module specification

This module is studied alongside its companion module Project Development Workbook, towards the Major Studio Project.

MD6002 Major Studio Project permits honours-level students the opportunity to conceive, plan and produce a major, summative piece of work that brings together learning and serves as a graduation piece and the heart of their graduate portfolio. Utilising the capacity of this and MD6001, the project will be a high standard yet also leave room for experimentation, enhancing skills, and for the student to define and make their mark.

At this level, the student is expected to originate his or her own project proposal, plan of works and brief, towards realisation of a major studio project, developed from a project proposal originated in the companion module MD6001 Project Development Workbook. The major project will be a labour of love yet the student will also be aware of the market for their work and other cultural contexts.
 

The module aims are to:
1. Allow students the opportunity to originate, plan and produce an extended piece of work to a professional standard, as a summation of honours-level study.
2. Provide students the opportunity and capacity to integrate intellectual and practical skills, learning from experimentation and through practised understanding.
3. Demonstrate the ability to work independently, integrating relevant academic and professional contexts, realised in appropriate form.
4. Make critically informed work that shows knowledge of audience, vocational fields and relevant canon.
 

The syllabus will depend on the student’s field of study and specific project, in consultation with the project supervisor.

• Students will identify and develop a major studio project under supervisory guidance, enabling them to develop greater expertise and practical experience in a particular area of research practice.
• Approved topics will have a substantial design and problem-solving content, with an emphasis on the use of clear analytical techniques, appropriate creative and experimental approaches, good design methodology and thorough critical evaluation.
• Projects must present a clear theoretical framework and critical context for the practical pro-duction work.
• Projects will be supervised by means of regular meetings with an assigned project tutor.
• Tutees are expected to respond to guidance given on work-in-progress.

Students work independently with guidance from the module teaching team. The coursework assignment is designed to enhance learning by offering a process model with clear and specified phases.

Phases might include, project proposal, project brief, pre-production, experimentation and testing, development, solution and evaluation.

The module is delivered though a series of seminars, subject supervision and individual tutorials.  At each stage of the project the student is expected to establish agreed aims and objectives, to manage their own time, be aware of the resource and other costs necessary to complete the project and be aware of ethical issues that may arise. These reviews will be used to monitor the scope and ambition of the project.

Progress will be reviewed in a mid-project presentation: evaluating (i) practical work necessary to complete the aims of the project, (ii) appropriateness of approaches and materials used, (iii) evidence of coherent rationale and critique of the production, including analysis of problems encountered and solutions implemented. 

Students have regular progress meetings with their tutors where they are offered guidance and feedback on the development of their work.

The two project modules at each level are part of an integrated approach to learning and can be seen as a pair. In this module the main assessment item is the major project. In the other module (Media Skills for Major Studio Project), taken at the same time, the main assessment item is the workbook. Thus, the two honours-level modules (MD6001 and MD6002) support and inform each other: process and product.

On completion of this module, students should be able to demonstrate:
Extended, professional-standard skills in working independently. For example, by successfully realising a brief and completing a planned schedule of works.
The ability to conduct and learn from experiments and so create effective models of practice.
Graduate-level skills and understanding of Animation or Film & Broadcast. For example, by synthesising learning to make work that is both original and excellent.
The ability to make work of a professional quality for a target audience, demonstrating intellectual and practical understanding.
The integrative (theory-in-practice) skills to make a piece of work that will serve as a calling card in the student’s chosen vocational field.

The strategy is to increase the power and effectiveness of assessment by simplifying and reducing the number of assessment items. Then, each assessment item is broken into stages so that regular forma-tive and developmental feedback can be given.
Another advantage of a portfolio approach to assessment is that tracking is clear and simple and so we can ensure that all learning outcomes are assessed.
Regular formative assessment will be used to provide diagnostic feedback and to support students to learn, change and improve.
The assessment in honours-level modules will be coordinated and integrated, so that learning outcomes for each module are assessed separately and, also, learning from one module is transferred to other modules.
The assessment load complies with the Faculty’s assessment tariff.
Assessment will be based on 100% summative coursework.
 

The projects undertaken being varied in nature, no one bibliography can be assembled for this module; supervising tutors will recommend books, journals and other sources as appropriate.