Final KA5 checklist

1 - Familiarise yourself with industry and audience theories, especially Hesmonhalgh and Hall

2 - Check out the official fact sheets, indexed on the blog

3 - Memorise the definitions of vertical and horizontal integration

4 - Refamiliarize yourself with trailers, episodes, gameplay videos, making of docs, your own notes, everything that we looked at!

The Tide advert: context and analysis

 'The Tide Advert' is a c1950s American detergent advert that happens to be the first set text in A-level media studies.

This means that in the final exam, you may be asked to either

• Explore the context of the advert, in terms of  how it appealed to contemporary audiences, or
• Compare the representations of reality in this advert with another advert

This session covers both potentialities.

1 - Contexts

Click here to find the exam bord resources, as indexed on this blog. 

Click on the Tide advert fact sheet link

Make notes on the product context section, writing these key facts in to your own words. You should also skim over the rest of the sheet and make notes on any juicy facts that stand out to you. You should try and fill up an entire slide with blunt, bullet pointed facts

2 - Textual analysis

Go to resources and click 'textual analysis toolkit. Find the section on advertising.

You can also click here, just this once!

Now find the Tide advert itself. Click industries - advertising - tide advert (the very top link!)

It's also at the bottom of this post. But you need to know where everything on the blog is!

Use the textual analysis toolkit terminology to analyse how this advert constructs meaning

You may (as in you should!) also consider what realities surrounding women are constructed through media language. What does this advert say about women? How does this sit with you?

Click to view in higher resolution. Also save the image to your advertising PowerPoint!

End of induction week - final editing

You have one more session to edit your PERSUASIVE ADVERT. You may well have assembled your cut to a good level. Now it's time to finish this off, and to include all the little details that will make your advert SELL A LIFESTYLE TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. 

Note: if you have already exported your project, please go back and finish it off!

You can do these in any order, and you do not need to do all of these things

If there is anything here you do not know how to do, first, give it a go yourself. Second, ask the person sitting next to you. Third, Google it, and watch a YouTube tutorial. Honestly, watching tutorials is how you will learn how to do most atypical and complex techniques!

Record a powerful voiceover

Very few of you got round to doing this! Use your phone to record a voiceover. Then email the resulting mp3 to yourself. Download the file, put it where you saved the rest of your adverts, then import it and drag it in like you did with your video. 

Apply compelling colo(u)r grading

Windows, workspaces, 'color'. You can edit the colour profile and adjust and correct things like exposure. Be conscientious and careful. Make it beautiful, striking and persuasive

Go crazy with effects

Windows, workspaces, effects. I told you to be sparing with effects. But try out a range of them. Most are drag and drop, and you can tweak the parameters in the effect control section. You may need to use a tutorial to learn how to tweak it.

Add powerful titles and captions

Windows, workspaces, captions and graphics. You can add captions and titles to your videos, either using the 'T' too as a starter to create a new video layer, or picking a template to get started with.

You can also create subtitles at the bottom of the screen as an accessibility feature, or do jazzy TikTok style subs to make your advert suitable for sharing on social media platforms.

Find and insert a suitable soundtrack

Go to a royalty free music website. Incomptech is a good one, but a quick google will find more. You can add your downloaded music exactly the same way as you sort and import video. Find sometyhing that fits the mood. Dramatic or silly. It's your choice!

Do some animation

You can animate almost everything in premiere, from the 'movement' of the footage (good for doing shock zooms and spins) to how text appears on screen. This is basically impossible to explain in words, you will need to watch a YouTube tutorial and follow through step by step. Even though I know how to do it, I still have to watch YouTube tutorials :( 

Export your project

Use exactly the same routine as last time. I made a tutorial for this which is a bit out of date but still pretty much works. 

If you think you've finished, you haven't! Go back up the list and find something new to do! This is an instructional project, so if your project ends up looking silly and OTT, it's fine! It's all about learning.

Key assessment 5 2026 - REDACTED EDITION

 

Click image to see in full resolution. Please note the 'redacted' sections are for fun only and do not necessarily correlate with the length of the word that they substitute.

FILM STUDIES - exploring sound design and performance

 For these tasks, you will work independently to apply your new knowledge about SOUND, DIEGESIS and PERFORMANCE to scenes from films that you know and love.

For each task, please select a an example from a film that you love, and find an appropriate clip on YouTube to illustrate it. You may have to be open minded with clip selection. Not every clip from the film will be on Youtube

1 - LEVELS OF DIEGESIS

Select a clip that has a rich and complex soundtrack. Make detailed notes on the following and how they situate spectatorial affect (essentially, how they make the spectator feel!)

• Diegetic sound (eg sound effects)
• Non-degetic sound (eg score (music written specificallyfor scene)
• Extradiegetic sound (sound that exists beyond the diegsis, but not completely out of it. Think omnicient narration)
• Intradiegetic sound (sound exchanged between characters or other diegetic elements)
• Transdiegetic sound (sound that flips between layers of diegeis. Remember Sweet Sixteen!
• Internal diegetic sound - an internal monologue, eg enter the void 
• Voiceover - eg a narrator, or a commentator 
• Pleonastic sound - making a sound louder in the mix for dramatic effect 
• Soundtrack - all sounds the spectator can hear (but often purely relates to ‘music’)
• Score - music that has been written specifically for the film
• Atmos - birdsong, cars going past, atmospheric sound
• Sound bridge - how sound ‘bridges’ or connects two scenes 
• Subjective sound - breathing, heartbeat, thoughts etc 

YOUR CLIP WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT INCLUDE ALL OF THESE ELEMENTS! Or maybe it will. That would be an intense scene!

2 - ANALYSING SCORE

Select a clip with a stirring and memorable SCORE. Score is music written specifically for the scene. Analyse the score and how it contributes to spectatorial affect. Consider tempo, tonality, texture, instrumentation, all that stuff we talked about.

As a reminder, here is the analysis we did of the Return To Silent Hill clip

Return to Silent Hill - how does the soundtrack sound???

The soundtrack is claustrophobic and cloying. It looms threateningly before exploding in to an aggressive climax. The sound mix emphasises gritty texture, mimicking sandpaper, and industrial noises designed to physically inflict pain. It evokes tastes like rust, iron, and blood… 

3 - PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

Select a clip featuring your absolute favorite actor doing the best acting she has ever done. Then select a clip of the same actor in another film, preferably playing a completely different role (this doesn't always happen. Some actors play one role and they play it well!)

Analyse the performance of the actor. What is she doing with her hands, face, mouth? Is she expressive or naturalistic in her performance? How does cinematography (eg big close ups) emphasise her performance? How does her line delivery effect performance? What is she doing with her voice? How would you describe her acting style? Why do you find her so compeling?

Each task should be a separate slide (or more) in your induction PowerPoint. Use screenshots where appropriate, including in the sound tasks!