NON-ORIGINAL MATERIALS

Defining non-original materials

• Non-original materials are defined as any audio, visual or written materials that are not originally created by the DP film students themselves, or that are not created through collaboration with other students in the school. Non-original materials include material that is deemed to be copyright, Creative Commons, copyright-free, royalty-free, and so on.

• As a differentiating standalone HL assessment task, the collaborative film project is a self-contained summative project that is designed to reward authentic collaboration, innovative problem-solving and creative meaning-making in one film production role over 90 hours. Thus, the script and all visual and audio materials contained in each completed film must be original and have been specifically created and captured for the assessment task by one or more of the DP film students participating in the core production team, or through collaboration with other students in the school.

NOTE: Due to the restrictions on non-original materials, students are prohibited from creating documentaries that rely on non-original/archive footage in this assessment task.

Use of music in the completed film

Students should be reminded that they are being assessed for one specific film production role and that the focus of their production work should be on creating meaning using the core tools and skills associated with that role. As the role of composer is outside any of the permitted film production roles for this assessment task, the inclusion or omission of music in a completed film will have a limited impact on an individual student’s assessment. As such, there is no expectation for submitted films to contain any music.

Creating original music for a completed film

Where core production teams collaboratively agree to create and include music in their films, students will need to be creative problem-solvers in order to generate entirely original music. It is important to ensure that the examiner is fully aware of how any music used in the film was sourced and created, in line with the outlined policy.

NOTE: Although various members of the core production team may choose to collaborate in the process of recording, producing and editing original music for the film, the ultimate responsibility for composing music falls firmly outside the responsibility of any of the permitted film production roles for this task. As such, any detailed discussion about the composition of music is most likely to appear in section 2 of the project report, under the heading “Collaboration with my core production team”.

Background images and situational branding

Students should make every effort, where achievable, to avoid capturing situational or incidental advertising or branding in their films.

In some instances, it is inevitable that pre-existing media or props will be captured “in-camera” by the students. Common examples include depictions of characters interacting with mise-en-scène props, or scrolling through digital screens displaying existing websites, apps, games, maps and so on. The inclusion of these instances of in-camera media and location-based sounds in a completed film will not be penalized by an examiner; however, students are expected to make every effort to ensure their original films do not rely on extended depictions of pre-existing media.

Students should work consciously to be creative problem-solvers and devise innovative solutions to depicting extended sequences of content of this kind within a film’s narrative.

NOTE: The deliberate inclusion of pre-existing media into a film’s edit (for example, intentionally adding materials that were not captured in-camera during post-production) is not permitted.

Academic honesty

All sources must be acknowledged following the protocol of the referencing style chosen by the school.

• If a student uses work, ideas or images belonging to another person when writing up the project report, the student must acknowledge the source using a standard style of referencing in a consistent manner.

• A student’s failure to acknowledge a source will be investigated by the IB as a potential breach of regulations that may result in a penalty imposed by the IB final award committee.