The document discusses how various media technologies were used at different stages of constructing a documentary. This includes: 1. Using a Sony camera and Manfrotto tripod to capture high-quality footage professionally. Software like Photoshop and Premiere were used to edit titles, remove reflections, and assemble the documentary. 2. Research involved using web browsers to find facts online and a YouTube converter plugin to download archive footage. 3. Planning relied on Microsoft Word to create a running order and timeline for production.

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

2. Construction

3. We used a number of different hardware and software during our research, planning and
evaluation stages. We did this to provide a professional feel to our documentary and make it as aesthetically
pleasing as possible.
Firstly in terms of hardware we used a Sony HXR-MC2000E, this is a professional level camera and provided use
with high quality 1080p footage, this granted us with top quality content to use for our documentary giving
a very pleasing and attractive image so it wasn’t too distracting and off putting for our audience.
These pictures above show the camera we used and next to it the 1080p HD footage it produced. We used
this media technology to construct our documentary and proved very beneficial because the professional
looking quality made our documentary look extremely pleasing to view and not off putting for the audience.
I am very pleased with the outcome of using this camera to provide us professional looking footage.

4. We also used a Manfrotto tripod to provide steady shots during our interviews. This eliminated
shaky shots and footage giving a very professional feel to our documentary this allowed our
footage to be very aesthetically pleasing and doesn’t make the audience feel uncomfortable
when they are viewing it. The image below shows an example of our steady shot, using the
tripod gave us the ability to perfectly match the eye level of the subjects being interviewed and
a spirit level allowed the shot to be lined up at the correct straight angle. This shows us using
media technologies to construct our documentary, once again it helped make the footage look
very professional and eliminated aspects such as shaky footage which often makes the audience
feel very uncomfortable and prevents the documentary looking amateur and tacky.
Using this tripod also allowed us to use various camera techniques such as: tracks and
pans this granted us with the ability to have a more dynamic and interesting
documentary, this is because it prevented all the footage from being static which could
lead to the viewers becoming bored. So by using this tripod it allowed us to construct
more creative and entertaining footage, keeping the audience engaged through the whole
piece.

5. 1 2 3
Above is an example of pan we used in our documentary, this is more creative and interesting type of footage and much more
engaging for the audience preventing the overuse of boring and static footage. Being able to pan using the tripod shows us using
different technologies to construct our work.
The tripod also allowed us to get interesting and voyeuristic shots.
This is because we could place the camera still on the tripod and
use the cameras zoom functionality, this means the shot was
steady but allowed us to zoom in closely on the band members
while they played their instruments. This created perfect close ups
that bring the audience closer to the action and make us feel really
connected to the bands instruments, almost as if they were
watching them live for themselves, this shows we used different
media technologies to construct our documentary footage and
granted us the ability to have energetic and lively shots. This
screenshot to the left shows the type of shots the tripod allowed
us to produce. We could set up the tripod in front of the persons
drum kit and then use the camera to create a really good zoom in
effect. This means we could get even closer to the instrument and
really feel its vibe and energy and then force the audience to feel it
as well. We could only get these types of shots because of using
the tripod and camera, otherwise the footage would have been
really shaky and off putting for the audience to watch.

6. We wanted high quality sound to match our high quality footage, as a result we used two different
microphones to provide us with the top quality we were aiming for. Firstly we used a boom microphone during
the band interview this allowed us to pick up every members voice clearly so the audience could hear every
part of the interview with absolute clarity.
We also used a clip microphone during the construction of our
documentary. Doing so granted a full balanced sound. It only
picked up our subject talking during the interview and
eliminated any background noise making the interview much
clearer. This shows we used different technologies to construct
our documentary.
This is a screenshot from our
interview showing our
interviewee was using a clip on
microphone during the
interview. We could only get
this perfect voice clarity from
using this clip microphone
because otherwise we would
have picked up interference
from the surroundings, this was
important especially when we
was in such a musical
environment where a number
of people were playing music
and instruments out loud.

7. Next in terms of construction we used a Dell XPS desktop to edit and construct
our work. This computer helped us to design and construct very pleasing and
professional looking work thanks to its editing and processing abilities. This piece
of technology is high grade and shows how we used different forms of
technology to construct our work, resulting in top quality.
On this PC we had several different forms of software. These allowed us to
construct and carry out research for our work. We was given the ability to
use high end editing software in the form of adobe Photoshop CS5 as well
as Premiere CS5. This shows us using different forms of technology to
construct our work, and because its such premium footage, even used by
professionals within the industry.
We mainly used Photoshop to create the title for our documentary. Firstly
we used a website to download the appropriate font for our documentary
which we then imported into Photoshop and edited the title by using
various tools such as the magic wand tool and the polygonal lasso tool, this
was to make the background transparent so that when we exported the
file as a .PNG we could use it in Premiere to overlap a shot from our
documentary and make the introduction and title sequence look much
aesthetically pleasing and professional. This picture to the right shows our
edited title using Photoshop proving we successfully used different
technologies to construct our work.

8. Adobe Photoshop CS5:
The picture to the left shows us editing a guitar to
make the background transparent so we can use it
as a plate to put names on during
interviews, Using Photoshop made it extremely
easy to do this. I used the polygonal lasso tool to
remove the background this tool allows me to
highlight the contrasting colours of the guitars
fret board and the white background with close
detail. This shows me using Photoshop to get a
professional level of editing and allows me to
remove background and make layers transparent
with ease.
This screenshot shows us editing and making
adjustments to the guitar. Here we are changing the
levels so the colour matched the one of the
documentary. So we had to make the guitar seem
slightly darker because originally it was too bright and
distracting which made it off putting to look at.
The other screen shot shows us editing and exporting the
title, for use in Premiere. This shows we used a number of
different technologies to construct our work.

9. Another part of the documentary constructed in Adobe
Photoshop was the title in the opening sequence of the
documentary. Once I chose a suitable good looking font from
the website DaFont I saved it and then exported it into
Photoshop. I now needed to remove the background and
make it transparent so I could export into premiere and
overlap footage. This would look very aesthetically pleasing as
the font looks more interesting and the shot looks more
dynamic because we will be able to see a crowd partying to a
band through the text.
This screenshot shows me using the magic wand tool to
select the white background. Once selected I could
simply remove the background from the layer. The
magic wand tool automatically recognises and highlights
all the parts of the layers with a similar colour to the
one I selected. This makes it very easy to highlight large
chunks of the layer and delete them. I could even select
the magic wand tool to be contiguous meaning white
parts surrounded by other colours, like the gap inside
the letter ‘D’ would also be highlighted and available to
delete.

10. I could also change the tolerance, of the magic wand
tool, this forces the tool to become more or less
tolerant when discovering and highlighting similar
colours. For this instance I had to increase the
tolerance because the ‘cuts’ and ‘slashes’ in the title
made it hard for the magic wand tool to detect certain
parts of the white background when contrasted with
black text.
This screenshot shows me using the blur tool. I
had to use this tool to blur certain parts of text
that the magic wand tool had made pixelated
and jagged. Using the blur tool allowed me to
make the text look more smooth and allowed me
to add a really fine edge to the whole font. This
made the title look easier on the eyes of the
audience and made it look far more professional.
This shows me using Photoshop to construct my
documentary.

11. This screenshot shows me adding effects to my title, I did this to
make the title look more smooth and interesting. This screenshot in
particular shows me adding a stroke to the font. This makes the
outline look smoother and when exported and overlapping a shot in
Premiere it will look less tacky and evident that the title once had a
background. I changed the opacity on the stroke to be more
transparent, this is because I didn't want the stroke to be to obvious
but instead I wanted it to simply add more smoothness to the outline
of the actual font. Adding this font was made effortless because of
Photoshop's simplicity, but overall makes the title look much more
professional.
This screenshot shows me exporting the title as a PNG so I could then
import into my project in Premiere. Because the file is PNG it allows the
background to remain transparent, this means the actual effect that I was
aiming to achieve by using Photoshop can be seen in the final
documentary.

12. Adobe Premiere CS5:
Adobe Premiere was also a very useful software and form
of technology which we used to construct our work, it
allowed us to edit all the footage we shot using the Sony
HXR-2000e, by bringing them all together under one
sequence and we used our running order which we made
using Microsoft Word, during the planning stages, to
correctly place the shots in order. This shows a number of
different technologies coming together from separate
stages of production, to help us plan and construct our
work.
Once our shots were in the correct order we had to edit
them using certain features and tools given in Adobe
Premiere, we had to fill left and right on some of our
footage to allow the audio be duplicated from one
channel to the opposite. We also added transitions to our
work which helped our work look much smoother and
professional.
This shows we used different technologies to produce our
documentary. The pictures below are evidence of us using
Adobe Premiere showing us importing our
footage, adding transitions and adding imported footage
to our timeline.

13. During the production of one of the documentary interviews the footage
unfortunately featured the camera and one of our production crew in the
reflection of MAC screen in the background. Because we wanted our footage
to look as good and professional as possible we didn't want to use this
footage. However because of Adobe Premiere editing capabilities we could
remove the reflection while keeping the shot looking normal and unedited.
This allowed us to still use the whole interview we recorded and saved us
time to spend on the rest of our production by not be forced to re-record it.
This screenshot shows us using Adobe Premiere and Photoshop to
remove the reflection from the screen. We took a screen grab in
Adobe Premiere then exported that shot into Photoshop to use
professional its editing capabilities. We cropped the screenshot so
that it didn't include the person being interviewed or else it would
have overlapped the moving footage when it was exported back into
Premiere.
This screenshot shows us editing the reflection by using the clone
stamp tool, this kept the look of the screen, so it didn't make the fix
look obvious, but allowed us to remove the reflection.

14. Once we had finished removing the reflection
from the screen we exported the file as a
PNG and imported it into Adobe Premiere.
Once in Premiere we dropped the PNG into
our documentary timeline. We made the PNG
overlap the whole interview, however
because the half in which the person is being
interviewed has been made transparent in
Photoshop we still see him moving. This is a
screenshot after all the editing and fixing
from the finished documentary. As shown the
screen looks in a normal pristine condition,
but the reflection of the camera has
disappeared. This shows us using different
media technologies
In Adobe Premiere we had access to a number of different
effects for our use during the production stages one of the
effects we used in Adobe Premiere was the fill left and right
effects. This allowed the sound to come through both speakers
which was obviously needed to increase the quality and
professionalism of the documentary. The effect followed the
same simplicity as the dip effect, meaning all I had to do was
drop the effect onto the footage I wanted to fill left or right on.

15. In Adobe Premiere there was a number of techniques I used
during the production of my documentary. The one I used the
most was the dip volume effect. This screenshot shows me using
the dip volume effect in my documentary. I had to use this effect
to reduce the volume of the sound bed in the background during
the interviews in my documentary so the people being interviewed
become more clear and easier to hear instead of having the music
playing over them. Using Adobe Premiere to do this made it very
simple because all I had to do was drop the effect onto my
documentary timeline at the part I wanted the effect then simply
lower the volume for the interview and back up for cutaways – I
did this using key frames on the project timeline.
When adding the title to the persons name for the interviews I
had to import the guitar I edited in Photoshop. I dropped this
PNG file into my project then forced it to overlap the
interviews. Then using Premiere again i added a text to show
the persons name to the audience. I then positioned this to
overlap the guitar fret board. This effect made it look as though
the name had been stamped onto the guitar making it look
very professional and pleasing to look at.

16. To make the documentary even more smooth and
professional looking I wanted to add transitions to the
piece. Depending on the editing effect I was going for I
used different types of transitions to give different
effects. I added a dip to black between the two shots in
my opening sequence, I did this to divide the opening
montage to the title sequence, this affect showed the
audience that the two are related but separate shots.
The primary transition I added to the documentary was a
cross fade. I did this because its the least evident type of
transition so it doesn't stand out too much which can put
off the audience, But it also adds a smoother transition
from one shot to another than a straight cut. This leads
to the documentary looking much smoother and
aesthetically pleasing. The cross fade was mainly used for
cutaways that overlapped interviews, this was to show
that the two shots were related and also creates a nicer
transition of the two shots than a simple jump cut would
do.
To create these cutaway effects in my documentary I had to create
new layers in my project timeline. Then I placed the footage, I
wanted to overlap the interview with, on the layer on top of the
one my interview was placed in. This way the sound from the
interview would still be there, so the audience can still hear the
person talking, however they will be able to witness the cutaway
footage instead of the one from the interview because it is being
overlapped. This allows my documentary to become more
dynamic and interesting and doesn’t force it to become repetitive
by making the audience only watch interview footage of
somebody just sat down and talking. This shows me using different
technologies to construct my product but also make it interesting
and aesthetically pleasing.

17. Research and Planning

18. Web browsers such as internet explorer and Firefox
proved very useful during the planning, research and
construction stages. Using these browsers allowed us
to search the internet for our research and
planning, this helped us find facts and statistics which
we could use in our documentary especially so we
could include them in the questions for our interviews
so we had buzzwords and recent data that our
interviewees could use in their answers. This shows
how we used the web browsers as a form of
technology to help us during the planning and
research stages.
Firefox allows the user to install different
plugins, we took advantage of this feature and
used a ‘YouTube converter’ plugin to download
archive footage from YouTube in high quality and
converted it into an MP4 format which could then
be imported into Premiere for use in our
documentary. This proved very beneficial and once
again shows how we used different technologies
during the production of our documentary.

19. We used several programs from Microsoft Office during the research and
planning stages of the documentaries production. This is more basic
software than those previously mentioned but was vital and proved very
beneficial for planning.
Word was useful and allowed is to create a running order during the
production stage, this was extremely important to the overall production
of the documentary because it essentially gave us a script and timeline to
work with during the filming and editing stages. This shows we used
technologies during the planning stages which turned out to be
exceptionally important to the overall production. Thanks to the simplicity
of Word it was easy to make a running order by merely making a table with
two columns, one for the shot description and the other for the running
time. This can be shown by the picture to the top right.
Next in the Microsoft Office package was Excel, this was a very useful
program to use during the research and planning stages because it
allowed us to analyse our data gathered from our market research
and put it in the form of tables and graphs. This again was simple
thanks to the technology used but proved very useful when including
statistics and facts into our documentary, including writing questions
to ask our interviewees because we could use the stats in simples
format and even show them the figures to use as prompts to the
questions. This shows how we used different forms of technologies
to plan and research for the production of our documentary. The
picture to the right is a screenshot of us using Excel to create a table
during the research and planning stages.

20. Evaluation

21. For the use evaluation stage I adopted the use of another Microsoft Office program in the form
of PowerPoint, this allowed me to create a presentation easily and show off technologies that I
have used during the research, planning and evaluation stages. Using PowerPoint allowed me to
effectively create a presentation using text and pictures to show examples of my work.
SlideShare was a very useful website during the evaluation stage because it granted the
ability for me to turn my presentation made in PowerPoint to one viewable via a web
browser, this meant I could share my evaluation work through my blog in the creative
form of a PowerPoint presentation. This shows me using a form of technology to conduct
and share my evaluation

22. Prezi was another website I used during the evaluation stage, this unique and creative
technology really helped me during this stage because it allowed me to share my
work in a really original way. It shows that I used several different forms of technology
to really give an inventive and artistic feel to my work especially in the evaluation
stage.
Blogger was another website and technology that I used during the evaluation stage, this allowed a
simple and quick way to share my work and evaluations under one page. Using this technology was
vital to my coursework but also proved beneficial during evaluation stage because it allowed me to
cross platforms like PowerPoints, Prezi, Slideshare and YouTube Videos. Doing so demonstrations
that I used numerous forms of technology during the evaluation stage.