Revision for Section A OCR A2 exam

1. S E C T I O N A
Pizza Study Day

2. Q1a in a nutshell
 Directly asks you to evaluate how your media
production skills have developed progressively from
AS to A2
 Critical reflection on creative processes and decision
making in the context of a range of productions and
progress made from AS to A2.

3. Let’s start small…
 Fill in a different sheet for each production you have
done.
 You should have at least 3 (prelim, thriller, music
video)

4. This should not be too hard- include
hardware (cameras, phones for
pictures/audio, computers and
anything else you used) software (on
your computer) and online programs,
such as blogger, youtube etc.
This is a difficult question
and one that does not
have a correct answer as
such, but ought to give
you food for thought.
Start with the genre and
type (thriller and film opening)
Then list the conventions you had to
include in order for it to be a successful
product.
Repeat this process for the other
productions (it’ll be harder for the prelim
as there was no set genre or form – but
there were some things you had to

5. Research and planning
 How much did research inform the development of your
own ideas?
 What types of research were most significant in
developing your own ideas?
 What difficulties did you encounter in your research?
 How did you plan your production work and what types
of planning were most effective?
 What issues did you experience in moving from the
planning to the production phase? How useful was your
planning in the production phase?
 What aspects should you have planned and prepared
more thoroughly?

6. Creativity
 What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to what extent have
you been creative?
 How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own
creativity?
 Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?
 How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the
brief?
 Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?
 To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce
ideas’ off other people to be truly creative?
 How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in
your mind’s eye?
 How much of your creativity was about trial and error?
 To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your
creativity?
 To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an
obstacle to your creativity?

7. Digital Technology
 Photoshop
 iMovie
 Final Cut Express
 Garage Band
 Wix
 Prezi
 Blogger
 Word or PowerPoint
 YouTube
 Camera
 Internet
 (anything you used for your evaluations)

8. Post-production
 EDITING – techniques used; style; pace; transitions
and how the editing helped communicate meaning to the
audience.
 SOUNDTRACK & SOUND EFFECTS – the choices
made and the impact of these choices on audiences.
 SPECIAL EFFECTS – discuss any special effects (fast-
motion, slow-motion etc) and any effects you used to
distort/edit images. Again, the emphasis should be on
the way these effects impact on audiences and
communicate meaning.

9. Using conventions from real media texts
 How much was your own production influenced by
existing texts?
 How did you identify the conventions? How did you
research into existing texts?
 Why follow conventions? Think about the relationship
with audiences here.
 Which conventions did you follow?
 How easy was it to follow conventions in your own
work? Were there any obstacles?
 To what extent, if any, did you depart from existing
conventions? What effects were you hoping to achieve
by breaking some of the conventions?
 To what extent did adherence to conventions limit your
own creativity?

10. Let’s have another go…
 Fill in a different sheet for each production you have
done.
 You should have at least 3 (prelim, thriller, music
video)

11. Q1b in a nutshell
 This question requires a more distanced approach –
a textual analysis of one production outcome – as a
media text – to demonstrate the ability to apply a
theoretical concept to the text.

12. What do you need to be able to do with
theorists and theories?
 You do NOT need to:
 Learn a load of quotes
 Explain their theories in great depth
 Know them all
 You DO need to:
 Use a few
 Be able to apply them to your work/ case studies
 Consider how useful/ not useful they are when
discussing your work/ case studies

13. How to use theorists…
 Quote
 Summarise
 Comment
 Assume your reader knows about the theory/ theorist.
 Don’t explain the theory; use it.
 A Todorovian analysis would argue…
 Mulvey’s notion of the Male Gaze provides a useful way of
understanding the video in that…
 Kate Wales statement that “Genre is... an intertextual
concept” could be useful here because…

14. Media Language
 Essentially this is asking for a detailed textual analysis of your
production which explores the meanings created by micro elements.
 What are the denotation and connotation present in the work
 What key decision have been made by the producer and what meaning
are they meant to create (If a film maker has chosen to employ a
particular sign at one point from a range of possibilities that is a
‘paradigmatic’ choice e.g. what costume to choose for a character).
 How do signs work together to create meaning (syntagmatic
relationship)
 How has the film maker try to encode meaning – what techniques? Are
they successful ie is it easy to decode the production? Could be be
decoded in a different way?
 What are different ways this text could be read and understood (
Audience Concept stuff)
 What ideologies/myths/ meta narratives does the work reinforce or
challenge?
 What effect might this production have on the audience – emotion stuff,
role modelling, challenging beliefs/ ideas
 Why are any of these things important?

15. Audience
 Who is the target audience for the production? ( AC Neilsen
TAGS, Rubicam's 4Cs Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation
), how do you know?
 Would this production be successful with it target audience? How
might it be read/understood by a different target audience?
 What uses and gratifications will the target audience get from the
production?
 What effect might the production have on audiences?
 What is the Dominant/Hegemonic/Preferred reading of this text?
What is a possible Negotiated reading of this text? What would be
an Oppositional reading?
 How would this text suit a Pomo audience (Gauntlett – meaning
is fluid and the audience is intelligent)
 In what ways is the work an example of Jenkins Participatory
Culture (audiences are no longer just consumers, they are also
producers and users. They create and consume, participate and
publish, download and upload, receive and share)

16. Narrative
 Does the product follow a linear narrative?
 Does the production adhere to or subvert narrative conventions?
 How does the narrative support the establishment of genre?
 How have narrative techniques been used to appeal to the
audience?
 Does the text have a clear narrative (in other words, are the
audience able to understand what is happening)
 Is there a narrative thread?
 Is there any suggestion of resolution in the product or, instead, do
we have elements of the beginning/middle of the film, but not its
end?
 How could the product be interpreted using narrative theory?
Propp / Todorov/ Levi-Strauss/ Boardwell and Thompson/ Three
Act Structure (Set Up and Catalyst for Thriller)
 Why is narrative important?
 Why is it good to challenge narrative conventions?

17. AYO (Analyse Your Own) Production!
 Watch your thriller or music video (it should be on
your blog from last year).
 Create a presentation which ANALYSES the thriller or
music video as if it’s not yours.
 Try to cover the following areas:
 Genre
 Representation
 Audience
 Media language
 Narrative
 Use the question prompt sheets to guide your
responses.
 Present back to the class.