1. Alex Lyndon
Evaluation
1. In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
Our media documentary was produced through the ideas of us all and the knowledge that
we all individually had about media conventions and the use of software. With all of the
media knowledge we had, we managed to produce a 5 minute documentary on the
‘stereotypes of youths’ named “Running Riot”. To show the professional documentary that
we all wanted to produce, we focused on getting all the correct elements into the short
documentary with use of different shots and effects.
Before starting our documentary we had to decide what codes and conventions will be
used. For our documentary we wanted a cinema verite style, more than a direct cinema
style. Cinema verite suited the documentary better as we wanted to add in interviews and
other documentary conventions, and the direct cinema style meant that they couldn’t be
included, therefore cinema verite was much more of a suitable style. Another reason that
we wanted a cinema verite style documentary is because it is about combining natural
techniques with editing and camerawork, which is what we wanted and needed to do for
our documentary to be professional.
We also had to decide what mode our documentary was going to have. The American
documentary theorist Bill Nichols identified six different documentary modes. From the 6 of
the styles we knew that an expositional mode was present as it includes using actual
information and opinions by the interviewees. We definitely wanted the opinions of
interviewees about the topic of our documentary which was stereotyping of teenagers.
Narration is part of the expositional mode, which we was going to add into or documentary.
After completing the documentary I thought that a bit of the performative mode was
present. This is because we offered the interviewees the chance to air their opinions and
experiences, which is what the performative mode of a documentary would allow you to do.
Our documentary was not observational as it has bylaws such as no music, narration, no
interviews. This is exactly the opposite of what we wanted therefore it wouldn’t have
worked. It was not linked to the participatory mode either as we stayed behind the camera
and not in the film. It also converts a certain message when the presenter is filmed and
that’s was not what our documentary was about. Our documentary was definitely not linked
to the reflexive or poetic mode either.
The genre was a slightly realist documentary, out of being subjective, realistic and a
formalist documentary. It was more so realistic as we had interviews and opinions from a
range of people, therefore making the documentary more subjective than objective as we
had more opinions than facts. The category tone, I think was serious and uncritical. It was
serious as stereotyping is an issue. We bought in the Birmingham riots into the documentary
to show the seriousness of teenage youth violence. I do not think that the tone of the
documentary was critical either as it was unbiased and included people’s opinions.
The narrative structure for our documentary is story telling. This is because it includes
talking about events such as the Birmingham riots, including the type of people that were
involved in that event as well. The documentary has a rhetorical narrative as it includes the
features of one such repeated motifs e.g. recurring images and it also addresses the

2. Alex Lyndon
audience directly. This is similar to ‘Supersize me’ as during that documentary it has
recurring images of the McDonalds clown Ronald McDonald appear throughout.
We do have an argumentation scheme. The examples of an argumentation scheme that
appear in our documentary are history and authority. This is shown through an interview
with Gill Tracey who talks about the history of youth violence and what the authorities did
about it, referring back to the riots in London years ago. Through narration we have added
in a enigmatic code. We have told the viewer what questions we asked the interviewees and
made sure that those questions got answered within the opening sequence that they saw.
For the first part of production, we had to decide what shots and footage we were going to
use and make sure that we had enough to last us the length of 5 minutes long. This process
was called log and transfer. This was easy as we all knew what high quality shots and
footage was and if it displayed any technical skills, such as the value of the mise en scene
and framing of the shot. We only chose footage that was relevant to our documentary’s
purpose and theme.
These are the sheets of decision
editing paper that we used to show
what clips we were and weren’t going
to use and why.
The first obstacle that we first came across was what our
opening shot was going to be. We all had different ideas in
mind of what the opening sequence should be and look like.
This is the first part of the documentary the audience would
see and give them their first impression. I wanted to have
something hard hitting and fast paced that made the audience
alert and interested.
Through saying what our each of our ideas were and choosing
out of the shots we had taken we all compromised and played
around with all of our ideas and came up with a strong opening extract that we all agreed
upon and that gave a clear message of what our documentary was going to be about. We
opened with a sequence, along the lines of what I had in mind as we had footage of youths
smashing in windows and police all along the streets. The idea of having a hard hitting
introduction was acted upon by all of us in our decisions. This is effective and straight away
shows that our documentary is about youth’s, using the stereotype of ‘youths are violent’,
showing clips of the Birmingham riots. I suggested the title “Running Riot” to reflect on what
the documentary is about, and, from the title alone, you get the idea that the documentary
is going to have something to do with the recent riots. To enhance the severity of the
opening clip, we used audio conventions and embedded a loud ‘rock music’ sound to give
the clip a more serious and dangerous effect,
which I think reflected the nature of what
the majority of people think about
teenagers.
After the opening sequence we went into
the technical media codes and conventions

3. Alex Lyndon
with the appropriate camera techniques to start the opening sequence of introducing our
documentary and the college. We also changed the sound to a more harmonious musical
tone sound-bed. I think this reflects the nature of the college and the students apart of it,
connoting the lack of violence within its students. Throughout the documentary the sound
levels were changed, such as making the music louder when the voiceover was no longer
heard. We lowered the volume levels when the voiceover was speaking so that it could be
heard clearly, but could still faintly hear the music in the background. The sound-bed is
played all throughout the documentary.
The voiceover was recorded in a quiet environment so it could be easily heard when on the
documentary. We made sure that the voiceover was clear; that the script was relevant to
the topic of the documentary and that the voiceover wasn’t too fast or too slow. The tone of
voice and the pace that the narrator is talking fits in perfectly with the documentary. We
had recorded a female and male reading the script and decided that the female’s voice
fitted the documentary better and flowed more easily.
When we put the voiceover into Final Cut express we had to adjust the sound levels. We
made sure that the volume of the voice wasn’t too overpowering of the sound-bed and that
it wasn’t too quiet to be heard either. This is crucial for the documentary as it gives a sense
of professionalism. We had to make sure that the contrast between the music; voiceover
and the interviews in the documentary are all equal according to volume.
Going back to the interviews, we had numerous choices of interviews in our documentary as
we interviewed a lot of different people. Throughout all of our professional interviews with
the psychology and sociology teacher we kept them to the left of the screen and had the
mise en scene showing on the other side. When doing these interviews we made sure that
the interviewee was not looking into the camera and in an appropriate direction of slightly
to the right of the camera. We also added in the name of the interviewee and their
profession with the professional interviews.
This is the bar
that appears
with the name
and
profession.
The computer screen has appropriate mise This is how
en scene as it shows a man promoting the name
anger, with the word aggression, written in appears over
bold red letters. the clip and
how long it
lasts for.

4. Alex Lyndon
These are examples of two of the student interviews we did. They are centrally famed
and both a medium close up.
We then did interviews with students. We had them central of the frame to show a
difference in camera style, as well as having hand held cameras for most of those
interviews, whereas we used a tripod for all the professional interviews. We expanded
outside of those in the college to talk to and went to Solihull high street so we can get
opinions about youths from the general public. This has been seen in many documentaries
and I feel that it gives our documentary a more realistic effect and that it is not all based on
the opinions of those who worth with youths, and those who are. This may have been seen
as biased to some, so therefore we made sure that it wasn’t and got different opinions from
random adults who we interviewed in Solihull. This type of technique is referred to as a vox
pop. The shots that were used for the interviews were mainly medium close ups.
We all changed and had opinions of where the shots should go and what worked better in a
certain order and eventually produced something that we all thought worked well and
agreed on. We also had a jump cut present in our documentary. This came about because
we had to cut one of our clips to make the interview necessary to the point documentary.
To go from interview to the next shot we used cuts. This is a common transition technique
used in TV. I thought that ‘fade to black’ transitions were mainly used for dramatic effect
and our documentary did not connote that dramatic effect. However, we did use a visual
transition ‘fade to black’ in the documentary called a dip to colour. It was used to go from
one clip to another; we used it because the straight cut didn’t look right. We felt that this
technique worked better than a cut technique, which we had used throughout the
documentary, and therefore showed two different types of transitions that we used. We
also used a ‘cross fade’ transition for the audio. This made the audio flow better and more
smoothly from one interview to
another due to the change of voice
and possible background noise.
This is the ‘fade to black’ transition
we used which is called a dip to
colour transition that we added in.
This is the audio transition called “cross fade”.

5. Alex Lyndon
We had rostrum footage present in our documentary as well. The
rostrum footage was a picture of hooded people robbing a local
shop. The rostrum footage had the camera direction moving
diagonally from the bottom left hand corner to the top right. This
was used over one of the interviews that we had. We purposely
used the footage there as it helped illustrate what the
interviewee was talking about. It also added a professional and
factual effect as we had the still clip going diagonally across the
screen instead of having it just still.
Other media conventions that were present in our documentary
were tilts and panning. We made sure that we had different
camera techniques in our documentary to show are camera
ability such as tilts and panning.
We made the image appear over one of the
interviews by dragging it above the clip.
This is one of the tilts we used in the documentary. It starts out of focus but becomes in focus as we tilt the
camera down.
I feel that the documentary overall was very good in terms of quality of camera techniques
such as tilting and interviews. I am very pleased with the information we gathered from the
interviews that we did as all the interviews were useful and used in the documentary at
some point due to the good quality of responses we received. I think that the documentary
was successful in conveying an unbiased view on stereotypes of youths and how we used
the recent riots that happened to help get people’s points on youths and what they’re
typical view of a teenager is. I think we achieved this unbiased opinion through interviewing
college students asking them what they feel about this negative stereotype of them since
the riots and also that we managed to get adults views on this subject as well.
The documentary “supersize me” has the similar conventions in terms of interviews,
compared to our documentary. Throughout the “supersize me” documentary we see and

6. Alex Lyndon
hear from professionals such as dietitians. We incorporated professional interviews into our
documentary also such as asking those with psychology and sociology qualifications.
Another similarity is that they also had interviews with people they had met in the shopping
centre to ask their opinions. We had done the same as we
went to Solihull high street and asked their opinions on the
stereotypes of youths and the Birmingham riots. I feel as if
we have developed codes and conventions and have added
them into our documentary to make it look more
professional and are able to compare it to a real
documentary.
This is the link to the supersize me documentary on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHKCb0_2oD0 This is one of the “on the street”
random interviews featured in
Supersize me.
The common conventions of a magazine were shown in our double page spread. We
followed the rule of thirds when putting the article in the magazine. We also followed
conventions of all magazines which is including the page numbers at the bottom corner of
the page and also having the name of the magazine that it is being published in mentioned
with the date present also. The date and time of the documentary, as well as the name of
the channel that it will be shown on was made noticeable.
A convention that we didn’t follow is putting captions on the photos. We added in
numerous photos to help illustrate the article, telling the reader visually what it was about
but, some magazine do add captions such as who the pictures we taken by or what’s
happening in that photo. I feel that if we added in the captions it would make it look too
busy seeing as the pictures were already
slightly overlapping one another. Having a
number of pictures within the article
challenged the normal conventions of a
magazine as it is only usual one or two
main images that are shown, whereas we
have chosen five.
Something that we incorporated into our
double page spread was having important
quotations from interviews enlarged. This is
a typical of all magazines. We developed
the convention by also making it a different
colour to stand out more and break up the
text so it doesn’t look too cramped
together. I also think that we followed typical conventions of all magazines by making sure

7. Alex Lyndon
that the masthead was large and noticeable. We wanted to make sure that it was bold and
eye catching. I feel that this was achieved and a successful convention in our double page
spread. The use of the different colours show that we have stuck to the magazine
conventions as some, but not all magazines, use different colour font for indicating who’s
talking, as well as putting their name. To start off the article a stand first has been used to
introduce what the article is about, mentioning the Birmingham riots. The article itself is
written has been laid out in columns as this is a typical convention that all magazines abide
by, as well as using the rule of thirds.
Developing codes and
conventions as it is normal to Large eye catching mastheads
have one huge main image.
A Stand first, telling the readers Article in columns
what the article is about. Page
numbers
The radio trailer follows the typical codes
and conventions. To get an idea of how
real radio trailers sound we filled out 5
radio trailer analysis sheets after listening to
different types of trailers. We commented
whether the sound was ambient or not,
what the presenter’s tone of voice was like
and who the target audiences were and so
on. We thought that it would be appropriate
to have the presenter’s voice in the radio
trailer as the same one in the documentary.
The typical conventions we stuck to was
choosing the correct sound to symbolize what the advertisement was about.
We thought that having police sirens at the beginning, followed by a mob of shouting would
be appropriate the voice this point. We then had an upbeat backing track (also referred to

8. Alex Lyndon
as a sound bed) flowing through the radio trailer. Over the backing track we had the
narrator asking rhetorical questions, telling listeners what the show is about. It is a typical
convention to have a backing track in all radio trailers, even if it isn’t played all the way
through. The channel, date and time of the documentary is present within the radio trailer
including clips from the documentary. We have developed normal and typical codes and
conventions into our radio trailer as we have trailer last for 42 seconds long, the average
length of a normal, professional radio advertisement.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
I feel that we have a good combination of the documentary and our ancillary products, the
double page spread and the radio trailer.
The double page spread is quite dark which reflects the issue of youth violence. I think this
fits in very well with the beginning of the documentary where we see teenagers destroying
and smashing shop windows with police vehicles everywhere. I feel that the double page
spread connotes the beginning of the documentary well and more in depth. It is very
symbolic of danger with the use of the red writing on the black background. The masthead
also looks rough and destroyed. This gives a strong meaning of what the article is about just
from the font used. It is very large font and eye catching with a catchy title. The images that
are used in the double page spread have been taken from some footage that we have used
in the documentary. Other images were used from footage that we had taken and not used,
therefore making use of them in the double page spread.
We have an equal contrast of “violent looking” teenagers, they’ve got the stereotypical view
of some people’s point of view. The mise en scene of their clothing with caps and hoods up
connotes that they are violet and should be feared. There is also pictures of “non-violent
looking” teenagers. The other image has police armed with riot shields holding down a
hooded man. This connotes the severity of youth violence.
We have made use of other images such as
a still of students working hard inside the
college and the other picture indicating
happiness of teenagers as they are
laughing, and have their college work out
on the table.
The use of both of the different type of
images juxtaposes each other. It helps
show that the article and documentary is all
about the different opinions of the majority

9. Alex Lyndon
of the public. Within the article we have used quotes from interviews that were in the
documentary.
The documentary overall has all the conventions a professional magazine double page
spread would have. I think that it appeals to the target audience of males and females aged
16 – 35 years old of any race/religion or ethnicity.
There is no discrepancy against gender or age with the use of images of font colour. The
article appeals to the target audience because the format in which it was written was made
to be understandable and completely relevant to the topic of the documentary. We have
written it in the sense that one of the documentary’s producers has been interviewed. This
makes the article seem more interesting and worthwhile to read.
The radio trailer also combines relevance to our documentary as well. We have used the
same narrator for the radio trailer as we did for the voiceover in the documentary. This
shows consistency as you can relate the voice back to the documentary. The radio trailer
consists of the audio of interviews that we have in our documentary. In the 42 second long
radio trailer we are able to capture the relevant and important points from our
documentary and convert it into an effective radio trailer. Like the documentary, we have
different people’s opinions of youth riots and that’s what is heard throughout the radio
trailer. The only thing that is different is the sound bed music that we have used in the
trailer. It is different in the way that it’s more upbeat than the harmonious sound-bed used
in the documentary. The main thing that I think shows a strong link between the
documentary and the radio trailer is that they both have a captivating start. At the
beginning of the documentary we hear and see youths destroying property. To start our
radio trailer we used the sound of a police siren gradually getting louder, followed by the
ranting and shouting of crowds of youths. This gives the main and ancillary product a strong
connection. With the use of the effective introduction from the main product and the radio
trailer and the colour and image choice of the double page spread, it produces an image for
all of our products and makes them connote a certain image, making it easy for them to be
interlinked with one another.
Overall, I think that the ancillary tasks and the main task all fit together. I think that they all
have strong links into each other and all keep to connoting the purpose of the topic very
well. In my opinion I feel that the radio trailer and the double page spread promote the
documentary well and all three media products target the same audience.
The only way I could suggest to improve the effectiveness of the combination of each of the
products would be is making the radio trailer sound a more interesting and exciting with a
different use of an interview. The idea of having a teenager using ‘slang’ language talking
about his education and or charity work. I would have done this to juxtapose the idea of the
roughness with their actual intellectual ability and good behavior. I think that this would
make the listeners think about how they foresee teenagers, linking back to the point of our
documentary. To further improve the double page spread I would have added in a byline,
mentioning who wrote the article etc.., making it stick more to the codes and conventions of
a double page spread.

10. Alex Lyndon
3. What have you leant from the audience feedback?
From the audience feedback questionnaires we handed out to those who viewed all of our
media products we had sufficient feedback.
We started by asking how they would rate the documentary, double page spread and the
radio trailer. The choices were out of excellent, good, bad and awful.
We had very good and pleasing responses as the table shows. We didn’t have any negative
feedback with the respondents saying it was either good or excellent. The documentary
looks to be most promising at a professional level as it got the highest rating of being
‘excellent’. The radio trailer, however, had the least amount of ‘excellent’ ratings, therefore
showing that it was good but could have been made better.
Documentary Radio trailer Double Page
Spread
Excellent 5 1 3
Good 10 14 12
Bad 0 0 0
Awful 0 0 0
The second question asked how we could improve all of our media products. For the
documentary question, the most amount of people said that we could improve the lighting
during the interviews. Another was that the music didn’t quite fit in with the theme of the
documentary. Too many establishing shots were used was the response from others and
another improvement was that the sound levels could be adjusted.
I am not surprised with the main response of improvements which was that the lighting
needed to b e better. I agree with this point and think that it would have made our
documentary better. I see the view that respondents are taking about the music but we
personally thought that it fitted in and wasn’t too bad, although I do agree that another
piece of sound-bed music could have been used as well and may have sounded better and
more in theme with the documentary.
For the radio trailer we only had two suggestions for improvements. The most common
improvement was that the voiceover could have been louder. The other suggestion was to
adjust the sound levels.
I agree that the voice over was fairly quiet when the background music was playing and
could have been louder. This ties in with the other suggestion of the sound levels. We may
have needed to lower the sound track more when the voiceover was to be heard. This is a
valid suggestion and I think that the sound levels could have been corrected for
improvement of the trailer.
The double page spread also had a number of improvements suggested. A suggestion that
was made was that there were too many images, therefore making it look slightly cramped.
Another suggestion made about the images was that they needed credits. This is a valid
suggestion and think that could have made the double page spread seem more professional
as it is a typical convention of a magazine for most to have image credits. A final suggestion

11. Alex Lyndon
made was that it needed more colour. I personally thought that the images and the colour
were fine as the images were chosen in particular to use. The colours of red, black and white
were all to connote the dark stereotype that youths get. I think that maybe one other colour
could have been used but I was happy with the final outcome of the double page spread.
I expected the feedback that came off of most of the media products. I wasn’t surprised, as I
know that all of our media products could be improved in some way.
We asked closed questions next to get a different range of responses. We wanted to know if
people would want to keep watching the documentary after seeing the first five-minute
opening. All of the responses came back as positive saying that they would all carry on
watching it.
Was the documentary interesting enough to
keep watching?
15
10
5
0
yes no
For the second question we asked we wanted to know if our documentary seemed in any
way similar to a real documentary that would have been shown on TV. The response we
got was mainly positive with 13/15 people asked saying that it did seem similar to a real
documentary. The results show that there are still issues with the documentary, which
means that it is quite not BBC documentary standard.
Does this documentary seem similar to a real
BBC documentary?
yes no
13%
87%
The final question we asked was whether the viewers of all of our media products, the
documentary, radio trailer and the double page spread, if they thought that they all related

12. Alex Lyndon
to each other. All of the people who saw our media products thought that they all related to
each other.
Do all of our media products relate to
eachother?
no
yes
0 5 10 15
The main findings from all of the feedback we received show’s that all of our media
products link in well together and that they are effective, watchable, readable and
listenable. However, I also know that improvements could be made with all of the media
products and that the feedback was very good and informative about how we could have
improved them all.
Before we created our media products we did audience research. We did this to see what
people thought about the point of our documentary, double page spread and radio trailer,
to make sure that it was a topic worth developing media products about. We asked
questions such as ‘’define the word stereotype” and “would you say that teenagers have a
negative stereotype?”. All of the people we asked said that teenagers do have a negative
stereotype.
We asked what type of person that you would expect to see on the street at night. 90% said
“chav”. To follow this question we wanted to know how people would describe the look of a
teenager and so asked them to name 5 attributes of a stereotypical teenager. These are the
results we gathered:
What people said: How many people said it:
· Hoodies · 3
· Tracksuits · 4
· Gold jewellery (lots of) · 3
· Swearing · 3
· Loud Music (speed garage) · 3
· YOB · 2
· Shifty (scary) · 2
· Rude · 3
· Lazy · 4
· Easy life · 1

13. Alex Lyndon
· Always texting/ unorganised · 1
· Loud · 4
· Violent (Carries knives) · 3
· Moody, troublemaking and · 6
argumentative
· Intimidating · 1
· Unpleasant/ poor behaviour · 3
· Poor · 2
· Technological · 1
From the table we can clearly tell that people didn’t have anything positive to describe a
teenager as. These results clearly sowed us that a stereotype of teenagers is well known and
is not a positive one. This showed us that it would be a good idea to do a documentary to
get people’s opinion instead of on paper and get their views about the stereotype of youths.
We linked this behaviour to the Birmingham riots and asked “What is your opinion on the
recent riots that took place around Birmingham?”. We found that the responses were all
negative using the words ‘awful’, ‘disgusting’, and ‘selfish’. The questionnaire we produced
was handed out to teenagers. After getting this response from them we realized that youths
might have only been a small minority that we rioting, yet the media revolved the riots
around them, and other teens felt that this portrayal of them was wrong. Following the
question about a negative representation given to youths, “How do you feel about the
negative representations always shown in the media?” All the responses we had said that
they did not agree with the negative representation, and that it was only a small minority of
teenagers that cause the stereotype. To follow the previous question we asked “do you feel
as I a positive portrayal of teenagers should be shown more often in the media?”. 10 out of
10 of the people asked said ‘yes’. This showed us that people do think that teenagers are
only shown in a bad light and would like to see more positive reinforcement about them,
instead of always negative.

14. Alex Lyndon
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and
evaluation stages?
To produce all of our products we had to use a range of technology to achieve them. Some
of the technology I ad used before when producing similar tasks before, but others were
completely new technology for me to use.
Computers that were located all around the college that I had access to and also my own
computer at home was the most familiar piece of hardware and software that I used. I used
the computer software such as Microsoft word to produce the target audience
questionnaire and other documents necessary. We also made good use of the Internet, as
our blog was located on Blogger.com. The Internet was mainly used for research for our
media products. We used websites such as YouTube, scribd and slideshare. It was also used
to access online newspapers and images that were relevant to post on our blogs and help
illustrate what all out media products are about.
Any research that we did was uploaded via the internet onto our blog. The website
Blogger.com was good in terms of layout of how to see the blog, save work documents as a
draft and easily upload images to the documents. To make our blog look different and stand
out a bit more than all the others we decided
to add a background to our blog and make it
look more effective. We also started adding
colour to the text to make the blog look more
interesting to read and look at.
As well as uploading documents to the blog
that we had produced on Microsoft word and
so on, we also had sheets of work that were
paper based that needed to be uploaded to
the blog as well. We managed to do this with
the scanners, and were essential for getting
all the work we had done onto the blog. The
scanners were really easy to use and very
quick to scan documents and locate them after. (http://f03runningriot.blogspot.com)
After we had done all of our planning research, we went ahead with filming. We used
cannon cameras provided by the college that were used for filming and for taking pictures.
With the camera we were provided with a microphone, headphones and a tripod. The
camera was slightly different as it was much more technical than I was used to. The camera
didn’t have an SD card that it stored data on, it just simply
connected to the Mac, which was useful and made uploading
footage easier. With use of the camera we were able to white
balance the footage to make it more naturalistic and get rid of
any darkness or discolour that the camera tended to pick up.

15. Alex Lyndon
We also learnt how to do a range of techniques such as manual focus, instead of just using
auto focus. By learning this camera technique we planned how we would use it and decided
that it would definitely be used in our documentary.
It starts off blurred. This is the shot we got This is what the shot looks like after we focused
of students walking in. the camera.
The camera came equipped with a tripod, which meant we could make sure that the camera
position was at the correct angle and level and that we had still footage, eliminating any
shaking of the camera. To ensure that the camera was level, there was a spirit level within
the tripod. If the bubble wasn’t in the middle of the spirit level then we knew that the
camera wasn’t straight. This was one of the most useful necessities that we needed as it
made sure that all of our shots were level and not on a slant.
The microphone used was a directional microphone. This was very handy as we could hear
the person speaking more clearly though the directional microphone when there was also a
lot of background noise, which is what it helped reduce. The headphones that were used
were compatible with the camera and so was the microphone. This was easy to set up and
gave us a bit extra filming time.
When we had all of our footage, we started to produce our media
products, which were all done on the apple Macs. I had not previously
worked on the apple Macs much before so learning how to use it was a
gradual throughout the production process. I did learn how to use the
software and was able to contribute to the work through learning how
to use them correctly. The Macs were much better to use for
constructing all of our media products due to the software that it
offered us, which a windows computer wouldn’t have been able to.
The construction of the documentary was done in Final Cut Express. I had never worked on
this software before so it was completely new to me. By the end of finishing off the
documentary I knew how to work the software efficiently. I learnt how to put the footage
into the timeline and how to crop them to the length that we wanted. Through watching
other real documentaries such as “supersize me” and others, we decided that we wanted to
have the names of the interviewees appear on professional interviews. We learnt how to do
this on the final cut express software and also how to change the transparency, font and

16. Alex Lyndon
colour of the name. Layering clips on top of each other was easy to do and so was adding in
the voiceover and the sound-bed. Through this, I found out how to unlink the video from
the audio of the clip and could then choose if we wanted both the audio and the video or
one of each. We used this in our documentary and made great use of the video clips for
voiceover over some as we had unlinked from their real audio. The final cut express
software was good quality software that I thought was very useful for making the first 5
minute opening for our documentary.
This image is a snapshot of some of the tools that we were able to use on
editing our documentary. The arrow tool allowed us to drag and move the clips
to where we wanted.
The pen tool allowed us to increase and decrease the sound levels within the
clips. This helped a lot if one interview sounded quieter than another.
The ‘razor blade tool’ allowed us to cut any audio and visual clip we had in half,
or wherever we wanted. This was very useful as we used it on one of our
interview clips and cut out the unnecessary part of the interview.
To make the double page spread up to a professional standard we used the software
InDesign. I have used this software before when making a magazine for my coursework last
year at AS. I thought that the software was very useful back then
and quite easy to use however, some tools I found hard such as
when selecting the colour you want to use consistently I found
that you sometimes couldn’t save that exact colour that you
wanted to the swatches area of the tools the software provided.
This then resulted in having the colour you want in all different
shades.
InDesign was very good for the range of tools that it offered such
as effects. The image on the right indicates that for the colour
alone you could add an effect and a gradient to the text. It also
offers different text and paragraph styles for the text as well. Due
to the range of choice, this software was very good and effective
to use when doing the article as we had a lot of options and styles
to choose from.
The image below is the tool bars that are present in InDesign. The tool bar shows all of the
tools that are available to use on the article.
These icons allow These allow you These icons let you
This tool allows
you to change the change the width choose how you
you to change the
size and font of of the spaces in want your text to
height of the text.
the text. between each be positioned.
letter of the text.

17. Alex Lyndon
However, for the masthead of our double page spread
we used the software Photoshop. The title was put into a
website called “Dafont”
(http://www.dafont.com).
The website allows you to pick from a number of
different text designs. Once we had chosen one that we
liked and thought was appropriate, it was the put into
Photoshop. The text was then made larger and rotated
on the side to the left. The separate words ‘running’ and ‘riot’ was both not rotated parallel
to each other. Photoshop allows you to manipulate all of the texts separately and not all at
once if you wish. Photoshop was the more ideal and appropriate software to use for the
making of the masthead and InDesign was much more appropriately designed for the
article. Photoshop was the software that I used the least, opposed to Garageband and
finalcut express. However, I used it last year for the same thing I knew how it worked. I
enjoyed using software that I am not familiar with as I can learn and extend my technical
knowledge ability. If I were to use this software again I would be confident in knowing how
to use it.
For our radio trailer we used the software Garageband, which was available to us on the
apple Macs. I had only ever used Garageband once before and not had much practice on it,
so I didn’t know what I was doing when it came down to producing our radio trailer. We had
some trouble with exporting the audio clips from the documentary into Garageband.
We then were shown that we had to make a new sequence in FinalCut Express (where are
documentary was located). We then had to drag the file that we wanted into the second
sequence we had made. We then had to unlink the audio from the video of the
documentary. After we had unlinked it we deleted the video but kept the audio on. We then
had to export the audio, to do this we had to save the audio into a separate file in or ‘media
student file’ on the Mac, we also had to change the format of the clip we wanted to just
audio, instead of video and audio. If we had still kept it as video and audio then it would
have been accepted in Garageband. All we had to do then once the audio file was saved
separately was simply drag it from the ‘media student file’, where it was saved, into
Garageband. We then just had to crop
the clip to how we wanted it and it was
ready to be heard. The problem that we
came across when we imported other
files into Garageband, we found that
the new clip we imported in also had
the previous clip attached to it as well
so it was a long clip with all of our audio
in it. It was a problem that we could
easily overcome though as we just had
to crop the audio that we didn’t want
out of the clip.
We chose our music through the choice
that was present to us on Garageband
already.

18. Alex Lyndon
We were given a choice of music and this is
the range that we got to choose from. It
would be copyright if we used an actual
song.
We all easily agreed on the constant background music and was easily to put into the file as
we just had to drag it onto the different line below, so it would play while the audio was
playing as well.
Once we had all the audio and sound that we wanted in the
radio trailer we had to adjust the sound levels so that the
interview audio wasn’t too quiet or loud compared to the
other audio and the background music. There was a pen tool
that allowed us to select parts of the music and drag it up or
down. In the picture on the right you can see those blue dots
that the pen tool made and how it allowed us to adjust the backing track to go louder on
some of the clips. The image below shows an overview of our radio trailer in Garageband
and how all the sound levels were adjusted throughout.
All of the software and
hardware that we used was
very helpful and necessary in
completing our media
products. The software was
easy to use after I knew what I was doing and a few attempts at using all of the software.
There was other software that was available for us to use such as ComicLite, which was
located on the apple Macs. We didn’t make use of that particular piece of software as we
already liked the masthead that we had chosen to use that was done on a website that was
familiar to us. We also used other resources such as the internet, handouts that were given
in class and also made use of the resources that were put up on the college’s intranet
‘moodle’.