• A modern, strong computer with SAE-supported software and good internet.

• Screenwriting software that supports collaboration: shared comments, shared edits, revision tracking, and standard industry formatting such as scene and action descriptions, dialogue, and camera directions. 
  WriterDuet is supported, so you're expected to use it. 
  Final Draft is an industry-standard tool and the only other alternative if you have the budget, but support is limited.
  Please do not use anything else for scripts, thank you. 

• GDocs, GSlides, GSheets, Gmail, Meet, and Slack. 

  • • Note, don't rely on GDocs' inferior grammar checking (see English tools below), and don't use it for scripts, not even for roughs, thanks! 

• GDrive: Shared GDrive Folder <<< see link for setup. All working project files, including rough notes, are maintained in one shared GDrive folder, accessed via web through Chrome or via computer file browser in the Google Drive Desktop App. Do not use any other location. 

• English tools that meet standards for higher education and professional use:

  • • The QuillBot browser extension or the Grammarly browser extension. 

    • The QuillBot grammar checker, Grammarly, or similar.  

    • Routine use of a thesaurus, synonyms, and antonyms for vocabulary.

    • English tools are to be used routinely in day-to-day writing practice before sharing. Thank you. This ensures the work is sufficiently functional in popular English for fair use of review, feedback, and group work time, enabling an effective development schedule that loosely simulates industry participation; otherwise, you may be asked to fix the work before we can work with it. 

    • and, if there are any English language difficulties, 

      • • more advanced English language software, such as Quillbot Premium, present tense converters, and limited use of AI.
          However, support is limited, so you must learn to use these tools online in your outside-class time. Students should speak, read, and write English fluently to succeed or are urged to obtain English training in outside-class time; this is not a basic English class; otherwise, you may be asked to fix the work before we can work with it. 

• For higher regard and progress, routine use of a well-regarded Time and Task Management tool, by default Google Calendar and/or Toggl, for scheduling your hours and tasks, and tracking your hours and tasks to evidence you are working the Unit Guide's workload using time management skills. 

• Please thoroughly familiarise yourself with these tools. Thank you. Please do not use unsupported software, websites, or formats, as this causes delay, and your work may not be suitable for detailed review or group work in limited class time. 

Please maintain an interesting, alive relationship with the class. 

• Engage in frequent communication, save and show progress in 3 to 6 rounds of feedback and/or direction per project (e.g., reference, rough, medium, and fine stages) in a team spirit with colleagues and a supervisor, as is typical in industry. 

• Show reliability skills for employment by keeping notes of your direction/feedback and addressing all reasonable requests, changing your work-in-progress at each stage of review as requested, or as negotiated with sound reasoning/evidence. On time, and acting on feedback at least in the week you receive it. 

• Please make fair and good use of our common hours for class time. Outside class time, there may be flexibility depending on availability, e.g., once per week per student for 30 minutes or so. See Contacts at the top of the page. 

• Regular attendance helps you succeed because it's better for developing skills that flourish in spoken, real-time surroundings with physical acting and humans. 

• Communication and social styles of classes may vary; however, a positive attitude combined with tolerance for stress, social interactivity, robust critique, and negotiation with a broad range of people and styles are useful individual skills, and you are urged to develop them using a variety of methods, including in-person communication.  

• Use civil conduct: inform us when you're going to be late, if you can't attend, if you're leaving a class early, or if you're taking a short break. Respond to messages. Please don't disrupt class focus by entering/exiting suddenly or noisily while people are concentrating on a lecture, sweatbox, or presentation. Wait for a pause. Use a whisper to speak about anything urgent. 

• Whenever you can't attend, you still owe your Workload hours. To make progress, you should show you're making good use of outside-class hours to make up missed hours and good use of communication to ensure you're on track; otherwise, you'll be much less likely to evidence sufficient developmental interaction or feedback with class colleagues and lecturers to meet the Learning Outcomes required to Pass. So you should frequently attend and also be confident that you routinely communicate as a team player. Otherwise, please revise your priorities before the enrollment Census date. 

Please prioritize tasks and interpret feedback sensibly. This is often explained better in person during class; however, it's important to make sure it's also written for those who might miss it.

We develop skills for a client-directed industry. Feedback can be demanding and challenging. You'll be writing as a service to stakeholders, e.g., producers, directors, supervisors, executives, and similar kinds of clients, maybe investors and funders, as well as other artists, not simply for yourself. So, the work must be functional for group and client needs, e.g., budget, duration, complexity, genre, team schedules, usability by other artists, accessibility and appeal for a broad audience. Clients also vary greatly in their tastes, priorities, personality, and communication style, as artists and audiences do. Please steel yourself for this. 

If challenging or robust feedback feels difficult for your sense of self, please strengthen your key Transferable Skills. 

• • • Develop a Positive Attitude to interpret the feedback constructively. This is also important to collegial civility and well-being. 

    • Develop stress tolerance for robust critique, and learn to Handle Pressure. 

    • Understand that robust critique is directed at a work, a process, or a skill, not at you, the person. Use your Self-Confidence to raise your sense of self above critiques or opinions, so you don't take them personally. You've used self-reassurance before; you can do it again. 

    • Prioritize feedback according to the most important shared goals. Focus on Problem-Solving and skill improvement, because that's what we're doing. Use Communication skills to clarify intentions and to re-establish what's most important. You can do this. 

If a significant volume of feedback or tasks feels difficult, please be rational. 

• • • Given limited face-to-face class time or tight schedules, your facilitator may be too busy to explain what is essential versus what is optional or to rank comments in order of importance, so you'll need to figure out Priorities yourself, e.g., by asking questions, by investigating references, by creating and comparing two versions, or by self-confidently negotiating or proposing a better idea. If there's a specific note worth discussing, ask about that specific note.
      Otherwise... 

    • Prioritize feedback according to Time and Task Management, improving your skill in estimating time and difficulty and breaking tasks into healthy-sized work sessions to fill your agreed workload hours as detailed in Time and Task Management. 

      • • Schedule tasks so they can be done on time, and address feedback in a timely manner, e.g., in the week the feedback is given, to demonstrate deliberate practice of client relationship skills, care for priorities, teamwork, and directability.  

        • Meet important mid-project deadlines, using supervised support and approval of the work at well-timed checkpoints to protect the work against any chances of poor choices later, during end-project cramming. 

    • Prioritize feedback according to sound reasoning and good creative principles, like distilling core ideas, fitting scope and quality references, and using screen language backed by genre evidence. 

    • A copious amount of feedback may reflect over-complexity inherent in the work, and in this case, the work itself may need to be simplified so that the feedback fits the size of the problems. Such editing is best done by you. 

If there are medical issues affecting Transferable Skills that need support, please discuss them promptly. 

KEY TRANSFERABLE SKILLS 

These are personal life skills, continuously in development. Focus on strengths you have and improvements needed in your own skills to respond to challenges.  

1. Self-Reflection

2. Deliberate practice

3. Time Management Abilities

4. Strong Work Ethic

5. Work Well Under Pressure

6. Communication Skills

7. Team Player/Collaboration Skills

8. Problem-Solving Skills

9. Critical Thinking

10. Use Cognitive Tools

11. Self-Confidence

12. Positive Attitude

13. Ability to Receive, Give, Accept and Learn From Critique

14. Flexibility/Adaptability

See

• SAE Transferable Skills Framework 

• SAE Student Handbook 

If there are medical issues affecting Transferable Skills development that need support, please discuss them promptly so that adjustments can be made on time.