Note to Moderator May 2012

To give some context on this coursework submission - as you can see it was originally submitted in January. These students were given the opportunity to resubmit their work due to having inadequate or incomplete tasks. In all cases their targets were given to either submit for the first time, or make improvements to the ancillary tasks and/or the evaluation only.

As the coursework unit had been already been covered and work on the exam unit started, they were not supported in regular lessons in the traditional sense - this second submission was simply offered as means to complete worked deemed too late for the January entry. Some took advantage, some didn't.

If you require any further info don't hesitate to get in touch. Direct links to their work follow:

2528; ALI, SIAR
3914; STEPHENSON, ALANA ALEXANDRA
590; SMITH, DANIEL
3871; PHULL, MANJYOT KAUR
3784; FIELDER, COREY LANCE
3332; WEBB, SARRA
3472; ISHOLA, NAFISAT AYODEJI
3902; SEIERSEN, CATHERINE CAROLINE
614; WAMALA, SAMUEL

NOTE TO MODERATOR

Below are the links to the blogs of the sample. All students have their planning and research and evaluation on their blog with the exception of Tom Wallbank who has submitted his evaluation on a separate DVD. If you require any further information do not hesitate to get in touch.

Tom Wallbank 3938
Manjyot Phull 3871
Tamara Birch 409
Sarra Webb 3332
Elizabeth Rayner 3883
Natacha Felix 3783
Samuel Wamala 614
Humayra Khan 485
Siar Ali 2528
Safia Shafi 3905

Deadlines Reminder...

Friday 2 December for all planning and research + the first draft of the finished video and ancillary tasks.

Thursday 15 December - final final final deadline for all work - planning and research, music video, digipak, magazine ad, evaluation. This means having the video burned to DVD (so it can be played on a domestic DVD player)

It is very important to hand in a copy of your DVD for each member of the group. The exam board are quite clear that they will not accept Final Cut Pro files, Quicktime files, AVI files or anything that can't be played on a normal home DVD player.

This means using 'DVD Studio' or 'iDVD' in the edit suite. I can give you blank DVDs, there are simple instructions on the wall of the editing rooms on how to use these, but I advise getting to know this software a little better because you must include your ancillary tasks on the DVD.... this means creating menus.

If you do this well you will earn marks for appropriate use of technology.

If there is a member of your group who is not doing much at the moment - or if you are a group member who is feeling at a loss for something to do - this is your mission... create the DVD menus. You can start now - don't wait for the video to be finished. It is unlikely you know how to use the software at the moment - so you must learn. By yourself.

Don't forget, the evaluation is also due on Friday 16 Dec. It must be on your blog with each question very clearly marked.

We will look at these in more depth in due course.

In the evaluation the following four questions must be addressed:

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?

This student will get an A - learn from him

Have a look at this blog - I taught this student when he was in year 11. He's also doing music video for A2 coursework, but probably won't have to have it completed until May next year.

If he had audience research, this planning and research would get 19 or 20 out of 20. As it is it's still worth 15/20.

Click on the link to see his blog.

http://5135aidanchengg324.blogspot.com/

Screencasting

Ever get bored of typety type typing?... Ever wish there was an easier way of completing your coursework?... Well now your wishes can come true with Camstudio screencasting software which is totally free!

Actually it's been around for years. All you need is a microphone, but even if you don't, most laptops have one built in or you could just borrow one from Matt the tech-man.

Check out the tutorial embeded here, or just Google Camstudio or 'free screencasting software'.

This type of software will record your voice and whatever's going on on your screen. So you could, say, have an image of a digipak or magazine advert and analyse it by speaking into the microphone and using the mouse to point at stuff you are talking about.

This kind of analysis will score you big-time points.

Screencasting: how-to video

Magazine Ad analysis

Okay - so something I discovered recently was that album and single releases don't really advertise much in magazines anymore. But if you look for long enough, you'll still find some good examples. I've put a choice of 3 you can use on Blackboard under 'Course Materials' - or just find one of your own.

Don't go spending money on a music magazine. Check the net or go the the library - there are loads of magazines up there. A word of caution about finding these on the internet though - if you Google something like 'magazine advert and album release'... you'll get loads of student produced adverts aswell as real ones. Make sure you analyse a real magazine advert and not a student ad.

Here's a fairly simplistic idea of how you might go about it:

 Much better would be a spoken/screencast analysis.... see the next post for details on that.