Course Title: Graduate Diploma Assigned Projects

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Graduate Diploma Assigned Projects

Credit Points: 48

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
COSC1002	City Campus	Postgraduate	345H Media and Communication	Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2006, Sem 1 2007

Course Coordinator: David Atkinson

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 9024

Course Coordinator Email:david.atkinson@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: 9.3.11

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

You must have completed an undergraduate degree and/or have equivalent industry experience of relevance to this course. You must have a strong and demonstrable ability to develop original and engaging ideas as well as a desire to develop directorial and production skills in time-based media. A mature curiosity about what animation and/or interactivity can bring to a concept or communication problem is essential.

Course Description

The considered orchestration of image, movement, sound, time and interaction creates a powerful means to convey ideas. This course aims to give you an understanding of how to harness these elements within narrative, interactive and experimental structures in ways appropriate to time-based media. The rich and intensive experiences provided by this course will lead you to the discovery of the discipline of Animation and Interactive Media.

The course provides you with the opportunity to explore a wide range of animation techniques, interactive design principles and production methods within an industry compatible studio setting configured to support creative endeavour.  A series of practical production exercises will help you build and consolidate the craft skills necessary to realise animated or interactive productions while you learn how to develop and refine original concepts so they can be communicated to an audience in the most effective and engaging manner possible.  You will also gain a thorough working knowledge of the various pre-production, production and post-production processes that are required to bring time-based media projects to a successful conclusion.

This course will give you the wherewithal to apply the knowledge gained to the Major Project requirement of the following course: Graduate Diploma Portfolio, COSC1003.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course will assist you to:

• heighten your ability as a conceptual thinker and originator of content suitable for audio/visual time-based media, in particular, animation and interactive media
• develop an appreciation of the possibilities of story telling, communication and artistic expression using the art of animation and of the potential to interact with content
• gain insights into the time-management of production within various mediums
• develop critical abilities relevant to the analysis of time-based media
• develop a theoretical, historical and cultural reference to the discipline
• develop team-work skills appropriate to an industry that relies on collaboration

At the conclusion of this course you will be able to:

• communicate ideas in ways appropriate to the medium both at the pre-production stage and in the final published work
• present concepts for time-based projects in a professional manner
• acquire a refined set of foundation skills relevant to the production of creative content for animation and interactive media projects
• be knowlegable about production methods used in animation and interactive media
• animation and interactive media
• draw upon your practical experience of working in a team
• plan and organise a production from concept to screen

Overview of Learning Activities

The discovery of the discipline occurs through a range of staged learning experiences designed to build your confidence in creating content for the medium.  Conceptual and cinematic storytelling skills are developed through script writing classes; a series of production exercises helps build foundation craft skills in animation and interactivity; an industry guest speaker program brings professional expertise into the studio; a collaborative project will give you insights into the responsibilities and obligations of working as part of a team; and towards the end of this course, you will apply your theoretical and practical knowledge to a minor project that requires the intelligent management of complex technical and artistic processes.

As a postgraduate student, you are expected to be highly engaging in your own learning. Your active and constructive participation in group discussions and project work is expected so as to contribute to building a community of creative practitioners. You should actively seek informed criticism of your work in order to develop your personal working methods into a mature professional practice. You should take pride in your own work and be curious and actively interested in the work of others. The timely completion of the assigned assessment tasks will help you keep abreast of the rich and diverse experiences offered by this course.

Overview of Learning Resources

Learning occurs primarily in a studio environment featuring specialised time-based production facilities similar to those found in industry. Extensive course materials are available either online or as hardcopy including lecture notes, assignment and project briefs and a detailed study program for the semester.  These notes give clear information as to the aims and objectives of each learning task. The program has an extensive archive of past student work spanning 20 years that is a rich source of reference material. RMIT’s Library, including its audio/visual collection, should be freely used. The Internet is also an invaluable tool, particularly for the most current information on the use of software.  An additional learning resource can be found in the knowledge and expertise of your class peers.

Overview of Assessment

This course provides a progressive evaluation of your work via formal written feedback and informal peer review.  Assessment is made by reviewing outcomes (rather than examining the process of making), in terms of your capacity to think about the challenges of each task, your conceptual ability, the level of craft you achieve, and how creatively you respond to various assignments. Assignments tasks are given in scriptwriting, animation, interactive media, realtime media, collaborative project work, digital image compositing and a self-directed project.