For all media students in the second year of A levels, for the written exam at the end of the year, this is some help for the first part of the first section of that exam!

2. }Creativity
}Research and Planning
}Real Media Conventions
}Digital Technology
}Post Production
YOU MUST TALK ABOUT BOTH AS AND A2
COURSEWORK- EVEN GCSE IF YOU DID IT

3. -Strong answers have a range of specific
examples.
-Weaker answers are just descriptive.
-Technical and conceptual terminology
needed.
-Evaluation and critical reflection on your
work is needed.
-There needs to be a sense of progression over
your A level journey.

6. Digital Technology: you need to consider the impact of the
new technologies you have used on your consumption and
production of media texts.
Consider how you have presented your work, have you used
blogs?
How has the internet supported you skills development?
Consider the pros and con’s of the digital technology you
have used.

7. How did it compare to A2?
Things you can include:
-Blogs/websites -Questionnaires
-Slideshare -Film and upload to
-Flickr YouTube
-Facebook -Vlogs
-Digital Photography - Notes/annotations
-Software and Hardware

8. You need to consider the skills you have learnt
during AS with the following software:
Photoshop, Indesign, Premiere Pro, Wordpress
or any other blog system.

9. Para 1: Creating a magazine at AS and how
you researched and created it compared to
how you made your magazine at A2.
Para 2: Development of Web 2.0- premier pro
development- never using it in AS.
Para 3: How you created your poster in AS
compared to A2.

11. Ask yourself the question: Have i become more creative?
-Consider the pro’s and con’s of the technology you have used and how it
has impacted your creativity.
-How creative do you think you were in the decisions you made when
creating your coursework?
-Did the technology enhance your creativity or not?
-What ideas did you communicate and what stylistic techniques did you
use? How did it relate to your interests?
-Was this original or did you add something extra to an existing media
text?
-Would you take any creative skills into future projects of have you been
influenced to engage these skills in other projects?

12. Ken Robinson has the best definition of
creativity which is ‘the process of having
original ideas that have value’- did you
achieve this

13. Para 1: How much has your creativity developed? Was
your AS magazine cover as creative as your A2 one.Para
2: Did you stick religiously to magazine conventions or did
you stretch them? How did this help your creativity?
Remember to give specific examples!
Para 3: Did you do enough research? Did you try and fit
your product around your ideas or did you alter them.
EXAMPLES HERE.

15. -How have you reviewed real text examples and discussed conventions?
-Analysis of old student work and discuss marking criteria.
-How you planned the microelement.
-Research into audience expectations
-How did you organise your research and planning?
-What did you research?
-How did drafting help you?
-How did audience feedback improve your planning?
-How organised were you?
-What did you learn about working as part of a group?
-How did you research your research and planning?

16. Para 1: Websites such as survey monkey- going from using
paper questionnaires too using survey monkey. How did
this help your production? Be critical of your own work.
Para 2: Did you watch a lot of YouTube videos when
making your trailer? How was this compared to how much
you research into your AS production?
Para 3: How much did you plan? Did everyone in your
group get their ideas across? How well did you plan your
production? Did everyone turn up to filming sessions?

18. -Post production as A2 might have consisted of editing the material
and putting all the titles and music together on Adobe Premiere Pro
or editing images and putting text together on Photoshop/InDesign.
This is very similar to the software listed as part of Digital
Technology.
-You need to identify all of the steps you take once you had either
filmed or Photographed- to do this accurately it will be helpful to look
at your work and make a list of everything you did in order to get to
the finished stage.
-Post production is everything that happens after filming.

19. Para 1: What was your AS task? How did you edit it? Did you
draw things? Rough designs and ideas? How did things such as
social media help? What software did you use?
Para 2: How did you edit your footage at A2? Was it harder
than the editing process at AS?
Para 3: Did you use a lot of self-help videos when it came to
preparing to edit your work?
BE CRITICAL

21. How did you use real media texts to influence yours?
Video:
How did you develop the conventions of real documents-
current trailers, posters and magazines, how they inspired
you and the research that you did into them.
Print conventions include:
-Shot types, camera angles, camera framework
-Mise-en-scene
Continuity

22. Para 1: Did you look into conventions deep enough at AS? How did this
develop in A2 and how did you use more conventions? USE VERY
SPECIFIC EXAMPLES
Para 2: Did you use other trailers to influence yours? How much did
you use them, perhaps too much sometimes? What has this shown
you? Again, relate back to a specific example.
Para 3: Did any storylines catch your eye? Did you use any story lines
or develop old ones or did you become more creative in your second
year than your first? Examples are key.