Extended CertificateBTEC Creative Digital Media Production

Welcome ….

The course is made up of 4 units.a) Unit 1: Media Representations: You will study a range of media from different sectors, such as music videos, short film extracts, animation, news programmes, websites, digital games and print adverts in order to explore how meaning, messages and values are constructed through formal and stylistic elements (Examined unit)

b) Unit 4: Pre-production portfolio: You will produce a digital media product. You will create a portfolio and manage the pre-production for your own creative media production.(Portfolio Unit)

c) Unit 8: Responding to a Commission: You will understand how to respond to a commission brief with ideas based on the required content, style, audience, purpose and approach proposed by the client. You will work within the requirements and constraints of the client’s specifications and consider your response in terms of ethos, format, budget, platform and duration. (Examined Unit - with pre-release brief)

d) Unit 14 Digital Magazine Production – You will explore codes and conventions of different magazine genres and platforms. You will select and prepare content, and create layouts for a specific genre of magazine. (Assignment Portfolio Unit)

Unit 1: Media RepresentationsObjective: This Unit will provide a foundation for understanding semiotic analysis and the ‘reading’ of media texts, which is important when consuming messages and producing representations of your own through the production of media in the optional units. In this unit, you will draw on your learning from across the programme to complete assessment tasks. It also provides an introduction to fundamental media theory and analysis.

Representation is the way in which aspects of society and social identity, gender, age and ethnicity are presented to an audience through specific media products using specific media language. How issues and events are represented in the media is also a key issue to consider as is the audience response to those representations. Context should also be considered.

Encoding and decoding The media can be seen to be very powerful and the way in which it represents issues within society links directly to the way audiences interpret them. Repetition of representations over a period of time has the effect of making those representations become ‘normalised’. For example, it is often said that the women presented on the front cover of women’s magazines and online magazines are unrealistic representations of the ‘perfect’ woman. Producers of media products use media language to encode their ideas and messages through the construction of the representations used in that product and audiences will decode those messages accordingly.

Re-presenting (Hall):Hall’s Reception Theory outlines how audiences may interpret the same product in different ways. Some audiences will take a preferred reading, encoding it exactly as the producer intended, others may take a negotiated reading, where they mostly agree with the message but there may be elements of the message they reject. The third reading that Hall identified is that some audiences may disagree with the message of the product and therefore take an oppositional reading of that product.

Stereotyping is a process of categorisation, which is needed to make sense of the world, and the amount of information we receive. Everyone will have their own ‘prejudiced’ ways of seeing and making sense of the world around them in order to navigate their way, hence we all use typifications and belong to groups which can be typified. We make sense of people and make judgements according to gestures, dress, voice etc. Stereotypes work by taking some easily identifiable features of a group and using those features to describe everyone in that group. Perkins conducted research into stereotypes and concluded that a stereotype: • is a concept that reflects a group not an individual • exaggerates shared features of a group • has features that are understood and recognised as they tend to be repeated across different products and forms. • when negative, tends to prevent the audience from being objective and analytical • is not always negative, some can be positive • can convey messages quickly • can communicate dominant ideas and beliefs held within a society

MediationBefore a product reaches and is consumed by its audience it will have gone through a process of selection and construction, therefore it will have gone through the process of mediation. This image would be selected by a producer to evoke sympathy from the audience for David Cameron. Samantha and her concerned expression would encourage audiences to empathise with her.

Self-representation

The increase of new digital media platforms offers a variety of opportunities for self-representation. Websites, blogs, vlogs and social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook allow users to represent themselves and update this representation on a regular basis. Users make choices about which images to upload according to how they want others to see them, they can control this version of themselves that they present to others. David Gauntlett’s theoretical perspective focuses on the autonomy of the audience; how they use and respond to different media products. He claims that: • The media provide users and audiences with the tools to allow them to control the construction of their own identities. • Previously media products conveyed unambiguous messages about ideal types of identities, nowadays media products offer audiences a much wider range of icons and characters allowing them to choose different ideas.

Representation of gender The representation of women in the media changes according to cultural and sociological shifts over time. There are, however, still some stereotypical representations of women where they are defined through the way they are perceived by men and expectations of society. Primarily women are judged by their looks and appearance and media products will offer aspirational images of women. These representations of women will often focus on their sexuality and emotions, many narratives will be based around relationships with husbands and children. Men are stereotypically represented differently from women in media products, their representation has changed over time and more recent discourse suggest that masculinity is in crisis as men no longer have such clear traditional roles in society. The advent of the ‘new man’ has meant that different representations of men have emerged. Nonetheless, images of men in the media still predominately focus on body image and physique, physical strength, sexual attractiveness and relations with women as well as power and independence.

Representation of ethnicity Ethnicity is an area where representations have changed dramatically over the years. However, people from other cultures still tend to be defined by their ‘otherness’, which can be used both positively and negatively. As with other groups, ethnic groups are often stereotyped and defined

by their racial characteristics. Often ethnic groups are mis-represented or under-represented, Black and Asian people are often represented as being exotic in some media products. Young black people have often been demonised by some areas of the media through linking them to violence and gang culture. Tokenism may occur when ethnic minorities are represented, for example, the introduction of a black or Asian family in a soap opera storyline may focus on particular aspects of their culture such as arranged marriages.

Representation of issues and eventsThe representation of issues and events is important to consider in relation to the values and attitudes of the product in which they feature. If the product’s producers think in a particular way then the product may be seen to be biased. The construction of the representation needs to be analysed in terms of the use of media language within the product such as: mode of address, anchorage, visual, technical and audio codes etc. Issues of mediation will need to be taken into account. Opportunities for the producers to encode messages and whether these messages reflect the dominant ideology of that media producer must always be considered. The product can be seen as an opinion leader in that it offers a particular, constructed view of an issue or event.

Task one Representations in print advertising. Choose a print advert and analyse the representation that has been constructed. Consider and analyse the following: • Who is being represented, in what way and for what purpose? • What messages is this advert conveying to the audience? • Are there any stereotypes being perpetuated in this advert? Are there different ways of interpreting the representation in this advert, if so what are they and why?

Activity two Choose a news story about an event and look at the portrayal of this story in two different newspapers. Consider and analyse the following: • What decisions have the editorial team made about how to represent this event? • How has the main image been used to communicate messages to the audience? • What does the representation of the event tell you about the attitudes, beliefs and values of the newspaper? • How is language used to construct the representation of the events shown (anchorage)? • How may audiences interpret and understand the representations in these newspapers? • Do the two representations differ from each other?

Unit 4 - Pre Production Objective: The aim of this unit of work is to learn the essential knowledge and skills to enable you to undertake your own pre-production tasks. You will need to understand the purpose and format of pre-production documentation and will use this knowledge to create a working pre-production portfolio to inform your own media production. The unit ends with evaluating your pre-production work and assessing its impact on your production.

(T3) What is pre-production?

Types of production: film, television, audio, digital publishing, digital games.

(T4) FilmResearch how a film you have watched was made and make a record of the film’s journey….(Aspects you might want to consider: how the film was funded? Who was involved in making the film? What technology was required?)

Vocabulary List• Finance.

- Sources of finance: private, public, joint financing. - Requirements of finance: for equipment, crew, transport, materials, clearances, talent,

facility hire.• Logistics. • Time: deadlines, availability of equipment, availability of personnel, timescales. • Facilities: production equipment, post-production equipment, facility houses, prop houses, sourcing and costs of facilities. • Locations: identification; recces; limitations and risks, e.g. distance, access, cost, weather.

• Personnel: technical crew, actors, extras, contributors, e.g. experts, specialists. • Materials: type, e.g. original materials, archive and library materials, photo-library materials, sound library materials, internet, assets, audio, script, animatics, graphics, interviews, costumes, properties, recorded music, sources; costs; clearances. • Adherence to codes of practice and regulation.

- Clearances, e.g. Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS). - Legal, e.g. copyright, health and safety. - Regulations, e.g. Ofcom, Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Advertising

Standards Authority (ASA). - Trade unions and professional bodies, e.g. Producers Alliance for Cinema and

Television (Pact), National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

(T5) Research into a range of professional industries to consider different codes of practice and regulators.Create a prezi style presentation of the different companies listed above, who are they and what do they do?You should present these to class and have on your blog.

Who are Kickstarter?

Name three projects that have stood out to you on the site

Veronica Mars - was made through Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project/description

(T6) What other examples of films can you find that have been successfully produced through crowdfunding?https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/12-kickstarter-funded-films-to-premiere-at-the-2018-tribeca-film

(T7) Case study Films - you should make notes on how each film was funded and interesting methods of pre-production

London to Brighton

The Cottage

Shifty

The Theory of Everything

Veronica Mars

Life in a Day

Useful Websites ● http://www.4rfv.co.uk/ This is a broadcast, film, television and production directory and news service. It is a useful site for understanding the logistics and hire costs associated with pre-production planning. ●http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/production/budgetand-schedule This is a BBC website that provides a breakdown of pre-production for film making. It also provides useful links to other relevant content for this unit. ● https://lukejames7.wordpress.com/who-is-luke-james/ This is a blog by a BTEC media student that records and presents his work. It would provide a useful exemplar to show learners how to present their pre-production portfolios. ● http://singlegrain.com/video-marketing/20-pre-production-steps-to-videocontent/ Single Grain is a digital marketing agency. This blog section of their website provides a useful guide to pre-production steps for successful video content. There are plenty of other relevant content on their website too.

● https://www.filmdaily.tv/funding

EXAMPLE STUDENT WORKhttps://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/secure/silver/all-uk-and-international/btec-nationals/creative-digital-media-production/2016/internal-assessment/btec-nats-business-unit-sml-for-Learning-aim-a-merit-pre-production-portfolio.pdf

Unit 14 Digital Magazine Production

Objective: The aim of this unit is that you will learn about the codes and conventions that magazine producers use to communicate with their target audience, and how they generate, select and prepare materials to produce a completed magazine cover and double-page spread.

A graduate made his CV in the style of his favourite magazine to get the attention of its editor - and it worked.Sumukh Mehta had been unsuccessfully job hunting for a while before he came up with the idea.He took three weeks making his application look like an issue of GQ, the men's magazine.His creativity paid off and the 21-year-old is due to start an internship in London later this year.

Read rest of article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36588029/this-graduate-made-his-cv-look-like-gq-magazine---and-it-worked

For your summer project I would like you to do the same as Sumukh Mehta.

EITHER:

T8 Design the front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a magazine all about you.

OR:

Make a short film all about you!

Some ideas for aspects you may want to include:

Why you want to study the new BTEC Creative Digital Media course?

What aspects of the media interest you?

Experience/skills you already have.

You can choose whether to hand draw/hand write your magazine or use a computer.

You should submit your final magazine/film by bringing your final work in on the first day to hand in to your teacher.

Key Terminology

Construction How a product is created – what aspects of media language are used.Context The aspects that surround a product at the time of its construction.Decoding When audiences interpret a textEncoding What message is communicated by a product’s producersMediation The decision process behind the construction of a media product.Negotiated Position The position an audience takes if they predominantly accept some

elements of the dominant meaning of a product but not all.Oppositional Position The position an audience takes if they disagree with the dominant

meaning of a product.Preferred Position The position an audience takes if they accept the dominant meaning of

a product.Stereotyping The construction of traits associated with groups of people, can be

positive and negativeTokenism A superficial representation of groups who are often underrepresented

in society