Course Title: Concept Development

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Concept Development

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code

Campus

Career

School

Learning Mode

Teaching Period(s)

COSC1014

City Campus

Undergraduate

345H Media and Communication

Face-to-Face

Sem 1 2006,
Sem 2 2006,
Sem 2 2007,
Sem 2 2008,
Sem 2 2009,
Sem 2 2010,
Sem 2 2011,
Sem 2 2012,
Sem 2 2013,
Sem 2 2014,
Sem 2 2015

COSC2365

RMIT University Vietnam

Undergraduate

345H Media and Communication

Face-to-Face

Viet2 2007,
Viet3 2007,
Viet1 2008,
Viet2 2008,
Viet3 2008,
Viet1 2009,
Viet2 2009,
Viet3 2009,
Viet1 2010,
Viet2 2010,
Viet3 2010,
Viet1 2011,
Viet2 2011,
Viet3 2011,
Viet1 2012,
Viet2 2012,
Viet3 2012,
Viet1 2013,
Viet2 2013,
Viet3 2013,
Viet1 2014,
Viet2 2014,
Viet3 2014,
Viet1 2015,
Viet2 2015,
Viet3 2015

COSC2559

Melbourne transfer to Vietnam

Undergraduate

345H Media and Communication

Face-to-Face

Sem 2 2013

Course Coordinator: Dr Adam Nash

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 2598

Course Coordinator Email: adam.nash@rmit.edu.au


Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

This course is an elective design specialisation course in the Bachelor of Design (Multimedia Systems). It is assumed that the core design courses of this program have been completed successfully.


Course Description

What is this course about?

This core course focuses on the generation and formulation of ideas and challenges students to reflectively consider the various ways and means these ideas can be shaped and presented to communicate effectively to an audience/user to produce engaging, informative and entertaining multimedia projects.

You will acquire a working knowledge of the devices, forms and elements that developers have at their disposal that can be creatively harnessed during the conceptual development phase of a production, and which can inform the design of content suitable for interactive media and time based media.

The course gives you an appreciation of the role that narrative storytelling, dramatic form, cinematic form, distinctive characters, memorable locations, etc., (and all that these entail), can play in the development of audio/visual media-based project concepts.

During this course you will also gain an appreciation of issues surrounding the design of navigational structures and devices for interactive content delivery, including information design, and the critical knowledge to enable you to evaluate these structures and propose innovative solutions (verbal and written) for content and presentation related problems.

To achieve its aims and emphasis on the importance of good ideas and how to communicate them well, the course will illustrate and extensively use industry-recognised pre-production tools such as: synopsis, script/screenplay, treatment, character description, screen layouts, interactive maps, flow charts, storyboards, animatics etc., to help workshop, trial and develop concept ideas.

The knowledge gained in this course will be applied to the development of an original concept.


Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

You will be exposed to methodologies of developing and presenting proposal material. You will learn, analyse and employ industry production methods in:

Storyboarding
Consultation & presentation techniques
Animatics
Interface design
Usability testing
Prototype development
Production processes & plans
User scenarios
Audience definitions & marketing
Product types
Synopsis writing
Character designs
Script writing
Stylistic & visual research
Visualisation
Alternative conceptual processes
Theoretical & new developments


Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

a. Develop advanced content through heightened conceptual processes suitable for
audio/visual time-based media, and interactive media.

b. Refine your critical and analytical capacity to evaluate content and structure in linear
narrative, interactive and networked publications.

c. Communicate ideas in ways appropriate to the medium / genre both at the pre-production stage and in the final published work through document, presentations, critique & discussion.

d. Develop forms of narrative  storytelling within interactive works and animation.

e. Evolve effective narrative ideas using graphic elements and/or characters and dialogue.

f. Appreciate the developer’s ‘craft’ involved in creating engaging multimedia.

g. Confidently present your work within group situations.

h. Understand the effects contemporary criticism and analysis of the medium have on their current and future practice.


Overview of Learning Activities

Throughout the course, the wide ranging possibilities for communication using audio/visual media are introduced to you by examination of exemplary published work in film, interactive multimedia, WWW, animation, and computer games, in order to generate critical analysis and discussion. In conjunction with this, media criticism and academic enquiry will be introduced as a valuable addition to the designer’s toolset in exploring the medium with a view to the future. This exposure broadens the your cultural and historical understanding of multimedia not only illustrating the importance of the designers role in developing strong engaging content but that is also relevant, mature, contemporary and thought provoking.

Through lecture-based delivery, workshop briefs and guided analysis of case studies, you will be exposed to methodologies of developing and presenting proposal material. Studios focussing on a specific theme may be used in conjunction with the seminars, workshops and lectures.

The concept proposal document and presentation of that document are seen as the central outcomes of this course.


Overview of Learning Resources

it is recommended that you have personal access to current (educational) versions of software used in the course:  Flash, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and After Effects. Students who use PC Windows operating system outside RMIT University, should have current versions of Quicktime and Adobe Acrobat reader installed on their personal computers (these are free downloads on the internet).

There is no prescribed text for this course. You will be expected to use the Internet extensively as a source of information to enable you to undertake your project.


Overview of Assessment

All assessment tasks will be provided in writing via briefs in the first week of semester with additional verbal reinforcement. Your assessment tasks will include a combination of seminar papers, a folio, proposal documents,  electronic proofs of concept, and an individual project.