4. Research
My research and planning had a significant positive effect
on my overall production. I firstly got together with my
group and we laid out many different documentary topic
ideas. Furthermore we also put our ideas into sub areas of
research (The music industry got broken down into CD's,
Streaming and pirating. By doing this we all clearly saw
areas of interests with the most potential for content in our
documentary. We wanted to aim our documentary towards
teenagers/ young adults, which meant using the internet to
research interests on each area targeting teenagers.
Therefore within our planning stages we could clearly rule
out topic areas which teenagers have less of an interest in.
For example picking the topic jobs seemed to appeal less to
our target audiences teenagers.
The importance of the internet (Google
Chrome) meant that we could find out
what are target audiences are
interested in today, which ensured that
we could suit our documentary to
them.
Planning The Content For The Documentary
5. When we where carrying out our
research we used trusted websites
such as articles from The Guardian.
This gave us a clear indication into the
music industry. From this we could
clearly see what format people where
listening to their music on as well as
the age range of people using them.
Researching into our target audiences
was heavily reliant on using the
internet and carrying out many
questionnaires to those of our target
audience age.
Research
Research Into Our Target Audience
6. We also draw out a rough plan better known as a
storyboard for the structure of our documentary. By
doing this we could quite clearly deiced what shots to
get for our filming days. Furthermore we could have
an idea of what has worked previously and apply
these techniques (such as mid shots during interview)
to our product. We felt that be planning out our
documentary as much as we could would offer a
more affiant and organized result. In addition to that
we also planned our film times- when and where we
would shoot certain sections within the documentary.
We also planned out our double page spread to have
a better insight of what it would look like and fit the
article style codes and conventions in them. We did
stick to the storyboard as a baseline for our
documentary but felt that alterations needed to be
made and different clips where better suited
elsewhere. A photocopier was used to get the
drawing onto blogger, which came out more clear
then the picture of the drawings we had.
Research
Storyboard
7. Research
Research Into Other Documentaries
We also looked at other documentaries for our research before
going out and shooting the documentary. By doing this allowed
ideas from professional documentaries to be shown and possible
apply these to our own. Developing that point we had a much
better insight into the codes and conventions of documentaries.
We could then conclude weather or not we wanted to apply these
conventions within our documentary and if it would suited the
topic area or not. In addition to that we could equally see what
conventions we feel didn’t work or wouldn’t work in our
documentary. We could then decide if we wanted to challenge
some conventions within documentaries. Firstly we looked at the
documentary Super Size Me and clearly picked up on common
conventions and features within documentaries such as vox pop
interviews, titles on screen and even animation we wanted to
follow onto our own documentary. Super Size Me was watched via
DVD in contrast to the other documentaries we studied on
YouTube.
8. Research
Research Into Documentaries On Our Topic
By looking at documentaries such as “Music Streaming” and
“Face The Music” gave a clear layout of both conventions
used within documentaries as well as an insight into how our
topic area is being portrayed within documentaries. We could
clearly see what went well and what didn’t and why it didn’t.
For example we notice our target audiences wants to
consistently be engaged with short and snappy fast editing.
The documentary “Music Streaming” was missing just that.
We understood that our documentary needed to be less
reliant on long interviews as it doesn’t interact the spectator
as much. By watching both of these documentaries we
furthered our knowledge in planning our own documentary
whilst picking up on key featured we wanted to develop.
Thankfully due to the software YouTube we could easily get a
hold of these documentaries and study them in further detail.
11. Planning Our Interviews
Planning
We made sure we contacted the people we where hoping to
interview in advance of our filming plan. By doing this we
could base any other film preparation around when we’ve got
the expert/ artist interviews. We also made sure we either
text, email or message the interviewee beforehand (if they
did agree to meet) that they’re still okay for the interview.
Furthermore we also sent the questions we would be asking
them in advance so they could get prepared to answer the
questions in advance. This led to in depth response, which
aided the documentaries content and sophistication. If the
interviewee didn’t fully answer the question or we wanted a
more detailed answer from them, we planned a follow up
response related to the question that would hopefully further
our intention of the question.
12. Research And Planning
Research Into The Documentary Channels
We looked at what channels delivered similar content
to our documentary as well as them attracting our
chosen target audience. The channels we mainly
looked at where BBC, SkyArts, ITV and channel 4.
They all offered a range of different positive and
negative elements for putting our documentary on
them. We used catch-up programs such as ITV Player
and BBC iplayer online to watch previous
documentaries and have a understanding of the
types shown on the channel.
Itv was seen to be limited
on documentaries and
didn’t offer the audience
we where aiming for in
our documentary.
BBC attracted our target
audiences and is known
for trusted documentaries
on BBC2. We picked BBC
for our channel broadcast.
We found that channel 4
is the most successful for
documentary broadcast
that we looked at but
didn’t feel that our topic
would appeal to the
target audience we
wanted.
Sky Arts seemed to have the
most music documenters
shown but appealed to an
older audience.
13. Research And Planning
Planning In Our Groups/ Communication
Staying in contact with each other in our groups help our
organizational skills and helped the planning process of our
products. Using social media to stay in contact with one
another made it finalize decisions when we where not
together. In addition to that we could also make sure that
everyone is aware of where, what and how we would be
filming upcoming dates from our filming plan. We used many
apps on our mobile phones such as Whatsapp Messenger,
Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Social Media also help our
documentary research as we found celebrities such as Kanye
West’s viewpoint on our topic. We managed to look in further
detail, which help play a big part in our documentary.
14. Research And Planning
The Software We Researched And Planned With
We used a range of different software's to present our research and
planning. With that being said we made sure that everything we did
would get added onto Blogger as a hub for all of our process in
creating the products. We also used slideshare to convert (embed)
the likes of PowerPoint and Microsoft word over into our blogger. We
mostly used Microsoft word to produces questionnaires for our
target audiences as well as audiences feedback from our
documentary. We also used a printer hardware to give out the
questionnaires to people. Furthermore after gathering our results,
we used Microsoft Excel to collaborate the content into a pie chart/
bar chart, which clearly laid out the answers- making it easier to
apply their feedback. We also used multiple other online software
such as Prezi, Emaze, Wideo, Slides, Scribd, Soundcloud and YouTube
to convey our research and planning.
16. Filming Our Documentary
Filming Equipment
In order to film our documentary we used a range of
different filming equipment. When we went out to shoot
our documentary vox pops we used a canon camera, boom
microphone, tripod and headphones. The canon camera
was used during all the filming of the documentary which
kept a consistency in quality throughout the overall product.
We found that by using the boom microphone created a
more crisp sound due to no wind interruption. This was
made clear during the editing process as we couldn’t fault
the sound quality. The tripod was also used during all the
filming of the documentary due to how it offered a steady
shot and equally kept the consistency throughout the shots
used. When filming our expert/ artist interviews, we used a
clip on microphone to ensure that we could clearly hear
what the interviewee was saying without any background
noise.
17. Filming Our Documentary
Location Recce
After using Microsoft word to plan our filming time sheet, we
took our filming equipment out to possible locations that we
where going to film our documentary. We also used a risk
assessment before going out to these locations to prepare for
a situation if it was to go wrong. We took shots outside our
college, canteen, music department and also computer shots.
This helps us in making sure what shots worked well,
following on from that what shots we could use for our final
product. Furthermore by doing this we actually didn’t use
most of these locations (only used the Computer shot), this is
due to how we felt it wouldn’t be
effective in our documentary.
College
Music
Department
The Canteen
Computer
Shots
Risk Assessment
18. After research and planning our storyboard for the documentary it
was time to start filming. We used the storyboard as a basic idea
of what shots to get as well as the content itself. In addition to
that we also used our location Recce to result the best possible
locations to film in. By using the canon camera we could produces
high quality content with the audio focus during interviews and
manually pick to have shots out of focus. This help offer a range of
different shots which brought much more to the documentary.
The out of focus shots helps create a manual blur effect to the
shot which was our intention. Furthermore due to having the
tripod, we could create slow and fast pan shots. We found this to
be extremely useful in our product as it allowed slow pans to have
precision as well as equally offering a range of contrasting shots.
Filming Our Documentary
Filming The Documentary
Panning Shot
Manual Out Of
Focus/ Blur Shot
20. Editing
Before putting our clips onto the timeline, we
first needed to know what clips where useful as
well as what section within the clip we needed.
We had a timing sheet which help visually see
at what point during the certain clip was at any
use for our documentary. We added onto this
sheet what time the information was useful to
what time we wanted to stop the clip. This
helped organize our clips in a more structured
fashion as well as making it easier to know
where to trim clips on the timeline itself.
However some shots where of no use to us,
which meant we could leave these clips in the
project section and deiced if we wanted to
reshoot similar/ better footage. All of the
Adobe content was edited on a Apple Mac
Computer.
Our Project (All of
the clips)
The Documentary Timeline
The ones highlighted in
blue where the clips
that got put onto the
timeline
21. Editing
The time reference sheet we used on what clips where useful and
clearly laid out the times within the clip that where of
importance. We hand wrote out the information as we where
watching the clips but used a photocopier hardware to upload it
onto the Blog. By doing this we can clearly read the information,
which aided the editing process as we could quickly look the
blogger at what time a certain clip was useful.
22. Editing
Using Premiere Pro CC to actually edit our documentary product
on, was quite successful. We used both Adobe Premiere Pro and
Adobe Audition to check out the sound levels where consistent
and could equally hear what the person/ interviewee was actually
saying. We started using Audition to have a base of a clear sound
level during our first interview with Nick and our vox pops. We
used the software mainly for our vox pops to block out any
background noise hared on camera. We didn’t stick to using the
Audition software as we found the audio gain the controls within
premiere pro more straight forward and easier to use.
As shown in the picture above, we
edited the sound levels on Premiere
Pro by moving the yellow line up/
down to change the sound level of a
certain clip. We mostly used this
when we where fading an interview
out or simply lowering the
background music down to increase
the volume heard on an interview.
We also used Audio
Gain to increase/
decrease the volume of
a certain clip if the
overall footage was
hard to hear.
Adobe Audition
Premiere Pro
23. Editing
Adobe After Effects was used to edit out a white mark during the
opening shot of our documentary. The white mark appeared on a
completely black background just after a stop motion footage of
the CD’s. We used a black fill out tool to change the white mark
into a black mark which suited the background. This worked
exceptionally well as it was unclear to any white mark in the first
place (when covered). We where not used to the software at the
time and debated to re-attempt shooting the whole stop motion
section again. Luckily we got more comfortable with using the
software and had no need to reshoot the footage.Where The White
Mark Was
We altered the brightness as well as the focus to highlight
what was shown upon screen. By using Premiere Pro
Effects Control section, allowed us to slowly blur out the
main clip as well as darken it whilst dissolving a image of
Kanye West’s tweet. We could also pinpoint the time
within the clip that we wanted to blur the image and out.
This made the documentary have a smoother feel to the
overall product. We mainly used film dissolve as it offered
a professional look to our documentary and felt that it
worked well with keeping our target audience engaged.
24. Editing
On Premiere Pro we also used text
overlays to create our interviewee’s
information as well as title sequences
shown throughout the documentary. We
made sure the titles during the
interviews where within the second
inner line (in the text overlay box). This
simply made the text throughout the
documentary consistent through height,
length and font. We used a shadow
backdrop on the text to make the text
standout more. By doing this made it
seem more professional as well as it
sticking to the codes and conventions of
real life documentaries.
26. I’m quite used to the software GarageBand and equally
comfortable to use it. The software wasn’t too difficult
to explain to the rest of the group also. We record our
radio trailer on GarageBand and used a recorded to
create the voiceover in the trailer. We mainly used pull
quotes from our documentary consisting of rhetorical
questions and professional interviews/ vox pops. We
added our backing track from the documentary over
purely to create our brand identity within the trailer
itself. We also managed to alter the sound levels of the
music to not overpower voiceover. We kept the Radio
Trailer short and upbeat to fully lure in our target
audiences and equally aid the intention of it being
interesting to listen too. During our first recording of the
radio trailer, we noticed a slight fan that got picked up in
the background noise. With that we deiced to rerecord
the voiceover as it wasn’t worth trying to cover it up.
The Radio Trailer
27. The TV Listings Page
We used InDesign to create our TV Listings Page. We found
that an article style layout would best suit our topic and
content. With that being said our group decide to layout
the article into columns with pictures breaking up the text.
We used still images from our documentary to support the
article as well as creating a bold textbox that looked similar
to the parental advisement sticker shown on CD’s. This help
suit the topic as well as allowing it to fully standout from
the articles text. InDesign was a new software to us, which
made the process longer to create the TV listings magazine
but very successful. We also use the rule of thirds whilst
creating the article and a lined template helped aid a clear
visual of this when producing it.
28. The Evaluation Technology
For the Evaluation I used the following
software’s; Question 1 I used Soundcloud
as I wanted to present the question
through an audio recording. Question 2 I
used Prezi as it offered a different style of
presentation and worked well with showing
the content of my three products. For
question 3 I used Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel purely because I feel that it
was easier to present the feedback I got
from my focus group, questionnaire and
target audiences in text form supported by
graphs to illustrate my points. And question
4/ this question has been down on
Microsoft PowerPoint and uploaded to
Slideshare as it’s a software I’m familiar
with and feel confidant to produce the
content. All of the questions are put onto
blogger with question 1 and 2 being
embedded straight from the site.
29. The Software We Used
•Adobe Premiere Pro
•Adobe After Effects
•Adobe InDesign
•Adobe Audition
•GarageBand
•Blogger
•Slideshare
•Microsoft Word
•Microsoft Excel
•Microsoft PowerPoint
•YouTube
•Twitter
•Facebook Messenger
•Whatsapp Messenger
•Snapchat
•Instagram
•SoundCloud
•Emaze
•Prezi
•Scribd
•Wideo
•Slides
•The internet/ Google Chrome
30. The Hardware We Used
•Apple Mac Computer
•A Windows Computer
•Smartphone
•Canon Camera
•Clip On Microphone
•Boom Microphone
•Printer
•Photocopier
•An Audio Recorder
•Headphones
•Tripod
