Linked Production tutorial 17/03/17

·         Your chosen brief is appropriate – a film opening. It’s not entirely clear if this is a movie or a TV drama… I would clarify this and then build it into your planning (e.g. if it’s for BBC3 then you’d want that branding somewhere in the opening sequence). It obviously fits your critical investigation very well but I’m not sure if the extract you’ve chosen to make is achievable – a death scene is notoriously difficult to do convincingly.

·         The other challenge will be technical – things like framing shots and recording professional-quality audio will be defining factors for this project. It was notable these were areas that the preliminary exercise highlighted so we must make sure we learn from that. Casting is also very important too (you won’t be able to get away with Sukhdev with a cushion up his jumper for the real production!)

·         Your planning on your blog is mixed – there’s clearly some research and I like the way you’ve picked out certain scenes from each text. However, I’m not sure you’re being realistic in terms of what you can create yourself or indeed that you have a fully developed idea (your thoughts seem to jump around a bit).

·         Your schedule looks good – but obviously you’re not really on track to meet it! It’s good you’ve built in time and we have days over the Easter holiday available too if you need to re-shoot or re-edit anything (this is likely).

·         There are elements in the script I really like – you’ve got a nice balance between the character on the phone and the father figure. You need to be careful this doesn’t just end up a recreation of Murdered By My Father because it will look very obvious considering your critical investigation. There are notable typos and errors in written English in the script – this doesn’t need to be submitted to AQA but it’s another reminder this is an area we have to pay more attention to. In addition, the script seems pretty short: be careful the overall production isn’t too short – anything under three minutes will be difficult to reward at the higher levels.

·         Along similar lines, your shot list looks incredibly short for three minutes of film – 20 shots for 180 seconds of video? I would strongly advise expanding this considerably before your main shoots.

·         Post these tutorial notes to your MEST4 coursework blog as a new blogpost.

·         The rough cut deadline is Wednesday 22 March – make sure you are on track to meet this deadline.

·         After pasting these notes in your blogpost, write a numbered list of THREE things you will do in the next seven days in order to move your Linked Production project to the next level.

Critical Investigation tutorial – second

•         In some ways this is an improvement on the first draft but there’s still a lot to work on – I don’t think this could move higher than the top of level 2 which is 24/48 (a D grade). It’s extremely frustrating that some of the issues highlighted in your first draft feedback have not been addressed.
•          Written English is still NOWHERE near the standard required for A2 – so many clumsy sentences that don’t make sense. Look at the first page alone – so many errors in punctuation and grammar. At A2 level this is unacceptable. Either you are not proofreading or you seriously need to work on the quality of your proofreading – either way, it doesn’t reflect well on you.
•          Research is better but there’s still a lack of strong academic quotes – out of 36 footnotes only 7 have a page number which suggests there’s a distinct lack of high quality academic sources.
•          Linked to research, you interpret some of these quotes and theories in completely the wrong way – when Dyer writes about power he is talking about the Media, not individuals or families.
•          I think it’s clear you need to simplify the argument you are trying to make and then stick to it ruthlessly. I advise: what effect do these texts have on white British audiences? What effect do these texts have on British Asian audiences? You then need to make sure every paragraph fits into this basic approach.
•          To help with the above you can add Gerbner’s cultivation theory – ideal for the impact TV has on people over time.
•          There are whole sections you can take out – they are adding nothing to the essay. Look over the draft for more on this.
•          The section towards the end on lack of diversity in film and TV industries is great – more of this please. Some recent articles will help with this: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/02/riz-ahmed-warns-lack-of-diversity-on-tv-will-drive-young-to-isis https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/09/samuel-l-jackson-black-british-actors-hollywood-valid
•          The conclusion needs work – it just doesn’t make sense. Re-write this once the whole essay focuses ruthlessly on representations of Asians in TV and film and the effect these representations have one white British audiences and Asian audiences.
•          Your bibliography is still not in the correct format – did you do this through Microsoft Word? I think you can improve this – a very good bibliography could be the factor pushing you into the higher levels.