Course Type

BTEC

Exam Board

Pearson

Assessment Type

Exam and Coursework

Entry Requirements

Five GCSEs at grade 4 or above in different subjects including English and Maths.

Course Overview

This course will focus on different areas of the creative digital media industry that employers and companies have identified as desirable skills in employees.

Unit 1

Works towards a 2 hour exam and is titled “Media Representations”.

In this unit, students will study a range of media from different sectors, such as music videos, short film extracts, animation, news programmes, websites, digital games and print adverts in order to explore how meaning, messages and values are constructed through formal and stylistic elements.

Unit 2

Works towards a piece of coursework produced in controlled conditions and is titled “Responding to a Commission”.

In this unit, students will understand how to respond to a commission brief with ideas based on the required content, style, audience, purpose and approach proposed by the client. Students will have 5 hours to draft a proposal that best fits the brief.

Unit 3

Works towards a piece of coursework and is titled “Pre-Production Portfolio”.

In this unit, students will gain an understanding of the requirements of the planning stage, from finance and logistics to regulations. Your investigations will help you develop the pre- production skills and experience needed to carry out your own tasks and to produce a digital media product. You will create a portfolio and manage the pre-production for your own creative media production.

Unit 4

Works towards a piece of coursework. You will choose from “Film Production - Fiction”, “Radio Production - Fiction”, “Website Production”, “Digital Games Production” or “Digital Magazine Production”. This unit gives students an opportunity to specialise in a chosen media product area and learn to utilise specialist equipment and software.

Where will it lead?

Rapid growth of the creative media industries has made this career path increasingly accessible and attractive to young people. Transferable skills like resource management (time, people and budgets), planning, negotiation, research and communication are all strengthened. The vocational approach to this course could lead students straight into work in the creative media industries or onto higher education courses.