This optional module is designed to introduce you to the importance of creative relationships in film, television and the theatre where creative work often emerges from particular partnerships. The teaching will cover a number of notable partnership case-studies and the impact of that relationship on content and production methodology, for example: Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films, Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers of Shondaland and Sonia Friedman of Sonia Friedman Productions. The module aims to guide you towards defining and pursuing creative relative relationships on which they might subsequently build creative careers.
Module will run
Occurrence
Teaching period
A
Semester 2 2023-24
Module aims
This module aims to:
Explore the importance of creative relationships on the development and delivery of distinctive creative content
Identify a series of analytical or practical steps which combine to create the potential for a creative relationship
Encourage a critical engagement with the strengths and weakness of creative relationships as means of negotiating different creative and institutional business contexts.
Explore the creative workflows - notably the interchange between the "business" producer and the creative - that producing partnerships might follow to realise their objectives
Understand how different perspectives - business and creative - impact on the shaping and development of content
Module learning outcomes
At the end of this module you should be able to:
Analyse and apply good practice from the advanced analysis of case-study creative producing partnerships to your own potential business relationships.
Deploy an advanced understanding of how workflow moves between business-minded producers and creative talent in such a way as to initiate your own creative business strategies.
Apply advanced knowledge of creative producing issues to the projects and markets that are best suited to particular creative relationships.
Demonstrate an advanced capacity to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in creative business relationships and to adopt or modify relations in line with business objectives or market conditions.
Module content
This is a third year variant of an option whose core teaching is also offered, as options, in Y2. Third year students will be expected to bring more advanced knowledge to a longer assessment.
Assessment
Task
Length
% of module mark
Essay/coursework Essay : Analysis of a producing relationship
N/A
70
Essay/coursework Presentation : Case study presentation
N/A
30
Special assessment rules
None
Reassessment
None
Module feedback
You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.
Indicative reading
Barbara Townley Managing Creativity: Exploring the Paradox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Andrew Spicer, Anthony McKenna and Christopher Meir, Beyond the Bottom Line: The Producer in Film and Television Studies (London: Bloomsbury, 2016)
Ted Hope and Anthony Kaufman Hope for Film: A Producer's Journey Across the Revolutions of Indie Film and Global Streaming (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2020)
Nathan Townsend Working Title Films: A Creative and Commercial History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh: University Press, 2021)
Nicholas Hytner, Balancing Acts: Behind the Scenes at the National Theatre (London: Vintage, 2018)