Final Major Project Year One

Final Major Project Handbook

Your FMP in year one, if you are a 180 student, (in normal - non-lockdown circumstances) dictates your whole year grade (F, P, M, D).

You need to Pass all the other projects in order to gain a P,M,D in your Final Major Project.

If you have not yet gained that we will be informing you so that you can catch up.

Set up a Wix site using this guide.

Process suggestions

Ideas sheet (180) if useful

Come up with lots of ideas

Evaluate the top three and order them

Have a contingency in case of further lock-down

Put all work on your Wix blog.

FAQs

Can I see examples?

Examples of good Final Major Project Research:

https://declanhenley.wixsite.com/mysite/task-1-2

https://moo16268766.wixsite.com/-rough-and-ready/research

What software should I use?

Video Games: Research Unity or Unreal

App design: Adobe XD

Animation: Adobe Animate or After Effects or Maya (3D)

Magazine design: InDesign (along with Photoshop to prepare the images)

Help with Unreal? What if I'm new to it?

You need to think carefully about choosing software that's new to you, but the key thing is to have a go! Try it! You have time to Research - try it, gain confidence. Also, there are millions of tutorials, there are some for Unreal below.

If your teacher advises against doing software new to you, listen to their advice.

(Thanks to Ethan for these recommendations!)

https://youtube.com/c/MR3DDev - loads of really good tutorials on all of the Quixel Megascans assets you can download which are really handy

https://youtu.be/DuCokZo0uXk - for the atmospherics and lighting

https://youtube.com/c/JonathanWinbush - this channel has lots of tutorials for general Unreal Engine things, as well as some of the Quixel Megascans stuff.

https://youtu.be/a0qNO6_xPx0 - now this video is 4 hours long (all of the individual parts are uploaded separately) but this one shows how to landscape and apply texture and about the node material editor etc. Useful as a starting point.

I want to a do a music video but I don't know any musicians

 Use a song that's already been recorded?

Do a song that doesn't have a video?

As part of your Research, find a music producer/band/artist. There are probably musicians in your class.

How do I reflect on my work?

Use the Gibbs cycle

Where do I start?

Read the Handbook. Come up with some ideas in response to the brief. Choose one. Work hard at your Proposal (what it is you want to make and why), start testing solutions (eg making draft versions), create your project, reflect as you go along, evaluate.

Harvard Referencing? 

This is a way of keeping track of where you found information. You cannot copy and paste text. You can copy and paste text and use quote marks and say where you got it from.

Saying where you got it from is called referencing. If you got info from a book, write details in here:

https://www.citethisforme.com/harvard-referencing

If it's not a book, write whatever it is, eg website.

This may help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVeRlhG9gB8

Scope & Themes

Just to clarify a few points, that I hope are useful:

 Themes

The themes should be used as a starting point. Yes Y1 students should use one of these as a starting point for the project. They are there to help and guide. 

 Project suggestions

These are just suggestions. Supervisors will need to guide students as to what’s appropriate.

EVALUATION

Some questions to help...

Evaluation

 

1.                Your evaluation can take 3 forms: written, audio or video

2.                You should at the very least, discuss the following. Refer back to experiences, feelings and anecdotes to back up your points.

3.                Write in detail for a higher grade

 

 

Make sure you include sub headings.

 

·                  Meeting the brief - How well did you meet the brief? Did it meet your standards of success?

 

·                  Research - describe your research process, how successful and useful was it? What would you do differently to improve your research?

 

·                  The effectiveness of your workflow - What did you do well? How would you change it?

 

·                  Scope of the project - Did you feel challenged? Did you stretch yourself?

 

·                  Management - How well managed was your time? How did this impact your final piece?

 

·                  Autonomous learning - How did you cope with being self-dependent? What did you learn about yourself? Where do you need to improve? When were you tested? How did you overcome issues by yourself?

 

·        Ideas – How did your ideas develop your ideas as you progressed?

 

 

·        Decision making - Did you make informed decisions as you went along? Did you change your mind at all? What affected the decisions you made? Were they the right decisions, or in retrospect would you amend what you decided?

 

·                  Pride - are you proud of your work? What will you do with your work now?

 

·                  Skills - What soft skills have you developed? What hard skills have you developed?

 

·                  Future – What is the next stage, what are your future plans, how has this project altered or affected what you want to do next or in the future?

Try to bring in the elements of VESPA (Vision, Effort, Systems, Practice, Attitude) to your evaluation.