FAQ

All films made to industry standard (meaning they have been produced in a way so they can be shown publically at a film festival, sold by a sales agent and distributed in the cinemas so the investors and filmmakers get paid) require a lot of paperwork. As a rule of thumb, a short film or documentary funded by public money or a broadcaster may get away with one shelf full of files (or its digital equivalent) including script drafts, funding applications, finance plans including sales estimates, contracts with all contributors, financiers and suppliers including drafts, shot lists, budgets, schedules and cashflows, insurances, contact and location lists, marketing material that needs to be generated during production etc. A feature would easily generate an office wall of files. Accordingly, there is much planning skill involved, including the conceptual work of imagining what you want to make happen and how you can make it happen, for everybody who works on any aspect of the film. The Learning Contract gives students an opportunity to develop the required skill set. Research Methods build on that, providing the means of acquiring information to support the planning process and an opportunity to try out ideas.

A Masters Degree has to provide you by definition with a range of transferrable skills about higher level information acquisition and processing that can be applied much later in a rapidly changing visual storytelling culture and in other fields. Such skills may in the first instance help you to write a funny short film script or raise production funding for a horror feature, but they can also be applied to solving problems and researching how to change the rear derailleur on your bike, travel into a remote and hostile mountain range, or build a cabin in the woods if that is what you later on decide to do.

Your minimum contact hours require ½ hour per month when studying part time. We understand that you may want more tutorial support during key decision making times, when designing questions for a survey or documentary, or when you hit a problem – which is part of every innovative film making journey, when there is a justification you can ask for more. At other times, during your shoot or writing up stage we understand you may need less support.

We suggest:

• Shock about postgraduate degree implications, if any
• Integrate personal & professional ambitions with course work
• Assignment expectations – Sure you know?
• Ongoing assignment guidelines
• Reading & viewing suggestions
• Work experience
• Masters Project – think from day 1
• Bring a printout / send of any material you wish to discuss to the tutorial:
  • Draft Abstract
  • Draft Table of Contents
  • Annotated Bibliography
• Learning issues/stress etc.
• Don’t know what to do…

We find students booking regular tutorials to discuss requirements and opportunities feel more confident about their work, and we strongly encourage making use of this type of guidance.

In the run up to deadlines we are often busy as lots of students run into last minute issues to deal with, so the more clear and detailed your questions are, the more we are able to help you. Mentors will not proof read your assignment. Particularly when English is a second language for you, we recommend you find friends or colleagues, particularly those who have done well in writing or at University to look over your work and learn from their recommendations.

The Negotiation Matrix below may help you:

* discuss with Advisors

The Presentation is about your plan for the Degree, with a focus on the Planning. Students can talk about their key Learning Agreement points for 10 minutes; it can be about what films/scripts etc you look at to explore your questions, ideas and project plans. How do you prepare for making your film, either in one module or over several modules, depending on the size of the project / how much time you think it needs?

The Learning Agreement describes a plan of students work, not its final results. It allows the student as well as their advisors to discuss the usefulness, coherence and feasibility of each stage. Students are required to understand the brief in the Module Handbook, to research resources including books, films and experts; and to structure the information according to the brief given, the audience and the time frame. The Learning Agreement assignment aims to improve your understanding of how to manage this information better.

A Project report, as suggested in the Learning Agreement, can be based on analyzing 2 – 3 case study films or screenplays for the first Planning Module, and reporting on those study outcomes. Reviews and books will help to come up with additional issues to explore, criteria to look at when analyzing films, questions to answer and choices to make whilst developing a project. As the University Learning Outcomes specify, above mentioning book and film titles you should tell us for which reasons you chose these titles, how they are relevant to the project you want to make (theme, style, audience etc), and how you want to build on their approaches.

Learning Agreements benefit a lot from detailed and specific information on everything related to your project. Answer questions such us:

• What exactly you want to find out about the subject of your study
• What do you need to learn in order to achieve your goal
• How you analyze your resources to ensure that you can develop your project
• Clarify what role your resources play when preparing yourself, and ultimately the films
• Why you picked those resources, examples, films etc. And not others: explain choices
• Identify problems of narrative, performance, film language, effective blocking, production etc and how other films, books and courses help you to improve your work. You should then include some  detail about the development and directing project you want to do, as any information needs to keep specific project aims in mind.
• Clarification how your working on the project helps you to meet the learning outcomes, how you enquire, analyse incoming information and your own work during your preparation, reflect on how you apply your knowledge about filmmaking, how you solve (which) problems, how you communicate the film you want to make through the script and how you want to reflect on your writing skills and future skills needs.

Include:

1. Rationale: What is the point of your project? Why should anybody work on it or invest in it? (Why now?)
2. Methodology (How should you do your project?)
3. Theoretical context (What is anybody else saying about your subject, genre or approach; your reading on subject, Raindance classes you have attended).

Assessment criteria are based on the Learning Outcomes in the Module Handbook.

Whilst this would be good to have, we recognise that this may not be possible in all circumstances. Students however should be able to describe a learning activity and refer to Learning Outcomes. Each module will on submission need to include a brief reflective report detailing what you learnt from the process in general and how you have and addressed the module Learning Outcomes in particular. We are aware that your projects might be making a film or writing a script, so as this will take up most of your time, we would expect that you would only include a brief report of a few pages.

According to University guidance, starting a Learning Agreement on the basis of an example is not adequate at postgraduate level. In addition, experience shows that working from an example has a limiting effect on student choices and that a first submission like this (just to get something ‘in’) leads to more revisions later.

Yes, they do. As always, +/- 10%. If it becomes too long, you can always include further detail (draft Abstract, Bibliography or Table of Contents) in an Appendix.

Of course, as you are learning about your specialized field we do indeed expect that your plans will change. As you talk to collaborators who give you a different and perhaps professional perspective, find other more relevant and exciting methodologies or stories to tell, or change your career aims on the basis of what you have learnt. This is a key advantage of not having to serve a pre-defined curriculum that you sign up to in the beginning, but you can adapt it to your emerging needs in a flexible way.

We do strongly recommend that you discuss your changes with both your advisors. Then you should write in the Introduction to your Reflective Report how and why your submission has changed from what you originally envisaged: What have you learnt about the industry, your audiences, technologies, roles and procedures that made you adapt your plans. How does the new plan respond to this?

This depends on the circumstances that lead to the delay. If you are unable to do your course work because you are ill, or because you have dependants you have to care for, then you should follow the University Extenuating Circumstances procedure, available on the website under University Documentation > Regulations. The document also explains that any failure of equipment, including computers and back-ups, don’t qualify as extenuating circumstances, as do holidays, forgetfulness or any other form of inadequate time management.

We understand that it may impact on submission dates if you are working on several Modules at the same time which is allowed under University guidelines. As long as can demonstrate that you are spending 37.5 hour per week full-time or 18.75 hours part-time working on the course, you can renegotiate by demonstrating how you are planning to catch up by preparing other Projects whilst waiting to proceed with another.

You should be aware that handing your submission in late will lead to delayed feedback and marking, as well as later progression to Postgraduate Certificate or Diploma stage. We suggest that when submitting you also make a plan how you want to ensure you get back on track to deliver course workin time for your schedule.

Only if the work has not yet been submitted for academic credits, for example in your undergraduate course. If you submit this we recommend that you include additional reflection on

• Why you wrote the script or made the film in the first place?
• In how far you now find it meets, or fails to meet your own expectations?
• How it compares with other work of the same genre, similar theme, setting or audience?
• Get feedback from class mates, potential actors, directors, producers; analyze the feedback – in how far does this audience ‘get’ what you try to do, and make useful comments?
• Review your notes from classes & books
• Look at finished films similar to the one you want to make and look at how the writing contributes to the ‘success’?
• Research a suitable director / production company /cast / marketing strategy for your future project based on their previous work