Wednesday 25 May 2011
Wednesday Question 1b
Here are all the questions which have been set in previous sessions:
Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
You will notice that each of these questions is quite short and fits a common formula. You can be assured that the same thing will apply this summer. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it- what is known as ‘critical distance’.
There are five possible concepts which can come up
Representation
Genre
Narrative
Audience
Media Language
If you look through those questions above, you will see that the first three have all already come up, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means that it must be one of the other two this time- exams don’t always work that predictably! It would be far too risky just to bank on that happening and not prepare for the others! In any case, preparing for them all will help you understand things better and there are areas of overlap which you can use across the concepts.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? First of all, you need to decide which project you would be most confident analysing in the exam. I believe that any of the five can be applied to moving image work, so if you did a film opening at AS, a music video, short film or trailer at A2, that would be the safest choice. Print work is more tricky to write about in relation to narrative, but the other four areas would all work well for it, so it is up to you, but to be honest, I’d prepare in advance of the exam as you don’t want to be deciding what to use during your precious half hour! What you certainly need is a copy of the project itself to look at as part of your revision, to remind yourself in detail of how it works.
Representation
If you take a video you have made for your coursework, you will almost certainly have people in it. If the topic is representation, then your task is to look at how those representations work in your video. You could apply some of the ideas used in the AS TV Drama exam here- how does your video construct a representation of gender, ethnicity or age for example? You need also to refer to some critics who have written about representation or theories of media representation and attempt to apply those (or argue with them). So who could you use? Interesting writers on representation and identity include Richard Dyer, Angela McRobbie and David Gauntlett. See what they say...
Genre
If you’ve made a music magazine at AS level, an analysis of the magazine would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions shown in such magazines, particularly for specific types of music. But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions. There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches. Some of it could be used to inform your writing about your production piece. Some you could try are: Altman, Grant and Neale- all are cited in the wikipedia page here
Narrative
A film opening or trailer will be ideal for this, as they both depend upon ideas about narrative in order to function. An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching! Likewise a trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative in order to entice the viewer to watch it, again without giving too much away. If you made a short film, you will have been capturing a complete narrative, which gives you something complete to analyse. If you did a music video, the chances are that it was more performance based, maybe interspersed with some fragments of narrative. In all these cases, there is enough about narrative in the product to make it worth analysis. The chances are you have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.
Audience
Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply.
Media Language
A lot of people have assumed this is going to be the most difficult concept to apply, but I don’t think it need be. If you think back to the AS TV Drama exam, when you had to look at the technical codes and how they operate, that was an exercise in applying media language analysis, so for the A2 exam if this one comes up, I’d see it as pretty similar. For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene create meaning. Likewise an analysis of print work would involve looking at how fonts, layout, combinations of text and image as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. Useful theory here might be Roland Barthes on semiotics- denotation and connotation and for moving image work Bordwelland Thompson
So what do you do in the exam?
You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it
You then need to analyse it using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout
Keep being specific in your use of examples from the project
Here is a link to a good answer to q1a and 1b from the January session.
Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
You will notice that each of these questions is quite short and fits a common formula. You can be assured that the same thing will apply this summer. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it- what is known as ‘critical distance’.
There are five possible concepts which can come up
Representation
Genre
Narrative
Audience
Media Language
If you look through those questions above, you will see that the first three have all already come up, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means that it must be one of the other two this time- exams don’t always work that predictably! It would be far too risky just to bank on that happening and not prepare for the others! In any case, preparing for them all will help you understand things better and there are areas of overlap which you can use across the concepts.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? First of all, you need to decide which project you would be most confident analysing in the exam. I believe that any of the five can be applied to moving image work, so if you did a film opening at AS, a music video, short film or trailer at A2, that would be the safest choice. Print work is more tricky to write about in relation to narrative, but the other four areas would all work well for it, so it is up to you, but to be honest, I’d prepare in advance of the exam as you don’t want to be deciding what to use during your precious half hour! What you certainly need is a copy of the project itself to look at as part of your revision, to remind yourself in detail of how it works.
Representation
If you take a video you have made for your coursework, you will almost certainly have people in it. If the topic is representation, then your task is to look at how those representations work in your video. You could apply some of the ideas used in the AS TV Drama exam here- how does your video construct a representation of gender, ethnicity or age for example? You need also to refer to some critics who have written about representation or theories of media representation and attempt to apply those (or argue with them). So who could you use? Interesting writers on representation and identity include Richard Dyer, Angela McRobbie and David Gauntlett. See what they say...
Genre
If you’ve made a music magazine at AS level, an analysis of the magazine would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions shown in such magazines, particularly for specific types of music. But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions. There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches. Some of it could be used to inform your writing about your production piece. Some you could try are: Altman, Grant and Neale- all are cited in the wikipedia page here
Narrative
A film opening or trailer will be ideal for this, as they both depend upon ideas about narrative in order to function. An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching! Likewise a trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative in order to entice the viewer to watch it, again without giving too much away. If you made a short film, you will have been capturing a complete narrative, which gives you something complete to analyse. If you did a music video, the chances are that it was more performance based, maybe interspersed with some fragments of narrative. In all these cases, there is enough about narrative in the product to make it worth analysis. The chances are you have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.
Audience
Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply.
Media Language
A lot of people have assumed this is going to be the most difficult concept to apply, but I don’t think it need be. If you think back to the AS TV Drama exam, when you had to look at the technical codes and how they operate, that was an exercise in applying media language analysis, so for the A2 exam if this one comes up, I’d see it as pretty similar. For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene create meaning. Likewise an analysis of print work would involve looking at how fonts, layout, combinations of text and image as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. Useful theory here might be Roland Barthes on semiotics- denotation and connotation and for moving image work Bordwelland Thompson
So what do you do in the exam?
You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it
You then need to analyse it using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout
Keep being specific in your use of examples from the project
Here is a link to a good answer to q1a and 1b from the January session.
Monday 23 May 2011
Tuesday
Ok here are ALL previous questions for each element, from the exams in Jan and June 2010 and Jan 2011:
1a
Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
1b
Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
Section B
Online Media
“The impact of the internet on the media is revolutionary”. Discuss.
“For media audiences, the internet has changed everything.” Discuss
“The impact of the internet on the media is exaggerated”. Discuss.
Discuss the extent to which the distribution and consumption of media have been transformed by the internet.
Explain the extent to which online media exist alongside older methods of distribution in 2010.
Evaluate the opportunities and the threats offered to media producers by the internet.
escribe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
You will notice that each of these begins by asking you to 'describe' and then goes on to ask you to reflect in some way: "evaluate", "how you used" "how your skills developed". herein lies the key to this part of the exam! You only have half an hour for the question and you really need to make the most of that time by quickly moving from description (so the reader knows what you did) to analysis/evaluation/reflection, so he/she starts to understand what you learnt from it.
there are five possible areas which can come up
Digital technology
Research and Planning
Conventions of Real Media
Post-Production
Creativity.
If you look through those questions above, you will see that they all contain at least two of the five- creativity is mentioned (as 'creative decision making') in two of them alongside the main area (digital technology on one, research and planning skills in the other). In the third of those past questions , research is combined with conventions of real media. So as you can see, the question is likely to mix and match the five, so you HAVE to be able to think on your feet and answer the question that is there.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? I would suggest that you begin by setting out, on cards or post-its, a list of answers to these questions:
What production activities have you done?
This should include both the main task and preliminary task from AS and the main and ancillaries at A2 plus any non-assessed activities you have done as practice, and additionally anything you have done outside the course which you might want to refer to, such as films made for other courses or skateboard videos made with your mates if you think you can make them relevant to your answer.
What digital technology have you used?
This should not be too hard- include hardware (cameras, phones for pictures/audio, computers and anything else you used) software (on your computer) and online programs, such as blogger, youtube etc
In what ways can the work you have done be described as creative?
This is a difficult question and one that does not have a correct answer as such, but ought to give you food for thought.
What different forms of research did you do?
Again you will need to include a variety of examples- institutional research (such as on how titles work in film openings), audience research (before you made your products and after you finished for feedback), research into conventions of media texts (layout, fonts, camera shots, soundtracks, everything!) and finally logistical research- recce shots of your locations, research into costume, actors, etc
What conventions of real media did you need to know about?
For this, it is worth making a list for each project you have worked on and categorising them by medium so that you don’t repeat yourself
What do you understand by ‘post-production’ in your work?
This one, I’ll answer for you- for the purpose of this exam, it is defined as everything after planning and shooting or live recording. In other words, the stage of your work where you manipulated your raw material on the computer, maybe using photoshop, a video editing program or desktop publishing.
For each of these lists, your next stage is to produce a set of examples- so that when you make the point in the exam, you can then back it up with a concrete example. You need to be able to talk about specific things you did in post-production and why they were significant, just as you need to do more than just say ‘I looked on youtube’ for conventions of real media, but actually name specific videos you looked at, what you gained from them and how they influenced your work.
This question will be very much about looking at your skills development over time, the process which brought about this progress, most if not all the projects you worked on from that list above, and about reflection on how how you as a media student have developed. Unusually, this is an exam which rewards you for talking about yourself and the work you have done!
Final tips: you need some practice- this is very hard to do without it! I’d have a crack at trying to write an essay on each of the areas, or at the very least doing a detailed plan with lots of examples. The fact that it is a 30 minute essay makes it very unusual, so you need to be able to tailor your writing to that length- a tough task!
1a
Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
1b
Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
Section B
Online Media
“The impact of the internet on the media is revolutionary”. Discuss.
“For media audiences, the internet has changed everything.” Discuss
“The impact of the internet on the media is exaggerated”. Discuss.
Discuss the extent to which the distribution and consumption of media have been transformed by the internet.
Explain the extent to which online media exist alongside older methods of distribution in 2010.
Evaluate the opportunities and the threats offered to media producers by the internet.
escribe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
You will notice that each of these begins by asking you to 'describe' and then goes on to ask you to reflect in some way: "evaluate", "how you used" "how your skills developed". herein lies the key to this part of the exam! You only have half an hour for the question and you really need to make the most of that time by quickly moving from description (so the reader knows what you did) to analysis/evaluation/reflection, so he/she starts to understand what you learnt from it.
there are five possible areas which can come up
Digital technology
Research and Planning
Conventions of Real Media
Post-Production
Creativity.
If you look through those questions above, you will see that they all contain at least two of the five- creativity is mentioned (as 'creative decision making') in two of them alongside the main area (digital technology on one, research and planning skills in the other). In the third of those past questions , research is combined with conventions of real media. So as you can see, the question is likely to mix and match the five, so you HAVE to be able to think on your feet and answer the question that is there.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? I would suggest that you begin by setting out, on cards or post-its, a list of answers to these questions:
What production activities have you done?
This should include both the main task and preliminary task from AS and the main and ancillaries at A2 plus any non-assessed activities you have done as practice, and additionally anything you have done outside the course which you might want to refer to, such as films made for other courses or skateboard videos made with your mates if you think you can make them relevant to your answer.
What digital technology have you used?
This should not be too hard- include hardware (cameras, phones for pictures/audio, computers and anything else you used) software (on your computer) and online programs, such as blogger, youtube etc
In what ways can the work you have done be described as creative?
This is a difficult question and one that does not have a correct answer as such, but ought to give you food for thought.
What different forms of research did you do?
Again you will need to include a variety of examples- institutional research (such as on how titles work in film openings), audience research (before you made your products and after you finished for feedback), research into conventions of media texts (layout, fonts, camera shots, soundtracks, everything!) and finally logistical research- recce shots of your locations, research into costume, actors, etc
What conventions of real media did you need to know about?
For this, it is worth making a list for each project you have worked on and categorising them by medium so that you don’t repeat yourself
What do you understand by ‘post-production’ in your work?
This one, I’ll answer for you- for the purpose of this exam, it is defined as everything after planning and shooting or live recording. In other words, the stage of your work where you manipulated your raw material on the computer, maybe using photoshop, a video editing program or desktop publishing.
For each of these lists, your next stage is to produce a set of examples- so that when you make the point in the exam, you can then back it up with a concrete example. You need to be able to talk about specific things you did in post-production and why they were significant, just as you need to do more than just say ‘I looked on youtube’ for conventions of real media, but actually name specific videos you looked at, what you gained from them and how they influenced your work.
This question will be very much about looking at your skills development over time, the process which brought about this progress, most if not all the projects you worked on from that list above, and about reflection on how how you as a media student have developed. Unusually, this is an exam which rewards you for talking about yourself and the work you have done!
Final tips: you need some practice- this is very hard to do without it! I’d have a crack at trying to write an essay on each of the areas, or at the very least doing a detailed plan with lots of examples. The fact that it is a 30 minute essay makes it very unusual, so you need to be able to tailor your writing to that length- a tough task!
Monday
I came in today but wasn't well enough to stay I'm afraid.
I will try my best to come in tomorrow morning for you. I understand some of you are getting a bit anxious. Please try not to. Everything I have put on the blog is exactly what I would have done with you. We have covered everything on the syllabus and all we are doing now is revision. Fingers crossed I should be fully recovered after half term so I will do some extra revision lessons for you while you are on study leave. They can be for a whole morning or afternoon as I won't have Year 12 or 11 lessons timetabled.
Keep doing the timed essays, I am marking them as much as I can. The ones I have had from you have been excellent. You are very well prepared and all you need now is to practice writing at speed, including up to date examples and reference to theorists. We have covered enough theorists to support you in your essays.
The big issue that I would have discussed with you today is this one How parliamentary law needs to catch up with online media developments ie the Twitter V super injunctions row.
You should research this issue further and answer the question
'How have online media affected society and the institutions of news provision, music and film'.
Once again, don't panic!! All being well I will see you tomorrow.
I will try my best to come in tomorrow morning for you. I understand some of you are getting a bit anxious. Please try not to. Everything I have put on the blog is exactly what I would have done with you. We have covered everything on the syllabus and all we are doing now is revision. Fingers crossed I should be fully recovered after half term so I will do some extra revision lessons for you while you are on study leave. They can be for a whole morning or afternoon as I won't have Year 12 or 11 lessons timetabled.
Keep doing the timed essays, I am marking them as much as I can. The ones I have had from you have been excellent. You are very well prepared and all you need now is to practice writing at speed, including up to date examples and reference to theorists. We have covered enough theorists to support you in your essays.
The big issue that I would have discussed with you today is this one How parliamentary law needs to catch up with online media developments ie the Twitter V super injunctions row.
You should research this issue further and answer the question
'How have online media affected society and the institutions of news provision, music and film'.
Once again, don't panic!! All being well I will see you tomorrow.
Friday 20 May 2011
Work for Friday and the weekend
Remember you should be following the revision timetable I gave you, so by now, you should have gone through all of your notes and summarisied them.
For Online media you should have them in topic form and you should have up to date examplles and quotes from theorists for each one.
For Critical perspectives you should have filled out those A3 sheets you got months ago (there are copies on the blog if you have mislaid them) and you should have notes, examples and theory about each of your productions in terms of:
genre
audience
language
representation
and narrative
you should also have notes on production practices from this list:
digital technology
creativity
research & plannin
post-production and using conventions of real media products
Another up to date theorist is Aleks Krotoski.
She has written some excellent article in the Guardian recently. Click here
In todays lesson I would like you to read these and take down some quotes that you could use to support your points in your essays.
All being well I should be back in school on Monday and will be very interested to see what you have been doing.
Essay of the week comes from Holly. A really good example of theory and up to date examples.
Monday 16 May 2011
Work for this week
Hello, so sorry not to be with you last week. I had an accident last weekend and sustained concussion which has made me feel really ill. I hope to be back in school on Friday. So in the meantime you need to keep an eye on the blogs and get on with preparing timed essays. You can email them to me and I will try and return them as soon as is possible. Still have had no responses from some of you. Use the revision plan pamphlet that I gave to you some weeks ago to ensure you are on task.
A couple of points, Lily, Melania and Brooke, you all need to put your candidate number in the title of your blog. Lily, you need to upload a larger version of your video to you tube as the font on the version you have is all fuzzy.
Everyone else, please check this link to ensure that your blog is the correct version as this is the hub that is being sent to the examiner.
Now that everyones advanced portfolios are completed, well done.
This would be a good time to start preparing for the Critical Perspectives exam.
Read this article from Long road.
Make notes on it and incorporate your own knowledge of audience, using Gauntlett, Jenkins and Hall to answer the following question.
'What impact did your understanding of the theory of audience have on one of your productions?'
Tomorrow you should focus on Narrative and use this document to provide the theory back up.
Answer this question
'How important is narrative in creating a media product? Answer with close reference to one or more of your productions'.
Friday 6 May 2011
Exam advice from Principal examiner
1. Divide your time sensibly. 1a &b 1/2 hour each, one hour for section B.
2. 1a is all about you, 1b is all about the work.
Both are about applying theory to practical work and the creative process.
3. Prepare to write about all of the concepts and all of your productions so you can respond to the question set.
Examples are crucial. Decide which eg you will use in 1b and apply your theory to it.
4. Section B is about a deep understanding of a complicated media issue. Make sure you answer the question that is actually set.
5. You need lots of reading, lots of your own examples and a clear balanced argument, plus make connections.
6. Most of your egs should be from the last 5 years, theory may be older than that.
2. 1a is all about you, 1b is all about the work.
Both are about applying theory to practical work and the creative process.
3. Prepare to write about all of the concepts and all of your productions so you can respond to the question set.
Examples are crucial. Decide which eg you will use in 1b and apply your theory to it.
4. Section B is about a deep understanding of a complicated media issue. Make sure you answer the question that is actually set.
5. You need lots of reading, lots of your own examples and a clear balanced argument, plus make connections.
6. Most of your egs should be from the last 5 years, theory may be older than that.
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