FSFM7019 Research and Professional Context 2 Essay Brief | UCA

Assessment Requirments

• An essay of 2,000 words (+/-10%) not including the bibliography.
• You should submit a digital copy (Word or PDF) to Turnitin.
• This essay is part of the portfolio handed in for the unit.
• Your essay should include a minimum of three properly referenced quotations (or citations) from academic sources, a Harvard style bibliography and in-text citations and relevant illustrations if appropriate.
• Your bibliography does not count towards the word count.
  The essay should use conventional academic prose rather than notes and bullet-points.

Essay Brief

The Research and Professional Context 2 Written Report is an essay assessing the outcome of your project in terms of the creative outcomes of the project as a whole and from the point of view of your role within the group.

It should consist of four sections:

• A short introduction
• A critical appraisal of your film from the point of view of your creative role within the group
• A critical appraisal of your film from the point of view of your film as a whole
• A conclusion in which you try to derive learning from your inquiries

As with your first essay, this report should do more than just ‘describe’ your explorations; at the heart of this project is the need for you to demonstrate an ability to reflect upon, analyse and evaluate aspects of your work. This can be from a consideration of your creative approaches and practices, to a consideration of materials, production processes and aesthetic choices.

Your report should follow a conventional essay structure: an introduction in which you set out your ideas and line of inquiry; a main body divided into two sections in which you follow this line of inquiry to consider and evaluate the methodology, context and theoretical issues of your work and the resultant film; and a conclusion in which you summarise the ideas arising from your examination and try to draw a lesson from it.

The essay is also a research project, and you are required to find appropriate sources. These are expected to be written sources in the main but can include equivalent films by other filmmakers for comparison (see the section below).

Some Suggestions:

• In your critical appraisal of your film in terms of your creative role (section 2), you might examine aspects such as the theme and approach of your idea, the technique, your use of sound, your visual decisions, the pitch document, the animatic, the subtitle track, GIFs, schedule and shot list.
• In this section, you might examine some examples of other films and aim to use these to reflect on your creative, technological or production choices you took through the creation of your film. To find them, you can use links to examples of adverts and/or treatments in the Week 11 folder on the FSFM7019 unit page; you could alternatively find some examples of your own. It will be helpful to incorporate your given role within the production and use this as a starting point for your argument.
• In your critical appraisal of your film as a whole (section 3), perhaps examine your film as though you hadn’t made it, in order to evaluate it objectively.
• In your critical appraisal of your film as a whole (section 3), you may find it beneficial to compare it against an equivalent film by a professional filmmaker. To this end, you could choose one example from Jim’s list of films (also in the Week 11 folder on the FSFM7019 unit page) and consider the differences and similarities.

FSFM7019 Unit Learning Outcomes

• LO1: Compare and employ relevant animation techniques and workflows to produce original animation in the context of industry working practices.
• LO2: Interpret the key considerations and ideas of the client brief/collaboration through the creative and original use of animation.
• LO3: Create technically rigorous work through the application and understanding of industry practices, including independent research and/or group production roles and responsibilities