Course Title: The Media Production Industry

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: The Media Production Industry

Credit Points: 12

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
COMM2099	City Campus	Postgraduate	335H Applied Communication	Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2006

Course Coordinator: Leo Berkeley

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 3104

Course Coordinator Email:leo.berkeley@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: Room 6.6.14

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None.

Course Description

This course is designed to enhance students’ ability to build careers in the media production industry.

Students will learn about the structure of the media industries, common career paths and industry employment practices.

They will also learn how to market themselves as freelancers and potential employees, through the production of a folio of careers material that showcases the production work they have previously completed in the program.

Industry research skills introduced in Media Contexts and applied in the Media Project strand will be further developed in a short individual industry research project.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

Students will:

-develop an understanding of legal, business, marketing and careers issues specific to the media production industry;

-gain a detailed understanding of one area of the industry they choose to research

-develop a broad understanding of existing and emerging career opportunities, locally and internationally;

-develop a thorough knowledge of industry structure, sectors and possible career paths.

Capabilities

By the end of this course, students should have knowledge and skill capabilities in the following areas:

Legal issues specific to the media production industry, locally and internationally including industry regulation, health & safety, intellectual property, contracts and defamation.

Business issues specific to the media production industry including running a small production company, working as a media production freelancer, taxation, business plans and models.

Marketing issues specific to the media production industry including markets – local and international, festivals, distribution and exhibition.

Career issues specific to the media production industry including freelancing, showreels, agents, mentoring, existing and emerging career opportunities locally and internationally, employment practices and career paths.

Industry structure for the following sectors:

Film
Television
Video
Radio
Web
Games

Overview of Learning Activities

Lectures will provide information about the media production industry. There will be a number of guest lectures given by experienced industry practitioners. Active discussion is encouraged in all lectures. There will also be a number of field trips organized, where students can visit media production facilities or view professional media production activities.

Students will be responsible for helping to select and organise guest lectures and field trips as a collaborative group project, so that this aspect of the course reflects the group’ s interests.

Workshops will provide students with the knowledge and skills required to produce career folio material, such as a paper CV, online resume or DVD show reel.

Students will be asked to undertake a short research project on an aspect of the media production industry of their choosing. They will be supervised by teaching staff in this process and be asked to present their work to class, both as a work in progress and as a completed project.

Project work will be a feature of the students’ experiences in this course. Students will be encouraged to apply the industry knowledge they develop in this course to the marketing and distribution of their completed projects in the Media Project and eMerging Media strands.

Overview of Learning Resources

Students will use their individual and course blogs, and the course wiki, which will exist throughout your Masters degree.

Master of Media Production website: http://media.rmit.edu.au/teaching/mmp/. An account on the student file server and web server is provided.

All students are required to regularly access their RMIT student email account.

Students should habitually bring their external disk drive to production classes.

Library media guide: http://www.lib.rmit.edu.au/pathfinders/media.html or contact the Subject Librarian, Mary Mavroudis (mary.mavroudis@rmit.edu.au).
School website: www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication
Media website: www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication/media
MMP marketing website: www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication/masters_media
Resources for current students: www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication/students
Enrolment guides: www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication/enrol

Overview of Assessment

Assessment undertaken in this course will be individual work on three tasks:

Producing a folio of material designed to assist students in developing their careers (items could include a paper CV, an online resume or DVD show reel);

A short research project on a specific area of the media production industry;

Maintaining a regular blog demonstrating course participation and critical reflection on course activities.