Creative Digital
Media BTEC
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent.”—Malcolm X
Creative Digital Media explores the impact the media has on us, our community and the world, and considers the tools that we can use to help construct our own meanings for the media that we share.
“Reality exists outside language but it is constantly mediated by and through language” —Stuart Hall.
Anything we see on screen is not the true reality and meaning that the character or person is going through, however, their meaning is delivered to us by the person making or producing the media.
The focus of everything that we intend to do in the Creative Digital Media department is in the name. Creativity is the driving force for the teaching and learning both in and outside of lessons. For complex theoretical concepts such as Stuart Hall’s representation theory to be understood, we need to put his words into practice. To understand the impact that our preparation work has on a digital product? Create that product and discover the impact. If you have a thirst for creating, a boundless imagination and a passion for film, then our department encourages you to indulge in these passions.
“All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that’s why it takes so long.”
—Steven Spielberg.
As a department you may not have worked with prior to Sixth Form, many will be starting with little or no experience. That mustn’t stop you. Every artist starts with scribbles and stickmen, every musician playing off key and every filmmaker choosing the wrong shot or writing the wrong story. Persevere, improve, find out what you could be.
The BTEC covers four different units, two internally assessed and two externally assessed.
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Internal Assessment
The first of the internally assessed units is Unit 4, pre-production portfolio, where students are required to write a report about the pre-production processes and their impact on a digital product, and then undertake and evaluate pre-production for a specific digital product.
Unit 10, Fiction Film Production is also internally assessed, where students need to create their own film on a given genre. This film will be based upon the pre-production completed in Unit 4. There is also a report comparing the narrative and stylistic codes and conventions of different genres. These are marked on a scale from Pass – Distinction.
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External Assessment
The two externally assessed unit are Unit 1, Media Representations and Unit 8, Responding to a Commission. Unit 1 consists of an on-screen exam, usually sat in the Summer term of Lower Sixth, covering the way that the media uses specific techniques to convey meaning and theories regarding representations of different groups. Unit 8 is a project based exam, where students create a rationale, pitch, proposal and treatment based off of research they have done to a commission set by the exam board.
Unit 1 is a two hour exam consisting of a mixture of short answer and essay questions with up to 80 marks available. Unit 8 consists of an independent research task (recommended 10 hours), a 2 hour supervised session to create notes to take into the exam, following by a 6 hour medium controlled assessment (over two days). The final assessment is the only section that is marked and is worth 72. Both units allow the opportunity for resits and are graded on a scale from Near Pass – Distinction.
The first of the internally assessed units is Unit 4, pre-production portfolio, where students are required to write a report about the pre-production processes and their impact on a digital product, and then undertake and evaluate pre-production for a specific digital product.
Unit 10, Fiction Film Production is also internally assessed, where students need to create their own film on a given genre. This film will be based upon the pre-production completed in Unit 4. There is also a report comparing the narrative and stylistic codes and conventions of different genres. These are marked on a scale from Pass – Distinction.
The two externally assessed unit are Unit 1, Media Representations and Unit 8, Responding to a Commission. Unit 1 consists of an on-screen exam, usually sat in the Summer term of Lower Sixth, covering the way that the media uses specific techniques to convey meaning and theories regarding representations of different groups. Unit 8 is a project based exam, where students create a rationale, pitch, proposal and treatment based off of research they have done to a commission set by the exam board.
Unit 1 is a two hour exam consisting of a mixture of short answer and essay questions with up to 80 marks available. Unit 8 consists of an independent research task (recommended 10 hours), a 2 hour supervised session to create notes to take into the exam, following by a 6 hour medium controlled assessment (over two days). The final assessment is the only section that is marked and is worth 72. Both units allow the opportunity for resits and are graded on a scale from Near Pass – Distinction.