The document describes the various media technologies used at different stages of creating a documentary project. Blogger was used to present work in chronological order with different media. Slideshare allowed uploading PowerPoint presentations and embedding them in blogs. Prezi was used for creative presentations with text boxes and images. Windows Movie Maker created simple videos for analysis. YouTube hosted uploaded videos for audience feedback. Tagul created a mind map for brainstorming content. Cameras and tripods captured high quality footage. Adobe Premiere edited videos and added effects. Photoshop designed a print advertisement.

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

2. Blogger
• Blogger is what I use to present my work
altogether in one place. Blogger allowed me
to present my work in chronological order
and the freedom to use different medias to
present it. Blogger has also allowed me to
present the research that we found for the
topic. I have also been able to create a page
that is easy to navigate and my work can be
easily found under titles. By using an online
blog it has also made it easier to share work
and ideas to my group as I can just publish it
to my blog and they can then share their
ideas on the work or suggest any
improvements.

3. Slideshare
• Slideshare allowed me to upload any slideshows I have done on
Microsoft Powerpoint to my blog. The website allows users to
upload powerpoints and then used an ‘embed’ code to transfer the
powerpoint onto a blog. This helped me in my planning and
research as it allowed me to present work clearly through a
powerpoint. I mainly used powerpoint when presenting any
research, such as documentaries I had analysed (The Marketing of
Meatloaf, Escape! Breakout from Alcatraz etc.) to give me ideas on
the codes and conventions of a documentary. Slideshare also
allowed me to publish my research on the ‘Theories of
Documentaries’ which involved looking at the different genres and
theories behind documentaries. I also used slideshare to publish my
findings from the ‘Audience Research’. Being able to use Powerpoint
for this allowed me to present graphs and use text boxes to analyse
the data and explain to the ‘reader’ of my work how I will take the
results into consideration when creating my own documentary.

4. Prezi
• Prezi was used to creatively present my work. The website gives you
preset templates with text boxes, when you press play the ‘clip’ will swoop
over to each text box and any images in a fun creative way. It allows work
to be presented in a varied and eye catching way. I used Prezi to present
some documentary analysis such as ‘Lara Croft – That thing’ and ‘New
York Photographer’ Prezi allowed me to analyse the documentaries in an
interesting way with lots of detail and also allowed me to become more
creative with my presentation. I again used the documentaries I analysed
to inspire my own work. I also used Prezi to create a ‘flow chart’ or ‘spider
diagram’ of all the ideas our class came up with on what our
documentaries could be based on with ideas such as ‘cakes, phobias, fast
food and coffee shops’. The spider diagram on Prezi was useful as it
allowed me to write down all of the ideas in an eye catching way that
could easily be accessed and referred to. Much like Slideshare, I also had
to use an ‘Embed’ code from Prezi to transfer it onto my blog.

5. Moviemaker
• Windows Moviemaker allowed me to create simple videos that I
could upload to Youtube. Moviemaker could not be used to create
the documentary as it is not as advanced in editing but I was able to
use it from home to create an analysis on ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’
and a video on audience feedback. To create my documentary
analysis I used screenshots that I took from Youtube as I could
access the documentary from there. I then uploaded the images
individually into the order I wanted them in the video. Once I had
done this I created a voiceover using the microphone in my laptop,
then imported the audio clip into movie maker. I then extended the
time some of the images appeared for in video so the pictures
would stay relevant to what I was saying. Moviemaker allowed very
basic editing but worked well enough for what I was using it for.

6. Youtube
• Youtube allowed me to present any videos I had created. The first time I used it
during my project was when I created an analysis on a documentary called ‘The
Devil Made Me Do It’. I watched the documentary on Youtube and then took
screenshots so I had images to analyse. I then put these images into a program
called ‘Windows Movie Maker’ and used the microphone in my laptop to record
my own voiceover. I then uploaded this analysis to Youtube to make it a video
analysis of images with my own voiceover explaining what the documentary did in
it’s production and what effect it would have on the audience. I also used Youtube
to upload my documentary and have it available online for audience feedback, I
exported it from Adobe Premiere and uploaded it to Youtube, I did this again with
my Radio Advert. By having my own documentary on Youtube I was able to easily
share it on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter which allowed me to get
audience feedback directly.
• Youtube also allowed me to gather archive footage for my documentary, we
searched what we thought would be appropriate for the documentary and
gathered clips from “The Great British Bake Off” and even got clips from around
the 60s of women in baking classes. This allowed us to have a lot of content in our
documentary. We also used Youtube to get music for our documentary. We used
the song “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked A Cake” as the song has lyrics
that relate to the topic.

7. Tagul
• Once we had decided what we
wanted our documentary to be on
we used a software called ‘Tagul’ to
create a kind of mind map
surrounding our chosen topic. Our
documentary is based on cakes so
our ‘Tagul’ word cloud would be
based around cakes with words like
‘bakeries, birthdays, supermarkets
and baking etc’ featuring inside the
cloud. The ‘Tagul cloud’ was used to
show ideas of documentary content
in a creative way. We made our
‘cloud’ the shape of a cupcake to
reflect our topic. This ‘Tagul cloud’
was then put onto my blog under
the heading ‘Brainstorm of content
for documentary’. I could then refer
back to this image later for
inspiration.
Our Tagul based on a cake
theme.

8. Camera and Tripod
• When filming the documentary college allowed
us to use a Sony HXR-MC2000, a tripod and a clip
on microphone. It allowed us to create an HD
documentary. This meant our footage looked high
quality and professional. The only problems we
really had with the cameras is some footage
ended up being out of focus but that was not
very clear when looking at it on the small screen
that's built in to the camera, this resulted in some
footage not being useable and having to be re-
filmed to keep a high quality standard of work.

9. Adobe Premiere
• Adobe Premiere is what we spent a lot of the time using. We used it to create
the documentary. Adobe Premiere allows you to manipulate clips and audio, so
if the audio in a vox pop/interview was to quiet you could open up the sound
control and increase the sound. Also when putting in a backing track we were
able to turn it up when there was no audio and turn it down so it could only be
heard in the background of a person talking. We could also put effects into the
clip like a persons name and occupation in the bottom of the clip which told
the audience who they were and their significance to the documentary. When
importing a clip I was able to crop it and edit it the way I wanted, I could cut it
to the exact point where you wanted it to start and finish, which helped make
the documentary flow. Adobe Premiere gave us the tools to create a
professional looking documentary.
Adobe Premiere was also used to create the radio advert. I did this by
recording a lady in the radio room in college and putting the audio into a
sequence on Adobe Premiere. It would be edited similar to a video clip such as
turning up the sound or cropping the clip. I then added Vox Pops that I ripped
the audio from and inserted that into the radio advert with the same music
that featured in the documentary playing in the background.

10. Adobe Photoshop
• Photoshop was used to create the print
advertisement. It allowed us to recreate a
stereotypical ‘Channel 4’ style print ad in the
theme of our own documentary. Photoshop
allowed us to tweak the image slightly to
define it more or make it stand out. It made it
have a more professional finish and match the
codes and conventions of a typical print ad.