Katie Line

Media Evaluation Question One; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Since the beginning of the A2 course I have watched many documentaries in preparation for creating our own. They can all be very different, however will use many of the same conventions as each other. I spent a lot of time analysing documentaries such as Supersize Me, Airline and A Good Smack. Many of the conventions that I picked up from these were the uses of Camera. This included the shot types such as Close ups, Medium Close ups, Establishing Shots/Long shots and Extreme Close ups. In Airline the most commonly used shot was the medium close up, which we then used a lot in our documentary to get a good look at peoples expressions and how they feel towards the situation. We used handheld camera a lot in our documentary to make the viewer feel as though they are there, and get a feel for what is going on. This was used a lot in Supersize Me and we found that it was very effective for our documentary. The other type of use of the camera, is by using a Tripod. We used this on various occasions such as establishing shots of the college, for showing college equipment such as computers, classrooms, and of students walking in and out of college. The tripod meant that we could have various steady shots, and use skills that we know such as Pan, Tracking and Zooming, in a professional way. The main use of the tripod was for expert interviews, which enabled us to set up the camera in a professional manner; Supersize Me Our Documentary

A main convention used when interviewing experts, is using the rule of thirds to set up the screen. The interviewee should be looking out into an empty space which we have done here, and positioned a third of the way in, with their eye level at a third of the way down.

Sound is another important part of television documentaries, and this included Background Music, Voiceover, Presenter, Diagetic and Non-Diagetic sound. Super Size Me used a presenter in their documentary, as well as a voiceover. This worked very effectively and makes the documentary feel much more personal with the audience, however we found that for our documentary being more informative and based at a college, we did not need to use a presenter, so had just a voiceover. This is what the documentary Airline uses, as they have a narrator to tell the viewers what is going on, and guide them through the documentary.

This is part of our script that we recorded using the Microphone and Headphones and put into Final Cut Express.

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Background music was something that we used in our documentaries just like all others we had looked at. The background music had to be simple and and not overpowering of the voiceover/sound from the documentary. We looked at simple sounds such as those used in Super Size Me, however a lot of their music included copyrighted songs such as Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen. In Airline they didnt use so much music, just the theme song that is used at the beginning and end of the documentary. Again this was copyrighted music, and for our documentary we needed something that wasnt. We used GarageBand for our background music so that we had simple beats, like those used in real documentaries.

The music worked effectively for using real media conventions, however the music that we chose, was slightly more overpowering that the script, and didnt feel like a background noise. This is something that we would certainly improve to match the conventions of a real television documentary.

We then imported our track as an MP3 into Final Cut Express so that we had a beat running throughout our documentary.

Research; the research into the topic is very important to a documentary, especially if it is to inform the audience. In Airline their research is first hand and primary, no facts/ statistics, but upfront with the customers and their views/opinions. However, in Super Size Me it is filled with first and second hand research. The beginning of the documentary is very informative, and filled with so many facts said by the voiceover. We used this in our documentary and filled our opening with statistics.

Our documentary. We used facts on our documentary, throughout the opening five minutes, and found that the large numbers worked well coming up on the screen in large text.

Super Size Me statistics in the first five minutes of the documentary.

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Special Effects are used several times throughout the documentary Super Size Me, they work very effectively, a lot done with special graphical effects, and some done with the camera. We used a few effects in ours on the camera such as changing the focus and zooming. However, when we came to edit the documentary, we looked at real documentaries on ideas of how to edit our footage to make them effective. One of these was changing the speed of our clips. We sped up students walking in and out of college, to emphasise the amount of students that there are, and how many people are effected by job unemployment, university increases, EMA cuts etc. This is how the same effect is used in Super Size Me uses the effect when they are emphasising the amount of people that go in and out of McDonalds every single day.

Super Size Me

How we changed the speed on Final Cut Express

Still clip from our documentary on Student Finance, we sped up the shot for the purpose of showing the amount of people that go to college.

Magazine Article This was our final magazine double page spread, which we produced for the magazine Radio Times. We looked at various magazines first, to get an idea of the conventions that they use and how effective they are. Magazines range so much from TV mag to Radio Times, but each with similar conventions. As our documentary was based on a serious topic, we kept the layout very simple and straight to the point.

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Magazine articles for television documentaries almost always have a more than picture. These tend to be shots from the documentary, showing still clips of people that are involved. We put in a still clip from our documentary, of an expert we have interviewed, showing the readers who they can expect to hear from.
Captions are always used with the images, to explain what is going on in the photo, or who the person involved is.

Images from Radio Times with captions.

The Masthead is the headline/title of the page, and is always used in magazines/newspapers. Magazine articles for television articles are sometime headlines based on characters/puns/ plotlines, but sometime the title of the program, especially when it is a one off documentary/series.

A Drop Cap is nearly always used in magazine articles at the beginning of the text. I used this in my article to make it look professional.

A Pull Quote is a clip of the article showing something that may interest or pull in the reader to the article. In this case we used an interesting/shocking fact. Many magazines use pull quotes as a way of grabbing the readers attention. Example of a pull quote from a magazine article

Articles are always written in 2 or 3 columns, which is why we have used columns in our article for talking about our television documentary.

The date, time, channel and name of the program is often here on an article. We liked the way that this was laid out, and therefore used it in our article, to make it clear when they program was on.

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Radio Trailer For our radio trailer, we listened to lots of real ones to get an idea of the conventions that they use and what makes them effective. We have listened to radio trailers off radio five, bbc one, capital radio, and different radio stations that play advertisements. As our radio trailer is for capital radio, it needed to be something to appeal to the audience, and reach out to young people/students.
We filled in sheets to analyse radio trailers, including the the music, target audience, tone of voice, effects, sound levels, length etc.

We used rhetorical questions in our trailer to include the listener, such as Worried about going to university? Or where to go next? these are personal questions that the listener may think they really want to find out more. It puts them in the situation, and We created our Radio Trailer on Garage Band if what they are saying appeals to them, then this documentary could be of some interest to them. Even though the documentary is on a serious topic, it is for a younger generation who could get bored easily. Therefore we added a good beat to the background, and had an enthusiastic voiceover reading the script. This pulls the listener in and catches their initial attention. The time, date and channel of the documentary is something that all radio trailers will have in them, to make sure the reader knows when it is going to be on. We added this to the end of our documentary, by saying 8pm Tuesday, on Channel 4, followed by dont be late! this added something associated with the documentary to the end, and was then followed by the sound of the college bell. Most of the radio trailers that we listened to were around 20 to 40 seconds long, as they dont go on too long, yet are long enough to get their point across. We made ours about 33 seconds long, as this was long enough to say what we needed to say to sell our documentary. We also used clips from our documentary, including something a student says, and some shocking facts from the voiceover. We used ambient sound such students talking, and the general background noise at college between clips, to keep it fast pace and realistic. Our documentary overall Our documentary used many elements from real documentaries, such as fly on the wall where the camera is filming students at college, as if the camera isn't really there. It is part of a series which is common for documentaries, as it keeps the viewer watching each week. We used a narrative structure, which meant that we started with a problem and then went on to discussing the facts. If we had finished the documentary, then this would have gone onto how to solve the problem, and a summary. As we made the opening, this was just to hook readers in to see more.

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Our documentary used the enigmatic code, as it was filled with questions, but there is no solution/answer at the end of it. It meant that we could leave this open for discussion and be something that the viewer can question themselves on. This is common in television documentaries, as they often will be on a topic that there is no answer to, and a problem that many people may face. The documentary is informative, and to give the viewer lots of facts that they do not already know, and possibly help them with their options. The tone is serious and pessimistic, as it is on a situation that we have portrayed as negative and very difficult. This is because negative situations are often what someone will be interested in. We stuck to the main conventions of a television documentary however the only part that we challenged was the use of our transitions. The most common cut in a documentary is the straight cut, and is used far more than any other. We did use the straight cut a lot, however we put in transitions such as cross dissolve and non additive dissolve, as we found that it put our clips together effectively and looked effective and appealing to the viewer.

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Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? With our television documentary we created a magazine article and radio trailer. As these two products were to sell and advertise the documentary to our target audience we needed to make sure that they work well together. Our target audience Our target viewer for the documentary is teenagers/young adults that are going through education/ looking for a job. Narrowing this down, the main audience is those leaving college and are unsure whether university is the right option, but if not, how can they get a job? It appeals to both males and females and is a problem right at the top of students minds. It will be aimed at people from a working to middle class family, as they may be able to possibly pay the fees, but it is still a large sum of money. Under the different demographics that society statistically splits characteristics, there are a few that we can define our target audience under. There is no specific race, religion or disability that our documentary is aimed at, and in terms of gender we are aiming at both. The age range is particularly 16-19 year olds, however this can range further to those in their early twenties, where they may be leaving education and needing a job. Location is another aspect, where we can appeal more to hose that live in high unemployment areas, such as Birmingham, where our documentary is based. Pyschographic profiles define people in their lifestyle characteristics, including aspirers, strugglers, resigned and explorers. This was created by the advertising agency, Young and Rudical, called the Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization. In terms of our documentarys target audience, we have focused particularly on the succeeder and the mainstreamer. The succeeder is someone that has goals, wants to do well in their life, and in the case of students, pass their grades and go on to higher education/a successful job. This also links in briefly with the aspirer, who in this case, isn't materialistically aspiring, but aspiring to be someone in a few years time. The aspirer tends to be a younger person, which our audience aims at. Another pyschographic profile that we are aiming our documentary at is the mainstreamer. Someone who is passive, habitual, domestic, and part of the mass group of the population. Someone that wants an ordinary lifestyle, to find their best route for the future, and not end up with any money issues. Judging how each of our products appeals to the target audience shows whether they are combined together effectively. The Radio trailer and the magazine article both back up the documentary by using clips from it. Radio Trailer In the radio trailer we used clips from the documentary such as a student talking, the background noise, the bell from the opening of the documentary and facts from the narrator. Each of these are aspects that the viewer is able to recognise in both the documentary and the radio trailer, and they then combine well together. We also used a similar beat from the documentary in our radio trailer, and the enthusiastic radio voiceover appeals to a young audience. I think that the radio trailer sells the documentary, and tells students what they can definitely expect to hear from it. It is for Capital Radio, and therefore will be reaching the right target audience for the the documentary on Channel 4.

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Capital Radio has a listening figure of 7,079,000, in which each of these listeners on average will tune in for 6.5 hours a week. As Capital Radio reaches out to a lot of people, it is a suitable radio station to put our radio trailer on, as the more people, the more viewers.
Capitals target audience of 15-34 year olds are big fans of popular music, they are media savvy and are on trend. Capital gives them social currency which they use to fit in with their friends. They live on their mobile phone and life is just a text, tweet or status update away. - Target Audience from thisisglobalradio in cooperation with RAJAR.

Their main listener group is between the age of 15 and 24, which is our main target age range.

The social class is very similar in figures, and as ours is aimed at around a B,C1,C2, this is suitable for our target listener.

Capital FM radio also reaches out to people all over the country as shown on the right hand side. It especially will reach those in main cities, such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, etc. This is helpful, as it will advertise for the documentary that needs to reach all sorts of students all over the country. In big cities such as Birmingham especially, is where our early research showed low unemployment, and as the map shows, there is FM and digital coverage, and this may attract a lot of the listeners. This fits in very well with our documentary, and the radio station has the same target audience as Channel 4. The elements that we put in our radio trailer, such as the documentary clips, voiceover, background beat and ambient sound all help back up the documentary and combine them both very well together. Magazine Article We used a still shot from our television documentary in our tv listings page so that they link very well together. We used the shot of our expert interview to show the viewer someone that they can expect to hear from in the documentary. This linked the documentary well with the magazine article as it directly showed something that the audience will see when they watch it.

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However, the magazine article is what doesnt appeal to the target audience anywhere near as much as the radio trailer. The magazine article has a professional finish for a serious topic, however this caused us a few problems. As the colourful TV mag style article looked tacky and unprofessional, we used a simple layout that you would expect from the radio times, and something that would be based on a serious topic, which is what we had chose. However, as our target audience is a young 16-19 year old area, it needed to be far more colourful, exciting and eye catching for the reader. The dark background and lack of images meant that we were unable to make someone of a young age group want to see the documentary at a first glance, yet it worked for the topic that our documentary was on. We chose Radio Times, and even though they are genuinely appealing to an older audience than ours, they still have a readership of 2,280,000. Although 579,000 readers are in a younger age group (15-44 year olds). Even though the readership for young people is not as much, the circulation will be less as this is the amount of copies that are sold. The readership is the amount that it is read and passed around, for example someone aged around 45-50 may buy the Radio Times, and their teenage/student daughter/son is likely to read something that they have at home. On average between 2003 and 2010, each copy of the Radio Times has 2.3-2.9 readers. Radio Times includes many different articles, ranging from those aimed at BBC 2 viewers, to a younger audience watching Channel 4/BBC three. As there are pages for all different age groups, and ours is based on a serious topic, Radio Times is still appropriate for our documentary. However, this is what I feel let us down the most in terms of the combinations between our documentary and ancillary tasks.

Final Cut Express, InDesign and GarageBand. The three main programs we used for the production of our project.

Katie Line

Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback? In the research and planning stages of our documentary production, we used questionnaires to find out information about our target audience and what they want to see in a television documentary about student finance. We asked males and females aged between 16 and 18 years old, our target audience. From this we found out that nearly all of those asked only rarely to often watched documentaries, and that over 50% were not kept up to date with the latest student finance news. We also found out the main conventions that they want to see, such as expert interviews, facts, music, a voiceover, and we put as much of this as possible into our documentary. Following on from this, we decided that using questionnaires would be the most suitable way of gaining feedback from our documentary, radio trailer and magazine article. Television Documentary We asked our sample of students what they thought about the sound levels in the documentary. This was very split, and a lot of people thought that there were problems. We ask if there were any problems, what were they. Students stated that the music was too loud throughout, and that the interviews were too loud towards the end. This is something we would need to change if we were to improve our documentary.
Was the music suitable? Were there any problems with the sound levels?

8 6 4 2 0 Yes No

8 6 4 2 0 Yes No

We then also asked whether the music was suitable and again there were very split answers, as the music was very repetitive and could become slightly annoying throughout the documentary. The beat was very fast and quite loud, whereas we needed something a lot calmer, and much quieter in the background.
How would you rate the documentary?

Every person we asked answered that the transitions/effects worked well, that the documentary interested them, and that the documentary was informative of things that they did not already know. When we asked for how they would overall rate our documentary, the majority said good with 67% and a further 25% rated it excellent. With 8% saying it was fair, we are basing this on the soundlevels/choice of music, as it was what let us down most in the documentary, according to our audience feedback.

25% 8%

67%
Poor Fair Good Excellent

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Radio Trailer We asked various questions about our radio trailer to find out what people though of it. I was very pleased with the results that we gained from our radio trailer feedback.
Is the purpose clear? Is the music appropriate? Does it keep your interest?

12 9 6 3 0 Yes No Yes No

12 9 6 3 0 Yes

12 9 6 3 0 No

These results were great from our feedback, as everything we had done in the radio trailer seemed to have worked and appealed to our target listener. We also asked if the order of the clips and voiceover work well together, and this again was answered with 100% yes. Feedback on the trailer included The trailer would make me want to watch, it felt personal and sounded like something I would want to watch on TV and The music and clips are put well together.
How would you rate the radio trailer?

We then asked for an overall rating again of the radio as we did before with the television documentary, and these were the results. The feedback was very positive on the radio trailer, and i feel that we put the music together well, with suitable clips and a good voiceover. The feedback shows us that it was the right length for a trailer, and that the music and clips were balanced together nicely.

58%

42%
Poor Fair Good Excellent

Magazine Article Does it grab your attention? The first question that we asked was based on first impressions, is it noticeable? Does it grab the readers attention? The majority of those asked answered yes, however not everybodys attention was caught by a first glance at the article. To find out more on why not, we asked more questions in the questionnaire to see what worked well and what didnt work so well for the reader.

8 6 4 2 0

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Does the layout look good?

Was the article relevant?

10.0 7.5 5.0 2.5 0 Yes No Yes

10.0 7.5 5.0 2.5 0 No

When asked if the layout looks good, and whether the article was relevant or not we had very good feedback, in that everyone asked answered yes. We were very pleased with this result, and glad that these two appealed to the target reader. We then asked if there was enough imagery in our article, and as the results show on the right, 40% said that there wasnt. This is what let us down most on the article, as it was not eye catching enough. If we were to improve the double page spread, we would need far more colour and imagery to really meet the target reader of the documentary. General feedback about the article was good, and that it looked professional and the images worked well, however it needed to appeal to a slightly younger age to pull in the viewers of those who would be interested. This would also be helped if we had chosen a more appropriate magazine, such as TV times or TV mag, for a younger audience.
How would you rate the article?

Is there enough imagery?

6.0 4.5 3.0 1.5 0 Yes No

20%

10%

This is a result that we were still very pleased with, and we also gained very good and critical feedback from our questionnaire. We know the improvements that we would make to the article, and this would ensure that it would appeal to the target audience.

The audience that we asked were all aged between 17 and 18 years old, and leaving college this year. We asked in our questionnaire about them personally, with 40% employed and 60% unemployed. There was 30% of the Poor group wanting to attend university next year as well. We Fair asked for these results to see the sort of sample we were Good asking, and if it was suitable to them to watch this 70% Excellent documentary on student finance. We finally asked if Gaining audience feedback was very crucial the audience thought that the three products worked to finding out how well we did. Particularly well together, and from this we gained positive results, in that everyone thought that they did. We also put on because we could ask our target audience for the documentary. We learnt a lot overall our questionnaire for a rating for 1-5 with 5 being the highest. 80% of those asked gave it a 4, which was a about how the music should be improved result we were very pleased with. on the documentary, and the imagery on the magazine article.

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Question Four: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Research and Planning The research and planning of our television documentary was very important to the production of it. A lot of the planning that we did was not using media technologies, but was done by hand and on paper. For example, we created mind maps filled with ideas, and storyboards for planning our first shots of the opening. These were very successful for our planning but we did not use technologies for these. In the research stage of our documentary, we used Our storyboards various news sites for research the topics that we were looking at. As we were looking at student finance, we researched into university fees and unemployment. As our documentary needed to be very up to date, we looked at news sites for the latest news on these situations, and so to do this we used websites on Internet Explorer such as the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph.

By using sites such as those above, we were able to research into our topic and find statistics/facts that we could use in our documentary. As well as carrying out this research, we needed to do research into the Channel that we were going to air our documentary on. The channel research included looking at the websites of BBC three, BBC one, Channel 4, etc. We looked on their websites, and went onto their values, their documentaries, and looked at the audience that they appealed to the most. The websites helped up find out what was most suitable, then we came to the decision on Channel 4. We needed to do research into similar documentaries to ensure that we got the right channel for our documentary, and so that we could follow similar conventions that they use. For this we used online programs such as iPlayer and 40D to see documentaries from the BBC and Channel 4. We also used YouTube to look at documentaries that may no longer be available on channels websites. All of the research that we constructed in this stage, we uploaded to our own group blog, on blogger.com, this is where we were developing our project and shows our journey from the very beginning. This technology was very useful for us as a group, as it meant we could put all of our ideas together, and come back to the research/statistics we needed when writing our script at a later stage in the project.
We were able to publish posts or keep them saved as drafts before they were finished. Blogger also allows us to embed videos, add text and import photos into our posts.

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Filming After we had done all of our research and planning (which we carried on throughout the next stage), we started on the filming, based upon our storyboards and planning. We used a Canon HG20 HD Camera to film all of our footage. It An out of focus shot was very useful, and meant that we could take still shots as well as taken on the camera video footage. The camera was easy to use, and we were able to use the zoom tool, to zoom in and out on the top of the camera. We also learnt how to change the focus, giving us effects that went in and out of focus. We changed the white balance on the camera, which gave us a much more natural lighting, and looked a lot better when we uploaded it to the mac. As well as being able to use the camera for filming, we used it to take still shots of posters in particular, for our quick part in the documentary. This was successful once we learnt how to change the flash so that it didnt reflect back. As the camera was very light and easy to hold onto, we did a lot of handheld camera shots, but for professional shots we used a tripod. This was very useful when we came to filming our voxpops and expert interviews. The was sometimes difficult to get a flat surface and make sure that it was straight, but on the whole was reasonably easy to use throughout the filming. The tripod meant that we could do steady pan shots, and zoom in and out easily without the camera shaking. This looked very professional and helped our filming a lot. As well as using the camera and the tripod for filming the clips that we wanted, we also needed to use equipment for recording the sound. We used a directional microphone for recording the sound of our voxpops, script and interviews, and these were very successful in our filming. We had to plug in headphones to the camera as well, as we needed to check that the soundlevel was successful, with no background noise being picked up if it wasnt necessary. When it came to recording our script and radio trailer, we used a quiet empty room, to enable us from picking up any background noise. Editing When we had finished all of our filming, we uploaded all of the clips from our camera onto the Apple iMac. This was simple and easy to do, as all we had to do was copy the files over to our media drive. With all of the clips that we had used, we opened up the editing program Final Cut Express. This is the software on the Apple iMac that we used to edit our whole documentary. The first stage of this was log and transferring all of the clips that we wanted to be possible for our documentary and be ready to edit straight away.

We added each day of our filming, then chose each clip individually and renamed everything we could possibly use. Then we added the whole selection to the queue, and this copied into our final cut express document.

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All of our clips were now imported into Final Cut Express and ready for editing. We labelled all of our clips so that we knew what was what, and could find the right version easily each time. Once all of our clips had been Log and Transferred, we had all of the A small selection of our footage footage and sound in our documentary to edit.

Window for viewing our documentary

Our unedited footage Time Visual Footage

Editing tools

Audio Clips

We tried lots of different edits throughout this stage of our documentary, and decided to overlap to clips. We had a shot of money being thrown, and a shot of coins dropping. By putting one in one line and the other in another line, we went onto the Modify option, and went down to Composite Mode. From this we clicked Darken on one of the clips, so that they overlapped each other. We found that this was very effective however we wanted to try a lot more. We changed the speed on the clips, by slowing it completely down to about 50% slower. We also chose to reverse the clip, so that it gave off the effect of money being taken away from students. To do this we went onto Modify and then down to Speed.... Underneath where we changed the speed, it gave us the option to reverse the clip that we had selected.

The two clips that we overlapped using the Modify tool.

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Changing the speed on our clips was very successful, and so we used it again to increase the speed. We did this on our opening clips of students walking into college, and again on the very slow steady pan shots that we had taken. The speed was very to adjust, as we had to change the percentage to work out what sort of speed we wanted it to be. This ranged on clips with some at 150% to another at 600%, depending on the affect we were trying to achieve. We had problems with the audio levels on a particular clips, which was one of our voxpops. Whenever the person asking the script spoke it was very loud, and there were some parts that we wanted to cut out. To do this, we used the razor blade tool to cut in clips, so that we could adjust parts separately.

Cuts within the clip

Sound Levels

Razor Blade Tool

The soundlevels were reasonably easy to change on the audio levels, and often varied a lot like the example on the left. To change these, we dragged the pink line up and down until it was balanced. For some clips it was much easier to be able to physically change the sound and move it exactly how we wanted it. For example, fading music in and out. We did this in our opening clip, to fade the sound of the bell out. The was very effective for our opening credits, as the sound faed out as the voiceover came in. We added text to our documentary, such as when we added the expert interviewees names to the left hand corner of the screen. It was easy to add text to the clips, and we decided to use this on the clips where we read out facts. We used the typewriter effect on the text, as the numbers came up over the footage. We also changed the size and colour of the text, so that it was interesting and stood out from our background.
Text Overlay

This is the typewriter effect added onto our text over the clips that we are using. We can see and arrange when we want the text to start, and by shortening the clip made the text appear at a faster speed.

The text appeared along the screen one character at a time. We made the speed of this fit the time that the voiceover said the exact words.

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Another skill that we developed whilst using Final Cut Express, was the use of transitions. We used the straight cut mostly throughout our documentary, as this is the most commonly used in real documentaries. However, we used them for our opening to be more visually appealing to our target audience. We used various transitions under Dissolve, as we feel these looked most appropriate and put our clips together effectively. The transitions were easy to use, as we placed them over the beginning/end of clips on the timeline, next to any visual footage that we wanted to transition together.

The Cross Dissolve was used when we faded a shot in during an interview, it went together slowly and wasnt a dramatic change.

We also used the Non-Additive Dissolve in the beginning of our opening sequence, when combining quick shots together from one to another. We used the wireframe shown in the canvas, to position our clips, so that we could get rid of any unwanted edges, or zoom in to a certain part that we wanted. This was very useful for positioning our interviewees, as it meant we could get the rule of thirds perfectly positioned.

This space is where we previewed our raw unedited clips before adding them to the timeline.

Canvas for viewing our documentary.

Once we had finished adding all of the clips, transitions, effects and visual footage, we needed to add the sound. To do this we firstly put our voiceover (recorded on the camera, using the microphone and headphones) into the documentary, which we had separated in 7 parts, ready to put in at the right point.
Audio of our voiceover.

Using the music mixing programme Garage Band, we created a backing track of simple beats for our documentary. We made a five minute long track, from the sounds Chordal Synth and then exported the track as an mp3. We then opened this into Final Cut Express and dragged it into our audio timeline.
Our Garage Band track imported onto Final Cut Express.

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Radio Trailer For our Radio Trailer, we completed it in Final Cut Express. We created the backing track for it in GarageBand and this was very successful. We used a simple beat, by dragging the sound into the line, and then saving it as our track. We exported this again as an mp3 track and added it to GarageBand. It was simple to use and we could look at the different types of sound such as cheerful, urban, electronic, etc. And then also the different instruments, such as drums, synths, guitar, etc. The program was easy to grasp, and worked well for a non copyright music track.
To repeat a certain track we dragged the edge of the track and stretched it as long as we wanted it to last. This was easy to do, and GarageBand successfully makes it flow together.

The controls were simple, and enabled us to play, stop, start, fast forward and remind our music.

We set our measure to time, so that we could see how long our track was. We made our music 32 seconds long, as our trailer aimed to be this length.

GarageBand was a very simple and easy program to use, and enabled us to produce the perfect tracks for our piece. It was simple and we were able to find the type of music we wanted, with plenty of choice to do this. The Radio Trailer was very simple to create, as we had gained these skills required during the production of the television documentary. We added clips from our documentary, such as two facts from the voiceover, a student speaking, and the bell ringing at the very end. We put this with the backing track and our recorded voiceover, and put the them on different layers in Final Cut Express. We then exported the file, and it was ready to play as an mp3.

Different sounds that we had to choose from, and narrow down our selection of music by the instrument/mood.

As we created the trailer in Final Cut Express, adjusting the sound levels was the same as before, and we carried on using the skills that we had already developed. This time the sound levels were far more interesting, as they overlapped each other and changed audio level to catch and interest the listener.

Katie Line

Magazine Article To produce our magazine article we used the program Adobe InDesign. This allowed us to create our double page spread, in which we added our article created on Microsoft Word. To create our double page, we started off with a black to white gradient background, keeping the colour scheme very simple, yet in the style of the Radio Times. We used the column tool to split the page into four colours, in which we filled this with placeholder text until the article was finished. This meant I could move the images and create the layout without needing my own text. As the article needed our own images, I took a selection of photos of notes and coins placed on a white background. These were the photos that I then uploaded back onto the computer to use:

These are the photographs that we took for our documentary as thumbnails which we then decided on which was most suitable for the spread.

Once I had chosen the image, looking back at the photo I could see that the white background had come out very yellow on the camera, and that this needed to be edited. I did this on Adobe PhotoShop. I began by using the polygonal lasso tool to cut around the edge of the money, so that there was no longer a yellow background. This then left us with a cut out of the money that we could edit from there. I started off by clicking Auto Levels and Auto Contrast which firstly adjusted the light and colouring of the photo. I then adjusted the opacity of the photograph so that it wasnt so dark when put into InDesign. I changed the opacity to 86% and this looked much better than the original photo.

Changing the opacity was very easy, and we found that it made the image look far better. As it was going onto a white background on our article it needed to be quite light so that it all flows together effectively.

The polygonal lasso tool was very good to use as we could then deleted all of the unwanted background. However, it took a lot of patience and a very steady hand to ensure that we did not cut any of the money out, or leave any of the background in. The cut had to be completely accurate, but this worked and was very successful.

Katie Line

Once the image was ready on photoshop, we placed it into InDesign so that it could be then further adjusted and edited. This is how images are added to InDesign documents, and can then be cropped or resized. The image looked good on the white part of the background, but to make it flow more with the article we changed the gradient in the effects.

Firstly we added a Drop Shadow to the image, so that it looked realistic with a shadow underneath the money.

Then to change the gradient of the image, we used Gradient Feather to slowly turn the picture to white. We made this at a linear angle so that it went from one direction to the other,instead of the gradient changing towards the centre. We had to adjust the angle so that it faded out into the white page from the corner so we put this at -99 degrees. Adjusting the angle of the image so that the notes fitted as a right angle in the border of the page corner.

In the beginning of our article we used a DropCap to make it look far more professional. We were able to change the percentage of the size of the first letter, so that it could be whatever size found most suitable. We put ours as 92% and it worked well. Around the edge of our page we created a border by using a line that we made 4pt and then added a drop shadow effect to it.
This added a nice effect to the border, and made the page look more professional again. This went well with the black and white background and flowed together well.