Tribal Productions

This is a blog and production space for comm2322 PP1 (production project 1)- a final year course in the professional strand of RMIT University’s Media Program.

PP1 allows students to bring together professional skills gained in second year in online and film/tv or radio, and further develop them in the context of an exciting ‘real-world’ cross-platform and social media project. The course also dovetails nicely into PP2 (production project 1) and is best understood alongside MI1 (media industries 1)

The skills student producers learn in PP1 will help them be at the cutting edge of new employment opportunities as media professionals in the rapidly changing industry environment.

In PP1, most (80%) of student’s time and attention (and assessment tasks) will be spent involved in a work Integrated Learning (WIL) Project – this is a combined work-based and academic learning activity in which students experience an authentic media production situation and grapple with real problems the industry is trying to find solutions to.

The remaining time (20%) in PP1 is devoted to a ‘narrow focus – deep view’ project – that is, the opportunity to learn some advanced production skills and thinking and planning ahead to production studios in PP2.

The PP1.10 WIL scenario

In PP1, it will be as if students are working as a (simulated) media production company called Tribal, with joint CEOs (aka PP1.10 tutors) Kyla Brettle, David Carlin and Jessica Noske-Turner.

Our PP1 (simulated) media production company, Tribal, via the RMIT Media Program, has a (real) contract with Australia’s national public broadcaster, the ABC, to develop, produce and deliver a (real) national multi-platform participatory media project called My Tribe.

Students have two jobs as Tribal producers – Job 1,  A Social Media Producer and Job 2, A Content Producer

THE MY TRIBE PROJECT BRIEF

My pack, my posse, my people, my network, my mob, my family – my tribe…  A year on from the death of philosopher and anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, whose seminal work explored the complexities of kinship, mythology and identity, we re-examine this notion of community and self.  In the flesh or via technology the kinship groups we belong to form across intersecting fault-lines in our lives – blood, place, interest, time, happenstance and more. Enmeshed with our sense of self, those we belong to and who belong to us construct, deconstruct, teach, reflect, know or perhaps don’t know us at all. Explored subjectively or objectively the theme of ‘my tribe’ taps into mythmaking and traditions of storytelling along with the rationality of survival and darker implications of drawing a line in the sand between ‘us’ and ‘them’ …

My Tribe is a public participatory media project presented by ABC Radio National’s 360documentaries and hosted by the ABC’s town square, pool.org.au. The project calls on the making public to explore the theme of ‘my tribe’ in a creative work that can be shared as audio, video, text, still image or in any other form via a web-link.

The best work uploaded to My Tribe will be showcased on a number of platforms:

• The strongest audio contributions will be selected for broadcast on ABC Radio National’s 360documentaries and the best sound producer will win the opportunity to make a radio documentary with the support of 360documentaries.
• Visual work will go in the running for presentation on the big screen at Federation Square in Melbourne.
• All contributions will be considered for inclusion in a ‘best of my tribe’ online multi-media exhibition that will go live on the ABC site in early November.

The aims of the my tribe project are to develop a sizable, vibrant, active and collaborative making community as well as some great content for the showcase opportunities.

What’s with the lab rats?

PP1 and the my tribe project has been developed with the assistance of the Future Makers/Future Markets; an RMIT Learning and Teaching Innovation Fund Project. The research project aims to enhance the student experience and examines learning and teaching in the public space via social media.

Banner image – crowd pic sourced from Mararie’s photostream@flickr