For Question 1(a) you have to describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio. The focus of this evaluation must be on skills development, and the question will ask you to adapt this to one or two specific production practices.
Watch this video on how to gain full marks in this question, with exemplars for you to follow:
The question will be a variation of:
1a. Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time. Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer.
How to prepare your answer for 1a)
You need to prepare FIVE essays to be ready for the examination. You only have 30 minutes to write this section, so your answers do not need to be long. Make notes on:
- Digital Technology
- Creativity
- Research and planning
- Post-production
- Using conventions from real media texts
Pre-production
Production
Post-production
Remember, you can use examples of work you have done outside your production portfolio, too, such as other videos you have made at home or at school, or artwork you have done. You must focus on PROGRESSION over the course - the skills you developed.
1. Digital Technology
1a. Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time. Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer.First, decide what you think 'digital technology' is! Then recall how you have used different sorts of digital technology across your AS and A2 courses. TOP TIP - remember the difference between software and hardware (ie a tripod is NOT an example of digital technology!). You need to demonstrate your development throughout the course, so think about what you used at AS then what you used at A2 that you hadn't used at AS.
Now think about your first area, Pre-production. Do a spider diagram or write bullet points answering this:
a) What digital technologies did you use in Pre-production at AS? This could be PowerPoint presentations, your blog, YouTube, mobile phones, tablet computers, FlipCams... Write down 3-4 examples.
b) What digital technologies did you use in Pre-production at A2? This could be social media (Facebook/Twitter), use of websites like IMDB, DocStock, websites to stream content such as films, MySpace... Write down 3 more examples.
Next, think about your second area, Production.
a) What digital technologies did you use during the production process at AS? This could be different camera settings, use of MP3 players for lipsyncing, lighting, sound recording, downloading tracks to iTunes... Find three examples.
b) What digital technologies did you use at A2? Find three examples.For example, Photoshop, creating a website, camera effects, greenscreening...
Finally, think about your third area, Post-production.
a) What digital technologies did you use during the post-production process at AS? This could be basic FinalCut Express, iMovie for importing clips, |Moviemaker... Find 3 examples.
a) What digital technologies did you use at post-production at A2? This could be more advanced Final Cut effects, such as colour correction, linking/unlinking audio, changing the speed of clips, using the Trailer creation on IMovie... Find 3 examples.
Now write your essay introduction, using the PDQ format: Point, Data, Question. Make your point, give your data, then apply it to the question.
1. Answer or give your point of view on the question in 1-2 sentences.
2. Outline briefly the products you made across the two years - give the type of production, the title and the genre. The examiner needs to know what sort of work you're talking about!
3. Tell the examiner that you will structure your essay be explaining how you used digital technology at the pre-production, production and post-production stages of your work.
THEN reference basic theory if it's helpful - take from your AS representation work or your coursework evaluation.
Now you are ready to write your essay using the examples you found in your plan. A basic framework for your essay is below:
Basic essay structure for 1a (Write about your AS and A2 productions):
Paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short, but should frame your response. Explain what you did, e.g. 'For my AS Foundation Portfolio, I produced a two-minute chick flick film opening and for my A2 Advanced Portfolio, I made a pop music video.' Then move on to impress the examiner with a theoretical statement related to the topic, such as: 'Digital technology has meant proliferation and convergence of cross-media forms. My projects have evidenced what Gauntlett describes as "the harnessing of collective intelligence through interactivity".
Paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5 should pick up a skill area and suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills you had already and how you used them. Use examples and have some key phrases ready, such as:
Paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5 should pick up a skill area and suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills you had already and how you used them. Use examples and have some key phrases ready, such as:
- 'Use of iMovie helped me understand the conventions of film editing' (good for analysing how use of software links to creativity).
- Or 'My iMovie skills improved from AS to A2 as I became more proficient with special effects' (then give examples of effects you used such as green-screening, detaching audio, colour saturation). You need to show evidence of improvement from AS to A2 which obviously also improved your creativity.
- Or 'I found iMovie to be basic but suitable for the project; however at A2 I used the more advanced programme, Final Cut XPress.'
- 'Using Final Cut XPress allowed me to create seamless transitions between camera angles, whereas in my Foundation Portfolio I had problems with narrative continuity.'
- 'I uploaded my film opening on to YouTube as an example of Web 2.0 to gain interactive feedback.'
Paragraph 6 Short conclusion relating back to the question and summing up key skills you have developed in that area over the AS and A2 course. Frame your essay with another quotation from another theorist that relates to the question and confirms what you said in your introduction.
2. Creativity
This is the trickiest, possibly, but it is often combined with one of the other four areas in the question, so you need some phrases up your sleeve. Think about what 'creativity' means to you. Handy quotations from theorists are:"Making of the new, rearranging of the old" (Bentley)
"something new that communicates something to someone" (Gauntlett)
"something original" (Roberts).
You can use these quotations to support your points in your introduction and throughout the essay. You could also refer to Rick Altman on genre pleasures.
Repeat the planning process as you did for Digital Technology. Now write your essay!
Q1a creativity from krowland
1. Research and Planning
1a. Explain how your research and planning skills developed over time and how they contributed to creative decision-making. Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer.First, decide what you think 'research and planning' and 'creative decision-making' is! 'Research' is all your work looking at previous film openings and music videos and learning the conventions. Use the Bentley quotation that creativity is "making of the new, rearranging of the old" - therefore you had to become very familiar with other work in the same genre in order to make something recognisable within the genre yet fresh and new for the audience. Required research included:
AS Foundation Portfolio film opening:
- watching lots on YouTube to become familiar with the genre (give one or two examples for each of these bullet points). However, this only gave vague ideas so you:
- conducted nine-frame analyses to learn about shot types and editing;
- detailed semiotic analysis of key shots to learn what sorts of signs and symbols have been used in other film openings of a similar genre;
- creating a timeline of a film opening to see where to include credits and shot changes;
- research into film company idents, credits and film titles;
- research into film companies to find out how to produce, market and distribute your film.
Then AS planning included:
- audience survey to conduct a psychographic analysis of your target audience as well as what they expect from your chosen genre;
- pitching your idea to a focus group and taking feedback;
- storyboarding
- location planning, practice shots, costume, props, mise en scene, shot lists, timetables, weather forecasts!
A2 more advanced research included:
- completely new media - began again with the techniques used at AS such as watching lots of videos in your chosen genre;
- this time need to be more creative due to the need to provide something in a very demanding and competitive market, so lots more research into innovative techniques - greenscreening and effective lighting, stop motion, creative transitions;
- this time planning included much more analysis part-way through the project, taking feedback from audience focus groups and a music video director - needed to manage time very efficiently for this;
- additional new media for the ancillary task - magazines for the advertisement and digipaks. Lots more analysis of other magazine advertisements and digipaks, learning the conventions of what to include such as bar code and twitter/facebook logos;
- planning included research into new technology to use for these media, such as Gimp and PicMonkey;
- also included ways to create synergy between the three products, looking at how others had done this, taking key signs, colours, images and fonts across all three.
End results were a slick, professional-looking video, attractive digipak and successful advertisement which worked very well together as a package and received very positive feedback from the audience.
Basic essay structure for 1a (Write about your AS and A2 productions):
Paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short, but should frame your response. Explain what you did and frame the essay with a quotation from a theorist that relates to the question.
For Paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5, pick up a skill area and suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. Use examples. Follow this with ways you improved on those skills at A2, perhaps by using a more advanced piece of software or learning more advanced tools, always reflecting on how this improved your creative work.
Unless the topic is post-production you should cover three areas: pre-production, production and post-production. You could use those areas for a paragraph on each.
Paragraph 6 Short conclusion relating back to the question and summing up key skills you have developed in that area over the AS and A2 course. Frame your essay with another quotation from another theorist that relates to the question and confirms what you said in your introduction.
Remember it's only half an hour and you need to range across all your work!
For Paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5, pick up a skill area and suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. Use examples. Follow this with ways you improved on those skills at A2, perhaps by using a more advanced piece of software or learning more advanced tools, always reflecting on how this improved your creative work.
Unless the topic is post-production you should cover three areas: pre-production, production and post-production. You could use those areas for a paragraph on each.
Paragraph 6 Short conclusion relating back to the question and summing up key skills you have developed in that area over the AS and A2 course. Frame your essay with another quotation from another theorist that relates to the question and confirms what you said in your introduction.
Remember it's only half an hour and you need to range across all your work!
