The document provides guidance for students completing an advanced media production coursework. It outlines the requirements for maintaining a blog to document the planning, production, and evaluation process. Students must produce 2 advertisements or 2-3 minutes of a music video by February 13th and have the final projects completed by March 13th. The evaluation section requires students to reflect on the production process, analyze the finished products, and evaluate audience response and how the projects compare to similar real media.

1. 2733: Advanced Production Coursework Guide – supporting the development and completion of your A2 media coursework!

2. Your Blog Maintaining your blog is an integral part of the coursework process. The main reason for this is that the blog provides evidence of the decisions; revisions and progress of your coursework project. It is a requirement for you to reference your blogs in order to support your written evaluation. Primarily, I will use your blog to support my decision as to what marks you deserve for your planning and your written evaluation. Furthermore, should your work be called for external moderation, there is a good chance that the external moderator will access your blog to verify the marks that I have awarded you.

3. Your Blog Your blog should demonstrate evidence of the following: Research into advertising including: the media process; the different styles of advertisement / music video; the codes and conventions of advertising / music video and audience research Planning including: ad / mv ideas; shot lists; storyboarding (including changes and revisions); animatics (including changes and revisions); call sheets / shooting schedule Production including: progress updates; rough cuts of ads / mv (including reflective and evaluative comments); reflection on the process and other research – ideas that arise as your work develops; development of editing skills Evaluation including: completed ads / mv; target audience feedback; written evaluation in 3 sections as per the PowerPoint on the VLE.

4. Your Production The following is the criteria that your practical work is marked against. A judgement is made by myself (and moderated by Mr Ford) as to the level of skill you have demonstrated in each area. holding a shot steady; framing a shot; using a variety of shot distances; shooting material appropriate to the task set; editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer; use varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and where appropriate for the task set; using sound with images. Level 1: Basic Ability Level 4: Excellence Level 3: Proficiency Level 2: Competence

5. Your Production You need to be realistic about your deadlines and ensure that you are dedicating an appropriate amount of time – a minimum of 10 hours per week would ensure that you can meet the deadlines that you have been set. You should have completed two ads / 2-3 minutes of your music video by Friday 13 th Feb If you know that you are not going to meet this deadline based on your current work ethic. What can you do to resolve this? Are you backing up your work? What if you lose it? Have I seen it? What if you need to re-shoot? You must be constantly comparing and evaluating your work. Are you meeting the codes and conventions of your chosen style of advertising / music video? Are your ads / music video measuring up to the real thing? Are you meeting the criteria set out for your assessment – see previous slide.

6. Evaluation Section 1: Reflection and evaluation of the production process! Analyse the design process from beginning through planning to realisation Include reference to research notes (codes and conventions; research; analysis of similar media texts; audience research) Indicate clearly chosen form and style of advert / music video Refer to the planning processes Highlight the creative decisions you made Identify your own role and responsibilities Relate production work to form, style, institution and target audience Always analyse and comment on what you have learned and how you use this to influence decisions and revisions Include examples of ads / mv (real, and previous students work), storyboards / animatics - where creative decisions have been made Reflection on difficulties faced Evaluation of the way you approached the different process and the skills that you developed as the project progressed.

7. Evaluation Section 2: Analysis of the finished production Analyse and comment on your finished product as though it was a real media artefact. Apply all key conceptual areas and all elements of film/TV language. How has meaning been created? How has your product used conventions? Has your product subverted conventions? How does each ad / the music video utilise media language to target your intended audience? Other relevant areas to consider depending on your chosen style of ad / mv: narrative structure, characterisation, representation, ideology, real media theory such as post-modernism How do your adverts link to create a coherent message / production. Is your music video coherent – can it be understood?

8. Evaluation Section 3: Evaluation of the production Detailed evaluation of target audience response to your product Include evidence that you have tested your media text and evaluated the feedback Use research to discuss how your text relates to similar media texts Does it measure up in comparison to the real thing? To what extent have you met the codes and conventions? Evaluate comments made by audience in planning stage to the finished product – have you met expectations? Where would your product be placed in the market place? What would be the potential context of consumption be? A conclusion is needed in this section, summarising the effectiveness of your product: (Be Honest) To support this process use the next slide as a starting point. This is the most important aspect of your evaluation!

9. Evaluation Contextual Research to support your evaluation What is the profile of target consumers’ tastes and preferences How many consumption contexts are there for your researched products (similar media texts) and thus your own What are the implications for your potential target consumer? Is your product original? Is it a part of a trend of form/style of ad that is popular at present? Think! Campaigns, animation are popular at the moment. Why is that? What type of institution would produce your ad / music video? Does this affect your approach at all? Will you play it over the internet? (YouTube perhaps?) Are you going to be too risky? What stations/times of day will your ad / mv be played? on (Can you support this in relation to similar texts?) How long would your campaign run for? (each ad, again can you place your text against a similar text in this context?) Would you make your music video available for sale on iTunes / as a DVD?

10. Deadlines: These are your (revised) deadlines: Friday 13 th February – rough cuts complete and uploaded for assessment / evaluation Friday 13 th March – ads / mv completed and uploaded for assessment / evaluation Friday 27 th – Self and Peer evaluation / consumption research completed, ready to complete 3000 word written evaluation Monday 20 th April – Written evaluation due in to MCH.