CriticalPerspectivesA2 Media written exam

Section A:

Theoretical Evaluation of Production

Question 1(a)

Question 1(a) requires you to describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio.

The focus of your evaluation must be on skills development and the question will require you to adapt this to one or two specific production practices.

The list of practices to which the question will relate is as follows: • Digital Technology • Creativity • Research and planning • Post-production • Using conventions from real media texts

Questions will be posed using one or two of these

categories. Where you have produced relevant work outside the context of the course you are encouraged to additionally refer to this experience.

Question 1(b)

Question 1(b) requires you to select one production and evaluate it in relation to a media concept.

The list of concepts to which the question will relate is as follows: • Genre• Narrative• Representation• Audience• Media Language

Questions will be set using one of these conceptsonly.

Whether the candidate applies the concept to the product or uses the production to challenge the concept, it is essential that candidates are sufficiently knowledgeable about the concept for either approach.

Candidates may choose to write aboutwork undertaken at AS or A2, main task or preliminary/ancillary tasks.

In this section you need to write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units.

You must answer both 1(a) and 1(b).

Example Questions

• 1 (a) “Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers”. In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions? [25]

• (b) “Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and / or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces. [25]

Section A Total [50]

Example Questions

• Explanation/analysis/argument (10 marks)

• Use of examples (10 marks)

• Use of terminology (5 marks)

How marks are allocated

“Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers.” In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

Explanation/ analysis/argument (9-10 marks)

There is a clear sense of progression established by the answer, and a range of articulate reflections on the production process are offered.

Use of examples (9-10 marks)

Candidates offer a broad range of specific, relevant and clear examples of the use of technology in relation to creative skills development.

Use of terminology (5 marks)

The use of both production terms and conceptual media terminology applied throughout is excellent.

“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives.” Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

Explanation/ analysis/argument (9-10 marks)

Candidates demonstrate a clear understanding of narrative theories / approaches and relate them articulately to the production process, describing specific decisions made in relation to narrative and expectations of audience response.

Use of examples (9-10 marks)

A broad range of relevant and interesting examples of the creative process are offered.

Use of terminology (5 marks)

Both conceptual language and production terminology are applied with excellent results.

Also for high marks…

Complex issues have been expressed clearly and fluently using a style of writing appropriateto the complex subject matter.

Sentences and paragraphs, consistently relevant, have been well structured, using appropriate technical terminology.

There may be a few, if any, errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Section A:

Theoretical Evaluation of Production

thinking aboutyourwork

Digital technology

thinking aboutyourwork

Digital technology

Watch this videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO1bSakyIPs

In your lifetime1990 SLIP/PPP (Serial Line Internet Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol): We've forgotten about this now, but SLIP/PPP ' mostly PPP ' is what got everyone on the Internet via dial-up modems back when broadband was an obscure industry term.

1991 HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE: You send the instructions to the remote computer and let it figure out how to render the layout, dummy!

In your lifetime1992 THE BROWSER: It made the Web work for the rest of us.

1993 E-MAIL: Electronic mail goes back to the 1960s, but it really started taking off with Web use. By 1997, the volume of business e-mail surpassed that of regular mail.

ADOBE PDF: Lawyers and other control freaks love it! Also, it was perhaps the first truly effective document- sharing technology.

In your lifetime1994 JPEG: Lit up the Web with images.

1995 WINDOWS 95: 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking made possible everything that has come along for the desktop since ' including the graphical Internet and Mac OS X.

WIKIS: They may have taken a while to catch on, but wikis are becoming a dominant collaboration tool. JAVA: Write once, run all over the Web.

In your lifetime1996 MP3 AUDIO FORMAT: A file format that pretty much leveled an entire industry ' and movies are next. FLASH: Scripting your Web page like a movie, or anything else, with almost zero-client footprint.

1997 BROADBAND: Cable and Digital Subscriber Lines start to make an appearance in homes, and telecommuting becomes a real option. it figure out how to render the layout, dummy!

In your lifetime

1998 GOOGLE: We'd call it the portal to the Web, except portals aren't this easy to use. The search bar is rapidly becoming the ‘sippy cup of culture’ with more than partial thanks to Wikipedia, Google's query shortstop. EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE: Data that tells us what our data is. But this data is in brackets, so we know what it means, more or less.

In your lifetime

1999 WI-FI: The network computer Libre! BLACKBERRY: Life support for your government executive, with its push technology making the difference.

VIRTUALIZATION FOR X86 ARCHITECTURES: Making the most of what you have.

OPEN SSH: Telneting securely, saving untold fortunes in KVM switches.

In your lifetime

2002 MICROSOFT.NET FRAMEWORK: A virtual machine independent of programming language. The future of Microsoft development.

2003 SERVICEORIENTED ARCHITECTURE: SOA and Web services pave the way for a new generation of online government services.

In your lifetime

2004 WEB ONTOLOGY LANGUAGE: The beginning of the Semantic Web. ADOBE FLEX: Flash development, open-sourced in 2007, for Rich Internet Applications.

2005 ASYNCHRONOUS JAVASCRIPT AND XML: Launched Web 2.0. MULTICORE PROCESSORS: More performance, less energy use; a wave of the future.

In your lifetime

2007 FACEBOOK API/GOOGLE OPEN SOCIAL API: Social network programming goes mainstream.

And what has also happened in the last few years?

What about your experience?

Draw a timeline for your own use of digital technology. Include your first:

• Photo

• Record? CD? MP3?

• Email account

• Mobile phone

• Camera

• Use of internet – what was the first word you typed into Google?

• Computer/ laptop

What else..?

And think about this…

Have you used any new technology in your production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio ?

Have you developed skills you had?

Give examples:Hardware? Software?

Use of applications/ interfaces?

Has your thinking about technology changed?

Creativity

thinking aboutyourwork

CREATIVITYIt is important not to assume one answer to any question! Rather than ask yourself the question,

"How have I become more creative during my A level course?", ask yourself,

"Have I become more creative?".

If you answer the second question, then you will evaluate your progress much more thoroughly.

CREATIVITY

Think about the the pros and cons of using the technology and software you have used.

Perhaps your options (creativity!) have sometimes been limited by the use of certain programmes (Vegas, Go-animate, etc.) or hardware (cameras, mikes, etc.)

How could changes these tools be improved to make you even more creative?

CREATIVITY

What do we mean by creativity anyway?

Is it being…

• Original?• Different?• Cleverer?

What do you think?

Research & Planning

thinking aboutyourwork

Research & planning

Begin with a timeline of all of the production units you have covered for this area:

For each of these projects, note down all of the technologies and methods you used.

Be very specific!

For example don't just write 'blogs'. You have used blogs in many different ways:

you’ve probably used blogs…

• To review real text examples and discuss conventions.

• To analyse old students’ work and discuss marking criteria.

• To get peer feedback on the progress of your project.

• To plan micro elements.

• To discuss audience expectations.

• To review your own progress and update your plans

or this could apply to YouTube or Facebook

Then, for each of your technologies and

methods, make a list of pros and cons.

Ask yourself some questions….such as…

• What advantages do blogs have over 'paper planning'?

• Are there any disadvantages to using blogs? Are they easy to 'read'? To access?

• What are the pros and cons of getting peer feedback?

• Did I find getting qualitative or quantitative information most useful?

• How useful are storyboards and shotlists?

• How important is research into audience experiences and expectations?

When you have completed your timeline of notes, you should be able to see how your research and planning skills have developed during your A level Media Studies and what factors have helped them to develop.

Post Production

thinking aboutyourwork

editing/music/special effects/narration

thinking aboutyourwork

Watch this video on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9-bM_fSvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9-bM_fSvw

While watching answer these questions:

• What skills were developed? Existing skills? New skills?

• How were the skills developed? Give examples

Using conventions from real media texts

thinking aboutyourwork

Using Conventions of Real Media Texts

Each of your practical projects had a specific set of conventions. For this topic, you need to consider how your understanding has developed over the course.

Begin by make a note of the conventions of each of the genres you created.

Then pick 2 or 3 of these conventions and say how you used (or challenged) them within your own work:

Using Conventions of Real Media Texts

Example….

A Convention of the Thriller genre is the theme of identity. In my own project I created mise en scene that included different types of mirrors.

These gave different reflections to imply that the protagonist's identity wasn't fixed and could change depending on which context he was in...

Using Conventions of Real Media Texts

Don't forget to ask yourself how useful it is tounderstand and apply real conventions

AND

why your ability to apply this understanding has improved over the course.

the end...