School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Screen Practice: Documentary
  • Unit Code

    SPR2650
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    30
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Catherine GOUGH-BRADY

Description

Screen works provide a dynamic way to bring attention to critical issues and events, with the aim to effect real change. This unit will explore how non-fiction screen works transmit meaning and emotion, and the technical and creative processes involved in capturing real-life events and subjects ethically and engagingly. By mastering the craft of documentary, from research and planning to capturing emotive footage and audio, including how to shape footage into compelling narratives, students will gain the skills and knowledge necessary to create powerful and impactful stories that can expose current practices, elicit change and engage audiences.

Prerequisite Rule

The student must complete 120 credit points in their current course of study before attempting this unit.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded SCR3160

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Implement documentary writing, research and production skills in preparing creative works/documentaries that adhere to industry standards.
  2. Apply appropriate ethical standards of practice in working with diverse communities.
  3. Distinguish the unique characteristics and potential of documentary storytelling to elicit change and engage audiences within the contemporary media context.
  4. Perform professional roles in documentary production.
  5. Collaborate on documentary projects that deliver a global outlook with respect for cultural diversity.

Unit Content

  1. Understanding and engaging with the documentary character and narrative forms.
  2. Pitching and developing documentary projects.
  3. Protocols and ethics of working with participants.
  4. The audio aspects of documentary works.
  5. Documentary styles and applications.
  6. Documentary production and post-production techniques.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 2Not Offered13 x 4 hour workshopNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
AssignmentTreatment for nonfiction screen work20%
ExerciseEngaging character test (1-2 mins) 20%
ExerciseShort audio documentary (4-6 mins)30%
Creative WorkNonfiction screen work (8-12mins). Collaborative work.30%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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