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Liam Wells

Profile

Liam Wells has been in the role of Course Leader: BA (Hons) Film and Moving Image Production at Norwich University College of the Arts (NUCA), since 2007 and has led this new award through curriculum design, successful internal/ external approval and to it’s first graduating cohort in 2010. 


He manages the student experience through out studio practice, contextual studies and professional practice elements of the course and believes a student-centered; reflective learning and teaching practice has been central to his role at NUCA. In February 2009, Liam completed a PCCert: Learning and Teaching in Art and Design at UAL and applied Action Research processes to explore student engagement in the group critique.
Through critical engagement with the student experience, Liam has developed a number of learning and teaching innovations in support of student learning within the Film and Moving Image Production department. An interest in the group critique as a flexible learning opportunity has often informed these enhancements. Some examples of enhancements to the student learning experience include; alignment of peer assessment of student work in group critique to learning outcomes, mixed year critiques, ‘silent’ critique and the Producers Panel critique which enabled students to receive formative feedback on their practice from industry representatives in the group critique environment. The Producers Panel critique was run as a pilot project with Year 2 students in 2009/ 10 and informs the basis for a project developed for the ADM Teaching Fellowship.


As a practice based researcher, Liam’s Video/ Sound Installation, Live Cinema and Sound Art have been exhibited internationally at; PRISM, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK (May 2010), Contemporary Art Ruhr, Germany (July 2010), City Gallery, Siauliai, Lithuania, (April 2008), Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden, (February 2008), AURORA Festival, Norwich, UK (October 2007 and November 2009) International Video Art Show of Alcoi, Valencia, Spain (June 2005) and Aldeburgh Festival, Suffolk, UK (June 2006).

Project

The ‘Producers Panel’: Enhancing Formative Feedback through Industry Engagement in Group Critique


Within the Film and Moving Image Production course at NUCA, staff and students value the group critique as a group-learning methodology. If the model/ format of group critique is balanced and appropriately timed and judged it can be the site of wide and varied learning opportunities, informing and enhancing the student experience. Whilst the group critique can inform a range of aspects of student learning, from theory/ practice articulations, negotiation and debating skills through to peer feedback, the value of the critique as an industry focused learning experience is often over-looked outside of critiques linked to ‘live’ projects. 


The “Producer’s Panel’ project aims to deliver innovative models of student engagement with industry contexts within the group learning environment of the critique, using the ‘story-pitch’, used widely in film/ video industries, to enhance students understanding of their film/ video practice is relation to the practices and concerns of a variety of moving image based industries. Producers and commissioning editors from film, TV & new media based industry will be selected to join a panel which will consider and feedback upon students initial project developments from professional perspectives including audience, economics and media format. 


The range of industry professionals joining the panel will be linked to the focus of the project, and as such will include practitioners (e.g. those in specific industry craft based roles – lighting, editing, script-writing), staff from film-festivals, galleries and screen agencies.

The Aims of the project are:

  • to explore the Producers Panel as a model of the group critique, as a forum for industry focused learning opportunities;
  • to enable students to develop and test ideas through verbal and visual presentation to an industry audience;
  • to engage students in the visual and textual delivery of their proposed studio practice in group critique through the development of industry specification ‘pitch’ documents;
  • to prepare and rehearse students for the industry practice of ‘story-pitching’ in a supportive work-related learning environment;
  • to encourage students to consider a wider view of external contexts for their studio practice; including audience profile, media/ format, industry, economic and ethical issues.


The Outcomes of the project are:

  • the enhancement of the student experience, curriculum and staff development through industry input;
  • the development in Higher Education of models of the group-critique that have currency in industry;
  • engagement in a group learning opportunity that reflects industry practice in a supportive learning environment;
  • engagement with potential external and industry audiences, formats, ethical and economic contexts for film and video;
  • an electronic story pitch document;
  • development of verbal and visual presentation skills that are both industry-specific and transferable.


The outcome of the project is a research report which will aim to define a set of guidelines for the inclusion of industry representatives in group critiques, for use within the course and for wider discussion and dissemination through the ADM-HEA Subject Centre website and journal.