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Introduction to Creative Producing: Making Change and Shifting Cultures

Module description

This interdisciplinary module will provide you with critical knowledge of the landscape of cultural production and the position that theatre, performance, live art, and other mediums occupy within social, political and economic contexts. You will learn what a creative producer does by analysing a range of case studies of projects located at the intersection of participatory practice, artistic work, political change, technology, and innovation. You will develop your personal creative agency by articulating your own artistic and social vision.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Within this module, you will also gain practical experience by collaborating effectively with your peers and learning how to conceptualise, explicate and pitch original and impactful projects. At the conclusion of the module, you will have a toolkit of skills and mindsets to generate innovative ideas and practically realise them. You will learn how to research and access resources, curate meaningful connections between artists and audiences, and identify advantageous development routes for projects and companies. As a creative producer, you will learn to be a versatile problem solver, being encouraged to see how the greatest difficulties can be seized for optimal growth.  

This module will result in a group presentation of a plan for a creative project in a selected medium (performance, film, campaign, exhibition, live art, etc.) and a reflective analysis examining learned experience.

Module Aims:

1. Foster critical understanding of established and emerging models of cultural production within social, political and economic contexts.
2. Understand the key phases and foster a critical understanding of the process of developing a production from idea to realisation.
3. Examine the relationship between the creative producer, the creative team, artists, and audiences.
4. Engender a peer-to peer learning and collaborative approach to group work, by identifying and understanding key practical aspects of collaboration in creative producing.
5. Learn skills in developing artistic vision, artistic judgement, business skills and acumen to become intentional creative thinkers, doers and makers.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand what being a creative producer means in consideration of cognitive aspects of creativity and how personality and individual differences might contribute.
• 2. Demonstrate critical understanding of the theories and the cultural landscape relevant to the creative producer’s professional practice; develop your own set of approaches and methodologies.
• 3. Demonstrate advanced knowledge and understanding of professional procedures and processes in the field of creative producing, including value chain from creation to distribution of a project.
• 4. Critically analyse case studies that exemplify creative producer’s work resulting in innovation, social impact or both, across a chosen cultural sector.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Problem-solve in complex environments by making independent judgements and creative decisions that enable innovation and stimulate enterprise
• 6. Document, analyse and appraise your own and others work with appropriate references to contextual and theoretical concepts.
• 7. Express and communicate creative ideas and images; initiate and sustain creative work.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Reflect on your own learning, identifying strategies for development exploring strengths and weaknesses
• 9. Welcome and engage with a divergent range of perspectives and skills to learn from one another and, where necessary, challenge and encourage one another in new directions.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover key topics around cultural industries, cultural production, assessment of current social issues, ways to develop a personal creative vision statement, and methodologies to realise creative ideas.

KEY TOPICS:

1. Contemporary performing arts and other creative industries
2. Forces that underlie cultural production
3. Performing Arts Value Chain
4. Creativity and innovation
5. Roles of participants in the cultural and creative industries
6. Personal artistic vision, creative agency and professional discernment
7. Interrogation of philosophy/ethics underpinning creative projects.
8. Consideration of creativity and arts as a pathway to equity, equality, diversity and inclusion
9. Partnerships and alliances

You will hone your project and time management skills required in the delivery of presentations and reports. In groups, you will develop your own project plan and brand identity that will communicate through a presentation how your innovative creative production might be realised for an appropriate audience. You will receive a detailed brief for the presentation and essay as a part of the module. 

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Reassessment exercises will carry the same weightings as the original assessments.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York, NY: Freeman.
• Beghetto RA (2021) How Times of Crisis Serve as a Catalyst for Creative Action: An Agentic Perspective. Front. Psychol. 11:600685. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.600685
• Beghetto, R. A., and Corazza, G. E. (2019). Dynamic Perspectives on Creativity: New Directions for Theory, Research, and Practice. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• De Wachter, E, M. (2017). Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration. Assemble, pp.183-189 London: Phaidon.
• Lorenzen, M., Sapsed, J., and Jones, C. (Eds). (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Malinin, L. (2019). How Radical Is Embodied Creativity? Implications of 4E Approaches for Creativity Research and Teaching. Frontiers in Psychology. Vol. 10.  
• Markova, D. (2015) Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with people who think differently. Random House
• McRobbie, A. (2014). Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
• Morton, T. (2018). Being Ecological. London: Pelican
• Mould, 0. (2018). Against Creativity. London: Verso.
• Neal, L. (2015). Playing for Time: making art as if the world mattered. The Practice, pp. 74-80, The Principles, pp. 81-92 and Four Practices, 2. Ruth Ben-Tovim, pp. 96-100 London: Oberon Books. 
• Whitaker, A. (2016). Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses. New York: Harper Collins.
• Sacramento, N. & Zeiske, C. (2010). ARTocracy. Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: A Curatorial Handbook in Collaborative Practice. Berlin: Jovis.
• Thomas, Gary (2015). How to Do Your Case Study. Sage.
• Walia, C., (2019). A Dynamic Definition of Creativity, Creativity Research Journal, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2019.1641787
• Wilkie, F. (2002) Kinds of Place at Bore Place: Site-Specific Performance and the Rules of Spatial Behaviour, New Theatre Quarterly, 71: 243-260.
• Yorke, J. (2013). Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. London: Penguin

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages

Key words search

creative producing, creativity, creative agency, cultural industries, innovation, civic engagement, artistic vision, art thinking, participatory practice, social change