2. 21st of October – Preliminary Task due
16th of December – Research & Planning due
10th of February – Completed first draft of the main task due
30th of March – Final deadline for all coursework
You will use a blog to present your work for the main task. The
recommended site to use is blogger – blogspot.com
Make sure you remember your login details.
Blog address:
Coursework drop-in sessions are available every lunch time, and
after school Tuesdays-Thursdays in the new Media room.
The foundation portfolio is worth 50% of your AS in Media Studies. You complete the
following coursework brief:
3. Print
Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a
new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some
appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of
the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.
Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images
and text used must be original, produced by the candidate, minimum of FOUR images per candidate.
The Preliminary Task
You must complete a preliminary task in order to develop the necessary skills to succeed in
the Foundation Portfolio. For the preliminary task you will produce the front page and a
draft of a contents page for a new school magazine.
Research into school magazines
You will need to analyse the front cover and contents page of 2 or 3 school magazines. You
should analyse:
Typography – what style and size fonts are used? Why?
Layout – is it cluttered or ordered? Where have key things been placed?
Language – what type of language is used?
Colour – what effect does colour have? What are the connotations of the colours?
Camerawork – in the images what shot types and angles have been used? Why?
Mise-en-scene – in the images what props, costumes, and settings have been used?
Mode of address – how does the magazine speak to the audience? What is the
tone?
Remember to analyse the effect of specific examples, and use relevant terminology.
Summarise the conventions of school magazines in relation to content and design.
Planning your school magazine
You will need to create rough drafts for your school magazine. This should include:
Draft layouts
Sample font styles
Sample colour schemes
Creating your school magazine
You will produce the front cover of a new school magazine. Your front cover should use
typical conventions (masthead, cover lines, one main image, etc.) and include a picture of a
student in MEDIUM CLOSE-UP. You will also need to include a detailed draft for the
contents page.
4. Evaluating your school magazine
Once you have completed your magazine you will need to produce an evaluation. Your
evaluation should address the following questions:
How have you used media conventions in your preliminary task? (e.g. conventions
of layout, font, images, content)
How have you used media language in your product? (What is the intended effect of
your use of shot types/angles, mise-en-scene, layout, font, colour, images?)
How have you addressed your audience? (What is the mode of address? Formal or
informal? Give examples.)
What skills have you developed during the preliminary task? (e.g. analytical,
research, planning, production)
The deadline for the completion of the preliminary task is Friday the 21st of October. You should
hand in the research, planning, product, and evaluation. This work will be assessed and a mark
recorded on GO.
The Main Task – Research & Planning
Research and Planning is worth 20% of your mark for the Foundation Portfolio. To achieve a
Level 4 (A) for Research and Planning you must produce work to meet the following criteria:
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 layouts, and drafting.
There is an excellent level of care in the presentation of the research and planning
Time management is excellent.
Audience research
You will need to complete research into your target audience to find out who they are (the
demographic), what their interests are (the psychographic), and how to make your product
appealing to them. In order to do this you should:
Complete an initial questionnaire to find out about the target audience for your
music magazine (age, gender, interests, what they find appealing about music
magazines)
Use the internet to research the target audience for a similar music magazine
(Publisher’s websites sometimes have media packs which contain useful information
about the target audience)
Complete a second questionnaire and/or focus group to get feedback on your ideas
and drafts for your magazine
You must complete detailed summaries of each piece of audience research you do and
explain how this information will help you.
Research into similar products
You will need to analyse three front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads from
music magazines similar to the one you intend to produce. Your analysis should focus on:
5. Typography – what style fonts are used? Why?
Layout – is it cluttered or ordered? Where have key things been placed?
Language – what type of language is used?
Colour – what effect does colour have? What are the connotations of the colours?
Camerawork – in the images what shot types and angles have been used? Why?
Mise-en-scene – in the images what props, costumes, and settings have been used?
Mode of address – how does the magazine speak to the audience? What is the
tone?
Remember to analyse the effect of specific examples, and use relevant terminology.
Summarise what you find out about the conventions of music magazines in relation to
content, design, and mode of address.
Planning
You will need to plan your music magazine. Your planning should include:
Draft font styles and colour schemes
Drafts of each page
Draft text
You will also need to complete a production plan for your photography including dates,
locations, equipment, personnel, props, and costumes.
Research into institutions
Find out about companies that produce similar music magazines to the one you intend to
produce, and summarise your findings. You should find out about:
What other magazines do they produce?
What demographics do they cater for?
What other media are owned by the company?
What examples or cross-media convergence can be identified?
Are the company a subsidiary? If so, of who, and what other types of media are owned?
Pitching your music magazine
Your pitch should summarise the key findings of your research into similar magazines and
the target audience, and explain why your magazine will be successful in following
conventions and appealing to the target audience. Your pitch should include some draft
work and sample content.
The deadline for your Research and Planning is Friday, the 16th of December. Your work
needs to be completed and uploaded to you blog by that date. It is your responsibility to
ensure your teacher has your blog address. This work will be assessed and a mark recorded
in GO. This mark contributes 20% to your overall mark for the Foundation Portfolio.
Main Task – Construction
6. Your coursework product is worth 60% of your total mark for the Foundation Portfolio. The
criteria to achieve a Level 4 (A) for the magazine are:
There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including cropping
and resizing;
accurately using language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
showing awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
using ICT appropriately for the task set.
In order to produce a successful magazine you will need to:
Take a range of photographs. Do not use the same set of pictures on every page of your
magazine. Make sure that the pictures are taken specifically for your magazine, and that
you have thought carefully about your use of mise-en-scene and camerawork.
Develop a house style across your magazine pages.
Follow conventions in terms of layout, images, content, and language.
Use fonts, colours, images, and language that are suited to your genre of music and will
appeal to your target audience.
The deadline for the completion of the first draft of you magazine is Friday the 10th of February.
Your work will be assessed and targets set to help you improve. You will then have until Friday the
30th of March to complete these improvements.
Main Task – Evaluation
The evaluation is worth 20% of the total marks for your Foundation Portfolio. You should
present your evaluation as a blog entry. The criteria to achieve a Level 4 (A) for the
evaluation is:
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
You should not see the evaluation as a written essay. You are marked on your use of the blog
format, so you need to be as creative as you can in your use of the blog. You should ensure you use
a range of images from your magazine and other magazines to illustrate the points you make. You
could also embed videos, powerpoints, mind-maps, links, etc.
Audience feedback
7. Before you begin your evaluation you need to get feedback from your target audience on
your finished magazine. This could be through a questionnaire and/or a focus group.
Questions
In your evaluation you need to answer the following 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?
Conventions – how does your magazine follow conventions? You may want to consider the
conventions of magazine design (layout, use of fonts) and the conventions of music
magazine (colours, mode of address, content, images). Use specific examples. Support the
points you make with images from your magazine, and images from existing magazines.
Representation – what different social groups have you represented? You may want to
focus on areas such as gender or age. How have you constructed the representations?
Think about your use of images and mise-en-scene, and the use of language. Refer to
specific examples from your own and existing magazines.
Institutions – look back at the research you did into the type of institutions who produce
music magazines. Which institution would be most suitable to distribute your magazine?
Why?
Target audience – who is your target audience? Refer to the audience research you have
done? How have you appealed to the target audience? Consider your use of colour,
images, layout, and the content of your magazine.
Technologies – what technology did you use in making your magazine? You should consider
your use of digital cameras, photo editing software, and publishing programmes. What did
the technology you used allow you to do? What skills have you developed?
Preliminary Task – How have your skills developed from the preliminary task? Compare
your preliminary task to your completed magazine. In what ways does your music magazine
look more professional?
8. The final deadline for you to submit all of your Media coursework is Friday the 30th of
March. Your coursework will then be assessed and your final mark submitted to the exam
board.
Print media terminology
Headline The main title of the article
Standfirst Lines of text after the headline that give
more information
Byline Journalist’s name at the beginning of the
story
Caption Text printed below a picture to describe it
Coverline Captions on a magazine cover
Cover Story Leading story used on a front cover
Feature Longer, in-depth article
Kicker First few words or letter of a story’s lead, set
in font size larger than the body text of the
article
Layout How the page is designed and formatted
Masthead Main title of publication on the front page
Pull Quote Selected quote from a story highlighted next
to the main text
Serif Font Italic style font
Sans Serif Font Plain font type
All resources for the Foundation Portfolio will be placed on the Media Department A Level
blog: mediastudiesnwcc.blogspot.com
Follow the link at the top of the page to the AS Media Foundation Portfolio section. Links to
exemplar blogs are also available through the blog.
