Q1a: RESEARCH + PLANNING

research and planning

UPDATE JUNE 2012: see relevant sections from Prep Points doc; commentary on existing sample answer centring on this (using music vid as brief) from June 2010 paper added to bottom of post

I'll remind you firstly of some of the prompts suggested earlier:

•     How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
•     How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
•     How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work?
•     What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-listing, flat-planning etc.)? How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production phase?
•     What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
•     How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?

You should not write a long intro for any DCRUP topic. HOWEVER, a BRIEF summary of what you did at AS and A2 should be your starting point:

At AS I created the opening two minutes of a new feature film (following on from a basic preliminary task), working within the slasher sub-genre of horror [add just enough detail from your text to enable the marker to visualise it]. At A2 I worked on a more flexible, open format in terms of genre: a music video [add detail from your text to enable the marker to visualise it].

DISUSSION OF THE JUNE 2010 Q1A:

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

First off, that Q is from the June 2010 paper, the 2^nd running of the new exam; after this the exam board stated they’d always explicitly include TWO of DCRUP in Q1a.

This one explicitly cites R+P, but implicitly is also about Use of Conventions (how “your production work was informed by…”), or more simply how your media language was influenced by your research (EAA on research, partially backed with UseOfExamples on how that influenced your text). That research might include audience feedback on how sample auds reacted to your initial attempts to utilise some of the conventions you observed.

Key to this is:

• A solid intro painting a word picture of your two productions – a good opportunity for easy Terminology marks
• a sense of the process undertaken, the depth, range + extent of sources used + examples scrutinised (see p.6 of http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/q1a-prep-points-doc.html)
• picking out at least one aspect of research which developed over AS to A2, and tying this to specific examples from your work (moving beyond genre, but also moving outside the format, should be a key aspect of A2 research, eg Sublime Transcendence’s horror film research for their SInDec vid: this eg permits you to draw on postmodern terminology too, and discuss whether your work becomes ‘mere’ bricolage because of intertextuality and this research)
• you could also consider a greater level of research into auteur directors, including aspects of their personal aesthetic (style): eg the particular layering that Anton Corbijn engages in, his mixing of old and new film formats, and his highly postmodern blending of signifiers (props) of past and present (eg a cowboy using a modern phone); did you extend your research more into the post-production stage as you experimented with editing, especially FX, techniques?
• How did you make greater use of web 2.0 to augment your research? Did you use social media to get feedback on your own use of conventions in draft/rough cuts? Or, at an earlier stage, for suggestions of vids to look at? (be specific with sites, suggestions received, and influence on the actual text: what scene/aspect did this eventually influence?)
• Perhaps you also did more reading around certain video texts than you had done with film texts? Did you seek out Wikis, reviews, blogging on individual vids (and/or directors etc)? Did you spot certain editing techniques and use YouTube to find some how-tos or further examples?
• To reiterate the theory (+ thus terminology) opportunities here: web 2.0; postmodernism (bricolage; Strinati’s 5-point summary; Baudrillard and simulacra: by researching + to some extent replicating the conventions you found, were YOU making a representation of a representation of … [that’s what simulacrum means – any concrete meaning is lost in an endless sea of signifiers]? You were at AS, maybe through some discontinuity editing and/or moving outside standard genre conventions at A2 you avoided this? It’s a useful + simple point to discuss: its ok if you conclude (maybe at the end) that its difficult to avoid bricolage when you’re working in such a magpie format [ie it already steals + borrows from every other media form]); semiotics + narrative terminology; feminist critiques – did you manage to target male/female audiences BUT make more sophisticated use of gender representations? Again, maybe you could link such a point to looking beyond the m.vid format at A2? 
• I’ve added single paragraphs on individual pomo theorists you can pick from at http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/postmodernism.html

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE VIXENS SAMPLE ANSWER
The Vixens eg (embedded below; also see p.4-6 for breakdown of 1a/1b markscheme – again, reading this may be reassuring) provides a clear intro, setting out well the texts the examiner has not seen.
Para2: quickly stresses looking BEYOND genre egs for both AS/A2, BUT distinguishes A2 by stating she (I know it’s a she) researched beyond the format (ie didn’t stick to vids only), and gives clear UofEx (but doesn’t name the magazines used, which would have boosted UofEx mark here). There was an obvious opportunity here to draw on postmodern theory and/or feminist theory (eg Mulvey and male gaze: seeking to work beyond it) to extend the EAA.
Perhaps you might also argue at A2 you learned to keep researching vids + general ideas through additional media even as the production progressed and post-production work progressed – I think its fair to say at AS you saw conventions research as something you did early + moved on from; I couldn’t have stressed heavily enough at A2 how vital it was you kept returning to conventions research/learning/examples.
3rd + 4th paragraphs include some useful terminology, linked to EAA + some UofEx: note the range of semiotic terms (naming theorists here, + maybe going more into bin.opps, narr.enigma etc would be useful – see attached on narrative). A simple point here for you all would be to distinguish the A2 by flagging up greater use of web 2.0: as well as passively viewing materials did you interactively engage using social media to get further suggestions of vids to view/feedback on how well your vid reflected the conventions you’d observed etc?
June 2010 VixensQ1a Q1b

G325 Past Paper Jun 2010

View more documents from Kerim Aytac

2010 June Markscheme G325