The document discusses the digital skills and technologies used to create a 5-minute documentary for an A2 coursework assignment. Software such as Comic Life was used to storyboard the documentary, and Final Cut Express was used to edit footage, add transitions, sound, and captions. A video camera was used to film different shot types but could have been used more skillfully with a tripod. A blog enabled collaborative work and sharing of resources. Overall the document focuses on the digital skills developed in planning, filming, and editing a student documentary.

1. Skills Development of
Digital Technology in
the making of our
Documentary

2. Our A2 Task
For my A2 coursework I was asked to
produce a 5 minute
documentary, mine was a social
documentary on being a student in
2011. This was aimed at students as a
primary audience and there would be
a secondary audience of
teachers, parents and the general
public interested in the financial
pressures of being a student in
today’s society. Our documentary
focuses on University Fee
increase, EMA cuts and poor job
prospect for students.

3. Apple Mac Software
We used a variety of different technologies such as the software on the Apple Mac
computer’s, including comic life and final cut express. We used comic life to storyboard the 5
separate minutes of our documentary. We developed the skill to create a nice layout in comic
life and to be able to directly import our images from our documentary into the boxes and to
annotate what music or voice-over would be playing over what footage.
We then used final cut express which was vital or our documentary, I developed my digital skills a
lot with this as I learnt how to add transitions easily from effects, I also learnt how to put
sound on the line underneath the footage to make it play at the same time, how to put
captions over the top of images and how to cut my footage with the cutter tool to make it the
desired length. Another skill I developed was the ability to create fade’s in and fades out with
the pointer tool which you can drag down to create fades on the footage you want.

4. Video camera and Stills
Camera
This was technology which I could have definitely have improved my skills more in. For using the
video camera we tested out different shot types to enable us to create variety within our
documentary to engage the audience. We experimented with long shots, close-ups, mid shots
and high angle shots, this worked really well and I developed this digital skill well. I also
developed the skill of being able to zoom in and out of shots whilst I was recording the
footage which was a good digital skill to add variety into our documenatry.
However, the video camera came with a tripod which we should have practiced a lot more with
because upon viewing our footage I realised that some of it was very jerky and would have
been quite inappropriate to put into our documentary. Also we could have perhaps
experimented more with the mise en scene in our shots to make it more professional.

5. Headphones and
Microphone
We used headphones and microphones to intensify the sounds of the interviews so that people
would be able to hear clearly in our documentary what the experts and the students were
talking about and enable the audience to hear important opinions and viewpoints. I
developed my skills with this by being able to listen whilst we were recording and to pick out
any mistakes that may have been made during. However we could have

6. The Blog
The blog was a very good development of digital technology, I had never used a blog before and it
was interesting to learn how to put images onto the blog by simply clicking on the image
symbol and how to upload a video onto the blog by clicking the video button. It was also
really simple to add hyperlinks and add in other software such as flicker and scribd. This
technology enabled us to view each other’s work and to work as a group more effectively. We
could edit our posts and also find out how many posts each member of our group had
created.