Overall, your coursework will be marked out of a total of 100:
20 marks for research and planning.
60 marks for the actual film opening.
20 marks for the evaluation.
You will be presenting your evaluations individually and uploading the presentation to your blog. We'll also do a group evaluation on your DVD as a Director's commentary.
The evaluation is formed from your responses to 7 stimulus questions:
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from
it to the full product?
The bullet pointed questions are taken directly from the OCR A Level specification and are the same for everybody. I'm going to create a separate post for each question to give you some guidance.
The mark scheme for the evaluation also has 4 levels. The 'excellent' level is as follows:
Level 4 16–20 marks
• Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.
• Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.
• Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.
• Excellent ability to communicate.
• Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation
More soon on the 7 questions.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
What needs to be on your blog
BLOG – WHAT EVIDENCE OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IS NEEDED?
1. Initial Ideas (You filled in a paper handout for this)
2. Textual Analysis of the opening sequence of a film in a similar genre to your own.
3. Second textual Analysis of the opening sequence of a film in a similar genre to your own.
4. Third textual analysis that focuses on narrative codes – hermeneutic and proairetic primarily.
5. Any evidence that shows that you researched your target audience – questionnaires and results including charts etc. Also anything that you found out online about who may be your target audience.
6. Any evidence into thought/research into costume and props.
7. Location shots – ideally these should be accompanied by comments about each location – such as issues with lighting/sound/members of the public/permissions needed etc.
8. Shooting schedule.
9. Storyboards – I need paper copies of these too.
10. Script or screenplay (if relevant).
11. Your preliminary task and your evaluation of it.
12. Health and safety stuff.
13. Updates of progress – not essential but they will provide evidence of your time management.
Remember that there is a part of the mark scheme that is assessing your ICT skills in terms of the way that you are able to present this work.
The mark scheme is arranged over 4 levels. Level 4 is excellent. These are the criteria:
Level 4 16–20 marks
• There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
• There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.
• There is excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding.
• Time management is excellent.
• There is excellent use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation.
Also – please bear in mind what I said to you a while back – your blog should be visually stimulating – the more images, video and audio that accompanies the text, the better.
1. Initial Ideas (You filled in a paper handout for this)
2. Textual Analysis of the opening sequence of a film in a similar genre to your own.
3. Second textual Analysis of the opening sequence of a film in a similar genre to your own.
4. Third textual analysis that focuses on narrative codes – hermeneutic and proairetic primarily.
5. Any evidence that shows that you researched your target audience – questionnaires and results including charts etc. Also anything that you found out online about who may be your target audience.
6. Any evidence into thought/research into costume and props.
7. Location shots – ideally these should be accompanied by comments about each location – such as issues with lighting/sound/members of the public/permissions needed etc.
8. Shooting schedule.
9. Storyboards – I need paper copies of these too.
10. Script or screenplay (if relevant).
11. Your preliminary task and your evaluation of it.
12. Health and safety stuff.
13. Updates of progress – not essential but they will provide evidence of your time management.
Remember that there is a part of the mark scheme that is assessing your ICT skills in terms of the way that you are able to present this work.
The mark scheme is arranged over 4 levels. Level 4 is excellent. These are the criteria:
Level 4 16–20 marks
• There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
• There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.
• There is excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding.
• Time management is excellent.
• There is excellent use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation.
Also – please bear in mind what I said to you a while back – your blog should be visually stimulating – the more images, video and audio that accompanies the text, the better.
Monday, 12 April 2010
In School
I'm in school tomorrow (Tuesday) between about 10 and 2 if you need to come in to get on a MAC or to get my help with anything.
I'm available on first class a lot of the time too.
I'm available on first class a lot of the time too.
Monday, 1 March 2010
Health and Safety
You're going to be filling in some risk assessment sheets before you begin filming. We'll use these as a basis for discussion so that I'm satisfied that you're not going to endanger yourselves (or anyone else) or do anything daft during the production process. Please also bear the following points in mind:
1. If you are filming in a public place try to get permission from whoever is in charge of the particular place. Use your judgement on this - filming a character walking down a residential street shouldn't present any problems. However, a gun-toting pursuit through the centre of town will require some fore thought.
2. Don't ignore traffic - I want you focused on your coursework but not to the extent that you ignore tonnes of metal whizzing past you in close proximity.
3. Don't film anything that looks as if it is illegal.
4. Maintain your good manners when dealing with or encountering members of the public.
5. Don't trespass because you think that you've found a particularly authentic location.
6. Don't film anywhere dangerous.
7. Think about what you're doing and what you are asking your actors/actresses to do - if it doesn't seem right then don't do it!
The golden rule is to discuss your plans with me thoroughly before you go out to film - this should allow us to avoid any mishaps.
1. If you are filming in a public place try to get permission from whoever is in charge of the particular place. Use your judgement on this - filming a character walking down a residential street shouldn't present any problems. However, a gun-toting pursuit through the centre of town will require some fore thought.
2. Don't ignore traffic - I want you focused on your coursework but not to the extent that you ignore tonnes of metal whizzing past you in close proximity.
3. Don't film anything that looks as if it is illegal.
4. Maintain your good manners when dealing with or encountering members of the public.
5. Don't trespass because you think that you've found a particularly authentic location.
6. Don't film anywhere dangerous.
7. Think about what you're doing and what you are asking your actors/actresses to do - if it doesn't seem right then don't do it!
The golden rule is to discuss your plans with me thoroughly before you go out to film - this should allow us to avoid any mishaps.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
UNIT G321 – Target Audience
Part of your research needs to be into a potential target audience for your film – you need to show that you’ve really carefully thought about who would actually pay money to see the film. Think back to the work that we did on Adulthood and Quantum of Solace and the ways in which target audience was a key consideration at every stage of production, distribution and exhibition.
We looked at the various ways in which audiences are categorised:
• Demographic information.
• Psychographic profile.
• Lifestyle.
The first thing to determine is whether a film like yours would be aimed at a broad, mainstream target audience or a smaller (but well defined) niche audience.
Secondly, identify some films that yours would be similar too – probably because they are from the same genre or sub-genre. You can then ask the question – what was the target audience for this film? Your target audience will be fairly similar.
In a similar way, have a look at this presentation – it’s from Pearl and Dean’s website – they sell advertising space in cinemas. It highlights forthcoming releases and identifies the projected target audience from a demographic perspective. It also colour codes the films according to the type of audience that the film will attract. The presentation can be downloaded from this address:
business.pearlanddean.com/filmplanner/
You also need to design a questionnaire that will enable you to confirm the target audience for your own production. Start by asking what information you really need to find out – this will prevent you from asking lots of pointless questions. You will then need to distribute the questionnaire to a reasonably sized sample. Once they have been filled in you need to collate the results and use them to confirm your target audience.
By next Friday (5th March) you need to have presented this information on your blog. Make this as interesting and as visual as possible!
In addition - it's worth having a look on the British Board of Film Classification website as this will provide you with some information on what would be acceptable depending on the likely certificate of your film. Their student website is here:
sbbfc.org
You can download a PDF from here that clearly shows what is and isn't acceptable!
Their main website is here:
www.bbfc.org.uk
Of course you also need to remember that this is an a academic school project!
Over and out...
We looked at the various ways in which audiences are categorised:
• Demographic information.
• Psychographic profile.
• Lifestyle.
The first thing to determine is whether a film like yours would be aimed at a broad, mainstream target audience or a smaller (but well defined) niche audience.
Secondly, identify some films that yours would be similar too – probably because they are from the same genre or sub-genre. You can then ask the question – what was the target audience for this film? Your target audience will be fairly similar.
In a similar way, have a look at this presentation – it’s from Pearl and Dean’s website – they sell advertising space in cinemas. It highlights forthcoming releases and identifies the projected target audience from a demographic perspective. It also colour codes the films according to the type of audience that the film will attract. The presentation can be downloaded from this address:
business.pearlanddean.com/filmplanner/
You also need to design a questionnaire that will enable you to confirm the target audience for your own production. Start by asking what information you really need to find out – this will prevent you from asking lots of pointless questions. You will then need to distribute the questionnaire to a reasonably sized sample. Once they have been filled in you need to collate the results and use them to confirm your target audience.
By next Friday (5th March) you need to have presented this information on your blog. Make this as interesting and as visual as possible!
In addition - it's worth having a look on the British Board of Film Classification website as this will provide you with some information on what would be acceptable depending on the likely certificate of your film. Their student website is here:
sbbfc.org
You can download a PDF from here that clearly shows what is and isn't acceptable!
Their main website is here:
www.bbfc.org.uk
Of course you also need to remember that this is an a academic school project!
Over and out...
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Monday, 22 February 2010
Preliminary Sequences - Evaluation
Well done to all groups on filming these. I know that there are a couple of groups who still need to finalise their editing but I was delighted with the speed at which you all managed to grasp the basics of Final Cut Express. When you come to evaluate your final product you need to address the progression that it shows when compared to the preliminary task. To enable you to do this I want you to update your blogs individually with an evaluation of the preliminary task. This should address the following areas:
1. What preparation did you undertake ahead of the preliminary task?
2. Where did you shoot it?
3. Why did you choose this location?
4. What equipment have you used?
5. What went well?
6. What difficulties did you face?
7. What is your overall impression of your preliminary task outcome?
8. How would you improve it?
9. What lessons have you learnt that you will keep in mind as you continue working on the main task?
There's some overlapping areas here so don't worry about writing 9 separate answers - just make sure that you're addressing these areas. Feel free to use the Grab application to take some screenshots and upload them to your blog if they help to illustrate a point that you are making about the sequence.
Your image will save as a TIFF - you can't upload these to blogger so use save as to change the format to JPEG.
1. What preparation did you undertake ahead of the preliminary task?
2. Where did you shoot it?
3. Why did you choose this location?
4. What equipment have you used?
5. What went well?
6. What difficulties did you face?
7. What is your overall impression of your preliminary task outcome?
8. How would you improve it?
9. What lessons have you learnt that you will keep in mind as you continue working on the main task?
There's some overlapping areas here so don't worry about writing 9 separate answers - just make sure that you're addressing these areas. Feel free to use the Grab application to take some screenshots and upload them to your blog if they help to illustrate a point that you are making about the sequence.
Your image will save as a TIFF - you can't upload these to blogger so use save as to change the format to JPEG.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Storyboarding
This is a key stage of the process that is unfortunately neglected in much A-Level work with some groups believing that the storyboards are best completed after the filming! This is nonsense. The storyboard is an essential document if you are going to create a professional opening sequence. It basically consists of sketches that show what will be in each of your shots. There is space for information about shot duration and sound/dialogue. Any camera movement should be indicated by an arrow drawn onto the sketch itself. You can also indicate transitions between each shot - most will be cuts of course.
The storyboard is an excellent way for you to think about your shots and framing before you get on location with actors/actresses and a declining amount of battery/light/patience! Getting the storyboards right should enable you to know exactly what is required when you arrive at your location - I can't emphasise enough how much time and aggravation this will save you.
The ones above are from Shallow Grave - there are loads of storyboards online for you to look at and they are also sometimes included as extra features on DVDs.
You own storyboard doesn't need to show that you are an amazing artist - this isn't a skill that you are being assessed on. You only need one storyboard per group though, so it would be sensible for the best artist in the group to draw the sketches - with input from the rest of the group of course.
Opening sequences
Before half term, we looked at some opening sequences to films and agreed that the following features are typical:
1. Titles – stars and director –key creative personnel.
2. Title of the film.
3. Production and distribution company idents.
4. Introduction to the main characters.
5. Establishing shots to show you the settings / locations.
6. Some indication of the storyline that will follow.
7. Some indication of the genre of the film.
8. Sometimes, a short back story is used at the start of a film.
9. Theme tune – non-diegetic music that will usually indicate something abut the film’s genre and mood.
1. Titles – stars and director –key creative personnel.
2. Title of the film.
3. Production and distribution company idents.
4. Introduction to the main characters.
5. Establishing shots to show you the settings / locations.
6. Some indication of the storyline that will follow.
7. Some indication of the genre of the film.
8. Sometimes, a short back story is used at the start of a film.
9. Theme tune – non-diegetic music that will usually indicate something abut the film’s genre and mood.
Analysis of opening sequences
A crucial part of your research and planning is the research that you carry out into similar media products. Following on from Thursday's lesson you're going to be completing an analysis of an opening sequence from a film for homework. You need to begin by choosing a film in the same genre as the one that you have chosen to work in. Remember what we covered during the lesson on the conventions of opening sequences and consider the following questions when watching the opening sequence you have chosen to analyse:
Begin by outlining what the opening sequence tells us about the film, it's themes and the potential storyline that will follow.
1. What happens in the opening sequence?
2. What characters are the audience introduced to?
3. How are these characters constructed? How are the audience positioned in relation to them?
4. What does the opening sequence reveal about the setting(s) for the film?
5. What camera shots are used in the opening sequence?
6. What can you say about the editing in the opening sequence? Think about the pace and rhythm of the editing as well as the transitions used.
7. How is sound used in the opening sequence? Consider the instruments used, the tempo, volume, pitch and genre of any music used. Don't neglect diegetic sounds if there are any used.
8. How have the opening credits been presented? If you think it is significant, comment on their size, font, colour and positioning on screen.
There are some examples of analyses of opening sequences here:
http://longroadfilmopeningsequence.blogspot.com/
Be concise with this - there's no need to waffle. Max 600 words.
The deadline for this work is Monday 26th January.
Begin by outlining what the opening sequence tells us about the film, it's themes and the potential storyline that will follow.
1. What happens in the opening sequence?
2. What characters are the audience introduced to?
3. How are these characters constructed? How are the audience positioned in relation to them?
4. What does the opening sequence reveal about the setting(s) for the film?
5. What camera shots are used in the opening sequence?
6. What can you say about the editing in the opening sequence? Think about the pace and rhythm of the editing as well as the transitions used.
7. How is sound used in the opening sequence? Consider the instruments used, the tempo, volume, pitch and genre of any music used. Don't neglect diegetic sounds if there are any used.
8. How have the opening credits been presented? If you think it is significant, comment on their size, font, colour and positioning on screen.
There are some examples of analyses of opening sequences here:
http://longroadfilmopeningsequence.blogspot.com/
Be concise with this - there's no need to waffle. Max 600 words.
The deadline for this work is Monday 26th January.
Research and Planning Mark Scheme
As you know (or should do by now!) your research and planning will be worth 20 marks of the overall 100 available for the coursework. You're recording this work lovingly on your blog - update it regularly and make it as multi-media as possible.
The mark scheme for the research and planning is based around 4 levels - Minimal, Basic, Proficient and Excellent. You can have a look at the criteria in detail by downloading the specification from OCR's website:
The research and planning mark scheme is on Pages 66 and 67.
Oli's blog from last year can be found here:
The mark scheme for the research and planning is based around 4 levels - Minimal, Basic, Proficient and Excellent. You can have a look at the criteria in detail by downloading the specification from OCR's website:
The research and planning mark scheme is on Pages 66 and 67.
Oli's blog from last year can be found here:
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