Assessing graduate screen production outputs in nineteen ...

9.4.12 Collaboration ContractsIt is suggested here that resolving the authorship of the production crew should bethe first formal undertaking before any production work begins. Special attentionshould be paid to the role of the academic and professional staff. Some staffmemberschoose not to contribute to student projects and should not be creditedwith any involvement in them. Other staff-members do contribute in various ways.Some staff do this as the Principle Investigator in a research project. All these rolesshould be formalised and inscribed in an initial “collaboration contract” as they havea bearing on the assessment process.9.4.13 CopyrightArranging a collaboration contract on a project that includes staff, student andprofessionals should not infringe any existing copyright laws, as this is essentiallythe same process as arranging multi-authored publication within the conventionalscholarship output.9.4.14 The Changing Format of the Written ComponentThe written component of the honours dissertation is likely to change as the formatof “writing” changes with the changing technology. Screen production should not beconfused with web-based writing about screen productions, DVDs, web sites or withdifferent way of exhibiting and distributing screen productions. There is a risk thattechnological developments will skew the screen production programs away fromscreen production and towards an interactive format of writing, including gaming andinstallations. These are excellent new developments in their own right but are alsodifferent mediums from screen production, even if they do require image and imagemaking. Perhaps films schools should insist on a festival type of presentation, in thefirst instance, as a way of safeguarding the integrity of the medium, no matter howthese screen productions are ultimately used.9.4.15 Assessment Of SequenceIt is possible to evaluate sequences and fragments of productions as was done forcompleted productions in this study. However one can not be entirely certain what isbeing assessed in any particular sequence and the criteria for such an assessmentmay well need to be changed from those imbedded in the SPAS.9.5 Summary9.5.1 Difficulties with Assessing Honours Screen ProductionsThe problems associated with the assessment of screen productions at honourslevel can be summarise as follows:1. Research is not sufficiently transparent.2. Implied contextual links is not sufficiently transparent.3. Social context is not sufficiently transparent.4. Musical scholarship is not sufficiently transparent.5. Body of work is not sufficiently transparent.Assessing graduate screen production outputs in nineteen Australian film schools136