Work samples

The Arts: Media Arts

Years 9 and 10

Satisfactory

Analysis essay

Summary of task

Students studied the use of film techniques and conventions to communicate meaning in a film genre. They watched and analysed Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) through student-led small group class discussion and analysis tasks based on production elements, genre, mood, sound and theme. An essay that was a summative task at the end of the unit was scaffolded through short, formative activities that familiarised students with the terminology required for the task.

The essay question was: How do production elements in the film establish and develop the themes/moods in the film and engage the audience?

Achievement standard

By the end of Year 10, students analyse how social and cultural values and alternative points of view are portrayed in media artworks they make, interact with and distribute. They evaluate how genre and media conventions and technical and symbolic elements are manipulated to make representations and meaning. They evaluate how social, institutional and ethical issues influence the making and use of media artworks.

Students produce representations that communicate alternative points of view in media artworks for different community and institutional contexts. They manipulate genre and media conventions and integrate and shape the technical and symbolic elements for specific purposes, meaning and style. They collaboratively apply design, production and distribution processes.

Show all annotations

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Annotations
1
Annotation 1
Identifies the genre of the film
2
Annotation 2
Lists the production elements in the film
3
Annotation 3
Identifies some of the conventions of the film’s genre
4
Annotation 4
Understands that the director manipulates the camera’s technical effects to create meaning
5
Annotation 5
Provides a specific example of how an ‘overshot’ in the film communicates a character’s vulnerable situation
6
Annotation 6
Analyses how focus and actor movement are used to build tension in the scene
7
Annotation 7
Analyses lighting and its symbolic meaning
8
Annotation 8
Analyses the effect of the lighting and the mis-en-scene
9
Annotation 9
Describes how lighting is used to create mood in the film
10
Annotation 10
Analyses the symbolic meaning of light and dark in the mise-en-scène and the costuming
11
Annotation 11
Identifies the violin as diegetic sound and analyses its symbolic meaning