Abstract:

The increasing digital transformation of the economy is accelerating the transformation of the work place. Due to a high level of innovation dynamics, intense international competition and new value creation models, the demands with respect to current and future employees are becoming more challenging and complex. The digitalization has also changed media and especially film production fundamentally. Access to production and distribution facilities has been democratized. Accordingly, the availability of audiovisual content has multiplied. Today the bottleneck of media consumption is the capacity of human attention. The competition is centered around the question how to catch the recipient’s awareness. The quality of media content will be crucial in winning this competition – paradoxically by being equipped with lesser time and resources. A quick digital production is a “must” nowadays. But the much-needed collaborative competences are not imparted to full extent by traditional media or film schools.

By competence the OECD means the “bundle of knowledge, attributes and capacities that enables an individual to successfully and consistently perform an activity or task, whether broadly or narrowly conceived, and can be built upon and extended through learning” [1, p.7]. In 2030, competencies such as problem-solving, socially interactive activities, self-employment and teamwork, and ICT skills will be of supreme importance for managers and academic professions. Following this, our paper shows how the new blended learning module “Audiovisual film production” for bachelor students in "media management" has been developed, carried out, and evaluated at the bbw University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and the DIPLOMA University of Applied Sciences in Northern Hesse between winter and summer semester 2019/20.

The new module enables media production students to develop basic methodological, functional and social competences in a blended film production scheme. The focus of this collaborative production seminar is to strengthen creative audiovisual skills through the application of digital media. The students develop a short film – e.g. a journalistic piece of reportage or an image film – by using a digital platform, meet for the shooting, and then again do the postproduction work by using a virtual platform that allows to adapt editing software. The media production is optimized by making the process more flexible when it comes to the place and time of work. Moreover, using digital communication in the process of developing and finishing a film comes closer to professional film production standards than putting audiovisual content on a class screen. Thus, the blended learning module “Audiovisual film production” prepares the media student for professional practice and the competency demands of the future.

The distinct learning impact and the positive feedback from students prove the importance of this multi-method teaching approach to foster creative as methodological and social competencies for the digital transformation. This paper will be of specific use to academic teachers that are looking for new impulses and evidence for the development of new modules within the field of media and film creation, digitalization, and comprehensive competency development.

References:
[1] OECD, Towards an OECD Skills Strategy, OECD Publishing, 2011.

Keywords:

Media Creation, Film Production, Higher and Further Education, Blended Learning.