Wednesday 30 June 2010

Timeline for Advanced Portfolio


Task
Deadline
Research into short film or film promotion.
Generic research into at least 4 short films.
Liar chart of aux products. Theory of film genre.
Storyboards, animatic, photoshoots, sketches, drafts, screen shots, skills development from Foundation
On going- keep adding to blog
Aims and context
1. The situation: opens the story and may be disrupted.
2. Whose situation is it?- identifies the protagonist.
3. Central quest or conflict? What has the protagonist to resolve?
4. Who stands in the way of success? The antagonist.
5. How does the quest end?
Show, don't tell!
If its a genre specific film then define those conventions you will use.
Consider, sound
Friday 9th July
Scripting: 1st draft
Mood board about film
Friday 16th July

Drawn storyboard & location stills
Upload to blog as an animatic

Wednesday 21st July




Shooting schedule prepared for shooting over summer hols
Wednesday 21
1st July



Summer hols:
1. Shoot footage for short film or trailer
2. Continue with research on blog
3. Complete FM1 Exploring Film Form –analysis of your choice of 2-5 minute film extract, (if you are taking Film Studies)

Submit coursework for film studies

Upload footage, edit & produce first rushes by

Monday 13th September

Friday 24th September
Presentation of 1st edit to audience.
Prepare questions you want target audience to answer in feedback session.
Begin research for aux products.
Monday 4th October
Catch up on any outstanding work
25th October
½ term
Research, plan and shoot for auxiliary artefacts.
Poster, radio trailer or film review for Short film.
Homepage, poster or magazine cover for Film Promo

Individual deadlines for these, plan your time !

Re-focus on editing, re shoot parts that need it.
Final presentation with aux products
Record focus group feedback
Friday 3rd December
Analyse your work in terms of Media Language, Genre, Narrative, Representation, Audience.
Write a script incorporating this as a ‘Directors commentary’ to be recorded over your film. This is instead of a formal written evaluation so it must be good!

Friday 10th December
Edit above footage.
Ensure blog is complete, all research etc in place.
Submit
Friday 17th December


The Creative Process: Aims & Context: Friday 9th July

Please answer these questions on a new blog by 9th July.
Working title- these ideas may well change, it is a creative process so expect fluidity.


1. The situation: opens the story and may be disrupted.
2. Whose situation is it?- identifies the protagonist.
3. Central quest or conflict? What has the protagonist to resolve?
4. Who stands in the way of success? The antagonist.
5. How does the quest end?

Show, don't tell!

If its a genre specific film then define those conventions you will use.
Consider, sound

What you have to do


Media Studies A2
G324 Advanced Portfolio due in Friday 17th December
Brief 1: Short Film
A 5 minute film & two of the following;
A poster
A radio trailer
Or a film magazine review page.
If you are totally stuck then use this brief:
Produce a short film with the title ‘The Man Next Door’. The film should be designed for digital distribution and should deal with issues pertinent to contemporary British Culture.
Short films are booming because of digital technology. Simon Quy writes that they are ‘Often a laboratory for experimentation and innovation’, rather than a shorter version of a feature film. He goes on, the short film might be considered as the literary equivalent of the poem or short story…..crystaline creations of precise, prismatic intensity, offering the careful refinement of the directors idea, the distilled essences of his/her imagination’.
Emphasis on clear narrative and characterisation, careful construction of mise en scene, tilting and camerawork.

This can also be used for:
Film Studies: FM1 Exploring Film Form
A short film or extract from a longer film with emphasis on visual communication.



Or Brief 2: Film Promotion
A trailer & two of the following;
Homepage for the film
Poster
Magazine cover featuring the film.
Produce a viral marketing campaign for  a new film, aiming to attract an audience primarily through social networking sites and you tube. Trailer and website are primary marketing tools. Poster and mag cover the secondary phase adopting mainstream, ‘above and below the line; marketing techniques after the viral campaign has secured media interest.  
Cloverfield campaign (associations with Lost and Alias
Step up from AS You will be expected to consider the decisions and creative process in the Critical Perspectives exam. This will be a ‘synoptic assessment’.  Synoptic means, bringing everything together in an overview.
In terms of Media Language, Genre, Narrative, Representation, Audience
What this means is that by the end you will have produced at least 5 media products, you may have produced other work for an EPQ or your own projects. Eventually you will write about the above terms so bear them in mind whilst keeping your blog.
1.     Focus on creative decisions informed by institutional knowledge.
2.     Focus on creative decisions informed by theoretical understanding.
3.     Evaluate, don’t describe.
4.     Relate your media to ‘real media’ at the micro level (egs of intertextuality).
5.     Deconstruct yourself- mood board
6.     Choose micro examples to relate to macro reflective themes.
7.     You probably followed & challenged conventions, be aware that in the Web 2 world, media literacies are changing.
8.     Include broader media culture- other things you have done.
9.     Use a ‘metadiscourse’- how is making a short film for a level different to one for a competition?
10. Use an academic mode of address & back up your points with quotes.

TOP TIPS!
1.     PLANNING (you should spend most of your time planning & researching)
2.     USE THE BLOG (put everything you look at one it and make it as dynamic and multi layered as possible).
3.     PACE OF THE EDIT (some people have great ideas but if the shots are held too long for no narrative reason it can look amateurish).


Tuesday 29 June 2010

The Phone Call

An excercise in editing  & the differences it can make!

Lily
Josh
Alex

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Examiners Report

Film Trailer:
The best film trailers did not attempt to tell the plot of the film in narrative order and included a great variety of shots, using fast cuts to create an effective and atmospheric trailer. However the majority followed the narrative of the film and were overlong and would have benefited from a greater variety of shots and tighter editing. Some of the weakest looked more like submissions for the short film brief! 
Film posters were the most successful aspect of the ancillary tasks submitted and showed good understanding of conventions. Magazine front covers were the most inconsistent. The weakest showed little understanding of generic conventions. 
Short Film:
A few candidates worked to the short film brief and these were largely successful with clear narrative and characterisation, careful construction of mise en scene, titling and camerawork. Centres need to be more careful about originality in soundtracks, however. The posters for these films were generally effective although the film magazine review pages were less successful. There were very few radio trailers for the films. 





Evaluation 
The best Evaluations took a multi-media approach. Whether as a presentation, a blog entry, or as a DVD extra, an effective evaluation used clips and stills from the production work, feedback from the audience - often as video or audio clips - and reflective analysis. Of particular note are those candidates who created video-based evaluations which included talking heads, clips from production work (often paused and annotated), and interviews with the audience. The direct addressing of the four set questions was also a characteristic of a focused evaluation. 
However, the Evaluation more generally tended to be the weakest element of candidates’ work and the most over-marked. The worst evaluations were those on blogs or presentations that consisted entirely of text, especially when responses to the set questions were either very short or difficult to find amongst the rest of the material in a largely unstructured piece of writing. A small number of candidates made the mistake of answering the set questions for Foundation Portfolio, which was not acknowledged by the Centre. Most candidates did address the required questions but in many cases their answers tended to be descriptive. Many evaluations took the form of largely text-based essay-style answers on blogs or on numerous PowerPoint slides, which many Centres then inappropriately rewarded as being excellent use of digital technology and ICT. In one case a candidate was filmed reading her answers, which does not constitute excellent use of digital technology. 

Advice 

The expectations of the unit are greater than for the old 2733 and this needs to be reflected in the marking 

The best submissions were those making the most of the electronic basis of the new spec, thoroughly integrating audio, video, image and web links to the written word during the planning and research stages and the evaluation 

Encourage candidates to blog or use VLEs where possible, on an ongoing basis; this will prove especially useful in preparing for G325 

Ensure candidates answer the four questions in their Evaluation 

Teach the skills for the ancillary tasks not just the main tasks 

Set an internal deadline well in advance of the Board’s deadline 

Complete print-based coversheets, filling in all sections accurately 

Where there are fewer than 10 candidates send all work to the moderators 


The Brief:

A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options: 

a website homepage for the film; (this must be fully functioning with links)

a film magazine front cover, featuring the film; 

a poster for the film.


or


 A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:



a poster for the film; 

a radio trailer for the film; 

a film magazine review page featuring the film. 


Overview of Media Studies 2010-11