Students will investigate a media-based research topic through a creative practice project. Typical forms may include: short film, documentary, animation, photography, audio-visual installation.

The project is expected to be of a high standard, ideally suited for public exhibition.Students will present their work to both peers and Screen and Media Studies staff at a seminar at the end of semester to share their creative process (where possible).

This paper is designed to get students to develop creative practice projects as a means of researching media-based topics.
In so doing students will apply existing media studies knowledge and experience to a creative work, and further develop skills that will be useful for further media-related study and employment.

Students are initially asked to fill out a research proposal, which will be made available on Moodle that can be used as a basis for organising supervision.

From the proposal, students will be assigned a supervisor in the early stages of the paper, and will then meet with them regularly to discuss the progress of the project. It is likely that a research plan will be devised between the supervisor and students to structure the development of the project.

A typical structure for creative research projects is the following:

-Topic of interest (media-related)

-Choice of medium and research questions for investigating your topic

-Proposal/plan for practical research project

-Implementing the project

-Completion and evaluation

The project can be approached in a variety of forms, e.g. one large project (e.g. 10 minute short film) or a variety of shorter pieces of work (e.g. several 1 minute shorts).