G321 Foundation Portfolio in Media - Moderator Feedback 2016
General Comments:
Moderator Feedback
Where candidates are working on
a group blog, a welcome post
seems to work well, allowing them
to define their roles in the
project.
For group work, centres must
differentiate between the
contributions made by
individual members.
Research and planning [20 Marks]
Moderator Feedback
Best practice encouraged an equal
measure of research and planning and
advised candidates to see this as an
ongoing process, representing all
continuous stages of the project.
Blogposts should not be saved up for the
end of the process in order for
everything to look neat; a degree of
messiness in the process is actually
encouraged to demonstrate the reality
of the project.
The best work is comprehensive and
shows strong evidence of candidates
reflecting on the process of the
production in their blogs, starting with
the general and moving in to the
particular, focusing on texts which
clearly relate to their finished products.
The best audience research is that
which occurs regularly throughout
the process, and uses qualitative
methods such as interviews and
discussions, rather than the
traditional questionnaire.
My product
I included a welcome post on my blog
on the first page , including reasons
why i chose media AS and when I have
previously completed in younger
years, eg. year 11.
Our work shows he has done each
individual blog post and who took part
in what roles when filming our final
piece.
My product
Our group involved 4 people, but we felt
only 3 of the members were involved fully
in the process. This included;myself, amy
and jess.
Majority of the blog posts are included on
my blog. I have included a little sub-
heading with each one to provide a clear
explanation on the post and also helps
differentiate between different parts of the
research and planning.
We included each stage of research
including audience pleasures and horror
genre research however nearer the end of
our planning, we included costume t the
last detail that we would have to use, we
chose a location which fitted our Padlet and
storyboard and only changed minor details.
We used a survey monkey when it came to
doing audience research but only because
we wanted to have a wide range of reviews,
which interviews restricts you too.
What can I do to improve my product
based on moderator feedback?
I would like to re-do my opening, as i felt it wasnt
completely attractive to be the opening on my blog
and i would like to go into a little bit more detail.
N/A
What can I do to improve my product
based on moderator feedback?
Convince all members of the group to participate
equally.
I need to add the last few blog post, maximum three
psts onto my blog and speak about them to insure I get
full marks on my blog.
Maybe we should of planned our final outcome to every
last detail and placed it on our blogs when we was
100% happy because we changed the amount of
characters involved and when we was going to actually
film due to complications.
Maybe experiment using an interview when finding out
audience research or just conduct an interview as well
to put alongside the questionnaire on my blog so that
we have a wide range of data.
What are my next steps to
improve my coursework? Plan
these in SMART targets
N/A
N/A
What are my next steps to
improve my coursework? Plan
these in SMART targets
If the 4th member isnt happy undertaking the
work, us three will divide the rest of the work
efficiently between us to insure we get all the
work done.
Go through each blog post and if we have
changed any of the planning at the end i will
add what we changed it too and why so that i
can show that we did face some changes and
errors but found a way to resolve them. Or i will
talk about the changes in my evaluation.
Conduct an interview - show variety.
Some research tends to be very
teacher-led and therefore does not
always link to final products. A
degree of independence is needed
in order to demonstrate
understanding on the part of
candidates.
We didnt ask for an excessive amount of N/A N/A
help when researching for our final
outcome, it was left down to our group to
found it on our own, which i was happy with
doing.

Tasks building skills, including
parodies and re-makes of existing
texts, often worked well as part of
the process, enabling candidates to
overcome common pitfalls and led to
much better final pieces.
We faced several continuity errors along N/A - we worked around the problems we faced when N/A
the way, from the start of our preliminary creating our blogs and so on.
task all the way to our final outcome,
including bad camera work, shaky filming,
we couldnt film on the day we wanted
because of weather conditions etc.

Construction [60 Marks]

Moderator Feedback
As always, there was some outstanding
work, with minute detail evident in the
planning, with annotated drafts,
treatments, risk assessments, call-
sheets and different types of
storyboard.
My product
We have completed and added a storyboard onto
our blogs which I created earlier on in the year.
What can I do to improve my
product based on moderator
feedback?
Include more detailed work such as; annotated
drafts and different types of platforms that we
could present our work on.
What are my next steps to
improve my coursework? Plan
these in SMART targets
Go through my blog and see what each blog is
placed on (platform) and if one types comes
up too much, ill ask the member of my group
which completed it to re-do it on another
platform.

Strong research featured detailed
evidence of a range of opening sequences
having been studied appropriately and of
conventions of titling having been taken
on board.
We watched several opens of horror films, which is N/A Before handing in, i will rewatch the open titles
also shown in our step outline blog post where we to Hush and make sure our opening is similar
had to talk about the first 2 minutes of a horror to a real horror opening.
film, we follow ideas of having names popping up
throughout the whole opening, we made sure it
didnt have the look of a trailer and there was a
cliffhanger at the end so the storyline could
continue.

Where the research and planning is
weak, the productions do tend to
suffer, and again this is an area where
teaching can prepare candidates in a
systematic and rigorous fashion for the
challenge of producing the openings.
Our teacher constantly showed us new ways to Add more varied amount of platforms to my Check over each blog post and include every
improve our work whilst creating everything and blog to make sure my research and planning is last bit of detail we have saved and created to
showed us where she felt like we was falling down, strong and nothing needs to be changed. insure we gain full marks in our work.
we made sure the research and planning was
complete before creating the final outcome so that
we could focus on the editing of the final piece
nearer the end.

As in previous sessions, there was a
preponderance of stalker/slasher
narratives, but it was refreshing to see a
range of other genres mobilised. In many
cases, there was good, varied,
controlled camerawork and editing.
We based ours on a psychological horror because N/A N/A
after most of the openings that we watched, they
was based around the same theme of blood and
death but we wanted ours to be different.
However, in some cases there was little
sense of control of the camera, with an
over-reliance on zooms and shaky
material without tripods.
Sound and lighting still tend to be the
most problematic areas, especially
sound levels with dialogue
Candidates need to be encouraged to
create their own soundscape, combining
diegetic and non-diegetic sound to suit
their original footage, rather than
sourcing an existing well-known track,
which is not permitted for this
specification.
Night shoots are not advised without
sophisticated use of lighting.
Title screen placement needs to be
considered carefully as does the order
in which the titles are shown.
Some openings had narratives that felt
like the development of a scene from a
movie or standalone idea rather than
an enigmatic opening built on solid
understanding, usually because not
enough work on genre research and
comparable texts had been done.
Some candidates seemed to have been
assessed on their knowledge of film
language rather than their ability to
make an opening.
Evaluation [20 Marks]
Moderator Feedback
At the top end, there were some really
We found that filming with a tripod was easier When we was editing we stabilised all our clips N/A
when filming straight angles but we wanted to to make sure the shaky effect wasnt there
show different angles and different aspects of anymore, however on some clips it was
filming, therefore we could use a tripod the whole beneficial as it made our work look different
time causing some of our filming to be shaky. and showed a differentiation between shots.
We didnt use a large amount of dialogue in our N/A N/A
work, it was used only once by our actress, Amy.
We found that we didnt have an issues with the
loudness of our dialogue and that it was clearly
spoken. We added other types of sounds on top as
well, including non-diegetic music to our opening.
We used a non-diegetic sound in the background N/A Check our final outcome to make sure no
of our opening however it wasnt a copyright piece unnecessary sound is involved in the
also we hadnt heard it before therefore we felt background and make sure everything works.
like it would be good to use as it is original. Also
we used diegetic sounds including the scrapping
off a knife in our final outcome.
N/A - We didnt shoot at night time. N/A N/A
We included two opening titles with our production N/A - already completed N/A
companies on at the start and then included a
piece with the name of our movie at the end
which will slowly fade out into a black screen.
We found when planning our opening that it was N/A - sorted our problem before filming N/A
starting to sound like a trailer or part of the film
however we changed this to show that the
innocent girl has been seen by her stalker but the
audience doesnt know whats going to happen
next which is then the rest of the storyline.
I focused on both aspects in media, when writing N/A Check every little detail on my blogs and blog
on the blog posts i made sure i used correct media posts to make sure i havent rambled on and i
terminology however when filming, that was my have got straight to the point and used the
priority and i strived to make both 100%. correct terminology.
My product What can I do to improve my What are my next steps to
product based on moderator improve my coursework? Plan
feedback? these in SMART targets
creative pieces with candidates using
a range of approaches to address the
questions.

The best work came from centres where

sufficient time had been allocated to
the tasks, rather than seeing them as
an afterthought

In many cases it was clear that

candidates had considered the seven
questions throughout the project,
rather than just at the end.

In such cases, they were well prepared

to fully address the areas under
consideration in creative ways. Where
Web 2.0 tools are used, centres are
advised to consider the appropriateness
and effectiveness of them. In some
cases, Prezis were used as just
glorified essays, with one box per
question. Fitness for purpose is
essential.

Differentiation within groups in

evaluations is essential.

All members of a group must

contribute to all seven questions or
do their own individual sets. In some
cases, there had been limited challenge
to candidates where they read essays to
camera or recorded a podcast of them
reading essays. This is not in the
spirit of the task and cannot gain
high marks.