Wednesday, 3 July 2024

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!

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