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

2. Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro was the most essential program for the
construction of my main documentary production. This software
allowed me to implement every aspect of my film including the
video, the voice over and the editing/transitions/effects. This program allowed more
complex edit such as green screen effects whereby I could include any background I
wanted into certain scenes, allowing me to implement gate keeping into my film.
Overall this software was very good as it allowed me to create a much more
professional film, as it is a much more complex piece of editing software. However
the complexity of the software to things I had used in the past such as Windows
Movie Maker meant I had to spend a lot of time getting an understanding of the
software as I had never used it before and it was much more complex than what I
was used to. This did meant I had less time to create the film itself, but it was worth
it because I feel the end product is much better than it would be had I used another
piece of software.

3. Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop was a key piece of software throughout the whole
creation of my A2 portfolio. Much of the production process
required me to use images, which I could edit to my preferences
using this program. Many images were used in the main documentary needed
cropping down or having the colours on them changed, Photoshop was easy to use
and very accessible, meaning I could do so. The main piece I used Photoshop on was
the DPS for the Radio Times article. Photoshop allowed us to create essentially every
element of the DPS from the iconography to the masthead. I really enjoyed using
Photoshop at it allows me to experiment with the things I create and add special effects
to them which other software wouldn't allow me to. I was able to easily grasp using
Photoshop as I had previously used it in my AS work so I was able to immediately jump
in and create something that looked professional and I was happy with. All the codes and
conventions for the DPS were easy to implement because of this software, therefore the
whole process was made much easier.

4. Adobe Audition
One thing that needed to be perfect in my documentary was the
sound levels, otherwise the film would seem unprofessional and
would be hard to watch. To ensure that all the sounds for the clips
and voice overs were perfect I used Audition to adjust the sound levels to the level I
wanted them to be at. Audition was perfect for doing this as it is software based
around audio, and I could put all the clips to the same volume, so that the final film
did not sound bad.

5. Blogger
Blogger served as the framework where I collated all the work for my
research, planning and construction. Blogger allowed me to put all
the work into e clear chronological order and divide the work up between my group
members using tags for each post. I was well aware how to use Blogger from my AS
production and was able to embed things I created from third party programs and web
services such Prezi and YouTube into my posts. Blogger also allowed me to access all
the work me and my group had created from anywhere meaning I was able to make
progress whether we were on the Macs, PCs or I was at home.

6. Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word was used throughout all the research, planning and
evaluation stages for my A2 production. There were various things I
used it for such as evaluation questions, Voice over scripts and the DPS
article. As word is a very simple piece of software there wasn’t much
development from AS to A2 however I feel what I created on the
products was of a higher quality instead of how I used the software
itself. Word has a lot of benefits as it is very easy to use and is flexible
in various ways such as creating footnotes, paragraph formats and
drop capitals especially for the DPS article.

7. Prezi
Prezi is a piece of online presentation software that allowed me to create
complex displays throughout the whole of my production. For my research I
created posts about codes and convention of documentaries which would
help me later in my evaluation. For my evaluation itself for one of the
questions I created I was able to create a very complex presentation
something I had developed and improved upon since AS, as the Prezis I
created last year were very basic and not as well constructed. Prezi is good as
it allows me to create seamless presentation that run smooth and the user
can simply click an arrow to be navigated through the presentation. As it is an
online piece of software I was also able to embed videos and images from
websites such as YouTube for a more creative presentation. This was also
something that I never really implemented in AS and I should have as it is a
more creative way of using it and if I can make it look better then I will.

8. emaze
emaze is another piece of online presentation software which I used
throughout my coursework. Specifically I used it to present the questions
we would be giving to the experts we interviewed in the documentary. I
was able to present the question and then provide additional information
to why we would be asking these questions and the significance they had
in relation to the topic of mental health. emaze is good as it allows you to
be creative especially with the aesthetics of the presentations allowing to
create your own appearance or select presets from a series of already
made templates. Compared to my AS portfolio the emaze presentations I
created were much more coherent and I utilised the unique formatting
much more effectively.

9. Scribd
As we used Blogger all the work I did needed to be put on the blog. For my work I
used various different pieces of software so couldn’t simply copy what I wrote onto
the blog. Therefore I needed a way to be able to upload the documents such as word
and PowerPoint to be able to embed them on the blog. Scribd was perfect for this as I
could upload any type of document to it and then embed it on the blog very easily. I
utlilised Scribd much better this year as I didn’t just copy word documents over like
last year into the blog itself, using Scribd means it looks much neater and wasn’t
messed up by the formatting of paragraphs on the blog.

10. YouTube
We created various videos throughout A2 including production diaries, videos of setting
up interviews and also the documentary itself. Uploading all of these clips to YouTube
meant that we could access and use them from anywhere at anytime. YouTube is
simple and easy to use and it only took a few minutes to upload each video and is very
accessible, as we could view the clips without even signing in. Having the videos on
YouTube also meant that we could embed the clips on the blog which was useful as it
meant we could have all the work we had created in one place.

11. Apple Mac
The Apple Mac was what I used for the whole production process of my A2 work,
including the film, the radio advert and the DPS. This was because of the wide range
of software available on them including Premiere Pro, PhotoShop and GarageBand.
These were the three main pieces of software that I needed in creating the 3
products and was convenient that they were all on the Mac. However as I had
never used a Mac and they are quite different to PCs it was hard to get used to
which meant I wasn’t as productive as I would have been using a PC. However after
a few sessions I was able to get used to using the Mac. There were a few
disadvantages to using a Mac for example they are less accessible than a PC and do
not give the user as much freedom to manage files such as videos than you would
get using a PC.

12. Audio Recorder/
Data Stick
The audio recorders were hugely useful in the production process. They allowed us
to record the voice overs for both the radio advert and the documentary. The
voiceovers for these two parts of the production were a huge part of it meaning we
had to rely heavily on the audio recorders. An advantage of this piece of technology
that it was very easy to use and allowed me to quickly record audio and transfer it
onto the Mac when I was done. This software didn’t really have any disadvantages
and didn’t cause any issues.

13. Video Camera
The video camera was essential to the creation of my media
documentary, every shot in the film was recorded using one therefore
it was the most important piece of equipment I used. I was able to get
various shots such as opening pans, close ups, long shot, expert
interviews and VOX POPs. The camera was very useful and very
easy to use meaning I was always able to get the shot that I wanted. I
was also very easily able to move the footage I had taken over to the
Mac ready for editing. The camera I used specifically was good as it
was able to record archival footage while retaining decent video
quality, which was essential as archival footage played a big role in
the documentary

14. Tripod
The tripod simply allowed me to record from various heights,
record pans and also keep the angle of the shot level so it would
look good when being put in the documentary They were easy to
use and we could carry them around and use them in different
areas around the college and also in the town centre.

15. Garage Band
Garage Band was the software on the Mac I used to create the
Radio advert. Using this software was fairly straight forward and
I was familiar when using it as I had done so before in the
preliminary task at the end of AS. I was able to copy over sound
clips from the documentary itself linking the products and also
insert new voice over clips I had recorded myself. This software
is very good and allows you to manipulate sound files to cut out
the best bits and also adjust the audio levels to your needs.