1. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
Our initial media technologies we used were for the research and planning process.
For this process we used the internet, ILP to converse with teachers, the internet and
the blog to upload our research and planning material.
Internet
Although we had watched various documentaries in class, we used and
to get a further understanding and also watch documentaries which would be
specific to us as a group.
Above are two screenshots of
documentaries we watched in class but then watched again in our own time to make
notes of codes and conventions.
We used BBC iplayer to watch a documentary called mixed Britannia, which was
specific to our topic of integration on society.

2. We also needed facts and statistics of the population in England, as well as the
population of different races of people living in England, and we got this off
numerous websites on Google to check our accuracy.
As well as our previous knowledge of creating a magazine, from our as AS
coursework, we also used the internet to look at real double page spread articles to
note down familiar codes and conventions that we would use.

3. Blog
Our blog was an essential part of our coursework as it allowed us to share our
information we had gathered with our other group members. For example, a
documentary I had watched was then accessible to my peers and statistics they had
found were accessible to me. Another feature of the blog was that it enabled us to
embed YouTube videos straight onto it, and they could be watched on the blog
which meant that we did not have to go onto YouTube and look for a video.
We used our individual learning plans (ILP) to converse with teachers and ask them if
they would be willing to feature in our documentary.

4. After we had researched and planned, the next stage was the actual construction of
the documentary. All of our work was done on Apple Mac computers. We used these
as, they allowed us to use the relevant software, and it was also easy to upload our
footage from both the documentary and radio trailer. We used the Macs for all three
of our tasks.
To shoot our documentary we needed a camera, microphone, tripod, headphones
and a voice recorder.
• We used a Canon HD Video Recorder and it was a small
hand-held size which made it easier to get a variety of
shots. As well the shot variety we could also add special
effects from the camera.
• The Microphone plugged into the camera easily which meant that we did
not have to first record the visual side and then the audio. We had to
make sure that the microphone was out of sight so that it wasn’t visible in
the documentary.
• The tripod was used for formal interviews, as if we had used the hand-
held camera on its own; the clip would have been slightly shaky and
would not have looked professional.
• Headphones were used for the person who was recording on the camera,
so that they could hear the sound clearly, how it would be heard on the
documentary.
• For the narration we didn’t use a microphone, we used a voice recorder
which was then added to the documentary later.
Once we had gathered our footage we had to upload it onto the Macs. The software
we used to construct our documentary was called Final Cut Express. At the
beginning of the process we had a large amount of clips, but viewing them on Final
Cut Express allowed us to see which clips we wanted to use. We added effects such
as transitions, montage’s etc, adjusted sound levels and also added background
music with this software.

5. Music and sound levels, we
Footage and clips.
had two different sound
clips as well as the voice
over so that it would not
Viewer
sound monotonous.
After we had completed our documentary it was time to construct the radio trailer.
The software we used for this was called ‘Garage Band’. Garage band was similar to
Final Cut Express, as most of the controls were the same, except it was slightly easier
as there were no visual clips. Another feature of Garage Band was that we were able
to find the same background music we had found without transferring it from Final
Cut Express. Again we used the same voice recorder for the narration and voice over.
The final task was the construction of the magazine. As I have mentioned before, we
were lucky to have knowledge on this subject from our AS coursework. We used
Adobe Photoshop, to edit our images and also add text onto pictures.

6. The majority of the work for the
magazine was done on Adobe In Design. It was easier to use than Photoshop and it
was the most appropriate software to use for text. We arranged the pictures with
the text in a way that would make it look real, and resemble a real double page
spread article.
There were numerous different effects on this software and these are just a few that
we used. To add our Photoshop images, we had to click ‘File’, ‘Place’ and then click
on the image and place it into this box so that it would not ruin the rest of the
article.

7. There were many features on InDesign, including the ‘drop shadow’ effect where
you could adjust the shadow to be smaller or bigger.
If we wanted to make all of the text appear
in upper case or lower case,
we didn’t have to type it out
again, we simply clicked one of these buttons.
Here is a screenshot of the different swatches we used.