First, you need to understand why pre-production is important. Making content for the media is expensive in terms of money and time; and a large part of what gets made - film, magazines, newspapers, pop groups, adverts, whatever - don't actually work. That is, they don't make money, or attract an audience, or get their message across, or do whatever it is that their makers wanted them to do. Thus, before we risk all on launching our idea into the mediascape, we BETTER make sure we have PREPARED. Pre-production is simply another term for preparation. The project divides into three stages, and, roughly speaking, the three parts are marked separately. Check how it is marked here.)

STAGE 1: RESEARCH

Where do we start? Well, you need an idea. (Look at the options we suggest.The exam board suggests others here.)

Then, you need to establish whether there is an audience for your idea, who they are, and what they want. (Look at audience research methods.) You need to collate and present the results of this research and analyse it to see whether there is actually any point in proceeding. (If you decide to release a magazine about fish aimed at teenage boys, and your research suggests that teenage boys do not want to read a magazine about fish, why waste time and money by going further? Most ideas in the media end at this point!) If you end up going for an SIS TV based task, then the chances are that the most important aspect of your initial research will involve your interview/discussions/communication with your client/s. make sure you keep evidence of this process for us to see.


Marks are awarded on the basis of how realistic your audience research is and how much use you make of the results (and it helps to present the results really, really well. Excel or Numbers will help here.)

STAGE 2: DESIGN

Then, having taken the results of your research into consideration (it is important that you adapt your idea if necessary. It will almost certainly be necessary!), you need to start turning it into reality. You're not going to MAKE it yet (that's your Practical coursework, the next piece!); you're going to PREPARE it in detail.

So, if you want to make a children's TV programme for a feeder primary advertisement/promotional film or animation- you storyboard it. If you want to make a magazine or newspaper - you produce the mock-up. For a computer game, you might prepare a flowchart of the narrative and design the chief characters. For a radio show - write the script. For a website - produce a site map on paper. And so on.

Marks are awarded on how detailed and well presented your piece is. It MUST appeal to your audience(s), preferably in a number of ways. It MUST follow the relevant conventions, but the very best pieces will probably CHALLENGE some of the conventions and be creative.

STAGE 3: EVALUATION

You need to reflect on what you did. This is where you get to make very, very clear that you REALLY know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Produce a short written piece explaining the process you went through, why you made the decisions you did, how successful you were and what you could improve. This is actually the part of the project which attracts most marks, so we'll go over it in detail at the appropriate time. Keep in mind that an evaluation, written by your client would be the best evidence of all!

Look here for more information on the evaluation.

Marks are awarded for honest and accurate evaluation of your piece, an awareness of how it appeals to the audience(s) and an understanding of the problems you might face were you to try to produce the piece in the real world.

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