John Hibbert, Media Subject Advisor

In this blog I look at the format and requirements of the assessment of Unit 2C of the Cambridge Technicals Level 2 in Digital Media, Principles of concept design and pre-production. I’ll offer some guidance on administering the exam and preparing students for each task.

Understanding the format of the assessment

Unit 2C is an externally set and marked assessment worth 50 marks. It’s designed to take around 10 hours in total. 

Pre-release material, including the client brief, is issued 10 weeks before the one week upload window, and a new brief is released every series. 

The pre-release can be found on Teach Cambridge, in the Assessment section under Pre-release materials. 

The assessment consists of: 

• Pre-release brief 
• Research phase 
• Assessment phase 
• Submission of all evidence via Surpass.

The research phase 

Students should be given around five hours to complete the research phase, which is carried out under informal supervision. 

Teachers may: 

• Explain the task. 
• Advise on approaches and resources. 

Teachers may not: 

• Correct, edit or comment on student work. 
• Allow students to write up any part of the proposal during this phase. 

The assessment phase 

This phase must follow JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations and requires invigilation. 

Key controls: 

• Write up must occur under direct supervision.
• Students may bring in notes created during the research phase.
• Multiple supervised sessions are allowed.
• Work must be saved securely between sessions.
• Students must not access the internet.
• Only files produced during assessment or research notes may be accessed.
• All pages must include the student name, centre number and page number.
• Teachers must not comment on or correct any work produced in the assessment phase.

You can find full guidance on the required controls for assessment in the unit specification.

Understanding the assessment requirements

For Unit 2C students have to research and plan a digital media product in response to the set brief. Students must interpret the client and audience requirements in the brief and apply their understanding of pre-production. 

The assessment is made up of three tasks: 

• creating a proposal 
• creating a production schedule
• producing appropriate pre-production documents.

Task 1 – the proposal 

For this task students have to create a proposal for one digital media product in response to the brief. The proposal should address each of the requirements listed in the question. For this task students need to: 

• Understand relevant primary and secondary research methods. 
• Develop their ability to research and review existing media products related to their own product. 
• Use relevant media terminology. 
• Justify budgets and resources. 
• Identify specific legal and ethical issues, including how they would comply with legislation which relates to their assets/production. 
• Identify regulatory bodies which apply to their production and explain why they are relevant. 
• Show understanding of relevant health and safety considerations. 
• They should be taught specific production health and safety issues which are relevant to their production, such as safe use of cameras and lighting equipment when on location. 

1(a): Client requirements, audience and research (LO1 and LO2) 

What successful candidates do: 

• Interpret the client brief accurately rather than repeating it. 
• Identify client requirements, assets and budget needs.
• Define a specific target audience using demographics. 
• Conduct relevant primary and secondary research.
• Explain how their research into existing media products has informed their decisions. 

Common issues:

• Students misinterpreting the requirements of the client brief. 
• Misinterpreting the task and writing about the scenario rather than the product.
• Proposals which repeat the brief content with little analysis. 
• Research which is basic or unrelated.
• Audience definitions which are vague (“all genders, all ages”).
• Budgets which have not been costed and have no justifications. 

1(b): Legal, ethical and regulatory requirements (LO4 and LO5) 

What successful candidates do:

• Identify legislation relating to assets (such as copyright, trademarks, IP). 
• Identify legislation relating to production (such as data protection, privacy, permissions).
• Consider ethical issues such as sensation or offensive content. 
• Reference relevant regulatory bodies (such as ASA for adverts) and explain their significance to the production. 

Common issues: 

• Responses limited to copyright.
• Lists of legislation with no application to the chosen product. 

1(c): Health and safety (LO6) 

What successful candidates do: 

• Identify appropriate health and safety issues and mitigations for pre-production (such as IT practices, location recces) and production (such as safe use of equipment) 

Common issues: 

• Discussing irrelevant scenarios instead of practical considerations related to their product. 
• Not distinguishing between pre-production and production. 

Task 2 – the production schedule (LO2) 

For this task students have to create a production schedule for their digital media product which meets the timescales specified in the client brief. The production schedule should address each of the points identified in the question. 

Students need to show evidence of planning for the production process. A well-constructed Gannt chart which covers all aspects of planning, production and post-production would help students to address this. This website has an example of Gannt chart for a film production. Students should be taught how to plan a schedule from beginning to end. 

What successful candidates do: 

• Create a detailed production schedule addressing all the requirements stated in the question. 

Common issues: 

• Submitting incomplete templates.
• Lack of specific detail. 
• Copying out the headings without adding any detail. 

Task 3 – pre-production documents (LO3) 

For task 3, students have to submit the relevant pre-production documents for the specific media product they are planning. For example, for a promo video this should include a detailed storyboard which is fully annotated, along with a moodboard, script and mindmap. 

The pre-production documents should contain enough detail for a third party to complete the project successfully. If the pre-production documents were given to another person, they should allow them to create the prototype identified in the proposal. 

What successful candidates do: 

• Submit relevant pre production documents based on their chosen media product. 
• For audio-visual products, include a detailed storyboard (with an appropriate number of frames) with annotations about camerawork, sound, lighting and transitions. 
• Provide a correctly formatted script for audiovisual or radio products. 
• Provide visualisation documents and flat plans for websites. 
• Make sure documents contain the required level of detail. 

Common issues: 

• Submitting only asset tables, mood boards or mind maps. 
• Incomplete templates.
• Minimal detail that would not support production.
• Not submitting any documents or submitting production documents as part of another question.

Preparing students for the assessment

Students need to develop their ability to interpret a client brief and create pre-production materials that are relevant to the brief and product they are planning.

A clear focus on the specific digital media product should underpin the research and planning and creation of pre-production documents. 

• Teach pre-production documents throughout the course. 
• Ensure students know how to interpret a client brief before they begin their research.
• Teach production schedules explicitly, including how to build Gantt charts. 
• Provide practice assignments mirroring the assessment structure. 
• Use the mark scheme’s indicative content as a checklist. This content is consistent across series.

Submission requirements

You need to upload evidence using Surpass. See our detailed document for guidance and step-by-step instructions on uploading evidence, including the file types that are permitted. 

Student responses to each task must be uploaded separately in Surpass. Make sure students use a separate file for each task, and upload documents to the correct task. 

Students should only submit their responses to the pre-release tasks. Nothing else needs to be uploaded.

Further support

• A delivery guide for Unit 2C is available on Teach Cambridge.
• The examiners’ report on the June 2025 series has feedback on student performance and guidance on approaching each of the tasks. 
• Templates for a range of pre-production documents are available in this zip folder on our website. 
• Chapter 2 of the textbook for the Level 3 Cambridge Technicals in Digital Media has guidance on pre-production which is relevant to the content of this assessment.

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About the author

John Hibbert has been Subject Advisor for Media and Film Studies since 2018. Before joining Cambridge OCR John taught a range of media and film studies qualifications in secondary schools and was a head of department for eight years. Predictably, in his spare time he is a keen filmgoer, and in addition enjoys reading and miserable indie music.