Term 3 Schedule and interim deadlines

Term 3 Schedule:

• Ten reporting weeks — Unlike Term 2, due to the longer timeframe, you will want to be editing intermittently as you go along. You can submit tutors your drafts via dropbox or URL for us to feedback. (40 hours per week) 16th May — 22nd July
• Four editing weeks — (40 hours per week) 25th July — 21st August. You should aim, by the very first day of the editing month, to submit a draft project live on your URL. It should be at the best possible standard you can produce on your own. This way we can really polish during the final month and take it from good to amazing. Imagine if we now had a month to polish your Term 2 projects from hand in. If you hand in poor drafts at the beginning of edit month you are likely to go from poor to just ok. So please prepare well so we can make final projects shine!
• Final Submission Deadline — 19th (for dissertations) & 20th (for practical projects) August
• Assessments — The week starting 29th August (Possibly on Thursday or Friday depending on External Examiner).

*Please note, you need to follow all guidance carefully and hit any interim deadlines. You are expected to be working largely independently in Term 3. As you progress through the programme we expect you to exhibit an increasing capacity for self-determined independent study and thinking. The teaching and learning, especially in Term 3, is primarily based around the project model, which is the conventional vehicle in Art and Design for developing new ideas. We believe that this offers scope for an independent range of negotiated work, which is directly parallel with professional working practices.

Good time management is imperative, tutors will want to either Skype or face-to-face meet with you each and every two weeks, and you will need to take responsibility to submit early working drafts for teachers to review. Tutors will not be chasing you, however, please be aware that missed tutorials and interim deadlines will impact your grade.

It’s essential that you plan each week well, remember you have a weekly 40-hour time commitment and we expect nothing less in reporting and editing weeks.

As well as bi-weekly tutorials, tutors will also be on hand to look at work as you are going along via the dropbox system. We also suggest you start laying out your project on your live URL early on so your tutors have a clear idea of structure, of course you may change the layout and design — but it’s good to visualise work early and see it in progress on the page. You may want to password protect until it’s finished and ready for submission.

*Note there maybe minor schedule changes.

Reading week: 2nd May

• Tues 3rd. All students to have individual 20 min. Skype tutorials with Sharron. Tutorials will discuss your plans for your Term 3 project. Partnerships will need negotiating. If things worked well in term 2 from tutors and student perspective, you may re-partner. If not you may choose to do different stories or work individually on the same topic. Sharron to wechat schedule.
• For the rest of the week students should be considering how to reformulate their plans for Term 3, as well as Viewing MMJ stories for inspiration. Please view at least 5 productions from this year’s WPP multimedia contest. Post your favourite on the IMMJ student Facebook page and tell us what it is that inspired you.
• Fri 6th. On Friday 6th May please share your chosen WPP multimedia production on the IMMJ Facebook page and wechat group.

Intro Week: 9th May

• Monday 9th. Sean to introduce Term 3 and facilitate a critique of Term 2 projects. Note that the critiques will be student led, you will have needed to share and view all projects well before class.
• Monday 9th email Michael your final text draft in a word document.
• Rest of the week dedicated to any further research needed to help you shape the focus for your Term 3 project.
• On Wednesday 11th you will need to email your T3 story focus / nut-graph to Sean and Sharron. It needs to be around 250 words, clear, concise, and fact based. I strongly suggest you read the Pulitzer Center Projects for some inspiration on writing a clear story focus. Pick out a few topics that interest you and read the project descriptions on the left side of the page. If you don’t know where to start try these:

HIV in the Philippines: State of Emergency

Lifting the Veil on Polluters in China

India's Entrepreneurial Answer to Healthcare

School Lunches in Brazil: From Local Farms to Children's Plates

Week 1: 16th May

• Reporting / researching / updating project forms 40 hours
• Project Forms (Please use the new ones in the dropbox) should be started — most AdPrac sections should be complete by Friday. See the form for further details.
• By week 2, you’ll need to be in the field reporting and shooting. So, if you have shifted your story angle you should spend this first week doing critical contextual research, defining focus and creating access for your new story. If you are continuing with the same topic you may start reporting in the field this week, or you may choose to spend the week researching and working on creating access to new story elements and characters. You’ll need both online and offline background research and possibly interviews with people and organisations on the ‘front lines’ of your story to help you fully hone and define your focus. Remember the focus of your story may change in the field, you may have planned for one story and fond a different one, or realise that your assumptions were wrong. It’s fine to shift focus as you go along, but you should start off with a good idea of what you want to achieve.
• MINI-ASSIGNMENT!!! Listen to one of favourite podcasts below. Especially important is the point Jonah Kessel makes about following action — sometimes the lack of time we have to film and report means this is difficult. However with ten full weeks ahead of you — most of you you should all be able to capture engaging ‘live’ scenes where things are actually happening… think about your live scenes now!!! Please write them down potential ‘live scenes’ in the diary section of your project form and in the comments section on the corresponding Facebook post. The deadline is Monday 23rd May.

• See more at @jonahkessel / www.jonahkessel.com
• A Tibetan’s Journey for Justice nyti.ms/1HuQxd2 / Fear and Forced Marriages nyti.ms/1MGj686 / Jade’s Journey Marked with by Death and Drugs nyti.ms/1yyUyEV
• Mike Davis’ Three Commandments of Multimedia

Week 2: 23rd May

• Reporting 40 hours
• Thursday 26th: DJ workshop 10am–5pm: At the China Daily Office — covering Facebook video in detail as well as YouTube and Twitter. Will show how to do news wraps, short video news, first person stories, special interest shows and in-depth investigative stories.
• Fri: Sharron will want to speak with her 5 students via skype / wechat. Book your appointment times on wechat please.

Week 3: 30th May

• Reporting 40 hours
• All students to fill out the new outline from in the dropbox — briefly outlining all stories.
• Sharron will want to see updated Project forms from all her students — they should be in very good order by the end of week three.
• Week 3-Mini-assignment for all students: Read the article below:

Ghosts by the Water Line

Open up Michael Jordan’s notes on the Diamond Story structure and see how the elements in this text correspond to the diamond structure outline — the ‘curtain raiser’, ‘connect the dots’, ‘ the big picture’, ‘quotes’. Sure, it doesn’t follow the outline in the exact order — there is no single formula for writing after all, but you will find all the elements there. Also, observe the way Christina Larson uses and weaves facts, rich quotes, multiple sources, anecdotes for an engaging and informative read. Notice the way sources are attributed with hyperlinks. For you mini assignment (& competition) — please copy and paste the ‘nut graph’ of the story in the comments section by Monday 6th May. There will be a prize for the first correct winner :) Remember the nut graph is the short paragraph that tells the reader the crux of the story — it says, this is what this story is about and this is why you should care about and bother to read this story.

Week 4: 6th June

• Reporting 40 hours
• Wed: Sharron’s students to upload concrete assets via url or dropbox. Video clips, rough edits, transcribes of interview etc.
• Fri: Sharron will want to speak with her 5 students, and will want to see some concrete assets via url or dropbox. Video clips, rough edits, transcribes of interview etc.

Week 5: 13th June

• Reporting 40 hours
• Mini assignment week 5: Plotting out Your Video Story Narrative Structure. See: https://medium.com/@immj.2016/mini-assignment-week-5-video-story-narrative-structure-in-bullet-point-form-b60fcee06195#.q3cmj0a6v
• Project forms to David Campbell to get feedback on Theory Sections. (Research questions & Research Proposal) David should take around ten days to return feedback. You can check with him the feedback date when you mail him.

Week 6: 20th June

• Reporting 40 hours
• Mon 20th: Mini assignment from week 5 needs to be completed. A bullet point outline of the narrative arc of your main video.

• Mon 20th: All students need to upload some concrete assets via url: Assets such as rough or final cut videos / still pictures / text (rough draft or basic outline or key points) / graphic drafts etc. For the content you don’t yet have you can simply use placeholders, i.e. you can insert an old video to show us where a video will go or use tempoary pictures to show us where your images will be placed. This all needs to be embeded and uploaded to your website or webpage. Videos must be subtitled. The idea is for your tutor to get a good sense of your overall project and progress and to see some of the key individual media. You will not have all the assets you need to make your full page, however you can mock up a page using the assets that you have and placeholders for content that you aim to make. This will help us and you to start visualising the overall layout and design of your multimedia story. See this mock up page if you are unclear what I mean. https://sharron.atavist.com/loveandmarriage
• Fri 24: Sharron will speak with her 5 students

Week 7: 27th June

• Weds 29th. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DEADLINE. BOTH SEAN AND SHARRON WILL BE LOOKING AT EVERY STUDENTS WORK AND FEEDING BACK VIA EMAIL OR WE CHAT CALL. WE WILL VIEW WORKS ON MONDAY AND FEEDBACK ON THURSDAY 30TH. We’ll want a comprehensive understanding of where your project is at and the assets you have collected. From here, we can see if you are on track or if there are any major gaps.
• ALL STUDENTS TO HAVE:
• ASSETS UPLOADED ONTO THEIR URL WEBSITE OF WEBPAGE. (Refined rough cuts of videos and other visual or text elements. Clear placeholders where unfinished work will go.
• PROJECT FORMS SHOULD BE FULLY COMPLETE AND FRESHLY UPDATED.
• DIARY ELEMENT OF PROJECT FORMS SHOULD BE FULLY COMPLETE THUS FAR.
• QUICK FORM SHOULD BE FRESHLY UPDATED FACTORING IN ANY CHANGES IN THE FIELD.
• Reporting 40 hours

Week 8: 4th July

• Reporting 40 hours
• Fri: Sharron will want to speak with her 5 students, and will want to see progress on pointers given in week 7. Potentially upload some refined drafts and layouts on urls.

Week 9: 11th July

• Reporting 40 hours

Week 10: 18th July

• Reporting 40 hours

Edit Week 1: 25th July — Complete entire high quality draft. All students to be back in Beijing.

• Editing 40 hours. You should take one week purely focused on editing of all mediums, and getting everything online in a well designed multimedia feature story. This should be a very high quality, fully complete rough draft, similar or better than your Term 2 final project hand in quality. We can only give feedback on comprehensive drafts.
• 28 / 29 (Thursday & Friday) ALL STUDENTS REQUIRED IN CLASS EDITING TOGTHER WITH SHARRON
• 30th SHARRON WILL ALSO BE IN CLASS ON SATURDAY FOR ANY FINAL EDITING SUPPORT

Edit Week 2: 1st August —

• Monday 1st August. 9.50am — 5pm. Viewing live projects via presentations with Sharron, Sean and External Professionals in class to rigorously feedback on student projects. Please ensure you bring printed project forms to class with you. Please arrive at 9.50am to set up. ALL STUDENTS NEED TO BE PRESENT IN CLASS.
• Tuesday 2nd August Sharron and external professionals in class for extra informal feedback. ALL STUDENTS NEED TO BE PRESENT IN CLASS.
• Editing 40 hours. (Much of the editing weeks should be spent in classroom as tutors will be on hand and editing with other students means you can help and support each other).
• This week focus on final edits of all your key mediums, text, video images etc. If you haven’t worked on your graphic you should start this week.
• Send dissertation drafts to David Campbell

Edit Week 3: 8th August

• Editing 40 hours
• If you need to do any final interviews to tie things up, you could spend a day this week. However, you should largely be editing existing content.
• This week focus on how all your edited content is structured and flows well on the page, show people your work — peers, friends and family. Do they get bored or confused at points? If so fix tweak things as necessary.
• Makes sure all text, including subtitles is carefully spell check and proofread.
• The last date for consultation with David Campbell for your dissertation will be Friday 12 August — but, please, don’t leave it until the last day to seek advice!

Edit Week 4: 15th August

• Editing 40 hours. Full week ALL STUDENTS REQUIRED TO EDIT in classroom. Sharron will be in class on 18th / 19th / 20th to help polish edits and to assist students uploading work from the classroom.
• This week focus on final colour and audio correction for video, final fact checking, polishing your graphics. Making sure your work is sharable on social media. Ensuring that it looks perfect and well designed on the page. A final read-through of your text.
• Do not come to class on the 18th / 19th / 20th without thoroughly spellchecking and proofreading your work before hand. Tutors will not look at sloppy work.
• DEADLINE FOR DISSERTATIONS: The due date is Friday 19 August, 12 midnight Beijing time. NO LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED YOU WILL FAIL THE MODULE AND NEED TO RESUBMIT IN JANUARY 2017.
• DEADLINE FOR PRACTICAL PROJECTS: The due date is Saturday 20th August 12 midnight 12 midnight Beijing time. NO LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED YOU WILL FAIL THE MODULE AND NEED TO RESUBMIT IN JANUARY 2017.

Assessment Week 29th August

To be announced