Learning to use GarageBand

In order to create a radio advert we had to use the program GarageBand. It is usually used to mix and record music for amateur musicians, however it does have  the capabilities to record and edit recorded voices. To begin with we had to open up a folder and instead of the usual tracks that would be used, for example to record guitar or piano sounds, we created a 'real instrument' track. This meant that when we imported our sounds that they would be easier to manipulate.

I recorded myself speaking the narrative parts into an easy-speak microphone that had a usb device which made it easy to transfer onto the computer. 


We exported the sound files from the documentary also onto a usb and copied in onto the same computer. When we went through the audio of the documentary we were very selective about what we took - choosing only the most important parts. Once it was all safely in GarageBand we could split it all up and separate up the most important parts and delete anything irrelevant. 


Our advert was only supposed to be 20-30 seconds so we had to cut it down a lot and be very ruthless about anything that was not going to add anything to the final advert.

After listening to the advert draft we were worried that it was too quiet because some of our interviewees spoke very softly. The sound bar at the bottom showed the audio only reaching the first couple of bars.  
This problem was solved by copying and pasting duplicate files that, when aligned with the existing files, would make double the sound and so be louder.
There was another way we could increase the sound however, which involved bringing up the track volume and raising the blue line that appeared.

When we clicked on the blue line, something called a track node appeared and creating more of them made us able to move the volume up and down. This was also useful for making fade effects because you could use the nodes to make a voice fade in or out.


This was the point at which we needed to add music to our advert so as to link all the separate speaking pieces together. After searching a very long time we found some copyright free christian hymn music that fit perfectly with the tone of our documentary and so would be great for the advert. When we imported the music as an MP3 file it was far too long and so we had to cut off the end straight away. Once we had an approximate length we had to bring up the editor tool bar to do some more delicate cutting up so that the natural fade outs in the music corresponded with voice changes in the rest of the audio. 

The end we were especially proud of because the music reaches a break and trails off by itself without us needing to adjust the track volume.

Commentary

We have now recorded and uploaded our commentary onto a new version of our documentary. We stayed after school on Wednesday to record the latest script and we each have equal amounts of speaking time. We put the audio onto the commentary version of our final cut files and began to match up the audio and visuals. It has taken a very very long time to do because at first we had no idea how to create still frames which was an important part of the process. Eventually we figured it out and began to work out how to make it so that when we talked about a particular aspect of framing that picture was on the screen. We have finished the majority of it now, but unfortunately it is too short and so will have to be elongated somehow. 

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro is a program that helped our editing process greatly. From a student who had to edit our thriller film last year, I can say that FCP is far more superior in terms of features and accessibility than what I used last year, Apple iMovie. 

One of the main features that helped us during the editing process, was the ease of which overlapping, fading and manipulating was done at. As learnt from this website during the research process, a fade in is "a quiet introduction to a scene". This introduction of tranquility was something we wished to capture, and the ease of which it was available with FCP was very helpful.

As we had to overlap music and in scene audio quite a bit, it was useful that FCP was able to do it easily. As you can see in the screenshot, dragging and dropping is the extent to overlapping audio and it was a very helpful feature. I remember trying to accomplish this last year using iMovie, however it being a much longer task - this is because FCP supports many more 'tracks', so various layers of audio and video can be added with ease. 

FCP manages video footage in an efficient way that made keeping track of video easy. As you can see in the screenshot, 'bins' where created which held our footage. We could for example, (and did), create a folder called 'Cutaways' and in here store all relevant footage. All in all it made editing a much quicker process.

FCP allowed us to use a range of video transitions, far more than iMovie, and have greater control over them. We could for example control the transitions' size, time, and even movement. As shown in the screenshot, a sequence of Fade in/out shots give the effect of time passing. FCP made it easy to achieve this, with a simple drag and drop before each shot giving a fade in and out effect.

Addition of text or titles was simple. FCP allowed us to modify the size of the text, where it was placed, and font face. As you can see here, Sharon's name is placed in the bottom left hand of the screen. This is a typical convention of documentaries, and is often used when introducing an interviewee. This was inspired by various documentaries as the majority of documentaries include this technique.

An example of the convention being used.

How each ancillary text will appeal to the target audience?

How each ancillary text will appeal to the target audience?

Where will the text appear?

Why are these formats appropriate?

 

Radio:

From our research on radio adverts, we found out that our advert would fit most appropriately on the BBC radio station, Radio 4. Why we chose this is because of findings from the BBC wikipedia page:

• Radio 1 ("the best new music and entertainment")
• Radio 2 (the UK's most listened to radio station, with 12.9 million weekly listeners)
• Radio 3 (classical and jazz music)
• Radio 4 (current affairs, factual, drama and comedy)
• Radio 5 Live (24 hour news, sports and talk) 

From here, it was clear Radio 4 was the station that most related to our program.

The fact we chose Radio 4 sets out the target audience to an extent, as it already appeals to a quite defined audience. On researching the Radio 4 demographic audience, I found the following, defined in its service license:

"The remit of Radio 4 is to be a mixed speech service, offering in-depth news and current affairs and a wide range of other speech output including drama, readings, comedy and factual and magazine 

programmes. The service should appeal to listeners seeking intelligent programmes in many genres which inform and educate and entertain"

The text highlighted in bold defines why we chose Radio 4, as each relates to our advert. 


As the issue of Christian homosexuality has become such a widespread topic, yet still appears in headlines regularly, shows that it is still part of current affairs. It is an issue yet to be resolved - this week for example, a headline has been: Government should not stand in way of homosexuals marrying in church, say Tories. 


Our documentary contains no re-enactments, and documents purely factual knowledge. 


Additionally, everything from language used, to the very core subject of our documentary is something that would appeal to people seeking intelligent programmes. Our documentary idea falls under two main categories, religious and current affairs. Both these are ideas which relate predominantly if not exclusively to that of an intelligent audience.

In terms of timing, research of the Radio 4 schedule page showed us most religious programming is done at 16:00 - 17:00, in which ours will be best suited too.

Documentary:

As our documentary will be screened on a BBC channel, again I searched for the guidelines for this channel. It brought me to the "BBC Commisioning Documentaries" page, which said the documentary should, "challenge the audience to broaden their horizons or see their world from different perspectives". Our issue, is something which requires a mature audience to suspend their views for a few moments and see the views of others, so to create their own. For an audience to do this, it requires a level of maturity that resides in a mature age group. The subject is so broad, and relates to so many people in different age groups. It would be inefficient to target it at a age group exclusively. Therefore, the target age audience is mature persons, generally over the age of about 16.

The documentary commision page says the ideal documentary should "make more traditional docs subjects modern and relevant". As all young documentary makers, we made it from the viewpoint of someone with a modern point of view, with new ideas. This is evident from the hybrid style of documentary we used, in which we combined traditional forms of documentary into one of our own. The following image with Alex's hand, is an example of a transition that we used. It gives it a more modern feel, and is an example of something that isn't a traditional documentary convention, but something that we uniquely used - again re-affirming the BBC as the best network to screen our documentary.

Learning to use Adobe PhotoShop CS4

We used Adobe Photoshop CS4 to help me construct a poster advert for our documentary. We had used a similar application in the past but We learnt many new creative things while working on the poster advert. We learnt how to take some colours and with the smudge tool I made a rainbow, which is symbolic to the flag that is associated with homosexual people. I had seen the advert for the film “Flags of our Fathers” and thought it was an inspiring picture that shows the struggle to where the soldiers are trying to achieve a goal, so I thought I could use a similar picture that shows the struggle in which homosexual people go through to get acceptance not only in religion, but in society as a whole. People who see our advert will see the intertextual link to the film Flags of our Fathers and so this can open interest to a new demographic.

 

What media texts did you look at to research your ancillary text?

What media texts did you look at to research your ancillary text?

Throughout, we used a variety of media texts to research the documentary genre, become clear of its conventions, and influence our individual shots. 

Firstly comes the research done for documentary's in general. As an avid 'Louis Theroux' documentary viewer, much influence and initial ideas came from his style. His unique way of presenting the documentary almost like a journey of education, on a subject that is both new to him and the audience is something we took influence from (we too where working on a subject new to us). This is evident in our use of camera shots - for example, the train journey sequence connotes the process as being a journey, not just literally, but also a journey of discovery for both us and the viewer. Secondly, our voice over used describing the problems occurred creates a link between the viewer and documentary maker which in effect establishes an intimacy, reminiscent of Louis Theroux's style of talking directly to the viewers. 


The following interview I watched before planning, provided research into exactly how Louis goes about planning, and creating his documentary ideas - it was very helpful.





Louis Theroux makes the statement “I’m not a journalist, I’m a friend” and even though we didn't take this as far as Louis Theroux does, we did make sure to incorporate it partly. In the first interview with Julie the newly trained priest, I invited her to my house and had a near one hour chat beforehand, which created a greater understanding of each other and made us both feel more comfortable in the interview.


In terms of documentary films, as a class we visited The Ritzy and saw the documentary 'Starsuckers'. Although the subject matter differed greatly to ours, it proved a useful resource for something we can take influence from in terms of editing, camera angles and interview techniques. We also had a Q&A session with a representative after the screening. I asked a number of questions, however the question I wanted answered most ("Did you receive permission to use the television clips or not?") was not answered as the documentary maker himself could not show up. It would have been helpful to know the limits surrounding clips used, or if he knew of any reliable resources in terms of free to use clips we too could use.

Elliott's Documentary Convention PPT

from Elliott's Documentary Convention PPT.

For our radio advert, we first started by checking the listings of Radio 4 from this page. Once we had an idea of the times religious programming came on, mostly around 16:00 - 17:00 we could revolve our advert around this time slot, target audience and style. A few conventions where evident from listening: 

• The adverts typically began with a music fade in with a narrative describing a problem/issue
• Next it had someone who represented the problem/issue speaking about it
• An opposing view or someone else who represents the problem/issue speaking was next
• The narrator then comes in again to round it up and tell the time and date will it be shown

We followed this convention in the making of our advert. Although we changed some, we kept to our researched conventions quite a lot, most notably in narration, music and documentary audio inserts.

Final Feedback

Best things about the documentary:

• The rule of thirds used means the two ladies seem as if they are looking at each other
• The setting shots near the beginning
• Transitions
• Cut-aways
• View points of public
• Powerful set-up shots
• Quality of interviews
• Soundtrack
• Ending
• Music
• Different sources - e.g. interviews and internet
• The camera angles
• Opening clips
• Very steady camera
• Panning shot of the church

Worst things about the documentary:

• Background noise
• Too much filming of some people for too long
• Can't hear some of the interviews
• Music a bit repetitive
• Music a bit loud in parts
• Can't hear Alex's question at the beginning
• Montage of images could be slower