Preliminary exercise: Feedback and learner response

The preliminary exercise is a brilliant opportunity to learn the basics of filmmaking before starting your actual coursework project.

After the screening of the preliminary exercises in class, you need to create a blogpost called 'Preliminary exercise learner response' and embed the video from YouTube. Then, complete the following tasks as your feedback and learner response:

1) Type up your teacher's feedback in full.

2) Using a combination of your own reflection on the preliminary exercise and your teacher feedback, write three WWW bullet points (What Went Well) and three EBI bullet points (Even Better If...) for your film.

3) How effectively did you complete the objective you laid out in your preliminary exercise statement of intent?

4) What have you learned from the preliminary exercise that will help you in the actual coursework project?

5) Now you have completed the preliminary exercise, what are your current plans for your actual coursework? This could include genre, narrative, characters, filming locations etc.

These feedback and learner response tasks must be completed by Friday 13 July or you will have to attend school to do this in the final week of term when Year 12 lessons have ended.

Museum of Brands Trip - Monday 9/7/18

Please read the details of Monday's trip carefully...

Trip date: Monday 9^th July 2018

The meeting point is outside the Museum of Brands, Packaging & Advertising in Ladbroke Grove: get there via Ladbroke Grove underground station at 9.15am.

Travel in pairs/groups to Ladbroke Grove wherever possible and check service updates on tfl.gov.uk before you travel.

Average journey time from Ealing Broadway station to Ladbroke Grove is about half an hour.

You’ll need to get the Central Line (red) from Ealing Broadway to White City (4 stops: about 10 minutes).

Then you’ll need to walk down Wood Lane (turn left out of the station) for 5 minutes to Wood Lane Station (opposite BBC Television Centre).

Take whichever train comes first – either the Circle Line (yellow) or the Hammersmith & City Line (pink) – to Ladbroke Grove (2 stops: about 5 minutes).

Map of meeting point/venue:

Meeting time: 9.15am

It is VITAL you arrive on time as we cannot be late for the workshop.

A register will be taken and phoned in to Greenford High School and students who do not turn up on time will have parents/guardians called by post-16 staff.

The main school phone number is: 020 8578 9152

A school mobile phone will be in use on the day: 07542 164 515

Magazines: Final index

We have now completed our second in-depth CSP topic - print magazines.

You need to create a final index of all the tasks we have completed for Men's Health and Oh Comely. As we've discussed before, keeping an up-to-date index of all your work is extremely good practice from a revision perspective. It keeps the vital CSP information fresh in your mind and also highlights if you've missed anything through absence or trips. 

Magazines: final index

Your final Magazines index should include the following:

1) Men's Health - Audience
2) Men's Health - booklet blog summary
3) Men's Health - Representation journal article and questions
4) Magazine production task - learner response
5) Men's Health - Industries and the impact of digital media
6) Oh Comely - Audience
7) Oh Comely - Close-textual analysis
8) Oh Comely - Representation
9) Oh Comely - Industry case study
10) End of Year 1 exam - learner response

Remember, for your index it needs to link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work and revision notes quickly and easily.

If you are missing any of this work, make sure you catch up by Monday 9 July or you will be asked to come in during the final week of term when Year 12 lessons have finished.

Coursework: Summer Project 2018

The summer project is a vital element of your coursework - an opportunity to plan an outstanding film trailer and professional-level poster campaign and then present it to class in September.

Your summer project contains compulsory and optional elements; everybody will be researching their chosen genre, creating a film pitch, writing a detailed Statement of Intent and presenting this to class as an Ignite presentation. However, if you wish to plan and film your production over the summer while you have time and actors available we would fully support you in this approach.

Summer project tasks

Complete the following tasks on a blogpost on your coursework blog called 'Summer Project: coursework planning':

1) Research: Film trailer analysis 

You need to write detailed 250-word close-textual analyses of six film trailers in your chosen genre. For each film trailer, focus on a different aspect of media language, and embed each one on your blog:

Film trailer 1: Narrative and genre
How is narrative and genre communicated quickly and clearly to the audience?

Film trailer 2: Mise-en-scene
What do you notice about the use of mise-en-scene to create meanings for the audience? Think CLAMPS.

Film trailer 3: Camerawork
Here you are looking for particular camera shots and movement. E.g. Are close-ups used to introduce key characters to the audience? How are establishing shots used?

Film trailer 4: Editing
Analyse pace, transitions, number of shots and juxtaposition e.g. eyeline matches. Does the pace speed up towards the end of the trailer? 

Film trailer 5: Sound
Analyse both diegetic and non-diegetic sound - music, dialogue, voiceover, SFX, background or foley sound etc.

Film trailer 6: Trailer conventions, intertextuality, graphics, text-on-screen etc.
Here you need to explore trailer conventions and intertextuality - what does this trailer have that you've spotted in all the trailers you have analysed so far? Are there any intertextual references? Look at conventions, text on screen, graphics, title, release date, social media links and more.


2) Planning: Film pitch

Here you need to plan your own film idea that will form the basis of your trailer and posters. This means developing a complete film pitch that outlines the narrative, characters and more.

Complete this film pitch template (you can copy the questions into your blog or complete on Word and link from your blog) to demonstrate you have planned a complete feature film in your chosen genre.


3) Statement of Intent

Write your genuine 500-word Statement of Intent. This will be submitted to the exam board alongside your media products and is worth 10 marks of the overall 60 marks available.

Guidance is provided by AQA in their NEA Student Booklet but we strongly recommend you also look at our Statement of Intent suggested questions document too.


4) Ignite presentation

Prepare a 5-minute, 20-slide presentation using the Ignite format in which you present your coursework project. In effect, this is your statement of intent in presentation format. You must cover:

• Your film idea: title, tagline, genre, narrative etc.
• Media language: how you will use conventions, camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene and sound to create an effective trailer and film posters.
• Media representations: how you will use or subvert stereotypes; representation theory.
• Media audiences: your target audience demographics and psychographics; audience pleasures; audience theory.
• Media industries and digital convergence: the potential companies or organisations that could fund or distribute your film; how your trailer and posters will use new and digital media and digital convergence to create an effective campaign.

Ignite presentations have very specific rules: you must create exactly 20 slides with each slide set to 15-second auto-advance. This means your presentation will be exactly five minutes followed by questions and comments from the class. You will deliver your presentation on your coursework planning in the first week back in September.

You can find more information about Ignite presentations - including examples - in this Ignite presentation blogpost here.

Summer project deadline: all tasks above due in first lesson back in September



Summer project: optional extensions

Pre-production tasks

Some students have already expressed an interest in filming their trailers over the summer break. This makes a huge amount of sense - far more availability of actors, much more time to schedule filming etc. However, if you want to do this, you need to read this Guardian feature on how to create a film trailer and then complete the following aspects of pre-production:

Script
Write a script for your film trailer. There is some debate with regards to whether trailers have scripts (the script would obviously be for the full movie) but you absolutely need to plan out every aspect of your production and a script seems the more logical way to do it. It may well be that your trailer script contains a lot of stage directions/description but there will be dialogue (and possibly voiceover) in there too. You'll find guidance for writing a script in the BBC Writers' Room (click on the Script Library to read real examples of professional scripts).

Storyboard 
Sketch out a range of critical shots from your trailer, take a photo of the storyboard and upload it to your blogpost. What visual style are you trying to create? Storyboard sheets are available in DF07 or you can download and print out an AQA storyboard template from here.

Shot list
Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film for the trailer AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. I advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example here. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the trailer in chronological order. 

Mise-en-scene
What iconography are you including to ensure your audience understands the genre? Plan your cast, costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. This can be simply completed using your blog or Microsoft Word - the key aspect is to have planned all the critical details. 

Shooting schedule 
Plan a shooting schedule for your filming over the summer. Include when, where, who is required and what shots you will complete at each time/location. Again, this can be on Word or Excel or you could simply use your blog. The most important thing is that you've planned it!

Non-assessed participants
You will need to provide a written record of all non-assessed participants in your production work (both trailer and posters). Keep a record of everyone involved - actors, camerawork, sound etc. You will also need a keep a record of any non-original sound you used and note it on the Candidate Record Form. Keep these on your blog for easy reference when submitting your work in Year 13.


Production: Filming and photography

Once you have completed your pre-production tasks, you can film or carry out photoshoots as you wish.

Good luck!

Coursework: Summer project Ignite presentations

Your summer project will involve researching and planning your coursework. You will then present this work to the class in the first week of September in the form of an Ignite presentation.

This will be a hugely valuable exercise as it will allow you to test your idea in front of a potential audience - in fact the exact target audience specified in the brief. The Ignite presentation format offers a particular challenge and will force you to carefully consider how to pitch your project to the class.

The Ignite tagline is simple:

“Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

Ignite talks are a popular presentation format online. The rules are simple:

• 20 slides
• 15 second auto-advance
• 5 minutes
• 1 topic

Here's a good Ignite talk about giving an Ignite talk:

Here are some media-related examples:

And here's another Media-related example that shows you why PRACTICE is so important - the speaker never keeps up with his slides and therefore the whole presentation is rushed:

Summer project: Ignite presentation

Your Ignite presentation will be on your coursework plan - effectively a presentation version of your Statement of Intent. This means telling your audience the genre, title, narrative, media language choices, representations, audience and industry factors in just 20 slides and 5 minutes. You can find all the Summer project tasks in the original blogpost here.

Good luck!

Preliminary exercise: extended deadline

Due to IT issues with the Media Shared drive we are extending the deadline for the Preliminary Exercise to FRIDAY.

The Media Shared drive is working currently and the IT Helpdesk is confident that the issues have been resolved. However, we would recommend you still save regularly while using it to avoid losing any work should further issues emerge.

The drive was down for around two days in total so an extension until Friday 6 July seemed the fairest option.

Magazines: Oh Comely Industry case study

Our final concept for Oh Comely magazine is industry.

This is crucial concept because Oh Comely is a small, niche independent magazine - completely different from the global brand that is Men's Health. We need to explore the surprising rise in independent publishing in recent years and why small print magazines seem to be surviving and thriving in the digital age.

Lesson notes

The independent print magazine is characterised as:

“…published without the financial support of a large corporation or institution in which the makers control publication and distribution…“independent” in spirit due to a maverick editor or publisher who leads the magazine in an exploratory, noncommercial direction” (Thomas 2007).

Source: Writer's Edit




Print: the challenge for publishers

Despite the renaissance of print through independent magazines, there are still huge challenges:

• Distribution: finding distributor, risk of unsold stock
• Lack of advertising revenue: meaning high cover price (all over £5, many around £10 or more)
• Audience: finding and targeting a viable audience

Ironically, the internet has proved an unlikely saviour for independent magazines – it facilitates direct sales and subscriptions and allows magazines to find niche communities, crowdfunding and contributors

Iceberg Press: an independent publisher

Iceberg Press is completely different to Hearst UK – the publisher of Men’s Health and subsidiary of global conglomerate Hearst.

It publishes just two magazines: Oh Comely and The Simple Things.

Oh Comely Industries case study - blog tasks

Work through the following tasks to complete your work on the Oh Comely magazine CSP. There are plenty of questions here but you will be given plenty of time to complete it and will find this gives you a brilliant insight into a vital aspect of media - the power of independent institutions.

Iceberg Press

Visit the Iceberg Press website - particularly the Who Are We page and the Why Are We Here page. Read the content and then answer the following questions:

1) Why did the people behind Iceberg Press set it up?

2) What is the Iceberg Press mission statement? (It's on the Why Are We Here page and is a series of statements).

3) What are the two magazines that Iceberg Press publishes?

4) What similarities do you notice between The Simple Things magazine and Oh Comely?

5) What differences can you find between Hearst UK, publisher of Men's Health, and Iceberg Press?


Writer's Edit journal article

Read this excellent Writer's Edit academic journal article on the independent magazine industry and answer the following questions:

1) What is the definition of an independent print magazine?

2) What does Hamilton (2013) suggest about independent magazines in the digital age?

3) What is the aim of Kinfolk magazine and what similarities can you draw with Oh Comely?

4) Why does the article suggest that independent magazines might be succeeding while global magazine publishers such as Bauer are struggling?

5) How do independent magazines launch? Look at the example of Alphabet Family Journal.

6) What does the article suggest about how independent publishers use digital media to target their niche audiences?

7) Why is it significant that independent magazines are owned and created by the same people? How does this change the creative process and direction of the magazine?

8) What does the article suggest regarding the benefits of a 'do-it-yourself' approach to creating independent magazines?

9) The article discusses the audience appeal of print. Why might audiences love the printed form in the digital age?

10) What are the challenges in terms of funding and distributing an independent magazine?


Irish Times feature

Now read this short feature in the Irish Times on the growth of independent magazines and answer the following questions:

1) Why are independent magazines so popular?

2) Why is the magazine publishing industry set up to favour the big global conglomerates?

3) What does the article suggest regarding finding an audience for an independent magazine?

4) What are the challenges for magazine distributors?

5) The article suggests that many independent magazines only make money by diversifying into other products. What examples do they give?


TCO interview with Ruth Jamieson

Finally, read this excellent interview on the TCO London website with Ruth Jamieson, who has written a book on the renaissance of the independent magazine sector. Answer the following questions:

1) Why does Ruth Jamieson suggest there's a renaissance in independent publishing?

2) What are the common themes for successful independent magazines?

3) How many of these aspects can you find in Oh Comely? Make specific reference to the CSP pages where possible.

4) How does Jamieson see the future for the magazine industry?

5) How might this future impact Oh Comely? Do you think Oh Comely will survive the next five years - and why?


There is plenty of work here but this concludes our work on Oh Comely and the Magazines unit. Complete for homework - due next week Friday.