Name:

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation

The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the
full product?

NOTE: You could do a filmed group presentation, embedded within your blog, for one
or two questions (except question 1) instead of the suggested activity for that
question. If you have a different idea for any of the evaluation activities 2-7, please
discuss it with one of us first; we will be happy to let you go ahead if we feel that it
will still allow you to get as many marks as possible.
Evaluation Activities
EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Go through the final version of the project and

select nine distinct frames which you screengrab
and drop into a Photoshop in the same style as the
Art of the Title website. You will be using these to
write about how typical or not of opening
sequences your particular design is, so choose them
carefully.
Once you have the nine frames neatly in Photoshop,
screengrab the whole thing and post to your blog,
then write an analysis of how you have used such
conventions.

The aspects we would like you to consider across your nine frames are:

- The title of the film - Story and how the opening sets it up
- Setting/location - Genre and how the opening suggests it
- Costumes and props - How characters are introduced
- Camerawork and editing - Special effects
-Title font and style

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

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EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Pick a key character from your opening. Take a screengrab of a reasonably-sized image of them.
Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some
differences too!), find an image on the web of that/those characters and grab it as well. Drop the
two into Photoshop, as a split screen. Export this splitscreen image as a .jpeg then drop onto your
blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film
etc.

E.g. if you have a lone cop type character, or a single parent, or a teenager, look for other lone cops / single
parent / teenager to compare him/ her with...

You can add quotations from relevant articles about this type of character or link to a section of a
relevant article / website about them or the social type they represent. Make sure the key messages
are highlighted properly / visually or prepare a WordCloud of key terms / ideas.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

You are going to do a 'director's commentary' style voiceover explaining some of the key features of
your opening. You will need to script the voiceover which deals with institutional issues to include:
- discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies; what does a
production company do?
- the idea of a distributor and who that might be and why;
- where the money might have come from for a film such as yours;
- why the various people are named in the titles - which jobs appear in titles and in what order and
how have you reflected this;
- what your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a similar
way);

You need to refer to actual company names and processes so you will need to go back to the early
posts on film companies and maybe do a bit more research

When you have scripted, record the voiceover using Final Cut on a new audio timeline, then export
to Quicktime and embed on blog.

Alternatively, you could add your voice over to a selection of screengrabs from your film and slides of
other relevant things mentioned in your voice over.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

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EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?

You should have a drawing or a picture of your target audience member and an explanation of what
kinds of taste they might have - where they would shop, what music they would listen to, what their
favourite TV programme would be, etc.
Post it on the blog and write a few notes on why they would watch your film.

Consider your research into similar products and look at a similar target audience to yours and how it
was appealed to in real products – link to your own film / strategy.

Include key findings from feedback received from your target audience and how you would address
any issues raised.

Alternatively, you could use Prezi.com to present all these findings; embed pictures and /or
relevant videos and links.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5
How did you attract/address your audience?

You can use YOUTUBE's annotation tools to add NOTES, SPEECHBUBBLES, and LINKS to your video:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=92710
You need a YouTube account! (Easy since you already have a Google account because of Blogger).

These annotations will highlight the ways in which your Film Opening links to other similar films in
order to attract the particular Audience you have previously identified. Your annotations will refer to
genre conventions, use of music, similarities with other movies and what you have identified as the
Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.

Alternatively, you can use Prezi.com to deal with both questions 4 and 5.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

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EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In pairs, take a picture of each other holding the kit you have used. This might just be the camera
and tripod, and your Mac but there may be other things you want in the shot.

Drop the image onto your blog and annotate it, adding all the programs and other technology you
have used as screengrabs and what you learnt about it/from using it. Your written text need only be
minimal. You could include reference to all the online and computer programs you have used such as
YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Final Cut, Photoshop, Vimeo, Garageband, Glogster etc.
You could do an annotated montage of all this in Photoshop or a timeline.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7
Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Concentrate on editing and camerawork.

Grab some frames from both tasks and put them on the blog and show what you know about shot
types, edit terms and techniques. Compare to similar techniques and the effects created in real
products (embed relevant frames)

Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot, continuity,
camerawork to build tension and suspense, empathy…

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

On-Going Assessment:

Date Comments / What to improve / What to focus on / What next…

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APPENDIX
To help you get all the marks available, you need to ensure that there is some depth to your
answers. The questions below should be used as guides in order to develop your analysis in each
task.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
• Discuss the ways in which your thriller incorporates generic conventions, identify specific scenes.
• How does your thriller develop or challenge these conventions?
• Does the use of conventions indicate what sub-genre or hybrid genre your thriller is?
• Does your use of conventions indicate what other thrillers have influenced your work? If so, then be
specific with examples.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• What are the social groups represented in terms of gender, age, class, race, etc?
• Is gender represented in a stereotypical way? I.e. men dominant and women passive
• How does this link into the target audience? (Explore this fully in question 4).

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Would this be something that could be produced by a major Hollywood studio, if yes then why? Is it
similar to existing products?
• Would it be a TV movie?
• Would it be an arthouse film?
• Would it be an internet only release?
• Why would it be released? Does it offer opportunities for franchises and/or merchandising?
• Link your conclusions to a discussion of the mise-en-scene (visual style) of your thriller.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

• Consider the age and gender of your target audience.
• Link this to the narrative and style of your film
• What other films are similar to yours, who do they appeal to?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• Link this into your audience profile (I.e. what age and gender they are)
• Are there particular points in your film that would appeal to or particularly terrify a certain age or gender?
If yes then explain them in detail.
• Consider the use of camerawork in this section, I.e. point of view shots.
• Who is the audience asked to put themselves in the position of, what are they being allowed to witness?
• What impact does that have?
• Link this back to generic conventions and the creation of suspense.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
• Strengths and weakness of the camera equipment.
• Talk about the filming process, was there problems you faced, how did you resolve these issues?
• Did you get to use new or “created” equipment that enhances your thriller? I.e. a dolly.
• Editing software - Final Cut Express. What have you learnt about editing, were there particular effects
that you found useful for creating your overall mise-en-scene?
• Garageband - was it a useful programme for creating a suspenseful soundtrack? What challenges did
you face during this process?

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 7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to
the full product?
• Discuss the planning stage, the research into the genre, storyboarding, creating the animatic, and
explain how this detailed planning helped you the produce a thriller. I.e. you knew what shots you
needed to capture and what order to edit it in. This helps the process to be smoother.
• Has your use of specific shot types improved? I.e. match on action, point of view?
• Do you feel more confident with the equipment?
• How successful do you feel your end product is as fulfilling the task? (Look back at the main blog at the
task)

Marking Criteria for the evaluation

Level Descriptors Self-Assessment and comments Student Teacher

Level 1 0–7 marks

• Minimal understanding of issues around

audience, institution, technology,
representation, forms and conventions in
relation to production.
• Minimal ability to refer to the choices
made and outcomes.
• Minimal understanding of their
development from preliminary to full task.
• Minimal ability to communicate.
• Minimal skill in the use of digital
technology or ICT in the evaluation.

Level 2 8–11 marks

• Basic understanding of issues around

audience, institution, technology,
representation, forms and conventions in
relation to production.
• Basic ability to refer to the choices made
and outcomes.
• Basic understanding of their development
from preliminary to full task.
• Basic ability to communicate.
• Basic skill in the use of digital technology
or ICT in the evaluation

Level 3 12–15 marks

• Proficient understanding of issues around

audience, institution, technology,
representation, forms and conventions in
relation to production.
• Proficient ability to refer to the choices
made and outcomes.
• Proficient understanding of their
development from preliminary to full task.
• Proficient ability to communicate.
• Proficient skill in the use of digital
technology or ICT in the evaluation

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Level 4 16–20 marks

• Excellent understanding of issues around

audience, institution, technology,
representation, forms and conventions in
relation to production.
• Excellent ability to refer to the choices
made and outcomes.
• Excellent understanding of their
development from preliminary to full task.
• Excellent ability to communicate.
• Excellent skill in the use of digital
technology or ICT in the evaluation