1. A2 G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media
L.O. - What do we need to complete for our portfolio?

2. What is the purpose of this unit?
to assess your ability to plan and construct media products using appropriate technical and creative skills (AO3)
to apply knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created when analysing media products and evaluating their own practical work (AO2)
and finally to Demonstrate the ability to undertake and apply appropriate research (AO4)

3. What should we produce?
a media portfolio, comprising a main and ancillary texts
a presentation of their research, planning and evaluation in digital format(s)

4. Your brief:
A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two ancillary products:
a poster for the film
a film magazine review page featuring the film
Each one of the ancillary products is worth 10 marks (20 marks in total).
You will do these individually and focus on the film idea you worked on the most (director, director of photography, editor)

5. Mark scheme:

7. L.O. – What are the conventions of film posters?

8. What are the conventions of a film poster?
You will need to create a full theatrical film poster for your thriller film:
What are the conventions of a film poster?

9. 9
Tagline – tells us something extra about the narrative
Background image (colour and lighting connote important aspects of the genre, narrative and target audience)
Main character/main image – draws eye. Genre iconography?
Title of film – eye catching font. Connotations?
Film credits or billing block
Production companies
Distribution company
Release date and website/social media links
Unique selling point (USP)
Star (could be actor or director) 3 2 1 10 4 5 6 8 7

11. Blog task:
Analyse 2-3 thriller film posters, commenting on their conventions in detail. You must include the posters, but this could be in essay format or an annotated word document.
What aspects are most effective and why do you think this is?
What elements will you use in your film poster and why?
How do the posters link to the film’s genre? What links (images, fonts etc.) do the posters have with the film reviews, DVDs, other film posters? Why do they have these links?

12. L.O. – How do we write an effective film review for a magazine?
Film Reviews
L.O. – How do we write an effective film review for a magazine?

13. Remember that part of your brief was to:
create a film magazine review page featuring the film
this should be for a new film magazine, rather than copying the format of an already existing film magazine
you should use similar conventions though

14. Questions: What is the purpose of a film review?
Where might we find film reviews?
What links can we make between the film poster and the film review?
What are the conventions of a film review?

15. Film Review – Visual Structure

16. Read through the film review worksheet
Highlight the important information
Complete the ‘Bend It Like Beckham ‘ task
Look at the content structure of a film review. You will need to use this to write the review for your short film

17. Blog task:
Write a paragraph for each of the discussion questions we focused on earlier:
What is the purpose of a film review?
Where might we find film reviews?
What links can we make between the film poster and the film review?
What are the conventions of a film review?
What are the similarities and differences between a film review on a film website and a magazine? (think about the way they are structured)
Use images of film reviews (especially from film magazines) to support your points.