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Writing your Advanced Production Evaluation

NB: The exam board state candidates should be discouraged from seeing the evaluation as simply a
written essay and the potential of the format chosen should be exploited through the use of images,
audio, video and links to online resources.
Remember to use MEDIA LANGUAGE!

Use the bullet points below to write your evaluation. You should write each section under each
heading. Write your evaluation in WORD DOUBLE SPACED so it is easy to mark as a draft.
Remember to use the material on your blogs as part of your planning to complete your
evaluation you can re-use / improve images, deconstructions, etc.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?

Summarise the task promotional materials for an album release comprising a music
video promo, CD/DVD digipak and magazine advert. Explain what the PURPOSE of
these three elements is in a promotional package. Use pre-existing texts post
examples of promo material.
Describe what is required from a music promo. Describe the repertoire of elements
that make up a pop promo: discuss in terms of performance, narrative, camera work,
editing, actors, mise-en-scene, etc. Use clips / screen grabs from professional promos to
help illustrate / discuss your ideas. Ensure that you explain how genre affects the style
of video and define the features of a promo of your chosen genre.
Refer to your research of pop promos explain what the conventions of the genre are
(this should be music videos generally and music videos of your selected genre).
Consider how these conventions might be used or broken by particular directors / bands.
Refer to specific promos that have influenced your work. Include clips / stills with a brief
comment about the specific aspects that influenced you.
Use still shots from your promo to show how you have used, developed or challenged
conventions from other promos you could discuss camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene, etc.
Basically show your influences.
Stills of location / set discuss as a typical promo location. Why did you choose this location?
Stills of costumes / props comment on your choices and how they help reinforce the genre?
Again, why did you make these choices?
Discuss editing techniques / transitions / video effects, etc you used in relation to defining genre
Discuss how you have used narrative and performance in your promo
Provide a number of deconstructed stills of key shots.
Provide a shorter commentary on the influences on your ancillary tasks again identify the
conventions of a typical magazine advert / CD or DVD digipak for your genre. Deconstruct some
influential examples of the two products, commenting on how they influenced you.
Refer to theorists in pop video (we looked at them at the end of Y12) dont just name drop:
show how your work supports or subverts their theories.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Write about your products as a whole remember that they are part of a promotional package for
an album release so how do they work together to achieve this? How do they represent the
artist / band?
Consider how three texts work synergistically how does each text help promote the other?
Comment on exhibition where each element will be seen and how it will represent / promote
the band. Remember to address the debate between traditional media (music channels, music
mags, record stores) and new media (facebook, youtube, iTunes, the web) as potential means of
exhibition and promotion what are the pros / cons if each form?
Provide a selective deconstruction of your three texts how effective are they individually? As a
whole? Use annotated stills / images, or a directors commentary, if you wish to avoid writing!

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Explain what audience research you undertook during the process of constructing your texts and
how it influenced your three texts. Explain why audience research was important. Explain the
research methodology, with its strengths and shortcomings, which you used to gather audience
feedback.
Explain what final research you undertook to find out your audiences response to your
completed texts. Consider how you used a range of research methods e.g. focus groups,
questionnaires, use of you tube / social network sites. The band response?

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

Summarise how you used www.unsigned.com to overcome copy write issues


Use of social network sites to research / contact band also a place for exhibition of
promos etc.
Research phase You tube etc to explore examples of promos for inspiration.
Focus on the technologies that you have used to construct your production.
What video shooting skills have you learnt / developed?
What editing skills have you learnt / developed?
Discuss how you learned skills in using the Apple Macs and iMovie, Photoshop, etc.
Refer to specific technical issues that you learnt about during shooting / editing e.g.
shooting in low light, adding sound / music during editing. These might be problems /
challenges and how you overcame them.
Take some screen shots of the technologies you used e.g. iMovie explain what you have
learnt about them / how you have used them. Do same for ancillary tasks.
Write about any other technologies that you used during your production (what they were and
how you used them) e.g. Blogger(!), search engines, iTunes, Garageband, etc.
For evaluation discuss the benefits of exhibiting your material online e.g. Youtube, Facebook,
etc

Feedback from the Exam Board

The best evaluations employed a different electronic/digital approach for each of the four set
evaluation questions in the Specification.

The weakest were text based and barely touched on the four set questions. Still there were a
number of essays on blogs and PowerPoint that had far too many words on one slide, completely
missing the point of this software package.

The Directors commentary format is potentially one of the most interesting methods for
evaluating. There were two types of Directors Commentaries. Firstly the reading from a script
commentary, which actually isnt a commentary at all! This method relies on Candidates from the
group taking turns to read a pre-written script. Often this had little correlation to the events
happening on the screen. The second, and much more rewarding commentary had the group
members discussing the set questions (possibly using notes) and using certain points in the film
to highlight points being made. The directors commentary also allows for still images from the
research and planning materials or ancillaries to be edited into the footage. Some other
imaginative responses to the evaluation requirement included illustrated podcasts, video
presentations, presentations using Issuu, Slideshare, and Prezi.

The conventions question allowed for side by side comparisons, allowing even weaker
Candidates to achieve; the audience feedback question led to a range of approaches from
uploading onto YouTube and getting feedback, or videoing peers group or individual responses,
not to mention scans of endless questionnaires! The relationship between the artefacts question
forced Candidates to relate their products and create a more cohesive package. The equipment
question often led to endless photos of cameras, computers and images of computer screens but also led to some excellent voice over demonstrations of software being used, for example,
explaining how they achieved certain effects, for example, or debates over the use of Web 2.0.

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