was extremely useful!

6. Uploading and sharing our work
• Without blogger, we would have no way of uploading
our work electronically. Blogger is such an easy and
effective website which allows you to upload almost
any file type within a few seconds. No size limits and
no waiting around for download/uploading time – with
the click of a button, a slide show, a Prezi presentation,
a word document, a picture, a Youtube video, could all
be uploaded and viewable on our blog.
• For me, blogger was one of the essential
media technologies when it came to every
part of my coursework.
Example of scanned in
storyboard we made and
then uploaded onto
blogger

7. Construction
• Having the correct hardware is an essential part of documentary filming.. Hardware can
hugely effect the quality of the final product. For example, we used a canon HG20 HD
camcorder to film our documentary, and this camera quality was High Definition making our
end product look much more defined and clearer when being watched. Furthermore, this
camera also allowed us to play with some of the effects whilst filming. For example, we could
zoom in and out (eg. When filming an establishing shot we might zoom into a particular
place to add emphasis) Furthermore, you could drastically change the focus on the camera as
well, allowing us to blur out the shot and hence use it effectively to present statistics or
writing on top of the blurred moving image.
• But if we were to just have gone and recorded with a camcorder and none of the extra
components, chances are, that the clips we had filmed would have been EXTREMELY
amateur. Without a microphone, the sound quality isn’t as crisp and is often disturbed by
other things such as wind etc. Also, the headphones also play a key role in terms of refining
the audio to top notch condition because with the headphones on, the soundman who
accompanies the cameraman can ensure that sound is coming out of both ears,
meaning that the audio will be stereo and not one sided. Lastly, the tripod plays a key
role in maintaining a still shot and keeping things professional (Also useful
for when filming high or low angled shots, prevents hand-held effect)
TripodMicrophone
Headphones Camcorder

8. Editing (Final Cut Express)
• Once we had recorded all the footage we needed
for our documentary it was time to start the
editing- so goodbye camera and hello Apple Mac!
• Throughout the weeks of filming, we had already been
transferring all the raw footage from the camera onto the
computer hardrive (via USB cable), so now it was time to File
> log & transfer it all into Final Cut. 
Once we had transferred all the
clips into Final Cut, we then
played each of them individually
then selected (and renamed) the
ones we wanted and dragged
them down onto the timeline
and onto the appropriate tracks.

9. Editing continued..
• Whilst using Final Cut, tools like the ‘Razor’ and ‘Pen’ tool
became second nature, as these were some of the options
that we would regularly use to split and cut clips up into the
bits we wanted, and the bits we didn’t want.
Sometimes clips would require
special effects added onto them,
such as a blur effect or a black
and white effect. To the left is an
example of how you turn a clip
black and white. You go to the
Image control tab and select
Desaturate. You simply then drag
this tab onto the clip you would
like to turn black and white.

10. Editing continued..
Changing the sound levels so
they fade in and out with the
individuals entrance and exit –
ensuring everyone’s volume
is the same..
(Using the pen tool)
Montage made with various
number of clips running at the
same time but on separate
tracks! All sounds were silenced
(deleted) unless it was one of the
individuals turn to speak, then
their audio was placed at the
right place (and made sure to
match with the mouth
movements)

11. Magazine (InDesign)
• Although InDesign was the main programme
we used, we did use Photoshop and Microsoft
Word in the process..
• Microsoft word was
used to construct the
article and Photoshop
to edit the pictures that would then be
inserted into the article in InDesign.

12. Radio Trial (Garage Band)
• We started the radio trial off in Final Cut Pro because
of the fact we needed to create the extracts from the clips in
our documentary so we could export them into Garage band.
To do this, we opened up a new sequence 
which opened up a new fresh page of tracks to
use that wouldn’t effect our documentary.
• Once the clips had been cut down into just a few second
snippets, these extracts were exported and inserted into a
track on Garage band (along with the already inserted voice
over clips which had previously been imported 

13. Radio Trial continuation..
• Following this, we then started to look at the available music
tracks in Garage band but most of them were not appropriate
due to their length or the genre didn’t match our style, target
audience or topic.. Therefore, we mixed and matched with 2
different short sounds called ‘dance’ and ‘chordal’ and we
played with these to make a consistent rhythm that we
thought sounded pretty good.

14. Other software used for Evaluation..
Used to upload Microsoft Word
documents onto blogger. Displays
word documents.. Used to create graphs for
evaluation of Audience
feedback, in order to display
the results in a visual eye
friendly manner.. A unique way of presenting
information in a interactive
and appealing way!
Used to construct presentations.. a nice way
of displaying information rather than boring
essays..
Used to upload Powerpoint presentations onto the blog so
that they may be made viewable and can easily scroll your
way through each of the slides..