G325 Past questions section a lesson 1

1. SECTION A:
PAST QUESTIONS
LO: To highlight past questions relating to Section A of
the exam.

2. Question 1A

3. Question 1A

4. What are Conventions?

5. What are Conventions?

6. What are Conventions?

7. What are existing (real) media texts?

8. Points to Consider
• How much was your own production influenced by existing
texts?
• Why follow conventions? Think about the relationship with
audiences here.
• Which conventions did you follow?
• To what extent did you not follow existing conventions?
• What was the impact on creativity and delivering a product
for an audience?
• Was this intentional and what were you hoping to
achieve/was the result by breaking some of the conventions?
• To what extent did following conventions limit your own
creativity?

9. Things to think about:
• What research did you do and how did it help plan your productions?
• What planning did you do and how important was it in ensuring your production matched
the conventions of existing media texts?
• How did your understanding of the conventions of existing media texts impact upon the
creation of your Year 12 production?
• How did your understanding of the conventions of existing media texts impact upon the
creation of your Year 13 production?
• How did your understanding of the conventions of existing media texts impact upon the
creation of your Year 13 ancillary tasks?
Always
consider
WWW
and
EBI

10. Essay Plan
Explain how significant were the Conventions of Real Media Texts in your achieving success in your production
Introduction
(i) Conventions as 'rules' have purpose - they can be followed or broken - why/reasons?
(ii) Audience expectations of repeated conventions - how successful in meeting them or being original?
(iii) Semiotics - conventions have meaning denotation & connotation - did you understand this
Paragraph 1
"In AS, my brief was…..to complete this successfully I had to identify conventions in magazine relating to :
• Layout and structure (Positioning of Masthead, Pace of edits, use of titles etc)
• Use of images & text (pose, costume, props,lighting)
• Semiotics (especially in relation to colour)
• Genre (Rock, Hip Hop, Horror)
• Representation (sub-culture of music, what the monster symbolises)
• (discuss these points adding relevant detail and using as much terminology as possible)
• REFER TO EXISTING EXAMPLES YOU LOOKED AT AND HOW THEY USE THESE CONVENTIONS (For instance, "looking at Kerrang! Magazine a rock music magazine,
their house style uses a black and red colour scheme and a cut out punk style font, which gives connotations of the music genre.")
• "I used these conventions in the following ways...in order to..." (Give details about how your design followed conventions. Explain if your work departed from conventions in
some way. Try to discuss why following conventions is important in terms of the text’s relationship with the audience.)
Paragraph 2:
"In my Year 13 film promotion exercise, I made a trailer and to do this identified a number of key conventions….of Trailers...of the Horror genre..."(explain what they were).
Discuss to what extent you conformed to, used, developed or challenged these conventions in your work. Use lots of detail and refer to existing examples that influenced you to
compare to your production (but remember to keep the focus on what you have made).
• Think about:
• Shot duration
• Number of cuts
• Narrative Structure (no resolution)
• Use of Title Slates
• Pace of the cuts and use of transitions (fades etc)
• Horror Mise-en-scene (blood, low key lighting, haunted houses or isolated locations, costume, make up etc)
• Stock scenes (dragged into darkness)
• Sound
• Representation of characters

11. Question 1B
Friday’s Lesson