The document provides guidance for students on completing a media studies evaluation. Students will evaluate their creative work digitally by addressing seven required questions. They are encouraged to approach the evaluation as a creative task and can use various digital formats like podcasts, blogs, or websites. The evaluation questions address topics like how the media product uses or challenges conventions, represents social groups, might be distributed, and who the audience is. Suggested activities are provided to help students address each question through different digital formats, like annotating video clips or doing a voiceover. The evaluation will be assessed on a four-level scale based on use of technology, understanding of audience and other concepts, ability to refer to choices made, and communication skills. Sample

1. AS Media Studies Evaluation Notes
Each candidate will evaluate and reflect upon the creative process and their experience of it.
Candidates will evaluate their work digitally, this evaluation being structured by the set of required
questions below. This evaluation may be done collectively for a group production or individually.
Examples of suitable formats for the evaluation are:
• A podcast/voiceover
• DVD extras/director’s commentary
• A blog/annotated YouTube extract
• A powerpoint/prezi
• A website
• or a combination of two or more of the above.
In all cases, candidates should be encouraged to see the evaluation as a creative task and the
potential of the format chosen should be exploited through the use of images, audio, video and links
to online resources.
In the evaluation the following seven questions must be addressed:
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?
Evaluation Mark Scheme
Level 4 16–20 marks
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Excellent skill in the use of appropriate digital technology or ICT in the evaluation.
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.

2. Exemplar evaluation – 16/20
http://chittsmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/ - a clear attempt to respond in details to the 7 questions.
Some range of technology used, though at times it reads like an essay response. Overall clearly
enough detail to merit the bottom end of level 4 but there is much more room to develop the
combination of the use/response to digital technology alongside a better critical evaluation.
Chief Examiner comments - Evaluation - covering all questions +
criticallyreflecting + making good use of creative opportunities =
level 4
This one got Level 4 too - http://yaleblock1mediaproject.blogspot.co.uk/
Ideas for your evaluations
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)
Look at 9 frames from Art of the title website? Now it's your turn to do the same with nine of your
frames. Or you could drop them into a timeline and annotate using titles. Or on YouTube.
You should go through the final version of the project and select nine distinct frames which you
screengrab and drop into a photoshop in the same style as the website. You will be using these to
write about how typical or not of opening sequences your particular design is, so choose them
carefully.
Once you have the nine frames neatly in Photoshop, screengrab the whole thing and post to your
blog, then write an analysis of how you have used such conventions.
The aspects we would like you to consider across your nine frames are:
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The title of the film
Setting/location
Costumes and props
Camerawork and editing
Title font and style
Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it
How characters are introduced
Special effects
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Pick a key character from your opening. Take a screengrab of a reasonable sized image of them.
Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some

3. differences too!), find an image on the web of that/those characters and grab it as well. Drop the
two into photoshop, as a split screen. Export this splitscreen image as a jpeg then drop onto your
blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film
etc.
So for example if you have a lone cop type character, look for other lone cops to compare him with...
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and
why?
For this question, you are going to do a 'director's commentary' style voiceover explaining some of
the key features of your opening
You will need to script the voiceover which deals with institutional issues to include:
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discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies
What does a production company do?
the idea of a distributor and who that might be and why.
where the money might have come from for a film such as yours
why the various people are named in the titles- which jobs appear in titles and in what order
and how have you reflected this?
what your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a
similar way)
You need to refer to actual company names and processes so you will need to go back to the early
posts on film companies and maybe do a bit more research
When you have scripted, record the voiceover using Final Cut on a new audio timeline, then export
to quicktime and embed on blog.
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?
You should have a drawing of your target audience member and an explanation of what kinds of
taste they might have- where they would shop, what music they would listen to, what their favourite
Tv programme would be, etc. Make sure you have taken a photo of it, post it on the blog and write a
few notes on why they would watch your film.
Present this as a Prezi.
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?
You will use YOUTUBE's annotation tools to add NOTES, SPEECHBUBBLES, and LINKS to your video:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=92710

4. These annotations will highlight the ways in which your Film Opening links to other similiar films in
order to attract the particular Audience you have previously identified.
Your annotations will refer to genre conventions, use of music, similiarities with other movies and
what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
In pairs, take a picture of each other holding the kit you have used. This might just be the camera
and tripod, and your Macbook but there may be other things you want in the shot.
Drop the image onto your blog and annotate it, adding all the programs and other technology you
have used as screengrabs and what you learnt about it/from using it. Your written text need only be
minimal. You could include reference to all the online and computer programs you have used such
as youtube, flickr, blogger, final cut,photoshop,vimeogarageband, etc.
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what
do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?
Concentrate on editing and camerawork.
Grab some frames from both tasks and put them on the blog and show what you know about shot
types, edit terms and techniques.
Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot