Motion Picture Production

MP-481: Guidelines for the Senior Practicum ("Senior Project") - page 2

What follows are the details needed to sign up, carry out, and complete the Senior Practicum.

  1. Students may sign up for MP-481 when it is financially convenient, as long as they have:
    • already taken MP-381, -382, and -383,
    • completed 8 history/theory classes (excluding MP-131), and
    • completed 125 credit hours.
  2. Students are not allowed to sign out equipment for their senior film or begin their MP-481 project until they accomplish the following:
    • receive a final grade in MP-381, -382, -383,
    • turn in a Senior Practicum proposal, after consultation with their chosen faculty advisor.
  3. The SENIOR PRACTICUM PROPOSAL, which must be typed and totally professional in its presentation, must include the following, as appropriate:
    • Name of student asking for credit
    • Option being applied for
    • Faculty advisor
    • Description of Senior Project
    • Name of Junior Project, your role on the project, and its current status
    • If your senior project is a second thesis project, you should also include:
      1. Name of the project
      2. 250 word treatment
      3. Name of project
      4. Estimated total budget and budget breakdown
      5. Shooting schedule, including number of days and tentative dates
      6. Equipment to be used during shooting
      7. Estimated finish date for entire project
      8. Tentative listing of key positions if you are working with other students
  4. No project completed by students can retroactively be designated as a senior practicum, without faculty approval, at its discretion. Approval will not be routinely given. Only in exceptional circumstances will faculty make this exception.
  5. When students have completed the work needed to fulfill the agreed-upon Senior Practicum experience, they must go to their assigned advisor to receive a final grade.
  6. Characteristically, the senior practicum will involve work on an original effort directed by a student. Exceptions to this are possible with faculty approval. And while the Motion Pictures Area makes no length restrictions, very short and easily manageable projects can be as viable as longer projects.
  7. In the case of students making their own creative works, the area expects Senior Practicum projects to reach completion, however, if the student has taken his or her junior project to completion, the advisor can consider assigning a grade if the student is picture-locked and fully prepared to mix, with tracks broken down and prepped. In these cases, assigning a grade can help the financially strapped student who is temporarily unable to take the project to completion, but needs to graduate to take employment.
  8. If any project requires collaboration or dependency upon other students, particularly students also expecting some course credit, the applicant must execute a contract of collaboration with each student, spelling out the division of responsibilities and financial arrangements associated with the project. All collaborators must sign every contract.
  9. Finally, here is a list of suggestions and information for students considering certain of the available options:
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Last updated June 12, 2007