Coursework Completion Tasks

For Friday 20th April the following must be completed and evidenced on your blog.

The academy is open on Friday 30th March and Monday April 16th if you want to come in and complete anything using the Macs.

You will receive your final mark at this time so DO NOT MESS THIS UP!

Ensure all that your final post(s) on your blog contains the following things in the following order

Completed Music Video 

Jpeg of completed CDD

Jpeg of Completed MMA

Evaluation questions 

(Your CDD and MMA should appear on your main page as well as on their individual pages.)

Check other posts are in the correct order

There should be a logical sequence moving from research to planning to construction to final product.

All post titles on your music video page must begin with either Research or Planning or Construction.

On your CDD and MMA pages you must include sub-headings which show Research then Planning then Construction

Delete the link to my blog

It is important that you do this!

Change the theme of your blog to CLASSIC

This is the easiest format to read the blog.

Change the date stamp 

So that the moderator cannot see when you made your posts

Use the checklist below to see if you meet the criteria for a Level 4 mark.

Research and Planning

Planning and research evidence will be complete and detailed.

• There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
• There is excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding.
• There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.
• Time management is excellent.
• There is excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation.
• There are excellent communication skills.

• There is an excellent level of care in the presentation of the research and planning.

Construction (Music Video)

The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot sizes and close attention to mise en scene
• editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions, captions and other effects
• recording and editing sound with images appropriately.


Where a candidate has worked in a group, an excellent contribution to construction is evident.

Construction (CDD and MMA)

The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• awareness of conventions of layout and page design
• awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size
• accurate use of language and register
• the appropriate use of ICT for the task set
• appropriate integration of illustration and text
• framing a shot, using a variety of shot distances as appropriate
• shooting material appropriate to the task set; selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting
• manipulating photographs as appropriate, including cropping and resizing.


Where a candidate has worked in a group, an excellent contribution to construction is evident

Evaluation

There is excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation.

• There is excellent understanding of the forms and conventions used in the productions.
• There is excellent understanding of the role and use of new media in various stages of the
production.
• There is excellent understanding of the combination of main product and ancillary texts.
• There is excellent understanding of the significance of audience feedback.
• There is excellent skill in choice of form in which to present the evaluation.

• There is excellent ability to communicate. 

Evaluation Questions

In the evaluation the following four questions must be addressed:

In what ways do your music video, CDD and MMA use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music videos, CDDs and MMAs?

This question should be divided into 3 sub-questions and you need to answer it in relation to all 3 of your products.

When starting to answer this question you should bring in the initial research you completed in relation to music video theory and what you learnt from this.

You can then go on to showcase your research into existing products and how this, again, influenced your planning.

Do your completed products use codes and conventions in the way that would be expected or have you challenged these by doing something different?

A good idea is to include video clips of real music videos and then showing a clip of your own video which uses technical codes (camerawork, editing) or symbolic codes (any element of mies-en-scene) in a similar way.

You can do the same for the CDD and MMA - screen shot elements of a real CDD and then show your own to illustrate how you have conformed to conventions.

When discussing codes for your CDD and MMA you MUST discuss the typographical elements. (Font size, font style, positioning, size, etc) and cross-reference these with existing products.

How effective is the combination of your music video and ancillary texts? 

Your coursework is a promotional package for a new album so how well do the products work together in relation to promoting the artist and the album?

What is the purpose of each product? As part of a promotional package what is it trying to do?

You could mention where and how the products would be accessed by the target audience and how there is synergy created between them as they are promoting the same product in different ways - remember that 2+2=5 when thinking about marketing.

Think about the music channels that the video would be shown on and how these attract the target audience. 

Think about where the magazine ad would be published and, again, how this would consolidate audience awareness. 

Think about where the CDD would be seen - in the modern age this would not just be on the shelf of a music store such as HMV but also on iTunes or other streaming services. The front cover is the most important panel as this is the one that will be seen most.

What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

You should go back through your blog and locate any evidence that you have that relates to audience feedback. This would start with research into your potential target audience and then move on to anywhere through the planning or construction phases when members of your target audience provided feedback of any form.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

This one is pretty straightforward. Make a list first of all of any way in which you have used digital technology at any stage of the research, planning, construction or evaluation stages.

Give clear evidence of what you used and the role that this played - how effective was this in ensuring that you produced a quality product?

Presentation Tools

If you are looking for online presentation tools that you may be able to use, CLICK HERE for some ideas.

Monday 18th December : Cover Work

Morning all,

I am in school but not in your lesson this morning.

Can you please do the following:

1.Make sure that the work due to be completed today, as set in lesson last Thursday, is completed.

2. The next 2 examples of advertising and marketing that we will be looking at are for a charity (Shelter) and an aftershave (Old Spice). In the same way as we did for Lucozade, use the internet to research the history of these.

You should do this on paper and be ready to feed back your findings in tomorrow's lesson.

Independent Stretch and Challenge

One of them was founded in 1966 and the other in 1937. It would be useful to see if you can find any further information about the advertising campaigns that they have run. Have the organisations always used the same approach in their advertising or have they shifted the way in which they promote their 'brand'?

3. Go back through your blog and ensure that all work that should be there is completed. This includes any questions that I have asked in comments on your posts being followed up.

Progress Tracker Term 1

We have reached the time when I have to enter information onto your Progress Trackers.

Please look at your Progress Tracker (an image of this is below) and use this to let me know the grade you think you should receive for each of the criteria.

• Quality of Work In Lessons
• Organisation
• Quality Of Work Outside Lessons
• Attitude To Learning

I would also like you to use the criteria on the Progress Tracker to help you explain why you think this is the grade that should be awarded.

This should be completed in a comment below this post.

Planning : Storyboard And Animatic

Once you have committed an idea for your music video to paper in the form of your treatment, you need to move on to the process of storyboarding.

We know that the exam board are very keen for evidence of this stage of planing to be provided in a more complex and detailed way than for your AS production work. This means that you will need to dedicate quite a considerable amount of time to it.

The storyboarding process is vital as it shows your journey towards the creation of a finished product. There are, however, no set rules regarding how your finished storyboard should look and we will not be using a template like we did last year.

Here is a guide to how to go about storyboarding a music video provided by Independent Music Advice.If you are not artistic enough to draw your storyboard you could consider taking photographs or, perhaps, using one of the web based storyboarding tools such as Storyboard That.

Animatics - Yes Please!

I would like all of you to be able to produce an animatic as the end product of the storyboarding process.

Here is an explanation of what an animatic is taken from Robert Safir's book titled 'Make Your Music Video and Put It Online'.

Here is an explanation of what an animatic is taken from Robert Safir's book titled 'Make Your Music Video and Put It Online'.

Here is the animatic and completed music video for Gorillaz and their song 'Dirty Harry'.

Planning : Treatment For My Music Video

Remember that the main purpose of the music video you will be directing is to act as a promotional tool for the artist you have chosen. 

Your pitch sells your idea, but you now need to start thinking like a director and develop your idea more fully through a treatment.

Here is the process I would like you to follow and evidence on your blog.

Create a post titled 'Planning : Treatment For My Music Video"

INTRODUCE YOUR TREATMENT

Artist's Name & Track Title

Director's Name (you)

A summary of your idea - this can be the 60 second pitch you used previously.

EXPLAIN YOUR IDEA 

Write out exactly how you envisage the finished music video looking. This must be more detailed than the pitch which is the general idea in a nutshell.

Whilst explaining your treatment you could reference other video work, of course showing these examples is key. Attaching links to videos works well OR you could embed them into the post. 

If an element of the video requires technical aspects try and explain these moments, how you will achieve them. This will give the examiner an idea of how you are going to achieve these parts of the video. 

Fill this part of the post with screenshots of what you want the video to you look like; everyone takes ideas from other videos so this is okay. Find anything you like that is relevant:

- A certain camera angle
- The colour scheme you are looking for
- Make up images
- Costume designs you want to include
- The look and feel of the character in the video (if there is one)

The list of references could be endless, but make sure they are relevant.

After someone has read this part of the treatment, they should have a much clearer understanding of what you hope to create.

You can CLICK HERE to read the music video treatment prepared by director/producer Jonathan Scott Chinn for the song 'Idea Maker' by Ladycop.

I like the concept of this video as it is one-take. I also like the fact that everything is filmed in a single location and urge you to consider the possibilities of this for your own video.

CLICK HERE to see the same director's treatment for Michael Todd's song 'Too Much Of Me'. This is a different genre to Ladycop so you can se how the director approaches videos to compliment the artist's style.

Advanced Portfolio Planning Tasks

You will be given a document outlining all of the planning tasks which need to be undertaken before you begin the construction phase of your coursework.

There are lots of tasks that need to be completed in order for your productions to be successful.

You will need to complete these tasks individually using lesson time, your study periods and homework.

All of these tasks need to be completed by the start of Term 3 (January 2018)

This may seem like a long time but you will have to plan your time effectively in order to complete all tasks to the required standard.

Whilst you will be able to work on these tasks in lesson time, we will also be using lesson time to complete other activities related to the successful construction of your productions.

This will include:

• Editing to the beat
• Lip Syncing 
• Photography Basics
• Adobe Photoshop Basics
• Creating a CDD / MMA from a template in Adobe Photoshop

Here are screenshots of the planning sheets you have copies of for reference: