For my A2 Media Studies coursework

1. HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE
CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH, PLANNING AND
EVALUATION STAGES?

2. RESEARCH + PLANNING
WhatsApp was used in our
planning as Ellie, Gypsy, Ellie-
May and I created a group chat
so that we could message each
other ideas, pictures or anything
of that nature.
Here is some evidence of
our group chat, used for
many different stages of the
planning procedure and it
turned out to be a very
useful media technology.

3. RESEARCH + PLANNINGYouTube was used a lot during
research. This is how we would
watch popular documentaries to
get ideas from to use and
develop.
We watched Super Size
Me a lot on YouTube as
this is one of the most
famous documentaries
today. We got many
ideas from this film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=jAnCOHCVjyU
I watched Old Before My
Time on YouTube because it
was the documentary
closest to the topic of ours,
so we could use ideas from
this as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v
6vEe6eenpg
This documentary
showed my a lot about
different shots and
angles to use, so
YouTube helped me do
research in that area.

4. RESEARCH + PLANNING
We used Microsoft Word to
create questionnaires to find
out what our target audience
like/dislike. It was an easy way
of typing up our ideas so that
we could print them off and
hand them out.
Here are some examples of how
we used Microsoft Word in our
research and planning stage.

5. RESEARCH + PLANNING
We used search engines such as Chrome and
Safari for research. They allowed us to find
statistics and other information to do with
our topic.
Here you can see how
we used them to gather
information + it was
very effective, as is
shown here, with
supplying us with lots of
different websites.

6. RESEARCH + PLANNING
blogger.com was very
important during our
research and planning
stage as it’s the way we
are keeping all our
information in one
place. We can go back
to different posts we’ve
made to see everything
we’ve looked up and
anything we have
created.
Here is what our blog looks
like from the website, it is
very organized and we used it
all the time to document our
progress throughout our

7. RESEARCH + PLANNING
To try and make our research more
interesting, we used Prezi and Slideshare.
These are just other ways of presenting
our research with a bit of animation.
We used our Sixth Form’s Media
Centre to watch previous students’
documetaries and their radio
trailers. This allowed us to get an
idea of what was expected of us,
while also letting us listen to what
we liked in their products so that
we could possibly use those
features in our media products.

8. RESEARCH + PLANNING
Another way we researched documentaries
was through TV programme catch up
platforms. One of these were 4oD, which is
what our documentary would go up on as
we chose Channel 4 to air our documentary
on. There is a variety of documentaries on
this website and app, so we had loads of
examples for us to gain ideas from.
One example of a documentary we analysed
was ‘Amy’, a film about Amy Winehouse,
which is very popular.

9. RESEARCH + PLANNING
A more standard way of presenting
our research was through PowerPoint.
This is a clear, plain media
technology but is effective in putting
across our information.
Here is evidence of our use of
PowerPoint. This shows our research
into Channel 4 and Capital FM
audience. After this research is when
we decided to use these for our own
media products as our target audience
were similar to theirs.

10. RESEARCH + PLANNING
Visme is another presentation
technology we used during our
research and planning process.
It is a bit more interesting and
animated than PowerPoint, but
still remains clear.
Here’s the evidence of our
use of Visme. We used it
to present the reasons
why we chose the Radio
Times and when we
thought we’d use BBC
Radio 1, until we had to
rethink this decision.

11. RESEARCH + PLANNING
We used the Gmail app to plan
our interview with the West
Midlands Police.
Here are some screenshots of
our email conversation with a
policeman we were going to
interview. Gmail was a very
easy way of contacting the
organization and made it easy
to organize our information
and names and dates we had
to remember.
Another way we contacted
experts to plan our formal
interviews was through our
Sixth Form email system,
Tyber. This allowed us to
message our teachers as
this would be easiest for us
to film.
Here’s an example
of a message we
sent and a message
we received from
our experts.

12. CONSTRUCTION
To construct our documentary we
had to film footage on a video
camera (Canon HG20 HD). This
was provided by our Media + Film
department at Sixth Form. We used
this whenever we had to film,
whether it be an expert interview
in college or voxpops in Solihull.
Here is a behind-the-
scenes shot where you
can see how we have
used the video camera
during the filming of a
voxpop in the college.
As you can see in both
the photos, we always
used a tripod along
with the video camera.
This was to make our
shots steady and the
same level throughout
our documentary.The tripod was also
provided by the Sixth
Form College.

13. CONSTRUCTION
We used two types of microphones in our construction process.
Clip on microphone for formal
interviews. This is because it makes
them feel more at ease and it picks
up less of the background noise –
creating a more formal and
professional atmosphere.
Here you can see a
clip on microphone
being used in an
expert interview.
Shotgun microphones are used in
voxpops. This is because it picks
up more of the background noise
adding to the effect of its
informality. It also gives
inexperienced interviewees an
idea of where to talk to.
Here is an example
of when a shotgun
microphone would
be used.

14. CONSTRUCTION
To get the right sound levels, we needed to
use headphones to monitor them when we
interviewed people. This was really
important and we did not film any footage
without them on. We also had the same
person wear them every time as she knew
what sounded right as she could compare
from all the other interviews she had
listened to through them. We would plug
them into the video camera at the start of
every interview.
In this photo you can see how we would
use the headphones during the
construction of our documentary and in
this particular case, filming voxpops.

15. CONSTRUCTION
We had to use a voice recorder (TASCAM’s
DR-05) when constructing the voice over for
both the documentary and the radio trailer.
Using this device was more effective than
just using our phones because we could see
our sound levels and the microphone was a
lot better so made the voice sound much
clearer.
This is a shot of how we used
this media technology when
recording the voice over for
our main product.

16. CONSTRUCTION
We did all of our construction on Apple Macs.
This was hard at first as I had never used one
before, but after time I got used to it and they
ended up being really helpful as all the software
we needed was already installed and ready to go.
Without this media technology we would have
struggled to get our final pieces up to the
standard that was expected of us

17. CONSTRUCTION
We constructed our final documentary on the
software, PremierePro. Again we had never used this
before so it took some time getting used to. We
would film our footage, then upload it to our
computer and import the clips into PremierePro.
From there we would choose which clips we wanted
to use, cut them down and drag them into our
timeline. If the clip wasn’t perfect, we would then
edit it, for example taking out any long pauses
Screenshot of the construction
behind the documentary using
PremierePro. We could use this
programme to add titles, blur
effects and speed up/slow down
footage.

18. CONSTRUCTION
We used Instagram and Google images
during our construction period, as we
needed them to appear in our
documentary. We searched hashtags
such as “drunk” “last night” and “party”
on Instagram for a part in our
documentary where we say that we’re
shown alcohol everywhere, including
social media.
Google images was used in a part of our
documentary talking about peer pressure
to drink with nights out and cheap deals.
We found the images by searching “student
night” and “freshers” into the search bar.

19. CONSTRUCTION
Apps is where all the music we could use for non diegetic
sound was stored. This includes background music and
sound effects, so this media technology had to be used in
both the construction of our documentary and radio trailer.
We would simply choose which sounds we wanted to
include, download them onto our desktop and then drag
them into PremierePro.

20. CONSTRUCTION
We originally wanted to
create our radio trailer
using garage band – a
software exclusively for
sound documents.
However we had
difficulties working with
it and it was taking up
too much of our time.
So we decided to switch back to
PremierePro because we had become
familiar and quite skilled in
constructing products on there. This
was much easier and we just had to
upload our voice over and drag in
some of the voxpops from our
documentary and edit them all so
they flowed nicely. Here is what our
final radio trailer looked like in the
software.

21. CONSTRUCTION
For the construction of our
double page spread, we used
InDesign. This program was
difficult to use even though we
did use it last year. We took
screenshots from our
documentary and pasted them
into the product so that we
could try out different main
images. We typed up our
article in Microsoft word and
To get the font for
our title ‘Tipsy Teens’
we had to go to
dafont.com and
search until we found
the one we wanted.
We would then
download the font
and use it in our DPS.
Here is evidence of us
using InDesign and it
shows some of the
different ideas we tried
using this media
technology and how we
progressed.

22. EVALUATION
We used iPhones to capture
images of us during the process of
this project so that we could use
them when answering our
evaluation questions. We decided
on this technology as it was the
handiest as we could take them
anywhere and they have really
good camera quality.
Here are a few of the
pictures we took during
the project and many
more have been used in
my evaluation,
including those that
you have seen in this

23. EVALUATION
I used Microsoft Word first to
get down all my rough ideas of
what I could put into my
evaluation.
Here’s a screenshot
showing how I
originally planned to
answer question 1 and
question2 of my
evaluation. I did this
the first day we were
given the task.

24. EVALUATION
I used Paint the whole way through my
evaluation process. This was so I could
screenshot any images that I needed and
crop them easily and quickly as to use my
time effectively. It is a program I am very
familiar with as I have used it most my
life and I found it very useful in this area.
Here you can see a
screenshot of my laptop
screen before and after I
used paint to crop it down
to make it look neater. I
could then save it and insert
it into my evaluation.

25. EVALUATION
To answer the first question, I
used Prezi. This was successful
because I have used this media
technology before so was very
familiar. I think it presented my
answer in an interactive and
animated way.

26. EVALUATION
For my second question, I used
Windows Voice Recorder. This is
because it uses the microphone
from my laptop which made it
easier to document and is of
fairly good quality.
Once I had saved all my
voice recordings, I
uploaded them onto
Soundcloud. The aim of
this was to make my
evaluation more interesting
instead of the examiner
just having to read through
every question.

27. EVALUATION
For the third question of the
evaluation, I used the media
technology “Emaze”. This is way of
presenting my information in a more
interactive way. This was the first time
I had used this program, but it was
fairly easy to use and I could upload
the pictures I needed with no trouble.
Here is a screenshot of when I
was working on my question 3
answer.

28. EVALUATION
Finally, for question 4, I have used Microsoft
PowerPoint and Slideshare. Although it’s not the
most interesting of presentation formats, it is
clear and easy to read and as I needed to use
lots of pictures in this final question, I thought
this would be the safest choice of media
technologies.
I first made a PowerPoint
presentation, then I saved
this and transferred it
into a Slideshare format. I
then uploaded it and
could embed the code
onto blogger.com

29. OVERALL…
I have used a range of media technologies in
my research and planning stage, my
construction stage and my evaluation stage.
The most challenging area I found to use the
technologies, was in the construction process
as this took the longest to complete and made
me work the hardest. If I could do it all again I
would try and use a larger variety of
technologies in my research and planning
stage as I feel I could’ve done more in this
area.