Examiners feedback & assessment

Examiners’ Reports – June 2011 

G324 Principal Moderator’s Report

General Comments Most centres responded effectively to the electronic nature of this Specification; many presented work through blogs and in the best practice candidates’ blogs were accessed through a central blog hub. Blogs allowed centres to present all five elements of each candidate’s work (the research and planning, the main construction task, the two ancillaries and the evaluation) in a dynamic and flexible manner. The blogs that worked best were labelled with candidates’ names and numbers and permissions were set so that the moderator could access the blog with ease. 

RESEARCH & PLANNING The best research and planning was evidenced through ongoing blogs, demonstrating the real processes undertaken by the candidate. Such blogs included embedded video, such as work they had analysed or of audience interviews, experimental footage, perhaps with an audio track explaining the process, or animatics. This was uploaded via providers such as You Tube (often using the annotation facility), Muzu or Vimeo. The best blogs also included audio such as podcasts, audio commentaries or audience interviews (which could be recorded on or uploaded from their phones via Soundcloud, for example). The most effective blogs had images of a wide range of things, including drafts of print materials, storyboards, mind maps, recce shots, make up tests, permission request letters for the music video brief, risk assessment forms. The best ones were thoroughly hyperlinked to the range of sites visited and referred to. Blogs also allowed teachers and classmates to be able to comment on the work in progress, giving invaluable feedback and suggestions for further exploration at every stage. 

All the best research was focused, relevant and analytical, rather than descriptive, and looked closely at a range of similar products which then informed the candidate’s planning of all of their own products. It proved vital that candidates researched and planned all three of their products carefully, the main task and the two ancillaries. Audience research was done well in those centres that did more than just questionnaires and graphs. Social networking sites were used to good effect by some candidates undertaking both audience research and audience feedback. Others used online survey sites. The most detailed audience research produced more effective productions, in terms of being genre products, and were more appropriate for their selected target audience. 

Drafting is essential for all productions, not just because the assessment criteria says it needs to be there – but also because it produces the best constructions; storyboards or animatics all help identify potential problems before production starts. This can also help in more effective deployment of the Centre’s resources – less time will be needed re-filming, for example, if an animatic shows early on that there is a gap in a narrative that needs to be filled. Storyboards completed after filming have no use. All three tasks benefit from careful research and planning. Stronger candidates also included shooting schedules and call sheets. Risk assessments were undertaken by a small proportion of centres. Several centres demonstrated very worrying health and safety issues that must be addressed in future sessions. The best blogs were also well labelled, tagged and titled so that the moderator could easily identify each of the relevant entries. 

CONSTRUCTION

In the Music Promotion brief this session, there was an increase in the proportion of lip-synched performance over a purely narrative approach. This development is to be encouraged, as the narrative videos look more like short films and tend to lose function as a promotional tool for the artist. Some of these responses, as in previous sessions, have shown real flair and imagination combined with technical control; more candidates seemed to show more of the visual aesthetic with some excellent shot choices and mise en scene. 

Digipack: 

A greater number of candidates submitted the required number of panes to be a digipak (ie at least four) and had clearly been taught the technical skills to be able to manipulate their images and combine effectively with text, although a surprising number did not include basic institutional elements such as a barcode and copyright information. 

The magazine advertisements and web pages were generally less successful. Many web pages were not online with working urls (WE ARE USING WIX SO IT'S OK) but were just jpegs of a design for a site. This is not acceptable under this Specification. Not all candidates evidenced the requirement to ask the rights holders of the music track for permission to use it in their video.