57233 Creativity and Media Production

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

Description

This subject provides students with opportunities to interrogate models for low, micro and no-budget media production in the context of industry, career and creative sustainability. Working in collaborative groups, students devise solutions to a series of creative challenges. Students gain hands-on experience with innovative approaches to micro-budget production with a focus on screen industry models, independent, experimental and artist-based traditions and microforms. Students develop projects from a range of media outcomes including linear moving image, audio, interactive, multiplatform, location-based and mobile media. Through a combination of practice-oriented learning and critical analysis of diverse models of micro-budget production they develop and evaluate their own models for micro-budget production considering social, artistic, economic, cultural and environmental viability.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject engages with the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs), which are tailored to the Graduate Attributes set for all graduates of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences:

• Remain current in media industry practice (1.1)
• Maintain collaborative media networks (1.3)
• Engage ethically with complex problems to deliver future-focused and sustainable solutions (2.1)
• Analyse, develop or produce creative media projects for a range of platforms and experiences (2.3)
• Demonstrate high-level abilities and self-awareness as an oral, written and visual communicator (6.2)

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject is structured to encourage students to learn through hands-on learning, experimentation and collaboration. The subject uses a studio model for media production activity where theory, practice, collaboration and reflection are integrated. Both making media and speaking to one’s own and other's media work will be a focus of the studio. To these ends, students will receive feedback at all key stages including early in the session.

Face-to-face seminars include short presentations and case studies to introduce creative techniques in media production; and examine issues connected with low & micro-budget production. Students work through a series of small contained creative exercises to develop their skills and experience in micro-budget techniques. Face to face classes are complemented by independent student reading, out of class production activities and participation in online discussion and forums that help build understanding in micro-budget production in the context of industry, career and creative sustainability.

Students develop the ability to evaluate their own and others’ production work through a reflective practice approach to learning, whereby ongoing individual and group production work will be integrated with and informed by theory, discussion and reflection on one’s own and other's creative processes. Throughout the process, the work produced will be viewed with the intention that the students reflect on and articulate their learning.

Content (topics)

The subject covers a range of ideas, histories, theories and creative media production techniques employed for micro-budget and sustainable media productions. These cover a diversity of media forms: photography, moving image, sound (location & post production), analogue and digital animation, written text and combinations thereof. Ideas and techniques range from those developed in the early twentieth century by dada and avant-grade artists through to ones used by contemporary glitch artists and others working on online networked projects. Techniques range from scratch film and hand-drawn animation (off-line analogue); through to glitch aesthetics and scratch creative coding exercises.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Studio 1 - Micro-Budget Creative Challenges

Assessment task 2: Studio 2 - Collaborative Micro-Budget Project Part A and Part B

Minimum requirements

Attendance at classes is essential in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach which involves workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor. An attendance roll will be taken at each class. Where possible, students should advise the tutor in a timely manner if they are unable to attend. Students must attend a minimum of 9 of 11 seminars and/or tutorials/workshops, or a minimum equivalent of 80% of their contact hours (see additional information for additional details). Students who fail to meet this attendance requirement will, in the case of an individual final assessment task, be refused the marking of their final assessment; or, in the case of a group/team final assessment task, be penalised 20% of their earned overall mark for the subject.

Required texts

There are no required texts for this subject. Recommended readings will be available via UTS Library and the online subject site .

References

Polish, Mark, Polish, Michael, Sheldon, J., 2005. The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking: An Insider’s Guide To Making Movies Outside of Hollywood. Mariner Books, Orlando.

Boon, W. 2014, Defining Creativity. BIS Publishers, Amsterdam.

Bresson, R. (1959). Pickpocket, Compagnie Cinématographique de France, France.

Bresson, R. 1997, Notes on Cinematography, Green Integer, Copenhagen.

Calvino, I. 1992, If on a winter’s night a traveller, Minerva, London.

Calvino, I. 1978, Invisible Cities, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, NY.

Carey, P. 2001, True History of the Kelly Gang. Knopf, New York, NY.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1996, Creativity, Harper Collins Publishers, New York.

Grau, O. 2004, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Grenville, K. 1990, The writing book: A workbook for fiction writers. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Kaufman, L., Kaufman, K., Jahnke, A. 2003, Make Your Own Damn Movie!: Secrets of a Renegade Director, 1 edition. ed. St. Martins Press-3PL, New York.

Le Guin, U. 1998, Steering the craft, Eight Mountain Press, Oregon.

Perec, G. 1995, La disparition, (Translated by Gilbert Adair and published under the title "A Void,"), Harvill Press, London.

Murray, J.H., 1998, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Stokes, P. 2017, Creativity from Constraints: The psychology of breakthough, Springer Publishing, New York.

Shaw, J., Weibel, P., 2003, Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary After Film, illustrated edition. ed. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

von Trier, L. & Leth J. 2003, The Five Obstructions, Zentropa Real ApS, Denmark.

Waldeback, Z. & Batty, C. 2012, The Creative screenwriter: Exercises to expand your craft, Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.