Media Awards 2024: The Nominations

The nominations are in for the Media Awards 2024!

We now have a date for the ceremony: Tuesday 17 September 2024. We've had an incredibly difficult job finalising the nominations - the quality level at both GCSE and A Level is excellent and there has been a lot of good work that hasn't made the cut.

If you haven't been before, the Media Awards is our Oscars-style ceremony where we award trophies for the best Media coursework at GCSE and A Level. It's a major event in the Greenford calendar and tickets have completely sold out whenever we have run the event in the past. The details for this year's awards:

Date: Tuesday 17 September
Time: 5.30pm - 7.30pm
Tickets: £5

Tickets will go on sale when we're back at school after the summer break - keep an eye for on-sale dates then. There will be an exclusive pre-sale window for Media students before general sale to any Greenford student in Year 10 or above.

Year 13 students who are leaving Greenford will be on the guest list and can buy additional tickets for friends by emailing Mr Halsey and arranging a time to pop in and buy them.

Remember - you need to be quick. The event has sold out in just a few days in previous years!

A Level nominations

BEST A LEVEL SOUND DESIGN

Bradley - Shadowed Intentions

Shreyam - Silent Vengeance 

Arkin - In Lines Of Lament

BEST A LEVEL CINEMATOGRAPHY

Omari - Urban Shadows 

Leila - The Lurking Crow

Amari - Stitches Of Deceit

BEST A LEVEL PRODUCTION DESIGN

Seerat - The Killer Beside Me 

Lara - Money Motivated

Sopiga - Intuition

BEST A LEVEL EDITING

Enzo – Hip Hop Heist 

Julia - Family Lines 

Tanish – Mercenary 

BEST A LEVEL TV DRAMA SCREENPLAY 

Viraj – Intentions 

Laith - The Vigilante

Kaya - King Of The 6 

BEST A LEVEL TV DRAMA ORIGINAL CONCEPT 

Riya - Without A Trace

Frankly – Diamond Is Unbreakable

Tanisha – Drown The Past

GCSE nominations

BEST GCSE TV DRAMA CINEMATOGRAPHY

Steven - Competence

Janice-Cianna - Cacophony

Dyari - Like a Paladin

Huda - The Murderous Ink 

BEST GCSE TV DRAMA ORIGINAL CONCEPT

Tulika - Bloom

Jessica – Heard 

Wajiha - The Debt of Time

Cyrine - Foresight

BEST GCSE TV DRAMA EDITING

Raagni - Manipulating Time

Remy - Dark Deception

Sanila - Wanted

Sunmeet - Into the Abyss  

Best Actress and Actor

MEDIA AWARDS BEST ACTOR 2024

Remy

Frankly

Enzo

Dyari

MEDIA AWARDS BEST ACTRESS 2024

Riya 

Sanila 

Julia 

Huda

Congratulations to all our nominees and we look forward to seeing you at the Media Awards on Tuesday 17 September! 

End of Year 1 exam: Learner response

The End of Year 1 exam was a great opportunity to start developing the skills we will need next summer. 

The Paper 2, Section A questions on our Television CSPs are unusual and the only way to get better is to practice taking notes, getting the timing right and making sure our answers are focused on the question.

We now need to complete a learner response to the exam to ensure we are learning and developing our exam technique. You may find reading the mark scheme useful for reflecting on this exam - you'll need your Greenford Google login to access these documents:

• End of Year 1 exam - Paper 2 mark scheme

End of Year 1 exam: Learner Response

Create a blogpost called 'End of Year 1 exam learner response'.

1) Type up any feedback from your teacher in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

2) Look at the mark scheme document linked above. Question 1.1 asks about mise-en-scene. What do we use to remember mise-en-scene? Give one example answer from the mark scheme too.

3) Question 1.2 asks about narrative features in the extract. Look at the mark scheme to pick out three possible answers for this question. 

4) Now focus on Question 2 - the 20 mark essay. Use the mark scheme to pick out one way Doctor Who reflects 1963 and one way His Dark Materials reflects 2020. 

5) Reflect on your overall work and exam performance this year. What three things do you need to work on or revise in Media for Year 11? 

You must finish this LR in the lesson your papers are returned.

Coursework: Summer Project 2024

The summer project is a fantastic opportunity to start planning your Media Studies coursework.

Coursework is 30% of your overall GCSE so it can make a huge difference to your final grade. It's also a chance for us to develop and demonstrate our creativity and technical ability. 

Your summer project contains compulsory and optional elements; everybody will be researching TV adverts, choosing a health drink and coming up with a concept for their adverts and then writing a Statement of Intent first draft. However, if you wish to plan and film your production over the summer while you have time available we would fully support you in this approach.

You can find your coursework brief for 2025 here. 

Summer project tasks

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

1) Research: health drink TV adverts

Watch the following adverts and answer the questions below.

Innocent Drinks

Watch the following adverts for Innocent drinks (these are from different campaigns).

Innocent example 1: 

Innocent example 2:

Innocent example 3: 

Answer the following questions:

1) What is the unique selling point of the product? 

2) What audience do you think this is aimed at? Add as much detail as possible (e.g. demographics, psychographics) and explain why.

3) What do you notice about the technical construction of the advert? Pick out one thing you like about the advert from camerawork, editing, sound or mise-en-scene. You may want to focus on TV advert conventions such as voiceover for example. 

4) What representations can you find in the advert? This may be representations of people or groups or perhaps the brand itself.

Extension: What narrative is offered by the adverts? Try and apply narrative theory here.

Lucozade

Note: Lucozade isn't a health drink so we can't use it as our chosen brand but is a great example of drink advertising to our target audience of 15-30 year olds. Lucozade adverts are also great for lifestyle elements.

Lucozade example 1: 

Lucozade example 2:

 

Answer the following questions:

1) What is the unique selling point of the product? 

2) What audience do you think this is aimed at? Add as much detail as possible (e.g. demographics, psychographics) and explain why.

3) What do you notice about the technical construction of the advert? Pick out one thing you like about the advert from camerawork, editing, sound or mise-en-scene. You may want to focus on TV advert conventions such as voiceover for example. 

4) What representations can you find in the advert? This may be representations of people or groups or perhaps the brand itself.

Extension: What narrative is offered by the adverts? Try and apply narrative theory here.

Other health drink adverts

Watch these additional health drink adverts and see which will inspire your coursework idea.

Boost energy (note: this is another energy drink, not a health drink, but it's a great, well-edited advert): 

Vitamin Water: 

Huel: 

O'cean one8 Active Water: 

Choose one of the above adverts and answer the following questions: 

1) What is the unique selling point of the product? 

2) What audience do you think this is aimed at? Add as much detail as possible (e.g. demographics, psychographics) and explain why.

3) What do you notice about the technical construction of the advert? Pick out one thing you like about the advert from camerawork, editing, sound or mise-en-scene. You may want to focus on TV advert conventions such as voiceover for example. 

4) What representations can you find in the advert? This may be representations of people or groups or perhaps the brand itself.

Extension: What narrative is offered by the adverts? Try and apply narrative theory here.

Additional research: optional extension
Depending on your coursework plan and the type of advert you wish to create, you may want to research additional TV adverts (either for health drinks or more generally). You may want to simply research particularly creative adverts - this article on the best adverts of all time could be useful. 

Whatever you watch, make sure you write some additional notes or bullet points about these adverts on your blog so you are documenting your research.


2) TV advert planning 

Plan out the brand of health drink you are going to use along with the narrative and character for your two adverts. You also need to plan elements like the slogan, settings, music and more.

Answer the following TV advert pitch questions with your original idea for health drink TV adverts aimed at teenagers and young adults:

1) What brand of health drink are you going to use? You can use an existing drink.

2) New slogan for the health drink (MUST be original - cannot be existing slogan): 

3) Main character(s) that will appear in your adverts: 

4) Narrative: What will happen in your first advert? 

5) Narrative: What will happen in your second advert? 

6) Where will you film your adverts? You need a different location for each advert.

7) Who will be in your adverts? 

8) What music will you use for your adverts? What voiceover will you use and who will you use to record the voiceover? Note: for music you can use existing music tracks.

9) How will your adverts appeal to your 15-30 year old target audience? 

10) What TV channel and programme would your advert appear during and why? Remember the brief states a mainstream TV channel or streaming service. 

3) Statement of Intent

On the same Summer Project blogpost, write the rough first draft of your genuine 300-word Statement of Intent for the adverts you plan to create. The final draft of this document will be submitted to the exam board alongside your TV adverts and is worth 10 marks of the overall 60 marks available.

Guidance is provided by AQA in their NEA Student Booklet. 

We have also produced a Statement of Intent suggested content document to help you too. You'll need your Greenford Google login to open these documents. 


Summer project deadline: all tasks above due in the second lesson back in September.


Summer project: optional extensions

Pre-production tasks
Some students have already expressed an interest in filming their TV adverts over the summer break. This makes a huge amount of sense - far more availability of actors, much more time to schedule filming etc. However, if you want to do this, you need to complete the following aspects of pre-production and make sure you have parental permission to do this:

Script
Write scripts for your TV adverts. You can find guidance on writing an advert script here. You can also find guidance and professional examples of what TV scripts look like on the BBC Writers' Room website but note this focuses more on film or TV drama. 

Shot list
Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film for the adverts AND 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 an example here for a student film shot list. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in chronological order. 

Mise-en-scene
What iconography or mise-en-scene are you including to ensure your audience understands the message of your adverts? Plan your cast, 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 Google Docs / Word or Excel or you could simply use your blog. The most important thing is that you've planned it!

Non-assessed participants
You will need to provide a written record of all non-assessed participants in your production work. Keep a record of everyone involved - actors, camerawork, sound etc. You will also need a keep a record of any non-original sound you used and note it on the Candidate Record Form. Keep these on your blog for easy reference when submitting your work later this year.

Production: Filming 
Once you have completed your pre-production tasks, you can film as planned. If you are unable to film over the summer, we will have time to film this production in September.

Good luck!