AS Coursework: Film Openings: January 2018

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Health and safety post

You've been asked (for months!) to do a health and safety check. Time now to finally sort that out. You should consider what post date you use [click on SCHEDULE under the LABELS box on the right before publishing your post]; this should be evidenced PRIOR TO SHOOTING.

The idea is simple. As is legally required of professional shoots, where companies are legally liable for employees' well-being/welfare (the whole coursework is designed to reflect industry practice), your company needs to evidence its consideration of possible risks from the shoots ... a risk assessment.

POST TITLE: Risk Assessment

The idea is very simple. Go through each location, including transport to and from and any catering (food/drinks), think through the possible risks, and briefly state how you will minimise or counter these risks, including communication to cast/crew/public. Below you can see a few snapshots of student examples:

How the AS exam works in with coursework

The skills and knowledge of the 2 parts of the course are closely linked! As we explore the Evaluation in particular you'll note frequent references to the exam material. In the exam you use semiotics to analyse the media language and (one area of) representation within a 4-5min clip of a US TV drama. You also write an essay on Cinema industry/audience. The following is a list of the elements you're asked to analyse across the 2 parts of your exam (provided on your AS Course Guide):

(UK only, but useful to consider) 7 AREAS OF REPRESENTATION:
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Class and status
Physical ability/disability
Regional identity

4 Technical Areas of Media Language
Camera Shots, angles, movement and composition
Editing
Sound
Mise-en-scene

Aspects of Cinema
the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;
the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;
the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;
the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;
the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;
the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences by international or global institutions;
the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.

'MULTIMEDIA'?

The term multimedia is used frequently in discussing how/what to blog to get into the high marks band. You're partially marked on the 'level of care in the presentation' and 'use of ICT' within your blogs. What does this mean? Multimedia = a combination of images, hyperlinks, podcasts, videos, vodcasts, links lists and other blog tools, use of Facebook/YouTube et al for audience feedback/research/marketing etc. Level of care means taking time to appropriately illustrate posts, find useful hyperlinks to include [generally make a phrase into a hyperlink; don't just type 'here is a link:'!], and checking your links work, images have been properly embedded (always: save and upload, never copy/paste or drag in), posts don't have massive gaps/white space (if you place a lot of images in a post it can take some tweaking!). I try to apply these principles. Make your blogs at least as good as this one!

Key Posts

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Health and safety post