Question 1a - Digital Technology

If the question asks you about your use of digital technology it is important to keep in mind several key features:

CONVERGENCE.
Digital Technologies exhibit convergence. That is, different functions combine together on one device. Your mobile phone is the best example. The more uses you have made for it, the better. You might have used it to phone around and organise your cast and crew, taken still photographs of possible locations, used it as a memory stick to transport files between home and school, saved a copy of your finished video on it to show people etc.

MANIPULABILITY
Because all of your work is essentially a bunch of computer code, you can copy, save, transport and change it very easily. You will already have done things like extracting the audio from a clip or using photoshop to change photographs for your cover and poster.

Exam Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

You have to answer two compulsory questions.

Question 1(a) requires you to describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio. The focus of this evaluation must be on skills development, and the question will require you to adapt this to one or two specific production practices from the following list:

- Digital Technology
- Creativity
- Research and planning
- Post-production
- Using conventions from real media texts

In the examination, questions will be posed using one or two of these categories.
If you have done any video production work outside the media course, you are free to additionally refer to this experience.

Question 1(b) requires you to select one production and evaluate it in relation to a media concept. The list of concepts to which questions will relate is as follows:

- Genre
- Narrative
- Representation
- Audience
- Media language

In the examination, questions will be set using one of these concepts only.

Introduction

The purpose of this unit is to assess your knowledge and understanding of media concepts, contexts and critical debates, through understanding of one contemporary media issue and your ability to evaluate your own practical work in reflective and theoretical ways.

The examination is two hours. You have to answer two compulsory questions on your own production work, and one question from a choice of six topic areas. The unit is marked out of a total of 100, with the two questions on production work marked out of 25 each, and the media theory question marked out of 50.

There are two sections to this paper:

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production (50 marks)

Section B: Contemporary Media Issues (50 marks)