Coursework: Summer Project 2025

 Your AQA coursework brief is here: NEA Student Booklet - Brief 6. 


Summer project tasks

Complete the following tasks on a blogpost on your coursework blog called 'Summer Project: coursework planning': 

1) Research: TikTok videos

You need to write a 150-word close-textual analysis of SIX TikTok videos that will inform your production work. The TikTok videos you analyse are up to you but focus on a different aspect of media language for each one (see guidance below).  

TikTok videos

TikTok Video 1: Narrative
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNHgDsugrHSBk-hQSvu/

The video uses both enigma codes and action codes to promote the artist's (Addison Rae's) debut album called Addison. The enigma and action codes are the clips of her live performances with her song "high fashion" playing in the background which makes the audience excited for her new songs. The video is fan made and which helps promote the album for free and also creates a community where fans of Addison Rae can talk about her and her music.

TikTok Video 2: Camerawork (shots, angles, movement)

They have used a live performance and are panning the camera to follow her around the stage and zooming in on her as she is the singer This video is also fan made and is a clip of one of Lana's live performances. The performance is an old performance from 2012 which might invoke a sense of nostalgia for its audience. The handheld camera movements make it seem like it was filmed by someone in the audience and so it makes the audience feel like they were actually there and are experiencing the concert for themselves.


TikTok Video 3: Mise-en-scene

For the same video the costume that Lana is wearing and how her hair and makeup is done is reminiscent of the 1960s which is helpful as it attaches her to a certain style which makes her easily recognisable, setting her apart from other artists and giving her a certain "vibe" that the audience can adopt to show that they are fans of her. In the other video the band are dressed as clowns which their fans will recognise as their music video for their song fluorescent adolescent features clowns. This makes their audience feel special for being able to spot that and sets them apart from other people watching the live performance. The costumes also will get people who are not fans intrigued into their music or the band themselves. Both of the videos help the audience feel a stronger sense of personal identity to these artists as well as personal relationships.


TikTok  Video 4: Editing

This tiktok is also fan made and is an edit of the song let down by the band radiohead and uses pictures that match the songs lyrics from the movie black swan. This tiktok brings together fans of radiohead and fans of the movie black swan. The video gives the song an aesthetic which is easy for people to emulate as part of their identity and creates a trend that people follow with the style of editing which means more people will use the song to make edits. The fast pace creates excitement for the audience and gives them something to visualise with the song making it more memorable.

TikTok  Video 5: Music Video Conventions
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdVG7MqV/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdVGH6w2/

In both of these tiktoks they have paired the songs with a movie. In the edit of the movie saltburn they use a song from the movie itself, the tiktok is very fast paced and colourful which are typical conventions of a music video. Similarly in the tiktok where they use the movie Challengers they match their movements with the song making it satisfying to watch and the lyrics reflect the edit as well as the movie. The songs being associated with these movies helps the songs get a wider audience and makes the song have an emotional connection to an audience because they might think of a certain scene when they listen to the song.



These tiktoks are also fan made and use intertextuality as they are referencing the Ipod adverts from apple. This makes the audience feel a sense of nostalgia which is good for the song as they will associate that song with the same feeling. These tiktoks also seem to mimic the music video convention of dancing and lyrics being shown. These tiktoks also were part of a trend where songs would be played over similar styles of videos which means that the songs used would also get popular. In one of the tiktoks the girl making it actually edits herself to the song which an audience may like because they can do it themselves and might copy it to the same song.

Choose a TikTok video that has interesting visual effects or intertextuality and analyse the effect this creates and how it is constructed. Alternatively, you could look at product placement here and see how a band or artist has incorporated a brand or product into their video. 
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdVt2nmh/

This tiktok video is an advertisement for the brand Gap and features the girl group Katseye. The girl group dancing to the song gives the audience something that they can copy which led to fans creating their own trend in which people would use the same song and attempt the choreography from this advert. The girl group attracts its fans to buy from Gap whilst doing what they are known for, like their dancing without actually talking about the brand making it seem more like they use the brand themselves rather than them forcing their fans to buy it just because they've been paid to promote it. The video itself from Gap was also perfectly timed for an audience to really engage with it as there was a lot of controversy for Sydney Sweeney's advert for American eagle. The difference between the two adverts allows the audience to praise both the brand gap and the girl group katseye.


You can start adding TikTok links to this shared document that should help with research and, of course, or you are free to select videos of your choice. You may wish to write more about one video than another but as long as you have 800+ words of TikTok video research in total you will be fine. Feel free to use bullet points if this is helpful.

2) Planning: THREE TikTok video treatments

A treatment is like a script for a TikTok video - it tells the band or artist exactly what will happen in the video and the kind of style or effect the video will have. You'll need choose what songs you are going to use at this point - remember, you can use an existing artist's work but it needs to be appropriate for the brief. 

For this aspect of your summer project, write a basic treatment that gives your reader a good idea of what each of your three TikTok video will look like. The most important thing is to keep in mind the brief - the TikTok video can feature any of the following:
  • interviews/AMAs with band members 
  • content created by band members 
  • performances, live shows or personal appearances 
  • band members taking on a TikTok challenge 
  • the band interacting with fans • fan-made content 
  • merchandise or promotion of the band’s music 
  • any other content or combination of content you think would be appealing to the audience and promote the band effectively.
Tiktok 1
Song: High fashion by Addison Rae 
This tiktok will feature various types of shots such as a close up of the bands costumes as well as a long shot of the entire band together to help establish them as a group, The tiktok will have many different locations. This tiktok will be a series of clips from the music video that a fan has posted and is praising. The clips will have the song played over it.

Tiktok 2
Song: Mean girls by Charli XCX
In this tiktok the band will recreate this scene in the mean girls movie (https://youtu.be/qDKwlDHIg-Q?si=GogzRsed_RpcDhwW) but they will change the script to promote their upcoming tour and the tickets that they will be selling for it. The costume will be very similar to the actual movie scene. the makeup will also try to mimic the makeup in the movie scene. Many locations will be used such as a school location. The use of the mean girls movie creates intertextuality and helps the band connect with the pre existing fans of the mean girls franchise which tends to be women and teenage girls which are the same audience that the band wants to target.

Tiktok 3
Song: When did you get hot by Sabrina Carpenter 
It will be the band answering questions that the fans want answered in a similar style to WIRED series where celebs answer the most googled questions about themselves. Whilst the band are answering the questions clips from the music video or them making the song will be shown. The bands answers will make them relatable to an audience and allow fans to make both personal relationships with the band members as well as helping them create a personal identity by copying the bands aesthetic for example the clothes that they wear.

Start each of your THREE treatments with the following key details: 

1) Artist/band and song(s) you will use for video.

2) Original name for artist/band you have created - MUST be completely original

For example, Ed Sheeran - Shape of You is the artist and song you plan to use but your original name for your artist will be John Smith - Shape of You.


3) Statement of Intent

Write the first draft for your genuine 500-word Statement of Intent. This will be submitted to the exam board alongside your media products and is worth 10 marks of the overall 60 marks available.

It should explain:
  • the ways in which you will apply knowledge and understanding of media language and media representation to your products
  • how your products will target the intended audience
  • the industry context they are created for
  • how you will exploit the opportunities for digital convergence between the products
We also strongly recommend you look at our Statement of Intent questions to consider document too (you'll need to log in with your Greenford Google account to read this). 


For my coursework I will use the songs High Fashion by Addison Rae, When did you get so hot by Sabrina Carpenter and Mean Girls By Charli XCX. The band that I have created will consist of four female members and will be called 'Angels Only'. My tiktoks will feature a variety of locations such as a school setting to attract a young female audience that will still be in school who will see themselves represented. The all female band may reinforce stereotypes that pop music is mainly female music genre however usually female pop artists are over sexualised for the male gaze or are presented as passive however I intend to subvert these stereotypes. My TikTok's will have a target audience of young teenage girls who have mainstream interests. I will be able to target this audience well as my band makes pop music which is a very mainstream music genre and has a large fanbase of teenage girls, therefore my all female pop group will directly appeal to them. One of my TikTok's will showcase the individual personalities of my band members making them seem relatable to their audience and so that the audience can develop personal relationships with them. With my billboards I intent to target a much more broad audience that varies in age. I will do this by invoking a sense of nostalgia in older audiences by using different visual iconographies that signal what time period the bands represent. This may also attract younger more niche audiences who have an interest in the past and will offer them the audience pleasure of surveillance. Furthermore the bands will be wearing costumes and makeup that help signify what time period they are from. 
All three of my TikTok's will be fast-paced and have very quick cuts between shots in order to fit the conventions of a normal TikTok video. One of them will reference the movie mean girls which also has a mainly young female audience, this intertextuality offers the audience the chance to link the bands music with an extremely popular film which will increase the bands popularity. The TikTok's also promote the bands upcoming tour and urges the audience to buy tickets to their shows on websites like Ticketmaster and to presave their new album on Spotify, this shows how multiple apps are converging and can be used together. Additionally, it shows the technological convergence in how you can do so many different things on one device. My band will be represented by universal music group who represent all of the top mainstream pop artists such as Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. This gives my band a huge audience and global reach. The documentary my band is featured in would be a Netflix original giving it a huge budget and a global audience.

This is just your first draft of the statement so try and keep it under 500 words if you can. That will leave a bit of room to add later when you do your next draft.

4) Ignite presentation

Prepare a 5-minute, 20-slide presentation using the Ignite format in which you present your coursework project. In effect, this is your statement of intent in presentation format. You must cover:
Ignite presentations have very specific rules: you must create exactly 20 slides with each slide set to 15-second auto-advance. This means your presentation will be exactly five minutes followed by questions and comments from the class. You will deliver your presentation on your coursework planning in the first week back in September.

Your Ignite presentation will be marked out of 30 on the following criteria (each worth a possible 5 marks):

1) Research (through the presentation AND your blog - make sure it is posted before you present) 
2) Coursework concept
3) Language: terminology and theory
4) Representations / social and cultural contexts
5) Audience and Industry / digital convergence
6) Presentation delivery





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