Key things to think about for section A

2. Q1A IN A NUTSHELL
Directly asks you to evaluate how your media production skills have
developed progressively from AS to A2
Critical reflection on creative processes and decision making in the context
of a range of productions and progress made from AS to A2.

3. RESEARCH AND PLANNING
How much did research inform the development of your own ideas?
What types of research were most significant in developing your own
ideas?
What difficulties did you encounter in your research?
How did you plan your production work and what types of planning were
most effective?
What issues did you experience in moving from the planning to the
production phase? How useful was your planning in the production
phase?
What aspects should you have planned and prepared more thoroughly?

4. CREATIVITY
What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to what extent have you been creative?
How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?
Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?
How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief?
Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?
To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce ideas’ off other
people to be truly creative?
How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind’s eye?
How much of your creativity was about trial and error?
To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity?
To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your
creativity?

5. DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Photoshop
iMovie
Final Cut Express
Garage Band
Wix
Prezi
Blogger
Word or PowerPoint
YouTube
Camera
Internet
(anything you used for your evaluations)

6. POST-PRODUCTION
EDITING – techniques used; style; pace; transitions and how the editing
helped communicate meaning to the audience.
SOUNDTRACK & SOUND EFFECTS – the choices made and the impact of
these choices on audiences.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – discuss any special effects (fast-motion, slow-motion
etc) and any effects you used to distort/edit images. Again, the
emphasis should be on the way these effects impact on audiences and
communicate meaning.

7. USING CONVENTIONS FROM REAL MEDIA TEXTS
How much was your own production influenced by existing texts?
How did you identify the conventions? How did you research into existing texts?
Why follow conventions? Think about the relationship with audiences here.
Which conventions did you follow?
How easy was it to follow conventions in your own work? Were there any
obstacles?
To what extent, if any, did you depart from existing conventions? What effects
were you hoping to achieve by breaking some of the conventions?
To what extent did adherence to conventions limit your own creativity?

8. Q1B IN A NUTSHELL
This question requires a more distanced approach – a textual analysis of
one production outcome – as a media text – to demonstrate the ability
to apply a theoretical concept to the text.

9. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO
WITH THEORISTS AND THEORIES?
You do NOT need to:
Learn a load of quotes
Explain their theories in great depth
Know them all
You DO need to:
Use a few
Be able to apply them to your work/ case studies
Consider how useful/ not useful they are when discussing
your work/ case studies

10. HOW TO USE THEORISTS…
Quote
Summarise
Comment
Assume your reader knows about the theory/ theorist.
Don’t explain the theory; use it.
A Todorovian analysis would argue…
Mulvey’s notion of the Male Gaze provides a useful
way of understanding the video in that…
Kate Wales statement that “Genre is... an intertextual
concept” could be useful here because…

11. MEDIA LANGUAGE
Essentially this is asking for a detailed textual analysis of your production which
explores the meanings created by micro elements.
What are the denotation and connotation present in the work
What key decision have been made by the producer and what meaning are they
meant to create (If a film maker has chosen to employ a particular sign at one
point from a range of possibilities that is a ‘paradigmatic’ choice e.g. what
costume to choose for a character).
How do signs work together to create meaning (syntagmatic relationship)
How has the film maker try to encode meaning – what techniques? Are they
successful ie is it easy to decode the production? Could be be decoded in a
different way?
What are different ways this text could be read and understood ( Audience
Concept stuff)
What ideologies/myths/ meta narratives does the work reinforce or challenge?
What effect might this production have on the audience – emotion stuff, role
modelling, challenging beliefs/ ideas
Why are any of these things important?

12. AUDIENCE
Who is the target audience for the production? ( AC Neilsen TAGS, Rubicam's 4Cs
Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation ), how do you know?
Would this production be successful with it target audience? How might it be
read/understood by a different target audience?
What uses and gratifications will the target audience get from the production?
What effect might the production have on audiences?
What is the Dominant/Hegemonic/Preferred reading of this text? What is a
possible Negotiated reading of this text? What would be an Oppositional
reading?
How would this text suit a Pomo audience (Gauntlett – meaning is fluid and the
audience is intelligent)
In what ways is the work an example of Jenkins Participatory Culture (audiences
are no longer just consumers, they are also producers and users. They create
and consume, participate and publish, download and upload, receive and
share)

13. NARRATIVE
Does the product follow a linear narrative?
Does the production adhere to or subvert narrative conventions?
How does the narrative support the establishment of genre?
How have narrative techniques been used to appeal to the audience?
Does the text have a clear narrative (in other words, are the audience able to
understand what is happening)
Is there a narrative thread?
Is there any suggestion of resolution in the product or, instead, do we have
elements of the beginning/middle of the film, but not its end?
How could the product be interpreted using narrative theory? Propp / Todorov/
Levi-Strauss/ Boardwell and Thompson/ Three Act Structure (Set Up and
Catalyst for Thriller)
Why is narrative important?
Why is it good to challenge narrative conventions?

14. AYO (ANALYSE YOUR OWN) PRODUCTION!
Watch your film opening or music video (it should be on your blog from last year).
Create a presentation which ANALYSES the thriller or music video as if it’s not
yours.
Try to cover the following areas:
 Genre
 Representation
 Audience
 Media language
 Narrative
Use the question prompt sheets to guide your responses.
Present back to the class.