Kerreen Ely-Harper

Building creative capacity, resilience and connections: using social media plaforms to promote narrative innovation, adaptability, inclusion and diversity in the undergraduate screenwriting classroom

Curtin University, Australia

Since the advent of social media platforms and their impact on traditional filmmaking and screenwriting practices the teaching of the Canon has become increasingly irrelevant. With the democratisation of film production and the rise of user generated and more recently generative AI content we are increasingly being asked to address what and how should we be teaching our students. In my role as a screen media educator, I am obligated to stay ahead of contemporary media practices, explore emerging technologies and industry trends to ensure the learning activities and assessments remain relevant and resonate with students in their role as the new Canon creators. As media educators how can we ensure the learner screenwriter is in dialogue with the creative process, engages with script development processes to build creative capacity, resilience and connections as a future template for a fast changing increasingly unpredictable industry and real-world environments?

In my presentation I will discuss the impact of Covid on traditional teaching methods and the potential of social media plaforms to increase students’ digital literacies, develop knowledge and application of screen grammar to their screenwriting and to consider audience responses in story development. I will refer to a recent learning and teaching initiative I have undertaken in my own classrooms where students collaborate in the co-design of a web series to be delivered on a social media plaform for an online audience. Through sharing this case-study I aim to promote discussion on how we can increase opportunities for screenwriting students to engage with audiences and integrate social media platforms and immersive technologies into their screenwriting and story development practices. I will demonstrate how a noncanonical pedagogical approach can link back to the Canon through a non-linear delivery approach whilst still connecting students with a diverse range of works, cinema histories and traditions.

Dr Kerreen Ely-Harper is a creative media researcher, educator and filmmaker based at Curtin University, Perth Australia. Her research interests are staging and performing personal stories, life story, memory and trauma narratives on film; screenwriting methodologies; social storytelling and social media narratives. Media projects include short fiction, documentaries, corporate, dance film, virtual 3D digital texts: Foul Whisperings, Strange Ma:ers (2008-2010) in Second Life: In Her Own Words, Best Education Resource ATOM Winner, 1997; Even Girls
Play Footy, Best Secondary Educa1on Resource ATOM nomination, 2012; Parts of a Horse, Best Short Film ATOM nomination, 2003; Girls Can Do Anything Winner Best Film, Spiritus Short Film Festival, 2020; No Bus, Best Social Issue Drama nomination, iCINEMA Film Festival, “Obiebvo Corto” Mobile Short Film Festival, Italy, 2021; Best Short, Black Lives Macer, Mykonos International, 2023. She is a member of the Australian Screen Production Education and research Association (ASPERA) Learning and Teaching commicee.