Hello and welcome to the Reigate College Film & Media Department. To help familiarise you with the Department, please take a look at our Welcome Video.
My name is Lorenza Samuels and I’m the course leader for Digital Media Production. I am excited to meet you at the beginning of the academic year and helping you get started on our Digital Media Production BTEC course.
The growth in the creative media industries has opened up a wealth of job opportunities for creative, motivated young professionals. During the course we will give you lots of real world working examples and you will learn about a variety of media and film roles. Along with this, you will build skills to use at University and in the media industry, so I am pleased you have chosen to study this practical BTEC course.
To help introduce you to the course programme, I’m setting some activities for you to complete independently, over the coming months. These tasks will provide an introduction to the skills and approach required on our Level 3 BTEC course. I hope you enjoy the activities and look forward to sharing your work in September.
The tasks are organised in three distinct steps and should all be completed by Choices Day on 27 August 2025. This is to give you the best insight into what the courses will be like and/or help prepare you for them.
Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process. If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.
New Starters Course Tasks and Activities
| Release date | Suggested Completion Dates | |
| Explore your Subject | 1 June | 1 July |
| Get Going | 1 June | 1 August |
| Aim High | 1 June | 1 September |
During the BTEC Media course, we will analyse and create a wide range of media products – from short films to music video, podcasts to viral adverts. By starting to watch and listen to more media products, you will strengthen your knowledge in the subject and be able to see the techniques you learn about in lessons, are used in film, radio, online and television.
Before you create any of the media products in our lessons, you will learn to analyse and evaluate existing creative work. We will work with students, during the course, to help them recognise how the media producers have used various stylistic choices to create meaning for the audience. This video is a really helpful guide to explain how to analyse media products: https://youtu.be/ueSh66xktkk
This task will explore your understanding and build on your media analysis skills.
- Firstly, select two short films, preferably under 10 minutes to watch and study.
Good places to find short films online are Short of the Week or BBC iPlayer
Great examples include Post-It Love (Atkinson, 2009), The Black Hole (Samson, 2008) or The Fly (Williams, 2014).
- Analyse the narrative (plot and story) of the two films and write notes on your findings. Consider elements such as plot, timing, setting, characters and perspective.
Use the following questions to help you:
- What happened in the narrative?
- Was the narrative in chronological order or did it go back in time?
- What conflict or disruption happened to create comedy or drama?
- How was suspense developed?
- Where was it set?
- How did the setting effect the narrative?
- How main characters were involved?
- Through whose eyes does the story unfold?
Exploring your own short film narrative
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed analysing the two short film narratives.
For the next activity, it’s your turn to be imaginative and really let your creativity flow.
- Using your knowledge of short film narrative, generate ideas for a three minute short film based on the following opening:
“One night, two small people crept out of my wardrobe.”
You can write it in full as a short story or in note form as a mind map/doodle/set of notes.
- Think about: What happens next? Who are the two small people? How did they get there? Where are they from? Are you aware these people exist? Are they friendly, nasty or scared?
- Use the adventure story chart below to help you.
Please note:
- A short film works well as a three-act structure (beginning, middle and end), or like a joke (set-up and punchline).
- Keep the narrative simple with a small number of characters and locations.
The importance of capturing ideas
It’s really important to have an effective system for capturing your creative thoughts and narrative ideas, as you’re going to need them for the BTEC course. The best ideas can often spring to mind at the most unexpected moments and if you don’t record them, they can easily be forgotten. J R R Tolkien was marking exam papers when he came across a blank piece of paper in the middle of a student’s exam answer. Tolkien suddenly started to write: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
- In case an idea strikes you, have somewhere to quickly write down your ideas, such as a Notes App on your phone, or the retro notebook and pencil. Set up your own system that works for you.
Creating your own film screenplay
Hello future media makers, I hope you’ve enjoyed being creative so far! You should now have an idea for a short film, ready for the next stage of development – writing the screenplay/script.
1. For this next activity, turn your short film idea into a two or three page film screenplay.
In media, there are different ways and formats for writing a script depending on what industry you are in. The format I want you to use for this task is the one deployed in the film industry and highlighted in the example below. Film companies are quite specific about the format. The following website is a good source of information for script formats:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/screenplay.pdf
In the industry, there are different types of software that will format your script for you! This means you get to focus on your creativity and writing while not having to get bogged down with remembering what goes where and messing about with a word document. One industry standard software is celtx.com, which we like to use at Reigate. It is totally free and you just need an email address to sign up.
2. Extension Task
If you have time, research storyboarding techniques and create a storyboard showing the first three shots of your film. Here is a great video exploring the world of storyboards: https://youtu.be/RQsvhq28sOI
I’m really looking forward to meeting you in September and finding out about your creative ideas. Please bring your work to your first BTEC Digital Creative Media Production Lesson at Reigate College.
Course Leader – Creative Digital Media Production
