PPE Preparation: Paper 2

Here you'll find everything you need to prepare for PPE Paper 2 coming up on Thursday 25 March. 

As the government have suggested, we are going to test you on topics you have learned in class or most recently as this is the fairest way of giving everyone the best chance to show what they can do. This means for Paper 2 you will be doing Section A on Television. 

The following blogpost will help you to revise this topic and you can also look back at your assessments in the Autumn Term which were also Paper 2 Section A tasks on Television. We recommend making revision cards or knowledge organisers and practicing questions in the revision pack we gave out in December.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to exam rooming issues with the video clip for Media Paper 2, we will be taking on PPE Paper 2 (Television) FIRST and then doing PPE Paper 1 the following week.

PPE Paper 2 topics

This is what is coming up in PPE Paper 2 along with a link to a previous learner response task that will help your revision and preparation:

Television

Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child - Language and Representation

Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child - Audience and Industry

Class - Co-Owner of a Lonely - Language and Representation

Class - Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart - Audience and Industry

Learner response to previous Paper 2 assessment

Paper 2 revision and preparation

To help you prepare for Paper 2, Ms Fowler has produced two brilliant lesson videos taking you through the skills you need for this exam. These will also remind you of some of the key information about the Television topic and the CSPs Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child and Class - Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Even better, we've made the two episodes available to watch on Google Drive as they have now been removed from iPlayer or Netflix (you'll need to login with your Greenford Google login to view):

Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child 

Class - Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart

Below are the lesson videos to watch and make notes/revision cards as you go through them.

Paper 2 Television revision lesson:

 

How to analyse the clip in the Paper 2 exam: 

Paper 2: Television preparation tasks

Work through the following tasks to help prepare for Paper 2 on Television:

1) Watch the two lesson videos above in full, making notes, revision cards or creating a knowledge organiser as you watch.

2) Look back over the blogposts for Television (linked above - plus your own blogposts with all the answers) and add to your revision cards or knowledge organisers.

3) Look at your learner response blogpost for the Television assessment in November and revise the key areas you need to improve for the PPE. 

Good luck!

PPE Preparation: Paper 1

Here you'll find everything you need to prepare for PPE Paper 1 coming up on Tuesday 30 March. 

As the government have suggested, we are going to test you on topics you have learned in class or most recently as this is the fairest way of giving everyone the best chance to show what they can do. 

The following blogpost will help you to revise the right topics. We recommend making revision cards or knowledge organisers and practicing questions in the revision pack are giving out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to exam rooming issues with the video clip for Media Paper 2, we will be taking on PPE Paper 2 (Television) FIRST and then doing PPE Paper 1 the following week.

PPE Paper 1 topics

This is what is coming up in PPE Paper 1:

Section A: Language and Representation

Unseen Media analysis

This will be a magazine cover, advert or similar print text that you haven't seen before. You'll need to write a media analysis of the text using all the media terminology and analysis skills you've built up over two years. Think connotations, CLAMPS, preferred and opposition readings etc.

See this LR task from Year 1 as an example.

Magazines

You'll have questions on one of the magazine products:

Tatler

Reveal

Section B: Industry and Audience

Film Industry

Doctor Strange

I, Daniel Blake

Newspapers

The Daily Mirror - Language and Audience

The Daily Mirror - Representation and Industry

The Times - Language and Audience

The Times - Representation and Industry

Paper 1: preparation and revision tasks

Work through the following tasks to help prepare for PPE Paper 1:

1) Work through the Paper 1 revision pack which has example questions, mark schemes and exemplar answers. Focus only on the unseen product questions plus the topics listed above (Magazines, Film Industry, Newspapers).

2) Look back over the blogposts for the topics listed above - plus your own blogposts with all the answers. Create revision cards or knowledge organisers for each CSP and key media terminology (e.g. Mise-en-scene - CLAMPS etc.)

Good luck!

Coursework: Script for interview with director

The final aspect to our coursework brief is to produce a script for an interview with the director of our low-budget horror film.

With no Covid, we would actually be recording this as a podcast with an interviewer asking questions plus an audio clip from the film itself. Due to the restrictions of lockdown and remote learning, we simply need to write the script for this podcast instead.

What makes a good interview?

The first thing to plan is WHO your director actually is: give them a name, give them a background and perhaps think about an interesting angle. For example, they could be an up-and-coming female director, or from a BAME background - both of which would be unusual in a white, male-dominated film industry. If you don't want to have an interview with the director, you can make it an interview with another member of the production team if you wish.

Plan the questions

Once you've worked out who your director is, you need to think of some questions the interviewer can ask them. You should find that 5-6 questions will be enough as long as you write quite detailed answers. 

Answer the questions in a conversational style

Remember: you're writing a script for a podcast interview. So the writing style can be conversational and quite informal. Make the answers sound like the director is really speaking. In terms of how many words, aim for around 300-400 words in the script in total.

Audio clip from the film

Your script also needs to include a clip from your film - so think about a 10-15 second audio clip which includes music, sound effects and perhaps a line or two of dialogue. Try and get across how scary/creepy/ exciting your film is from the short clip. It's up to you where you put this in your script - it could be at the start, middle or end but make sure the interviewer refers to it. Look at the example below for how this should be laid out.

Images

You need to use at least three images in total across your website so you may want to take an original image of a friend or family member who can 'be' the director being interviewed or perhaps a 'behind the scenes' shot of them with a camera. You could then add this to the website page along with the text of the script.

Who should the interviewer be?

This is up to you - it can be a made-up movie podcast host or alternatively a well-known film critic or journalist working in the industry. E.g. Possible interviewers to interview your Director:

• Mark Kermode
• Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian
• Time Out magazine
• Den of Geek

What should the final website page look like?

Here's our website example page with the interview with the director. Note how the interview discusses things like representation in the media - if you're aiming for a top grade then the director interview is a great opportunity to show your knowledge of media issues and debates.

Here's another example interview from our technician Daisy's exemplar website for Scream. 

You may find this Google document structure helps you to write the interview script. You can then copy and paste the text into your website on wix.com. 

The BBC Writers' Room is a brilliant resource with real BBC TV and Radio scripts to read and learn from. For this task, I would focus on the radio scripts as this will help show you how to script a dramatic scene using audio. 

Good luck!

Coursework: website design

Once we have finished our Statement of Intent and taken our photographs, we need to start constructing our website.

This is a fantastic, creative part of the course and best of all you are able to work on this from any computer using the website building site wix.com. 

For this first lesson in website building we just want to get started on wix.com and choose a template to use for our low-budget independent horror film website.

Create your website using Wix

We're going to use wix.com to create our websites. This is a simple, user-friendly and free site that AQA is happy for us to use and will really help us to create our website. Here's a tutorial explaining the basics in designing a website on wix.com:

Remember, to test out wix.com, we created an example film website using some A Level Media pictures from a different project. This is what we're trying to produce!

Creating a film website on wix.com

To help create your low-budget independent horror film website, we recommend using a film-based template available on wix.com. You can then add your images, film title and other homepage conventions that you researched as part of your first coursework task.

Here's a video walkthrough for how to sign up to wix.com and get your template up and running:

Coursework: Creating a website

This week, we don't have a blog task - we just need to get straight into building our website! Work through the following tasks:

1) Sign up to wix.com using your Greenford email address. Remember: don't pay anything! We can create the website we need for GCSE coursework for free.

2) Select 'Create a new website' and search for a film template for your site.

3) Start to design your site using text and images based on your horror film title and photography.

Good luck! 

Coursework: Photoshoot

Having planned our low-budget horror film, it's now time to take the photos we'll need for our website.

This will be the most creative part of the course and hopefully result in some stunning low-budget horror images.

Here's Tuesday's lesson video going through the photography process:

Links and resources

Reminder of the brief: Create a working homepage and one linked page for a website promoting a new independent, low budget film.

The AQA coursework brief is here - with the details from the exam board regarding what can be submitted due to Covid-19. You'll need to be logged in to your Greenford Google account to view it.

Here's our example film website using some A Level Media pictures from a different project. This is what we're trying to produce!

Low budget independent horror films

Fortunately, our brief is ideal for taking photos using our phones or a camera at home… low-budget horror is all about being creative with the environment we are in.

Mise-en-scene: CLAMPS

Planning every aspect of mise-en-scene for your photo will result in a better set of images for your production. We use CLAMPS to remember the different aspects of mise-en-scene:

C: Costume

L: Lighting

A: Actor placement and expression

M: Make-up

P: Props

S: Setting

Photography top tips

Once you have planned and prepared everything you need, it’s time to take your photos. Top tips:

• Take LOADS of images (assuming you have space on your phone/camera). You need at least three different images on your website but the more options you have the better.
• Take photos using a variety of different camera shots - wide shots, medium shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups etc.
• Take a selection of landscape AND portrait images.
• Think about how you will use the images on your website when setting up your shot.
• Ask your actor to use a range of expressions to give you options when selecting images for your website.

Coursework: Photography blog tasks

Create a blogpost called 'Coursework photography' and complete the following tasks:

1) Plan out every aspect of your mise-en-scene for your photoshoot:

C: Costume

L: Lighting

A: Actor placement and expression

M: Make-up

P: Props

S: Setting

2) Take your photos and post the best FIVE images you take to your blog. You should be able to upload them directly from your phone.

Due date: on Google Classroom

Optional extension task

Once you have taken your images, go back to your Statement of Intent and see if you need to update any of the Media Language elements now you know what mise-en-scene you are using for your photos.

Coursework: Statement of Intent

The first 10 marks of our coursework are for a written Statement of Intent.

This is simply a Word or Google Document in which we write what we are planning to make for our coursework. Your completed film pitch will give you most of the information you need for this and you are welcome to copy and paste details from your film pitch straight into your Statement of Intent.

Our coursework brief can be found here.

The Statement of Intent word count is 300 words - you can go slightly above this if you want to but you need to keep it pretty close to 300.

This Statement of Intent guidance will help you if you're not sure what to write - you'll need your Greenford Google login to access it. The most important thing is that you cover media language, representations and the target audience in your Statement of Intent.

Another tip is that you can use subheadings and bullet points in your Statement of Intent - it doesn't need to all be in paragraphs. In fact, bullet points are very useful for keeping the word count down. 

If you're still not sure how to lay out your Statement of Intent on Word or Google Docs then this example may help you with the structure and subheadings. You'll need your Greenford Google login to access this.

Here's a short video to talk you through the Statement of Intent: 

Here's the Statement of Intent mark scheme: 

Statement of Intent: task

1) Write your Statement of Intent on a Word or Google Doc - word count 300 words. Use this Statement of Intent guidance document to help you.

Submit your Statement of Intent to your teacher by emailing them the Word or Google Document.

Due date: on Google Classroom

Coursework: Film pitch

Our first bit of planning for our Film website production is to come up with a new, original horror movie concept.

This is the creative side of Media Studies that we all love but it's not easy! We need to come up with our own, original idea that we can turn into a brilliant independent horror film website. You need to work through several steps...

Original independent horror

We need to come up with an idea for an independent film that would appeal to fans of independent movies. What does this mean?

• Low budget
• Creative or unusual ideas
• No star names or directors
• May challenge ideas in mainstream movies

Title and tagline

What makes a good horror film title?

• Simple
• Memorable
• Suggestive of narrative/story
• Immediately identifiable as HORROR

The tagline is like a slogan for the film and will appear on the poster, website, trailer etc. Let’s look at some classic horror taglines…

• “Be afraid, be very afraid.” (The Fly)
• “In space, no one can hear your scream.” (Alien)
• “Sometimes dead is better.” (Pet Sematary)
• “Heads Will Roll.” (Sleepy Hollow)
• “I Warned You Not To Go Out Tonight” (Maniac)
• “He’ll Tear Your Soul Apart.” (Hellraiser)

Logline

The logline is a one-sentence summary of the story of the film. It’s designed to immediately tell a studio or distributor what kind of film it is and what happens in the story. Let’s look at some examples…

Titanic: A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage on the most famous ship of all time…

What about some example horror loglines? These are from the Screenwriting Staffing website...

Fallout: When two women awake to find themselves trapped by a madman in adjoining rooms with only half the information needed to escape, they soon discover that only one of them can make it out alive and that working together will be very dangerous.

Demon: Five teenagers take shelter in an abandoned slaughterhouse which is haunted by a malevolent poltergeist. Overcome by an incredible rage, one of them seeks to destroy the others.

Narrative and character

Your logline should give you a basic overview of your film. Next, plan a few more details:

• Narrative – what happens in the story?
• Character – who is the main character? Who is the villain or threat? Are there any other important characters?

Here, it might be helpful to think of your film as a combination of existing horror films (“Like a cross between Scream and Paranormal Activity”)

Plan what you'll need for your website...

Once you have a basic plan for your low-budget independent horror film, plan a few more details that will help you with your media production work:

• Come up with a name for your director (it can be your name!) as you’ll need this for the interview
• Plan your photos for the website/interview
• Plan any costume/make-up/lighting/location you’ll need for your photos
• Plan the font/typography or branding you will use for your film title. Examples on next slide…

Font/typography

Horror film branding is usually created using particular font/typography and colour (black/white/red):

Film pitch planning: blog tasks

You may want to start the process of planning your film by scribbling ideas on a blank piece of paper - possibly storylines, scary villains, main character names, locations etc. Then, create a blogpost called 'Coursework film pitch' and answer the questions below:

1) What will be the title for your own original NEW horror film? If you're not sure, write down two or three possible titles and you can choose later.

2) Write a tagline for your film – it's effectively a slogan for the movie:

3) Write a logline – this is like a longer version of the tagline. It's one sentence that sums up the film and hooks the audience in under 25 words: 

4) Write down any existing horror films that are similar to yours ("My film idea is like a cross between Scream and Contagion"):

5) What is your narrative/storyline? Write a short paragraph that explains what happens in your film:

6) What is your main character’s name and what happens to them? You can also mention other characters if your wish.

7) Who or what will be the villain or threat in your horror movie?  

8) What is the name of your film's director? You can use your own name here if you wish.

9) What costume/make-up/props will you need for your photographs for your website?

10) What font/typography/colour you will use to create a brand for your film’s title and branding?  

By completing these tasks, you will have the basic structure to create your photography, website and interview with the director or member of the production team.

Due date: on Google Classroom.