BACHEL OF ARTS SCREEN PRODUCTION APPLICATION GUIDANCE NOTES AFTRS STUDENTS ARE CREATIVE, AUSTRALIAN STYTELLERS WHO INNOVATE AND TAKE RISKS. THEY COLLABATE WITH OTHERS AND DEVELOP THEIR SKILLS WHILE CONTRIBUTING TO THE AUSTRALIAN SCREEN INDUSTRIES. STRONG CANDIDATES COME FROM A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS AND DEMONSTRATE THESE ATTRIBUTES THROUGH THEIR PREVIOUS WK, STUDY, AND EXTRACURRICULAR ACHIEVEMENTS. APPLICATION CHECKLIST Use this checklist to ensure you have completed all the application tasks prior to submitting your application. Personal Statement o Your Story (500 words/1 minute) o Leadership and Teamwork (200 words/30 seconds) o Achievements and Activities (1-2 pages/1 minute) Letter of Recommendation (1 page) Review of a Creative Piece (300 words/1 minute) Creative Work (5 pages 10 minutes/6 images) Explanatory Statement of Creative Work (200 words) PERSONAL STATEMENT This can be submitted as a video or audio recording or through filling out the guidance form supplied. Technical requirements are listed at the end of this document. The personal statement has three parts: Your story. Leadership and teamwork response. Details of your achievements and activities. YOUR STY LENGTH: 500 WDS / 1 MINUTE Telling stories is about conveying and creating messages, thoughts, feelings and emotions. It doesn t matter if you have never made a film before; we can teach you how to do that. In 500 words, or a 1 minute audio or video recording, tell us your story: who you are; what you love to do; your goals, experiences, and values. We are AUSTRALIAN FILM, TELEVISION AND RADIO SCHOOL Building130, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park NSW 2021 PO Box 2286 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 Telephone +61 2 9805 6611 Facsimile +61 2 9805 6408 Email: studentinfo@aftrs.edu.au www.aftrs.edu.au
interested in how your background and experiences have shaped who you are and what you want to say as a creative screen storyteller. As examples, you could structure your piece in the following ways: i. Give a dramatic narration of your life up to the point of applying for the course, concentrating on some of the challenges you ve overcome. ii. Describe an event in your life and how it changed you or someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic, major or minor. Note that there is no standard format or correct answer. Your personal story can be aspirational: feel free to articulate what you would like to achieve, or what you would like to change in the world. WHAT WE RE LOOKING F: evidence of your potential as a creative storyteller; information about what inspires you to want to make films and why you re motivated to apply for the course; examples of the challenges you ve overcome to get to where you are; and/or, evidence of how your experiences so far have prepared you for study. Bear in mind that enthusiasm for watching films, descriptions of your favorite films and the involvement in the filmmaking process is common in many candidates. As a result, we encourage you to focus on your individuality. LEADERSHIP & TEAMWK ANECDOTE LENGTH: 200 WDS / 30 SECONDS Leadership and teamwork are necessary for creating successful screen productions. Tell us an engaging story about a time when you exercised leadership or actively took part in a collaboration. This could be about a time you worked on a local theatre production, developed a project with a friend, helped run a family business, or volunteered with a community group. Explain some of the challenges you faced, how you handled them, and how the project ultimately turned out. Also describe how you might handle a large project differently next time. WHAT WE RE LOOKING F: evidence of your potential as a creative storyteller; evidence that you can work productively with others evidence that you can reflect on past experiences and your role as a team member ACHIEVEMENTS & ACTIVITIES LENGTH: 1-2 PAGES / 1 MINUTE This is an opportunity to detail your after-school activities, volunteer work, employment, and other accomplishments to see how these experiences illustrate your organisational and leadership skills, as well as your commitment to helping others. BA Screen Production 2
You are not required to have significant achievements in all of these areas: just provide details relevant to you, demonstrating your commitment to the creative industries and capacity for further study. EMPLOYMENT Give details of any previous work experience, including dates of employment. EDUCATION Give details of your educational achievements, including school qualifications with details of any short courses you have completed. ACHIEVEMENTS List any other achievements, including any awards you have received. VOLUNTEERING & COMMUNITY ENGAGMENT Give details about any activities you are involved in, including any organisations with which you volunteer or communities of which you are a part. SKILLS & ABILITIES Is there any additional information that you think demonstrates your ability to meet the application criteria? For example: do you speak another language, have any interesting hobbies, use Final Cut Pro, or do first aid? LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION LENGTH: 1 PAGE Recommendations give selection panel members a sense of your unique capabilities, attributes, and accomplishments, and provide an opportunity for someone to advocate on your behalf. This letter can be written by anyone who can speak to your capacity for further study: it could be from a teacher or guidance counselor, group leader, or someone who has supervised you on a project. Your referee s name and contact details (email and phone number) should be clearly visible. This person should not be a member of your immediate family. Your letter should help you demonstrate: 1. The commitment required for a career in the creative industries. 2. A capacity for collaboration and teamwork. 3. Ability to communicate thoughts and feelings. 4. A capacity for study. Applicants are responsible for requesting letters of recommendation as well as confirming that they have been completed and are ready to upload to the application portal prior to the closing date. REVIEW OF A CREATIVE PIECE LENGTH: 300-500 WDS / 1 MINUTE Choose a film, play, book, television series, painting, music or other significant work of art that has strongly resonated with you in a positive or negative way. BA Screen Production 3
You could discuss the text s execution and its delivery of themes or messages, or you could analyse specific features of its production such as image, sound, editing, production design, scriptwriting, or storytelling, and effectiveness of that feature. WHAT WE RE LOOKING F: an ability to communicate your thoughts and feelings about stories, and curiosity and passion about culture and art. NB: This is a review, which is different to a critical essay. Please write or speak clearly, but you do not need to use academic language. We are more interested in your thoughts and feelings than your ability to prove or disprove an argument. Please read the technical requirements section at the end of this document for details on how to submit. CREATIVE WK Your creative work should show your ability to tell an engaging and imaginative story. All creative submissions should showcase your best work. You will not be judged on the technical proficiency of the work, but your creative storytelling. Work must not exceed the specified length limit, but you do not need to submit extra material if your best piece of creative work is shorter than specified in these guidelines. Please read the technical requirements section at the end of this document for details on how to submit. Submit ONE of the following portfolios of creative work: SCRIPT LENGTH: 5-6 PAGES This can be a complete short screenplay or play, or the first five pages of a longer play or screenplay. It must be original, not an adaptation, unless of your own work in another form. FILM LENGTH: 10 MINUTES This should be a completed film or video project that demonstrates your visual and narrative storytelling abilities as well as your ability to engage an audience. Your film should demonstrate your aptitude for visual storytelling and creativity rather than technical abilities. It can be live action, fiction, experimental, documentary or animation. You may submit more than one piece provided the total running time doesn t exceed 10 minutes. You must clearly specify what your role was in making each film you submit. BA Screen Production 4
SHT STY LENGTH: 4-5 PAGES We are interested in your ability to initiate and tell a story and are looking for creativity, an ability to engage an audience, and your understanding of character. The story can be told in any genre or voice. It should make sense and have a narrative resolution. PTFOLIO OF PHOTOS DRAWINGS LENGTH: 4-6 PIECES Submit a series of images that you have created which, when viewed in a specific sequence, portray clearly developed ideas and themes. They may be photographs or drawings in the form of a storyboard that tell a simple narrative story or portray an original character. The images may either be black-and-white or in color. Please ensure that the sequence of images is clearly communicated. OTHER There are a huge number of art forms not covered in this list. However, what we are looking for is an ability for creative storytelling. So, if you have created a comic book or graphic novel, they are fine. If you have designed an interactive piece, created a sculpture, composed a piece of music or designed some costumes, they are also fine as long as you can demonstrate how they tell a story. One way of doing this might be to submit a video, audio or written outline of how they help tell a story. EXPLANATY STATEMENT OF CREATIVE WK LENGTH: 200 WDS. UPLOADING YOUR DOCUMENTS AND MEDIA FILES You will be able to upload your media file/s as part of the application process. Please ensure you conform to the required file type and size specified as follows. Each document has a maximum of 10MB in size, and 50MB for media file. If you intend to submit a media file and you are ready to upload all application tasks to the application portal you will need to ensure that the finished media file conforms to the following: BA Screen Production 5
H264 codec; 720 x 576 dimensions; and, the data rate should not exceed 3.5 megabits/s. Please see below on how to Compress Video in Handbrake. COMPRESSING VIDEO IN HANDBRAKE Download and install the program Handbrake http://handbrake.fr and follow the steps below to convert your file to a compressed MP4. Select your video file by clicking Source. Set the destination of the converted video file in the Destination field. In the Output Settings make sure MP4 is set as the Format. Click on Picture Settings (the TV icon) in the top right hand corner. Set the width to 720 and ensure the keep aspect ratio box is checked. The program will auto set the height. In the Video tab set the Video Codec to H.264. Select Constant Quality in Video Quality. The RF setting will default to a value of 20. To compress the video and make a smaller file you need to make this number higher (you will need to experiment a bit see note below). Start by increasing it to 25. Press Start to begin the conversion/compression. N.B: Once the video has been converted/compressed, you will have to check how large the file is. If you need to compress it to a smaller file, start with the original file again (not the compressed one) and make the RF number a bit higher. Repeat until you have the correct size. Please contact the Student Centre on (02) 9805 6444 if you are having any problems uploading your media file. BA Screen Production 6