We used various media technologies at different stages of creating our documentary. In the planning stage, we used storyboarding and mind maps on paper to decide our topic and plan elements. For research, we used the internet including Wikipedia, news sites, and YouTube. After filming with video cameras and microphones, we edited footage in Final Cut Pro and Garage Band, adding music from iTunes. We exported stills and the finished documentary and radio trailer to our blog.

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

2. We used many technologies to create our
documentary. We began with the research and
planning element of the documentary. For this
stage we did not use many media technologies
as they were not needed as the methods we
used were successful. We used story boarding
and mind maps on paper to decide on a topic
and plan out what elements of the topic we
were going to investigate.

3. We then began to research our topic- Illegal Downloading music- using
the internet. We used Wikipedia to gain a basic knowledge of the
history of illegal downloading and then went onto using google to find
relevant and current information about our topic. New sites such as BBC
News, the Telegraph and Sky News were very helpful for articles and
seeing the latest cases of illegal downloading. On the BBC News website
there was really helpful information on finding the most downloaded
artists in any area in the country and we actually used a screen shot of
this in our documentary. We also used youtube to view these news
stories in a visual way.

4. After gaining all our topic knowledge and research we
then decided what channels to put our documentary
and radio trailer on. We decided on BBC Three and
BBC Radio 1 after researching on their websites how
many viewers and listeners they had per month.
Another factor that decided for us was that we
thought these channels would be most appropriate
for our relevant documentary. We used blogger.com
to add all this work to the blog

5. We began filming using a HD Video camera, a tripod,
head phones and a microphone. The tripod was used
so to gain steady cam shots and the rest to capture
the sound to a high level s. All the filming was done
using this equipment and we also used a SLR camera
to document us using this equipment and also us
putting things onto the blogs.

6. After shooting all our footage we used usb cables to transfer
it from the video cameras to the Macs. We then put it into a
programme called Final Cut. On this we were able to cut our
clips to what we wanted and create our documentary. We
used music that was preloaded onto iTunes for our backing
track and simply added it onto our documentary timeline. For
the voice over we recorded it using the camera and
microphone again and uploaded it onto Final Cut and we
simply removed the video from the sound and added it over
the appropriate parts in our documentary.

8. It was a similar process to create our radio trailer except for
this we used a programme called Garage Band. We decided
on a backing track (one similar to the one in our
documentary) from the preloaded ones on iTunes and then
added sound clips from our documentary by exporting it from
Final Cut to Garage Band to explain our documentary. We
recorded a separate voice over using the microphone and
camera again and exported the sound into Garage Band to
finish our radio trailer.

9. To create our double page spread we first exported stills of
clips from Final Cut and saved them onto a memory stick. We
then created a blank double page spread on InDesign and
created a layout using the blank boxes. Next we added text
and the images into the chosen places on the page and filled
the rest of the space with text. We then exported the finished
product as a jpeg and uploaded it onto our blog as a picture.
To add our documentary and radio trailer to our blog we had
to upload then as videos on youtube and embed them onto
the blog using the given code.