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Theories for Questions 1a

and 1b
What to pick and why
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Question 1a

 Will be a combination of

 Creativity

 Research and Planning

 Real Media Conventions

 Digital Technology

 Post production
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Past Questions

 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.
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Top Tip – From the examiner

 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.

 Final tips: you need some practice- this is very hard to do without it!
Try 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!
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Creativity – matching the debate to an
area
"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common
ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)
post production research and planning

"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997) media
conventions, post production, digital technology

"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture
that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a
field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one
thing with another." (Donald Larning)
media conventions
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Real Media Conventions

Knowing what ‘real’ texts include and knowing why you used them.
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

Prelim Mag – Music Mag – Music Video – Digi Pack – Poster

Or

Continuity exercise – film opening – Music Video – Digi Pack -

Poster
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Key basic terminology – magazines
(useful for poster)
Masthead: The title of the magazine or newspaper. It is usually placed
at the top of the front cover for display purposes

Cover lines : Information about major articles given on the front page
of a magazine

Plug: Information about the contents of a magazine or newspaper given

on the front cover

Left-side third: A lot of important information designed to attract

potential readers is placed in the left-hand side vertical third of the front
cover page. This is in case the magazine is displayed in a horizontal
shelving system rather than a vertical one.
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Section 1b – analyzing your text against
theory
Make sure you have a line of argument and plenty of examples to back
them up.

Audience

Genre

Narrative

Representation

Media Language
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Past Questions

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.

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What’s not been been asked?

Audience

Media Language
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Audience

 Who was your product aimed at?

(revise using your blog and uktribes)

 How did you target this audience?

(think uses and gratifications, what did you include to appeal to them?)

 What was their reaction?

(prefered, oppositional and negotiated)

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Media Language

Difficult as it’s a bit catch all BUT focus on technical features

 Editing

 Camera work

 Page layouts (magazine or poster)

 Fonts (magazine or poster)

These elements are used to tell a ‘story’. You’ll need to revise Music
Video theory.
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Media Language - Basic Music Video stuff

Tempo of music drives the editing.

Genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and

editing styles.

Camerawork impacts meaning. Movement, angle and shot distance all play a part in the
representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate).

Editing is done in fast cuts, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first
viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing (repeatability).

Digital effects often enhance editing, which manipulates the the original images to offer
different kinds of pleasure for the audience. 
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Media Language

Slightly more advanced – Andrew Goodwin

Illustrate: Images used to represent the meanings of the lyrics and

genre (this is the most common feature of a music video) this is very
often literal.

Disjuncture: When the meaning of the song is completely ignored

Amplify: Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown

throughout the video and shown to the audience (basically repetition).

You MUST link these elements to the basic technical elements.