Coursework: Preliminary exercise 2021

Year 13 coursework now moves on to a preliminary exercise: a chance for you to refresh your technical production skills prior to creating your actual production.

This is a vital element of the overall coursework as it gives you the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them without it impacting on your grade. However, we also strongly advise you to create a preliminary exercise that is linked to your real coursework concept - this may give you additional material to use later in the term.

Preliminary exercise: TV documentary interview

Task: Film and edit an interview to use in your TV documentary

Length: 45-60 seconds

Equipment: Your own camera / smartphone or sign out a Media department Canon SLR and sound recorder from our technician Mr Harrison in DF06.

Groups: None. You MUST work individually. However, other people will need to be involved - perhaps as the interviewer, interviewee or production team (camera operator, sound etc.) This is fine as long as they are directed by the candidate submitting the work. Keep a note of who you use and how you directed them.

What your TV documentary scene needs to include

Content: Your preliminary exercise must include the following:

• A title with text on screen giving the name of the documentary or topic.
• A 10-second montage sequence of establishing shots that introduces the interviewee and their location with at least two different shots/angles. This opening to BBC documentary Tough Young Teachers has several good examples of montage introductions to interviewees.
• At least two clips from the interview. Think carefully about how you will edit this (you may want to shoot additional shots or 'cutaways' to allow you to edit the two interview clips together).

Camerawork: Your interview must be framed carefully with consideration for appropriate shot type. Medium shots and medium close-ups often work best but use your research into documentaries to inform this decision.  

Editing: You must edit your sequence to ensure the audience understands your topic and the context of what your interviewee is saying.

Sound: You must include non-diegetic music and voiceover to introduce the topic and high-quality diegetic audio from the interview itself. You may also want to include other sound e.g. ambient sound, foley sound, music etc.).

Mise-en-scene: iconography to establish topic/genre of documentary - placement/location of interview, costume and make-up, props etc. 

Deadlines

Planning deadline: See Google Classroom 

Filming deadline: See Google Classroom

Final deadline: See Google Classroom for specific day - total time available for project is two weeks.


Research and planning blog tasks

Create a blogpost called 'Preliminary exercise: Research and planning' and complete the tasks below. First, watch this clip on the mistakes beginner filmmakers make - it will help you identify the errors to avoid when planning and shooting your documentary (this clip is about narrative filmmaking but many of the same points apply such as bad sound, shot framing and more).



There are loads more tips and tutorials from Darius Britt (D4Darius on YouTube) that we would recommend watching as part of your research and planning. These include:

• Mastering Composition + Cinematography
• How to record better audio
• Nine things to check before pressing the record button
• Learn Premiere Pro 2018 in 11 Minutes

Now complete the following tasks:

1) State the topic you have chosen for your TV documentary.

2) Choose at least three TV documentaries similar to your concept and watch a clip or more from each. Make bullet-point notes on everything you watch, commenting on camerawork, editing, sound and mise-en-scene.

3) Plan your interview: name of person being interviewed, filming location etc.

4) Write a list of questions to ask your interviewee. 

5) Write a script for your preliminary exercise. You can find an example documentary script opening here.

6) Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing (these are often called 'cutaways'). These additional shots are often close-ups, alternative angles or shots of your interviewee doing something related to the topic. I advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example here (this is from narrative filmmaking but the same format can be used for documentary). 

7) Plan your mise-en-scene: what iconography are you including to ensure your audience understands your topic and gets to know your interviewee? Plan your interview location, costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. 

8) Plan a shooting schedule that will ensure everything is filmed by the deadline. Include when, where, who is required, planned equipment and any other aspects you need to arrange. 

Research and planning deadline: see Google Classroom 

Coursework: Ignite presentation learner response

There have been some excellent Ignite presentations with some brilliantly creative responses to the coursework brief. 

Hopefully, the presentations and Q&A sessions that followed have highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of your coursework proposal and may indeed have prompted re-drafts of your statement of intent. 

Your learner response is as follows and will take some time to do properly:

Create a new blogpost called 'Ignite presentation learner response'

1) Type up your feedback in full including the ratings out of five for each of the six categories. 

2) Use this feedback, comments from peers and your own reflection on your presentation to self-assess and write a detailed WWW and EBI for your own coursework concept and presentation as a whole.

3) Write a paragraph discussing how your presentation will lead into your actual coursework production. Do you need to update your statement of intent? Does your concept/treatment offer enough clarity? Is it appropriate for the audience specified in the brief? Is it achievable to film in the midst of a global pandemic? Can you add media terminology or theory to your statement of intent now you have reflected on your presentation and seen others?

REMINDER: You also need to ensure that ALL your research and planning from over the summer - including your current statement of intent - is posted to your Media 2 coursework blog.

You may need to complete this at home - due date will be on Google Classroom.

OSP: Teen Vogue - Audience and Representation

Teen Vogue offers a huge amount to discuss and write about for the concepts of audience and representation.

The exam could focus on anything from the changing nature of digital audiences to how certain groups or issues are represented in Teen Vogue online.

Notes from the lesson

Audience

Although the brand name suggests a teenage audience, the typical Teen Vogue reader has evolved in recent years. The move to more political content has broadened the appeal and changed the genre – young women now expect more from their media.

The ‘Campus Life’ section in Lifestyle also suggests an older readership. However, the audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media.

Generations

Generation X: Born between 1965 – 1980
Millennials / Generation Y: Born between 1981 – 1995
Generation Z (or iGen): Born 1996 – 2010

Teen Vogue: political positioning

Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance and positions its readers to become active in their support:

• Pro-feminist
• Pro-gender fluidity and gender identity
• Supports LGBT equality
• Pro-multiculturalism
• Supports Black Lives Matter
• Pro-environment (accepting science on climate change)
• Pro-choice (abortion)

Teen Vogue: audience interaction

How does Teen Vogue encourage audience interaction?

• Activism
• Social media
• ‘Clickbait’ and first-person headlines
• Events – Teen Vogue summit

Representation

Changing representations

Feminist bloggers and websites such as Rookie and liberal blog Jezebel have been credited with changing the representation of women and feminism in the digital age.

This can be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory with digital influencers, blogs and online movements changing the media landscape and creating opportunities to connect and campaign – with established mainstream brands like Teen Vogue then following to stay relevant. 

Teen Vogue: Audience and Representation blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Teen Vogue Audience and Representation' and work through the following tasks to complete the audience and representation aspects of your Teen Vogue case study:

Audience

1) Analyse the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What is the Teen Vogue mission statement and what does this tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures?

2) What is the target audience for Teen Vogue? Use the media pack to pick out key aspects of the audience demographics. Also, consider the psychographic groups that would be attracted to Teen Vogue: make specific reference to the website design or certain articles to support your points regarding this.

3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?

4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?

5) How does Teen Vogue encourage audiences to interact with the brand – and each other – on social media? The ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ section of the media pack may help with this question.

Representations

1) Look again at the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What do the ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ (key events and features throughout the year) suggest about the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com?

2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?

3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?

4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed? 

5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity? 

Feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women

Read this Quartz feature - The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump - and answer the following questions:

1) How was the Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump received on social media?

2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?

3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?

4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?

5) Do you agree with the writer that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage? Does this explain the recent success of Teen Vogue?

6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?

7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?

8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?

9) The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. How can this be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory?

10) Is Teen Vogue simply a product of the Trump presidency or will websites and magazines aimed at women continue to become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audiences?

There is plenty to work on here as this needs to cover two of the key concepts for this in-depth CSP. Complete for homework - due date on Google Classroom.

OSP: Teen Vogue - background and textual analysis

Our first Online, Social and Participatory CSP is Teen Vogue - the former print magazine turned online sensation.

Teen Vogue has generated a huge amount of coverage (and attracted a significant audience) by re-positioning the magazine as a socially conscious political hub for young women.

Notes from the lesson

Teen Vogue: background

Teen Vogue was launched in 2003 as a print magazine ‘little sister’ title to US Vogue. It focused on fashion and celebrity and was a conventional magazine aimed at teenage girls.

In 2015, in response to declining sales, the magazine cut back its print distribution and focused on digital content. After single-copy sales dropped 50% in the first six months of 2016 alone, the magazine went quarterly (four issues a year) before announcing the closure of the print magazine completely in November 2017.

Online growth
Led by digital director Phillip Picardi, the Teen Vogue website grew substantially as the print magazine declined. 

Between January 2016 and 2017, Teen Vogue’s online traffic rocketed from 2.9m US visitors to 7.9m. The magazine then surpassed 10m unique users later in 2017. In addition, the magazine has 6m Facebook likes, 3.5m Twitter followers and a huge following on Snapchat.

Evolution and activism

The spectacular digital growth of Teen Vogue has been credited to the editor Elaine Welteroth and digital guru Picardi leading the magazine in a radically different direction to traditional teenage magazines.

Focusing on politics, activism and feminism, the magazine has developed a reputation for high-quality journalism while recruiting millions of socially-conscious, educated readers.

'Woke'
Teen Vogue considers itself a ‘woke’ brand.

Woke definition: a political term of African American origin that refers to an awareness of issues concerning social justice.

This means Teen Vogue covers issues of politics, racism and gender identity… and amazingly has expanded the appeal and reach of the brand while doing do.

Teen Vogue: background reading and textual analysis blog tasks

Work through the following tasks to complete your first case study on Teen Vogue.

Teen Vogue: background reading

Read this Guardian feature from 2017 on Teen Vogue and answer the following questions.

1) What was the article that announced Teen Vogue as a more serious, political website – with 1.3m hits and counting?

2) When was the original Teen Vogue magazine launched and what was its original content?

3) How did editor Elaine Welteroth change Teen Vogue’s approach in 2015?

4) How many stories are published on Teen Vogue a day? What topics do they cover?

5) What influence did digital director Phillip Picardi have over the editorial direction?

6) What is Teen Vogue’s audience demographic and what does ‘woke’ refer to?

7) What issues are most important to Teen Vogue readers?

8) What does Tavi Gevinson suggest regarding the internet and ‘accountability culture’ with regards to modern audiences? Can you link this to our work on Clay Shirky?

9) What social and political issues have been covered successfully by Teen Vogue?

10) What do Teen Vogue readers think of the magazine and website?

Teen Vogue: Factsheet Part 1

Read Media Factsheet #200 Teen Vogue - Part 1. You can find the Factsheet here using your Greenford Google login. Answer the following questions: 

1) The Factsheet suggests Teen Vogue has successfully made the transition to an online, social and participatory product. Why? What platforms is it now available on?

2) Look at the screenshots and details on pages 3-4 of the Factsheet. What does Teen Vogue offer its audience?

3) Who is the typical Teen Vogue reader?

4) Read the content analysis of the Teen Vogue website on page 5 of the Factsheet. Pick out three key examples of how meanings are created in Teen Vogue and what is communicated to the audience.

5) Finally, look at pages 6-7 focusing on representations. What range of representations can be found in Teen Vogue and what does this suggest regarding Teen Vogue's values and ideologies?

Teen Vogue textual analysis and example articles

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of the Teen Vogue website and read notable Teen Vogue articles to refer to in exam answers. 

Homepage analysis

Go to the Teen Vogue homepage and answer the following:

1) What website key conventions can you find on the Teen Vogue homepage?

2) How does the page design encourage audience engagement?

3) Where does advertising appear on the homepage?

4) What are the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content of Teen Vogue?

5) How far does the homepage scroll down? How many stories appear on the homepage in total?

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of Teen Vogue (in the Identity section) and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the top menu bar for the Lifestyle section?

2) How is the Lifestyle section designed to encouragement audience engagement? Think about page design, images, text and more.

3) What do you notice about the way headlines are written in Teen Vogue?

4) What does the focus on education, university and ‘campus life’ tell you about the Teen Vogue audience demographics and psychographics?

5) Choose one story featured in the Lifestyle section and explain how reflects the Teen Vogue brand.

Teen Vogue: Five key articles

Read the following five notable Teen Vogue features then answer the questions below.

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

The new face of teen activism 

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years

Netflix and strong female leads 

How to Break Away From the Gender Binary

1) What do you notice about the content and style of these articles? What do they have in common? 

2) How do the articles use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible - what makes the reader want to click or read more?

3) Pick a quote from each article that illustrates the political, 'woke' ideology of Teen Vogue and paste it here.

4) What effect on the audience are these articles hoping to achieve?

5) How do these article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?

There is plenty to work on here - you will need to complete the majority for homework but we will set an extended deadline due to the volume of work. Due date on Google Classroom.

OSP Introduction: Clay Shirky - End of audience

Our first topic for Year 13 is Online, Social and Participatory media (OSP).

This will allow us to build on the work we did in Year 12 while further exploring the impact of the internet on audiences and media industries. Our two in-depth CSPs are the Teen Vogue online presence (website, Facebook and Twitter) and The Voice website - the online home of the weekly newspaper for the black British community.

Notes from the lesson

Before studying the CSPs, we need to learn a key theorist for this topic - Clay Shirky's End of audience theories. This, along with the remarkable impact of the internet, will underpin everything we study for Teen Vogue and The Voice.

The internet: a brief history

The internet has been the most significant social, cultural and technological development of the last 30 years.

• In 1998, just 9% of UK households had internet access.
• In 2018, it had risen to 90%.
• Daily internet use in the UK has doubled since 2006.
• Smartphones are now the most popular device to access the internet. The iPhone was launched in 2007.

Source: ONS (Office for National Statistics)

The 'Information Revolution'

550 years ago, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg meant that the number of books in existence rose from a few thousand to 20 million in just 25 years. This led to the Reformation, the Renaissance and the scientific revolution in which centuries-old modes of thinking were radically questioned.

The internet has been likened to the Gutenberg revolution – which means we’re living through this ‘Information revolution’ right now:

• “The most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke 2005) 
• “An application that will usher in The Information Age” (Castells 1996)

Clay Shirky: End of audience



Clay Shirky suggests the 20th century media model “with professional producers and amateur consumers” has been replaced by a more chaotic landscape that allows consumers to be producers and distributors. 

From the rise of collaborative projects to publicity campaigns run by volunteers, he believes that “organizations now have to understand, and respect, the motivations of the billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem.”

One of big changes with digital platforms is that “Every consumer is also a producer, and everyone can talk back.”  Yet what may be more significant is the simple math of how many people can reach each other through the connections in a network.  The result is always more connections. 

Shirky adds that media had been a hierarchical industry—in that one filtered first, and then published. “All of that now breaks down,” he says. “People are producing who are not employees or media professions.  So we now publish first, and then filter.  We find the good stuff after the fact.  This is dramatically different.”

Source: Internationalist Magazine Trendsetters profile 

Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Media Magazine reading

Media Magazine 55 has an overview of technology journalist Bill Thompson’s conference presentation on ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ It’s an excellent summary of the internet’s brief history and its impact on society. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 13 to read the article ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ Answer the following questions:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody charts the way social media and connectivity is changing the world. Read Chapter 3 of his book, ‘Everyone is a media outlet’, and answer the following questions:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

5) Shirky suggests that: “The same idea, published in dozens or hundreds of places, can have an amplifying effect that outweighs the verdict from the smaller number of professional outlets.” How can this be linked to the current media landscape and particularly ‘fake news’?

6) What does Shirky suggest about the social effects of technological change? Does this mean we are currently in the midst of the internet “revolution” or “chaos” Shirky mentions?

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

8) What does Shirky suggest regarding the hundred years following the printing press revolution? Is there any evidence of this “intellectual and political chaos” in recent global events following the internet revolution?

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?

10) What do you think of Shirky’s ideas on the ‘End of audience’? Is this era of ‘mass amateurisation’ a positive thing? Or are we in a period of “intellectual and political chaos” where things are more broken than fixed? 

A/A* extension work: read Chapter 1 ‘It takes a village to find a phone’ and Chapter 4 ‘Publish, then filter’ to further understand Shirky’s ideas concerning the ‘End of audience’.

You will have lesson time to work on this but will need to finish for homework. Due date on Google Classroom.

Welcome to Year 13 Media!

Welcome to Year 13 A Level Media Studies!

It was another strange year last year with the winter lockdown and online lessons. Hopefully, we're over the worst of everything now and will have a less disrupted Year 13. 

Talking of Year 13 Media... it's by far my favourite year to teach! Time to create coursework, study the in-depth topics and theories that showcase the best of the subject and get into some brilliant debates about news, technology, society and more. We can't wait!

We'll be kicking off with Online, Social and Participatory Media on the exam side and on the coursework side presenting our Ignite presentations to get coursework up and running.

Let's have a great year and get a brilliant grade next summer!

Reminder: Summer Project 2021

Here's a reminder of your Summer Project from the Year 12 blog...

The summer project is a vital element of your coursework - an opportunity to plan an outstanding TV documentary concept and then present it to class in September.

Your summer project contains compulsory and optional elements; everybody will be researching TV documentaries, choosing a TV documentary subject or topic, writing a first draft Statement of Intent and presenting this to class as an Ignite presentation in September. However, if you wish to also plan and film elements of your production over the summer while you have time we would 100% support you in this approach as long as you have parental permission and it is safe to do so.

Summer project tasks

Complete the following tasks on a blogpost on your coursework blog called 'Summer Project: coursework planning':

1) Research: TV documentaries 

You need to write a 150-word close-textual analysis of five (or more!) TV documentaries. For each documentary, focus on a different aspect of media language, and embed or link to each one on your blog:

TV documentary 1: Topic / subject matter
How is the topic or subject of the documentary introduced and what techniques do the producers use to make the audience want to keep watching? Can you apply any narrative theories when analysing how the documentary draws the audience in? (E.g. enigma and action codes; binary opposition; character types etc.)

TV documentary 2: Mise-en-scene
Choose a documentary to research that uses mise-en-scene in an interesting or creative way. For example, look at the locations used for interviews or the cosume/props used when people are on screen. Use CLAMPS to help you here and think in particular about how mise-en-scene is used to communicate the genre of the TV documentary.

TV documentary 3: Camerawork
Here you are looking for particular camera shots and movement. It's important that TV documentaries are visually interesting and many opening sequences deliberately use powerful close-ups or other aspects of camerawork to create a connection with the audience. 

TV documentary 4: Editing
Montage editing is an absolutely critical TV documentary convention and you'll often see this used in opening sequences. Analyse pace, transitions and juxtapositions. How is editing used to create meanings for the audience and introduce the topic or subject matter?  

TV documentary 5: Opening / title sequence
You may well want to particularly focus on the opening sequences of ALL the TV documentaries you research but here focus intently on the opening three minutes. This is what you will need to create and look particularly at how a title sequence, hashtags/social media and TV channel branding are built into the sequence alongside introducing the main subject matter and characters.

You can find a range of TV documentary examples in this blogpost or you are free to select TV documentaries of your choice. You may wish to write more about one video than another but as long as you have 750+ words of research in total you will be fine. It's almost certain that A/A* students will watch a lot more than five TV documentaries as part of this process - even if that simply means watching the opening three minutes of a range of different examples.

2) Planning: TV documentary topic/subject matter

In order to produce a successful TV documentary opening sequence, you will need a compelling and engaging topic for the documentary. What are you going to investigate? What current debates or issues in society are you passionate about? What makes you angry or happy? Is there a niche topic that you happen to be an expert in? We'll be coming up with a range of ideas in class and your research will also help you think of potential topics.

For this section of your summer project, come up with a shortlist of FIVE potential topics for your TV documentary and then which you have chosen and why. This will be crucial for your Ignite presentation to class. You can simply write these on your blog.

If you're struggling to come up with ideas, this BBC article on nurturing new documentary directors has a lot of examples of successful BBC documentaries and what they are looking for in new talent.  


3) Statement of Intent

Write the first draft for your genuine 500-word Statement of Intent. This will be submitted to the exam board alongside your media products and is worth 10 marks of the overall 60 marks available.

Guidance is provided by AQA in their NEA Student Booklet but we strongly recommend you also look at our Statement of Intent questions to consider document too (you'll need to log in with your Greenford Google account to open these documents).


4) Ignite presentation

Prepare a 5-minute, 20-slide presentation using the Ignite format in which you present your coursework project. In effect, this is your statement of intent in presentation format. You must cover:

• Your TV documentary concept: title, topic/subject matter etc.
• Media language: how you will use TV documentary conventions, camerawork, editing and mise-en-scene to create meanings for your audience. Remember the key word: connotations.
• Media representations: how you will use or subvert stereotypes in your TV documentary; applications of representation theory.
• Media audiences: how you will target the specified audience - mainstream family audience (prime-time, pre-watershed). Audience pleasures - why they would enjoy your documentary; audience theory.
• Media industries and digital convergence: the TV channel that would broadcast your documentary; how the audience could watch it; how you will use social media and the print posters to promote the documentary and encourage audience sharing and involvement. 

Ignite presentations have very specific rules: you must create exactly 20 slides with each slide set to 15-second auto-advance. This means your presentation will be exactly five minutes followed by questions and comments from the class. You will deliver your presentation on your coursework planning in the first week back in September.

Your Ignite presentation will be marked out of 30 on the following criteria (each worth a possible 5 marks):

1) Research (through the presentation AND your blog) 
2) TV documentary concept
3) Language: terminology and theory
4) Representations
5) Audience and Industry
6) Delivery

You can find more information about Ignite presentations - including examples - in this Ignite presentation blogpost here.

Summer project deadline: all tasks above due in first week back in September


Summer project: optional extensions

Pre-production tasks

Some students in previous years expressed an interest in filming their video production over the summer break. This makes a huge amount of sense - far more availability of actors/interviewees, much more time to schedule filming etc. If you do want to film over the summer, make sure you complete the following pre-production tasks here:

TV documentary script
This is essential to plan every second for your TV documentary opening. A TV script includes both presenter introduction/voiceover AND a full description of what can be seen on screen. However, you may not be able to include everything before you shoot - for example, you don't yet know what the people you interview are going to say! This is a great online guide to planning and writing your documentary script. 

Storyboard 
Sketch out a selection of critical shots from your TV documentary opening, take a photo of the storyboard and upload it to your blogpost. What visual style are you trying to create? Storyboard sheets can be downloaded from here.

Shot list
Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film for the TV documentary - and think particularly about creative ways you can visually represent your subject matter. Remember also that interviews are often filmed creatively in documentaries (e.g. from multiple angles, mixing colour and black and white etc.) As with any shot list, plan a range of additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. I advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find a short film example here. It makes sense to organise your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the documentary in chronological order. 

Mise-en-scene
What iconography are you including to ensure your audience understands the genre you are working in? Plan the people who will appear in your documentary - think about costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. This can be simply completed using your blog or Microsoft Word - the key aspect is to have planned all the critical details. 

Shooting schedule 
Plan a shooting schedule for your filming over the summer. Include when, where, who is required and what shots you will complete at each time/location. Again, this can be on Word or Excel or you could simply use your blog. The most important thing is that you've planned it! In the current circumstance, we also recommend including an additional section regarding safety and social distancing.

Non-assessed participants
You will need to provide a written record of all non-assessed participants in your production work (both video and print). Keep a record of everyone involved - actors, camerawork, sound etc. You will also need a keep a record of any non-original sound or video and note it on the Candidate Record Form - so this means any archive footage or music/SFX. Keep these on your blog for easy reference when submitting your work in Year 13.

Production: Filming and photography
Once you have completed your pre-production tasks, you can film or carry out photoshoots as you wish.

Good luck!