Position of Multi-cam in the TV-Film-Video programme

In addition to the option of going on an exchange under the Erasmus programme in the first semester of the third year, the film programme at the Narafi Campus is offering four tracks within the PRACTICAL WORK 3 - Workshops & Assignments. Students may enrol in one track of their choice.

1. Fiction – elective track

2. Multi-cam – elective track

3. Non-fiction – elective track

4. Erasmus exchange

Several developments taking place over a time span of a few years have resulted in the momentum to roll out the 3Film Multi-cam elective track:

Since the INRACI film programme’s relocation to the RTBF premises in 2017, the TV studio on Jupiterlaan has been taken over by the Narafi Campus film programme. As the full costs for the studio would henceforth been borne by LUCA, the management has urged for optimising the use of the TV studio.

Feedback meetings with the professional field made it quite clear that the knowledge and skills of the new graduates who ended up in the sector were no longer in keeping with the requirements of the sector. According to the professional field, the relevant companies still needed to invest substantial sums in the training of their new employees. This has prompted the conclusion that our graduates were no longer ready for work immediately upon graduation. As a result, we have decided to adapt the curriculum.

Subsequently, during the summer of 2018, the outdated image and audio direction rooms were fully renovated.

Concurrently, during informal meetings, students enquired about elective tracks in order to be able to specialise.

Consultations during the academic year 2018-2019 revealed the need for expanding the audio training programme to include 1BA Film, whilst the teaching staff requested that the Multi-cam programme be expanded to include 1BA Film and 3BA Film, thus spreading the learning pathways over the three years.

The final KOPERA report (KOPERA is the method we use to monitor the quality of our programmes) lists a large number of suggestions to improve the programme and to introduce elective tracks. New trends must be sustainably and systematically embedded in the curriculum.

In addition, the curriculum reform launched by the Education Council encouraged the elaboration of elective tracks, research, cross-over and inter-disciplinary work.

Within the programme components of the domain-specific unit, room is provided for elective tracks in which students pursue a specialisation from their own practical perspective.

The organisation of the teaching-learning environment is aimed at student-centred study tracks. This enables students to take more responsibility and allows them more liberty in the choices they make in their study track (for the master’s programme, this was initiated in January 2018).

In the second semester of that same academic year, 2018-2019, all this resulted in a framework for the multi-cam track, in collaboration with and at the explicit request of the professional field.

Until then, the co-creation partnerships involved a number of technical service companies from the multi camera sector (Videohouse, NEP, Fly Away, dB Video, and Play), VRT broadcasting company, and Riedel intercom manufacturer. New partner companies are continually being prospected.

The collaboration involves a form of co-creation in which the track is substantiated by the professional field and the programme as partners and in close consultation. In multiple respects, this is a win-win situation for both the partners and the programme.

The multi-cam track is focusing intensively on the latest high-tech developments within the multi-cam professional field. In addition, it devotes ample attention to the acquisition of the 21st century competencies that are expected by the professional field.

On the one hand, the programme is providing several workshops and training courses of its own accord. These take place in its own TV studio and address such topics as network systems and streaming.

On the other hand, the partners are responsible for several programmes that are characteristic of the respective partner’s identity, focused on such topics as shading, set-up, and installation of multi-camera set-ups on site.

Furthermore, the programme includes broadcasting, in which the students – supervised by teachers and staff (head of technology department) – prepare and record an event.

This track, finally, offers room for accommodating several work placement hours.

Training courses

• Materials and workflow, technical service companies
• Putting up and dismantling broadcasting set-ups on site
• Fibre technology, applications and use
• Practical network applications within a multi-cam environment
• LSM operator, image mixer, camera operator, video assistant

Events (these are proposed to the students on condition of availability, planning, financial implications, copyrights, and feasibility; the students select one):

• MUSIC BROADCASTING: concerts by the Music programme at the LUCA Lemmens Campus and livestream concerts in collaboration with V.Z.W. Artists Unlimited;
• SPORTS BROADCASTING: live broadcasting of the Flemish Topsport Finals in Leuven and streaming on social media;
• TV SHOW: depending on the collaboration, we will record an existing TV format in a professional TV studio, for example, De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld [The Brightest Mind in the World], in collaboration with Videohouse and Woestijnvis;
• FICTION: several scenes from an existing fiction series will be recorded in a multi-cam environment, supervised by an experienced fiction director (collaboration with VRT)
  
• IBC Convention: the students visit the IBC Convention and come in contact with the latest high-tech developments.

Evaluation activities

In a permanent evaluation process, the supervising teachers assess the students with respect to attitude, technique, and creativity during the workshops, training sessions, and events/assignments. The first exam period comprises a personal evaluation session. The partners from the professional field are involved in the assessment of the final project. They score the students’ final projects.

Students

• The students experience the track as an added value;
• The programme is taught in a high-tech professional environment;
• In the broad-based programme, the track accommodates the specialisation option requested by students;
• It helps students find trainee posts with the partners;
• It enhances the opportunity for students to find a job with one of the partners;
• During their studies, students actively build up a professional network;
• Incoming Erasmus students are more easily accommodated in the elective tracks;
• Outgoing students have a well-defined framework from which to depart;

Teaching staff

• Teaching staff can exchange expertise and insights in the collaboration with colleagues from the professional field;
• Staff development and expansion of professional knowledge beyond teachers’ own experience;
• Keeping abreast of the latest technological developments;

The programme

• The programme is taught in a high-tech professional environment;
• The programme’s own infrastructure is cost-effective;
• The programme is able to introduce its students to the latest developments;
• Optimum use of the TV studio;
• Costs are shared;
• The track ties in with the university college’s policy direction;
• The tracks follow the attainment targets and the 21st century competencies to be acquired;
• The track results in the development of a reporting procedure;
• The programme can accommodate a higher number of transferring students;

The professional field

• The Multi-cam programme meets the requirements of the professional field and is open to rapid adaptation;
• The ties with the professional field are strengthened;
• Participating companies can scout out the proper profiles faster;
• Newcomers can set to work in the professional field more quickly; less need for investing in specific in-company training.

Other

• The unique nature of this track enhances the charisma of the university college.

Interdependence

Mutually acknowledging that the partner commands certain competencies that you lack. You need one another, you complement one another in order to achieve your common goal.

The programme lacks certain very recent technological expertise because developments in the professional field and in the technological domain advance at a rapid pace. The price tag is too steep, yet the programme is anxious to harness said expertise, not only by having students collaborate but also by having experts from the professional field transfer expertise to the students in an educationally effective manner.

• How can we create an adequate educational framework to allow experts from the professional field without any teaching experience to share their expertise nonetheless? What are viable models with which the professional field would be comfortable?

Commitment

• What is a good partnership format for the professional field to kick off the collaboration? Would it be better to start off without any form of agreement, on the basis of trust, and then to evolve to an effective agreement?
• How can we motivate partners to observe the agreements made? What constructions will work for them?
• How can we commit partners to a co-creation project, even if more recent commercial assignments could overrule the agreements made? How does a programme secure airtight commitment from the partner companies?
• Whilst programmes require an annual schedule (or they need to work with modules and short-term workshops), such scheduling is difficult to set down with partners in the field, in light of their own – oftentimes unpredictable and changing – planning.
  
• What is a graceful way to end a collaboration that is not living up to your expectations (i.e., leading to frustrations), but which you hope to take up again one day?

Common goal

Each party has its own interests that converge in the project (common goal): companies want well-trained students whom they can put to work virtually immediately; the programme can utilise the companies’ high-tech infrastructure which is far beyond its budget and can train students in an authentic, high-tech environment with support from experts in the field.

Interorganisational trust

It is not a matter of course to create trust between competing partners in the professional field, whom you are gathering together to achieve a common goal in collaboration with the programme: well-trained students and thus staff who can rapidly start work.

• What does the professional field need to be able to collaborate with competitors and a programme on the basis of trust?

Open communication and transparency

Clear agreements on each party’s input in terms of content, technology, facilities.

With a view to creating trust: setting down with what each party can go public, or how each party can use the “products” of the collaboration.

General current challenge:

• How can we have partners visit our campus or students work in the partner companies under Covid-safe conditions?

Position of Multi-cam in the TV-Film-Video programme

In addition to the option of going on an exchange under the Erasmus programme in the first semester of the third year, the film programme at the Narafi Campus is offering four tracks within the PRACTICAL WORK 3 - Workshops & Assignments. Students may enrol in one track of their choice.

1. Fiction – elective track

2. Multi-cam – elective track

3. Non-fiction – elective track

4. Erasmus exchange

Several developments taking place over a time span of a few years have resulted in the momentum to roll out the 3Film Multi-cam elective track:

Since the INRACI film programme’s relocation to the RTBF premises in 2017, the TV studio on Jupiterlaan has been taken over by the Narafi Campus film programme. As the full costs for the studio would henceforth been borne by LUCA, the management has urged for optimising the use of the TV studio.

Feedback meetings with the professional field made it quite clear that the knowledge and skills of the new graduates who ended up in the sector were no longer in keeping with the requirements of the sector. According to the professional field, the relevant companies still needed to invest substantial sums in the training of their new employees. This has prompted the conclusion that our graduates were no longer ready for work immediately upon graduation. As a result, we have decided to adapt the curriculum.

Subsequently, during the summer of 2018, the outdated image and audio direction rooms were fully renovated.

Concurrently, during informal meetings, students enquired about elective tracks in order to be able to specialise.

Consultations during the academic year 2018-2019 revealed the need for expanding the audio training programme to include 1BA Film, whilst the teaching staff requested that the Multi-cam programme be expanded to include 1BA Film and 3BA Film, thus spreading the learning pathways over the three years.

The final KOPERA report (KOPERA is the method we use to monitor the quality of our programmes) lists a large number of suggestions to improve the programme and to introduce elective tracks. New trends must be sustainably and systematically embedded in the curriculum.

In addition, the curriculum reform launched by the Education Council encouraged the elaboration of elective tracks, research, cross-over and inter-disciplinary work.

Within the programme components of the domain-specific unit, room is provided for elective tracks in which students pursue a specialisation from their own practical perspective.

The organisation of the teaching-learning environment is aimed at student-centred study tracks. This enables students to take more responsibility and allows them more liberty in the choices they make in their study track (for the master’s programme, this was initiated in January 2018).

In the second semester of that same academic year, 2018-2019, all this resulted in a framework for the multi-cam track, in collaboration with and at the explicit request of the professional field.

Until then, the co-creation partnerships involved a number of technical service companies from the multi camera sector (Videohouse, NEP, Fly Away, dB Video, and Play), VRT broadcasting company, and Riedel intercom manufacturer. New partner companies are continually being prospected.

The collaboration involves a form of co-creation in which the track is substantiated by the professional field and the programme as partners and in close consultation. In multiple respects, this is a win-win situation for both the partners and the programme.

The multi-cam track is focusing intensively on the latest high-tech developments within the multi-cam professional field. In addition, it devotes ample attention to the acquisition of the 21st century competencies that are expected by the professional field.

On the one hand, the programme is providing several workshops and training courses of its own accord. These take place in its own TV studio and address such topics as network systems and streaming.

On the other hand, the partners are responsible for several programmes that are characteristic of the respective partner’s identity, focused on such topics as shading, set-up, and installation of multi-camera set-ups on site.

Furthermore, the programme includes broadcasting, in which the students – supervised by teachers and staff (head of technology department) – prepare and record an event.

This track, finally, offers room for accommodating several work placement hours.

Training courses

• Materials and workflow, technical service companies
• Putting up and dismantling broadcasting set-ups on site
• Fibre technology, applications and use
• Practical network applications within a multi-cam environment
• LSM operator, image mixer, camera operator, video assistant

Events (these are proposed to the students on condition of availability, planning, financial implications, copyrights, and feasibility; the students select one):

• MUSIC BROADCASTING: concerts by the Music programme at the LUCA Lemmens Campus and livestream concerts in collaboration with V.Z.W. Artists Unlimited;
• SPORTS BROADCASTING: live broadcasting of the Flemish Topsport Finals in Leuven and streaming on social media;
• TV SHOW: depending on the collaboration, we will record an existing TV format in a professional TV studio, for example, De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld [The Brightest Mind in the World], in collaboration with Videohouse and Woestijnvis;
• FICTION: several scenes from an existing fiction series will be recorded in a multi-cam environment, supervised by an experienced fiction director (collaboration with VRT)
  
• IBC Convention: the students visit the IBC Convention and come in contact with the latest high-tech developments.

Evaluation activities

In a permanent evaluation process, the supervising teachers assess the students with respect to attitude, technique, and creativity during the workshops, training sessions, and events/assignments. The first exam period comprises a personal evaluation session. The partners from the professional field are involved in the assessment of the final project. They score the students’ final projects.

Students

• The students experience the track as an added value;
• The programme is taught in a high-tech professional environment;
• In the broad-based programme, the track accommodates the specialisation option requested by students;
• It helps students find trainee posts with the partners;
• It enhances the opportunity for students to find a job with one of the partners;
• During their studies, students actively build up a professional network;
• Incoming Erasmus students are more easily accommodated in the elective tracks;
• Outgoing students have a well-defined framework from which to depart;

Teaching staff

• Teaching staff can exchange expertise and insights in the collaboration with colleagues from the professional field;
• Staff development and expansion of professional knowledge beyond teachers’ own experience;
• Keeping abreast of the latest technological developments;

The programme

• The programme is taught in a high-tech professional environment;
• The programme’s own infrastructure is cost-effective;
• The programme is able to introduce its students to the latest developments;
• Optimum use of the TV studio;
• Costs are shared;
• The track ties in with the university college’s policy direction;
• The tracks follow the attainment targets and the 21st century competencies to be acquired;
• The track results in the development of a reporting procedure;
• The programme can accommodate a higher number of transferring students;

The professional field

• The Multi-cam programme meets the requirements of the professional field and is open to rapid adaptation;
• The ties with the professional field are strengthened;
• Participating companies can scout out the proper profiles faster;
• Newcomers can set to work in the professional field more quickly; less need for investing in specific in-company training.

Other

• The unique nature of this track enhances the charisma of the university college.

Interdependence

Mutually acknowledging that the partner commands certain competencies that you lack. You need one another, you complement one another in order to achieve your common goal.

The programme lacks certain very recent technological expertise because developments in the professional field and in the technological domain advance at a rapid pace. The price tag is too steep, yet the programme is anxious to harness said expertise, not only by having students collaborate but also by having experts from the professional field transfer expertise to the students in an educationally effective manner.

• How can we create an adequate educational framework to allow experts from the professional field without any teaching experience to share their expertise nonetheless? What are viable models with which the professional field would be comfortable?

Commitment

• What is a good partnership format for the professional field to kick off the collaboration? Would it be better to start off without any form of agreement, on the basis of trust, and then to evolve to an effective agreement?
• How can we motivate partners to observe the agreements made? What constructions will work for them?
• How can we commit partners to a co-creation project, even if more recent commercial assignments could overrule the agreements made? How does a programme secure airtight commitment from the partner companies?
• Whilst programmes require an annual schedule (or they need to work with modules and short-term workshops), such scheduling is difficult to set down with partners in the field, in light of their own – oftentimes unpredictable and changing – planning.
  
• What is a graceful way to end a collaboration that is not living up to your expectations (i.e., leading to frustrations), but which you hope to take up again one day?

Common goal

Each party has its own interests that converge in the project (common goal): companies want well-trained students whom they can put to work virtually immediately; the programme can utilise the companies’ high-tech infrastructure which is far beyond its budget and can train students in an authentic, high-tech environment with support from experts in the field.

Interorganisational trust

It is not a matter of course to create trust between competing partners in the professional field, whom you are gathering together to achieve a common goal in collaboration with the programme: well-trained students and thus staff who can rapidly start work.

• What does the professional field need to be able to collaborate with competitors and a programme on the basis of trust?

Open communication and transparency

Clear agreements on each party’s input in terms of content, technology, facilities.

With a view to creating trust: setting down with what each party can go public, or how each party can use the “products” of the collaboration.

General current challenge:

• How can we have partners visit our campus or students work in the partner companies under Covid-safe conditions?

Under the ESF project on “Smart organisation of a dual education system: Electromechanics professional bachelor’s programme” (March 2019 - February 2021), Agoria joined forces with nine university colleges in Flanders to set up a framework for the introduction of the dual education system in higher education. Our programme has participated in these efforts. Within this context, we launched the learning communities with effect from the 2020-2021 academic year. The ESF project has now been completed; however, the learning community that we have built with our partners (Agidens, Agoria, BASF, DRiV, EMDS, Engie Solutions, Maintenance Partners, PDM, Plascobel, REM-B Hydraulics, Somati Systems, Soudal) will remain in place and continue to work on this issue.

Our aim is to introduce students step by step to the business community and to workplace learning. To this end, we have designed a growth scenario in concert with Agoria and the university colleges, extending across the three bachelor’s years:

• Phase 1 (building dual learning learning competencies): This phase is focused on social skills and on an introduction to actual business practice, in order to prepare students for workplace learning. Students are put in contact with the companies on a limited number of occasions.
• Phase 2 (dual learning): At the workplace, students are taught technical competencies relating to one or more programme components. Attention is also paid to the acquisition of such generic skills as project management skills, independence, and problem-solving skills. Workplace learning accounts for a larger proportion of students’ workload.
• Phase 3 (dual learning): At the workplace, students acquire integrated knowledge and competencies that extend across several programme components. Workplace learning accounts for a considerable proportion of the students’ workload and is primarily linked to the project involved in the bachelor’s thesis.

Our programme has set to work with this framework. To this end, we have established a learning community which also involves businesses. Every meeting of this learning community addresses a specific theme and has a clear focus, e.g., which soft skills are especially important for our students, what technical competencies can students acquire at the workplace and what is the best approach, et cetera. The number of sessions and the methodology employed vary according to the goal. In the early stages of the excellence track, bi-monthly consultations are in order. Due to the current Covid-19 situation, all consultations have had to take place online. Synchronous document sharing ensured efficient communication. For example, when collectively setting down the soft skills, we simultaneously shared a document enabling a teacher to register the soft skills being discussed. As all the other participants saw this document as well, the final result was clear to everyone. This sparked a highly educative discussion, as the collective formulation of the soft skills once more demonstrated the importance of properly defining the soft skills.

Within this learning community we have translated and further developed the framework.

During the first session of the learning community, we explored, in concert with interested companies, which soft skills are especially important for our professional field. After all, our goal is to have each student acquire work-based learning competencies, starting in phase 1, by focusing on soft skills.

Our programme had prepared a framework in which, in our opinion, the soft skills could be accommodated. The framework was based on the soft skills required within dual learning in secondary education.

• Step 1: Together with the professional field, we reviewed and adjusted the framework.
• Step 2: In a focus meeting with the professional field, we drew up a list and definitions of the required soft skills. Discussions among representatives of the professional field and discussions with teachers generated innovative insights among both parties.

We will collectively explore how we can teach these skills in college and/or at the workplace.

During the second session of this learning community, we elaborated the framework for dual learning within the programme, together with the companies. Our vision is to create a curriculum for excellent students that enables them to acquire technical competencies associated with particular programme components at the workplace. In preparation for the second learning community, we have selected several course units. During the second meeting of the learning community, we reviewed the selected course units with the participating companies in terms of content. The issues that were addressed and jointly substantiated included:

• What substantive competencies will be given priority in the course unit?
• Which of these could be offered at the workplace, in whole or in part?
• How can this process be supervised by the college and by the company?
• How can this be evaluated?

These discussions have ensured that both teachers and companies continue to focus on the same aims and objectives.

We will continue this approach and thus address the following issues in more detail:

• Evaluation dossier on Soft Skills phase 1;
• Evaluation dossier on course units being taught at the workplace;
• Selection and matching of student – company – course unit.

Students

Students will acquire work-based learning competencies, starting in phase 1. Creating this framework in concert with participating companies will ensure that students’ soft skills will be geared to the professional field in which they will end up.

Excellent students will be given an additional challenge in order to inspire them to raise the bar even further.

Teaching staff

Substantive consultations on the technical competencies within the course units will ensure that teachers can thus check their course unit against the professional field and that the course units will remain up-to-date.

The programme

• Proper emphasis on soft skills within the programme;
  
• Subjects to be included in the excellence track will ensure cross-pollination with the programme.

The professional field

• Contacts with students will provide companies with a forum for campus recruitment;
• Employees who are ready to start work immediately upon graduation.

We are requesting companies to teach several technical competencies at the workplace. This calls for some commitment among these companies. Ergo, the challenge is to find a sufficient number of companies that perceive the added value of what we are asking from them.