Apologies – I won’t be in lessons on Wednesday for family reasons. Today is the deadline for your first drafts for pre-production. Use this double lesson to meet with your group and turn your first drafts into completed planning documents. A reminder of the pre-production tasks can be found here. Next lesson we’ll be giving out coursework folders so we can print and file our research and planning - make sure it's ready to go in. Mr Qureshi is on hand if you have any questions and I’ll be back next lesson – good luck!
Welcome back and happy new year for 2016! We’ve got an incredibly important term coming up – it’s only 11 weeks in total but in that time we will be completing all of our coursework and stepping up our exam preparation. In your exam lessons, you will be focusing on Section B of the MEST1 exam. This will explore the British film industry and particularly the critically acclaimed 2012 London-based social realist drama Ill Manors from director Ben Drew (better known as Plan B). You’ll be researching and discussing the film in real depth across the print, broadcast and e-media platforms looking at how the film was made, marketed and promoted. Towards Easter, you’ll also be choosing a big-budget British film to research independently to give you the second case study you need for Section B of the exam. In terms of coursework, this is the term when you will shoot and edit your film as well as photographing and designing the print brief. There’s a lot of work and the time will fly by so make sure you’re organised, committed and as creative as you can be. What can you do to maximise your grade in AS Media Studies? Now is the time to really step up your consumption of wider issues and debates in the media. If you want an A grade, you need to be doing the following as a minimum:
Keeping up with the Media Guardian to find out the big stories in the media each week – particularly on a Monday.
Reading each issue of Media Magazine. Our full archive is available here – the latest issue (MM54) has excellent features on gender representation (both male and female), Media violence, social media and identity and why watching films is good for you.
Using our incredible NEW archive of Media Factsheets to revise and increase your knowledge of wider media issues and debates. There are over 100 topics covered, many of them highly relevant to our exam preparation and coursework.
We made superb progress last term and have given ourselves the platform to achieve the very top grades in Media. Now, we need to go out and get them. Good luck!
Well done to everyone who attended the first of our arthouse film screenings yesterday - Run Lola Run. Run Lola Run contains so many creative filmmaking techniques, particularly with regards to narrative, cinematography and editing. If we can use similarly creative techniques with our own productions it will give us a great chance of a top-level mark. Unfortunately, some of you decided not to attend the screening which was very disappointing. You now have an additional piece of Christmas homework that is due on Wednesday 6 January: 1) Watch Run Lola Run. You will have to find, download or buy a copy of the film because you missed the screening. 2) Write a 350 word review on your blog, commenting particularly on narrative, cinematography and editing. Due: Wednesday 6 January Students who must complete this: Missing from 12C Mamduh Rashida Abdirahman Missing from 12D Hussein Aliza Alayna Aashir Ammar Taranjit Akash Ria Students who missed the screening due to Post-16 Intervention training also need to catch up with watching the film over Christmas.
Having completed extensive existing product research, institution research and audience research it's now time to move on to pre-production. This is the absolutely crucial planning phase where you create a script, storyboard, shot list and mise-en-scene planning (cast, props, costumes, locations etc). You should have received some excellent feedback from the class as part of your focus group so now it's time to put that feedback to use. This is a great YouTube video taking you through 15 common mistakes filmmakers make... This will be very useful for your pre-production - particularly in terms of casting, lighting and locations. As a group, you need to complete the following:
Project schedule
Script
Storyboard
Shot list
Mise-en-scene: casting details, location scouting with photographs, props, costume and make-up, lighting.
Your project schedule means laying out a week-by-week plan for shooting and editing your film - you may wish to use Microsoft Excel or Word for this.
You'll find guidance for setting out a script by visiting the BBC Writer's Room (click on the Script Library tab) and storyboard sheets are available in DF07. A three-minute film will require extensive storyboarding - you may wish to share this out between two people.
I advise laying out your shot list simply using Microsoft Word - this is an example of what it should look like. The key with a shot list is to plan lots of extra shots that give you options when editing - particularly a large number of extra close-up and cutaway shots.
The mise-en-scene planning can be formatted as you wish.
Important note: you only put work YOU completed in your coursework folder so make sure the pre-production tasks are shared equally between members of your group.
Due: First drafts of ALL your pre-production documents must be produced for Wednesday 6 January.
Our first arthouse film screening is taking place this afternoon in the Lecture Theatre: Run Lola Run. This is an acclaimed 1998 German film with brilliantly creative cinematography, animated sequences and a superb narrative concept. It's the perfect film to watch as you finalise your film pitches for the MEST2 coursework. Lecture Theatre 3.10pm
I hope the audience research focus groups for our MEST2 film pitches have been useful - it's a brilliant opportunity to share good ideas and improve our productions. You now need to write up your own group's recording in a blog post - note this write-up is an INDIVIDUAL task. The blog post should include the following:
A brief introduction to what the focus group involved
A list of key quotes from the focus group recording (you don't need to identify who said each quote and using bullet points is fine)
What you learned from the discussion and how this will impact on your final product
A detailed breakdown of the target audience for your film now you have completed some audience research: gender, age, social class, education/employment, race/ethnicity, psychographics etc.
Your recordings will probably be on your phone and therefore on of you will have to upload and share the file with your group. If you used one of our sound recorders, you can easily capture the file using the USB attachment and share the file on the M: Media shared drive. Your blog post for this aspect of your audience research needs to be AT LEAST500 words - it may well be a lot longer and remember you will use bits of this later in your MEST2 evaluation (worth 25% of the overall marks).
We have now completed our MIGRAIN introduction to Media unit and need to create an index to organise revision for the upcoming assessment.
January assessment You will have a MEST1 Section A assessment in your first double lesson after Christmas. This will be an excellent opportunity to show the progress we are making towards our Media target grades and also develop the skills needed for the exam in May. You need to revise everything you have covered in the Autumn term - both for the Introduction to Media unit AND Film Language. Due: first Monday back
MIGRAIN index
You already have a MIGRAIN index from early November but now need to update it to include the work from this half-term. You also need to re-publish the index so it appears as the latest post in your blog.
