An overview

1. Exemplar Answer A: January 2010
“Analyse Media Representation in one of your coursework productions” [25]
For my Foundation Portfolio, I decided to create a much magazine which be based and be about „UK
Grime music.‟ I originally decided to do this because having done market research into music magazines
distributed in the mass market, I found and felt that there was a gap in the market, and that gap was „UK
Grime‟. The market research I had conducted, was in regard to type of magazines on available in mass
markets retailers such as WHSmith and Sainsbury‟s.
„UK Grime‟ is a genre of music closely related to Hip-Hop and UK Garage. Moreover, the genre of music
tends to be only popular with teenagers and young adults in their twenties. Therefore, I felt that this was
the target market to which I needed my product to appeal to in order for it to be deemed successful.
In order for me to achieve this, I had to create a product which my target audience could relate to and
consider purchasing. Therefore, I needed to create a representation for my product, a representation
which my audience would understand and relate to. Taking this into consideration. I was aware that „UK
Grime‟ was very much originated from inner-city urban areas of the UK and therefore was very much like
Hop-Hop/Rap music in the US, in that they both had strong connotations with streaat-life and mise-en-
scene such as young people who wore hoodies, microphones, Disco Jockey sets, dark clothes with brands
such as Nike being commonly worn such as the attire worn by popular Grime artists such as Roll Deep.
Moveover, there are other more negative connotations such as inner-city crime. I felt in order to create a
successful media product. I had to make sure my magazine brought these connotations too in order for
my product to be defined as a Grime magazine and appeal and relate to my target market.
For my magazine, I decided to feature one “up and coming” grime artist „Grime kid‟, similar to the way
established magazines such as NME and Rolling Stone feature up and coming artists in order to appear
innovative and „cutting-edge‟. I decided to apply this successful convention to my magazine. And on the
front cover, I decided to have a full-length image of him similar to the way other established magazine
have done. In order to create the right representation, I created an image where „Grime kid‟ dressed up
in a Nike track suit, with a hood up appeared to be climbing inside a window frame (although its unclear
who the window frame belongs to i.e he maybe breaking the law by breaking and entering or simply
climbing inside a window.) The idea that my artist maybe breaking the law may bring the connotations of
an inner city kid breaking the law which may be appeal or familiar to my target audience similar to the
way popular Rap Star 50 Cent is pictured posing with a gun on his front cover. Moreover, the mise-en-
scene of the character with his „hood up‟ acting almost as a signifier to my target audience that this artist
is very much a „Grime Artist‟ and very much has the same attributes / characteristics as other popular
Grime Artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kano who have already been successful and established enough
to appeal to my target audience and target market. Moreover, I‟ve tried to create a representation like
this throughout the magazine such as the interview done in my double-page spread where I my artist
uses a dialect similar to that in inner-city London and shared by popular Grime Artists such as Kano, Wiley
and Chipmunk.
Area Mark
Explanation/Analysis/Argument
(10)
Use of Examples
(10)
Use of Terminology
(5)

2. Exemplar Answer B: January 2010
“Analyse Media Representation in one of your coursework productions” [25]
I found the media represents people in a number of different ways. Representation means the way in
which the media chooses through a selection and ordering process the way to represent a certain group
of people in society. There are 2 different types of representation from 2 different models. The
Hegemonic model represents people in a fixed, backward looking representation and feeds the audience
the stereotype to be correct. However, the pluralistic model shows how the media can represent people
in a debateable way (usually negative) and more realistic view upon society. In my foundation practical, I
found that certain people were represented in different ways using conventions. This meant that using
media language: cinematography, Mise-en-scene, editing and sound determined the representation of
people within the genre of music. I found that the use of camera angles, lighting props, costumes, make
up etc on the model determined a number of factors such as: Social Class, ethnicity, gender, age, etc. For
example: In a Issue of GQ magazine there was a main photograph of Russell Brand and an unknown
person. The photo was taken at a high angle with Russell standing on something to make him taller. He
was also wearing expensive clothing. This gave of a representation and comparision between the two
people showing Russells power over the unknown model. I then applied this to my practical. My chosen
star was a working class hero who had just left the urbanised of a small town near London and became a
superstar. I showed this by: Big expensive watch to show money, Hoody and flat peak to show
personality and background. I then also applied this to my double page spread, discussing how he had
left his old life behind of crime, violence and nothing to Riches and celebrity. Also the language I used
represented him as working class.
Area Mark
Explanation/Analysis/Argument
(10)
Use of Examples
(10)
Use of Terminology
(5)

3. Exemplar C: June 2010
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relations to genre [25]
The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the
whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.
The genre of the trailer is obviously „horror‟ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative
etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it
to be recognised by it‟s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that „genre is a repetition with an
underlying pattern of variations‟ which meant certain generic features had to be included and
repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held
camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer. However, the
pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to
creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer
interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group
chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female
identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing
them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking
approach as it often attempts to focus on subcultural views instead of targeting the mainstream.
Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed
location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society‟s fear of loneliness and isolation
which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot
of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in
order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting
methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before
them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension
and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and
atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used
„binary oppositions‟ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the
audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to
connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their
fear and reliance on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are
often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.
Gore or „body horror‟ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied
including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by
forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by
showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centoring in on the face and neck
which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood
pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see
what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero
being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume
no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace
and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout
the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to
the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it
encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the ideas that collectively make a
particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had
expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her
running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear
and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female
victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after
watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take
a male‟s viewpoint.
In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hangwoman she
needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is
something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols

4. which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she
walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness
and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark,
dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.
The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since
distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the
confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but
were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with
others.
Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the
mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the
narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the
beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be
female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution –
as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left
as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.
Area Mark
Explanation/Analysis/Argument
(10)
Use of Examples
(10)
Use of Terminology
(5)

5. Exemplar D: June 2010
“Analyse one of your coursework productions in relations to genre” [25]
For my A2 production (Advanced Portfolio) I created a teaser trailer in the sub-genre of slasher from
the genre of Horror. The synopsis of this teaser trailer is about a young couple (roughly 17-19 years
of age) who are in love in the beginning but the relationship turns sore and they split up, the girls
moves on with her life and the boy doesn‟t like this and starts to follow her; The girl starts tutoring a
guy in her class who is struggling but who is a complete binary opposition to her ex-boyfriend in the
sense that he is a bit of a geeky character and her ex-boyfriend is a Jock (both of these characters
you will find stereotypically in horror films) one by one the girls friends keep disappearing or are
murdered and the suspision lies in the hands of the ex-boyfriend due to spite. But the question is
does he really love her enough to not kill her? Throughout the trailer the audience thinks the ex-
boyfriend si the killer but actually as it turns out it‟s the geeky boy who has become very obsessive
over the girl and wants her to himself.
The characters in this production are all very stereotypical of what you would find in an American
„slasher/horro‟ film. The two main female protagonists are „Carie‟ and „Hannah‟ Carie is your
stereotypical „final girl‟ which you would find in of not all, most horror films, this character is always
brunette and seen to be „innocent‟ we used this key code and convention of the genre horror from
the film „Halloween‟ staring „Jamie Lee Curtis‟, As she is the „final girl‟, she has brunette hair, the
same as „Catie‟ and she also wears the coulor blue as throughout our production „Catie‟ is seen
wearing the colour blue. For „Hannah‟ she is our stereotypical „scream queen‟ we looked at a film
called „Hell Night‟ and from seeing this their „scream queen‟ was wearing red, had red lipstick and had
blonde hair, we chose our character of „hannah‟ specifically so that she would have blonde hair and
we also dressed her in a red costume and put red lipstick on her for her makeup. These two
characters are complete binary opposites and are juxtaposed together.
From our research into „Horror‟ teaser trailers we found that a common code and convention was a
fast montage so we created a fast montage of all the killings throughout the film, however we also
found that „slasher‟ films portrayed someone else as the killer so that the audience don‟t actually
know who the killer is, or the suspect that the wrong person until is revealed at the end of the film;
this is strereotypically done in horror films to create tension, suspense and even a narrative enigma.
On some shots of the killings eg. When the killer is following „Abby‟ one the girls friends down into an
underground tunnel, you have a point of view shot in the perspective of the killer walking behind
Abby with the view of her back, we also tried to create yellow tinted lighting, using colour filters as
we also found that this was a common code and convention of „horror‟ also with the colour blue.
Through using these different lighting effects I have tried to anchor the preffered reading so the
audience can tell what the genre of the film would be but also to connote that something bad is
about to happen to that specific character.
There were many more signifiers throughout our media production that would have signified the
genre to the audience however it was difficult with having to create a piece that lasted between 60-
90 seconds and due to the fact that we are young film makers we don‟t have big Hollywood film
funding budgets. We only have small budgets to go on make-up and costumes. Had we had larger
budgets though we would have been able to create a production a lot better. So there were
limitations which could have had an effect on the genre.
Area Mark
Explanation/Analysis/Argument
(10)
Use of Examples
(10)
Use of Terminology
(5)