Again the question will specify an area/concept for you to apply. The areas that could come up are:
Audience(This guide is based on work found the wicked media blog by Pete Fraser.)
The main things to note here are that for 1a you can write about ALL of your work across the course (and you can write about anything else you might have made on other courses or in your spare time too!) and for 1b you just write about ONE of your productions. Try not to overlap too much, so that each answer is different.
1a is entirely concerned about SKILLS DEVELOPMENT, but the area that comes up will be quite specific.
Research and planning
Digital technology use
Post-production
Use of real media conventions
Creativity
It is possible that a question might refer to two of these categories, so be prepared to talk about any/all of them!
A few tips on what they mean:
Digital technology refers to hardware, software and online technology, so the cameras, the computers, the packages you used and the programs online that you have worked with. It is worth considering how all this inter-links.
Post-production would actually fall under digital technology as well, so if that comes up it would probably represent an expansion of points you'd make in one section of digital technology. It is really about everything you do after constructing the raw materials for your production; so once you have shot your video, what do you do to it in editing.
Research refers to looking at real media and audiences to inform your thinking about a media production and also how you record all that research; planning refers to all the creative and logistical thinking and all the organisation that goes on in putting the production together so that everything works and again gives you the chance to write about how you kept records of it.
Creativity is the hardest one in many ways because it involves thinking about what the creative process might mean. Wikipedia describes it as "a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight." For your projects it might involve considering where ideas came from, how you worked collaboratively to share ideas, how you changed things or even how you used tools like the programs to achieve something imaginative.
Use of real media conventions involves consideration of other texts that you looked at and how skilfully you were able to weave their conventions into your work or ways in which you might have challenged them.
You will notice that most of the above were areas that you covered in the evaluation task at the end of each of your productions. This time, you are putting together ideas from evaluations and standing a bit further back to look across your production work and reflecting on how you developed across the course. You should feel free to acknowledge weaknesses and to reflect upon how you learned from them and how you overcame problems. It is not a place to be defensive about your work but to really reflect on it!
so how would you organise an answer?
paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short.
paragraph 2 should pick up the skill area and perhaps suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. use an example.
paragraph 3 should talk through your use of that skill in early projects and what you learned and developed through these. again there should be examples to support all that you say.
paragraph 4 should go on to demonstrate how the skill developed in later projects, again backed by examples, and reflecting back on how this represents moves forward for you from your early position.
paragraph 5 short conclusion
Remember it's only half an hour and you need to range across all your work!
Past Questions
Jan 2010
1 (a) Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in youranswer to show how these skills developed over time.
June 2010
1 (a) Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Jan 2011
1(a) Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for mediaproduction and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making.Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
G325 Mark Scheme – for the above question
There is a clear sense of progression and of how examples have been selected, and a range of articulate reflections on technical skills. There is a fluent evaluation of progress made over time.Candidates offer a broad range of specific, relevant and clear examples of digital technology inrelation to creative decisions and outcomes.The use of media terminology and research, planning and production terms is excellent
NARRATIVE
A narrative is a story that is created in a constructed format that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events.
Also have look at this infographic
Genre theory primarily exists as a way of catergorising texts - grouping them together by identifying similarities and patterns.
How is genre important?Below is an thorough list of terminology which must be used when talking about the micro-elements, because the Media Language you use was the language of cinema and the moving image (for your openings and music video) which is all to with the combination of camerawork, sound, mise-en-scene and editing.
Other things useful to mention would be how you used signs and codes to create meaning so talk about the denotation and connotation of the images you created.
Media Language has been described as a 'catch all' concept, so feel free to use any of the other theories you've learned for the other sections to help you explain why your project works and how it creates meaning for the audience.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfL09c4cw2I&feature=player_embedded Representation refers to the CONSTRUCTION in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of 'reality' such as people, places, objects, events and cultural identities.
Representation is the ability of texts to draw upon features of the world and present them to the viewer, not simply as reflections but more so as constructions. They are versions of reality influenced by culture and people's habitual thought and actions. (O'Shaughnessy & Stadler). Representation is a process between the production of the representation, the reality that is being represented and how the representation is interpreted by the audience.
Go here - and look for Support Materials
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Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making.
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making.
Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.
Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influenced the way you created your own media products.
Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your media practice.
Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples to show how these skills develop over time.
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Lewis Hyde’s 1979 classic, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the
Modern World
http://entertainment.time.com/2012/05/23/genre-fiction-is-disruptive-technology/
]]>"I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. Creative work in any field often passes through typical phases. Sometimes what you end up with is not what you had in mind when you started. It's a dynamic process that often involves making new connections, crossing disciplines and using metaphors and analogies.
Creativity is about fresh thinking. It doesn't have to be new to the whole of humanity – though that's always a bonus – but certainly to the person whose work it is. Creativity also involves making critical judgments about whether what you're working on is any good, whether it's a theorem, a design or a poem.
There are various myths about creativity. One is that only special people are creative; another is that creativity is just about the arts; a third is that it's all to do with uninhibited "self-expression". None of these is true. On the contrary, everyone has creative capacities; creativity is possible in whatever you do, and it can require great discipline and many different skills."
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/20/jonah-lehrer-imagine-how-cr...
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http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/20/jonah-lehrer-imagine-how-cr...
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Interesting article about Photoshop.
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Someone has illustrated the story of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the shape of a map.
Think of a feature film, and jot down a) the strict chronological order in which events occur b) the order in which each of the main characters finds out about these events a) shows story, b) shows plot construction. Plot keeps audiences interested eg) in whether the children will discover Mrs Doubtfire is really their father, or shocks them, eg) the 'twist in the tale" at the end of The Sixth Sense. Identifying Narrator Who is telling this story is a vital question to be asked when analysing any media text. Stories may be related in the first or third person, POVs may change, but the narrator will always
The narrator also tends to POSITION the audience into a particular relationship with the characters on the screen.
]]>Here's an interesting powerpoint on what a thriller is about found from here.
As you were asked to do a Thriller for your opening project it's interesting to look at how that influenced Representation, Narrative, Media Language, Audience etc.
For instance, Thrillers created suspense by drip feeding information keeping the audience wanting to know more or they give us more information than the characters to make us fear for them - so all the time they are playing around with the narrative structure to make it more interesting.
Then for representation characters can be obviously good or evil (Levi-Strauss, creating binary opposites) and so must be easily recognisable as. Characters must in shown as vulnerable or powerful to create fear. Or to create mystery characters are ambiguous. Which ever one you used, how these characters were represented was vital to the workings of the thriller.
If you're answering a question on Media Language, Representation, Narrative or Audience, don't be afraid to include some thoughts on Genre as it is clearly very influence on all aspects of the project.
]]>Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Below is a great discussion on the idea of creativity that came from here on Flickr by someone who designs spaceships called nnenn. It's worth while going on to the flickr page as other users have placed idea on his constellation as to where they should go in terms of originality and creativity.
CREATIVITY (...as dots) Imagine a diagram that looks like a star-field, with every dot representing some known thing, information packet, or idea. The center is thick with basic knowledge items but the edges thin out with recent discoveries. In this context, true creation can be defined as simply placing a new dot somewhere in the map's blank areas. But when these new dots do appear, they tend to cluster around other pre-existing dots... and are rarely distant enough to be considered ingenious.
Now, a new dot appearing somewhere beyond the edge of the existing network might be considered extremely creative but is like a medieval peasant spontaneously inventing space travel: not likely. Unfortunately, this is how many perceive creativity... and either frustrate themselves in endless pursuit, or give-up altogether. If you take this approach, prepare for disappointment. There are, however, a few easier, alternative approaches that will get you your own dot... but all three rely on what's already known:
1. Push
Expand the current boundaries/limitations of some existing dot (usually involves a lot of time and effort.)
2. Play
Experiment wildly with some existing dot in hopes of discovering the previously hidden (odds are against you.)
Where Good Ideas come from - Steven Johnson
All Creative Work is Derivative
From filmmaker Nina Paley of Sita Sings The Blues fame comes a simple yet brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed case for the combinatorial nature of creativity. Paley photographed archaeological artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and animated them to illustrate her point: All creativity builds upon something that existed before and every work of art is essentially a derivative work. (This is swiped from the wonderful website brainpickings.org)
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