￼

Abstract

Results compared to application and plans

Major Accomplishments in 2018

Introduction

Artistic Research

PhD fellows

Other Artistic Research Projects

Artistic Research Café

Pedagogical Development

“The Artist as Film School Teacher” — follow-up

Student involvement

MFA programme renewal

2. Networking and dissemination

Ongoing initiatives

Initiated, but not yet started

Other Achievements

Anticipated milestones not reached

Delays

Alterations

Background for milestones not reached

Aims of the SFU initiative:

Artistic Research-based education, integrated models and student engagement

Plans for 2019

Overview

Milestones

Staffing

Steering group

Administration

Faculty and staff

Artistic Research

Student involvement

End notes

Abstract

On January 4th, 2018, the Norwegian Film Schools Centre for Excellence in Film and Interactive Media Arts — CEFIMA — was formally launched by the Rector of Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (HINN) Kathrine Skretting and Dean of the Norwegian Film School (NFS) Karin Julsrud.

This event was the kickoff for a year of great activity, and the primary focus has been on initiating artistic research projects related to CEFIMAs mandate of updating and expanding the educational programmes and pedagogical activities of the Norwegian Film School. These activities have had a primary impact on the Norwegian landscape in the film and games industries, and have begun to show professionals and artists a way of working that bridges film and games.￼

Results compared to application and plans

Major Accomplishments in 2018

Introduction

In the document CEFIMA Strategic Plan 2018-20, we wrote that “…the expectation is that this plan will be a dynamic document. Already we have seen changes in the media arts world that lead to adjustments in the in the action plan originally developed.” This is illustrative of perhaps the major challenge of CEFIMA in 2018 — maintaining focus on the core principles that led to the SFU application, while adjusting to a landscape that is shifting very rapidly.

Artistic Research

As planned, Artistic Research (AR) has been a major area of concentration for CEFIMA in 2018, and this continues into 2019. Work in this area has come from the need to create more open and formal connections between education and artistic research, both in order to introduce students in all NFS programmes into a culture of AR and to use innovative and experimental AR projects as testing grounds for new storytelling formats and connect these experiments to curriculum development.

These connections have taken many forms, primarily through the work of the PhDs in Artistic Research. Their competencies and projects have already had an impact on both the MFA and BFA programmes. In addition to this, the revised MFA programme has, as planned, a marked greater emphasis on the students as artistic researchers, something that will become more evident as they engage with their master’s projects in the school year 2019-20.

To mitigate the unpredictability involved in any art form related to technology, we are exploring new development methods and theoretical frameworks. A shortlist of very interesting concepts is planned for further investigation during 2019

PhD¹ fellows￼

As planned, NFS/CEFIMA hired two more Artistic Research Fellows in 2018, and both began working on October 15th. This brings the number of fellows directly tied to CEFIMA up to 4, while the total number of PhD-level fellows at the Norwegian Film School as of December 31st 2018 was 7 (two of these, Cecilie Semec and Rafal Hanzl, are scheduled to complete their projects in 2019). Also, Inland Norway University of Applies Sciences pledged another PhD-level position for 2019, and this position will be filled by the end of June.

The two new fellows are:

Elin Festøy, documentary filmmaker, games designer and transmedia producer. Her project, Numb is an artistic research project exploring emotional interaction in VR, and how to build empathy and understanding for the situation of Children Born of War in a non-fiction VR experience. The aim is to study and understand new ways of conveying documentary material in an immersive, interactive way.

Bendik Stang, CTO and co-founder of Snow Castle Games. His project, Narratives in Video Games is a research project on the cross section between the creative art of storytelling in video games and personally created narrative through play, assisted by creative AI.

Both projects are challenging and artistically interesting in their own right, but of greater importance for CEFIMA is that they, together with the existing projects from Nadja Lipsyc and Cecilie Levy, provide a testing ground for new forms of storytelling for audio-visual media that have both great impact on the greater film and games communities and provide valuable insight into the directions audio-visual media are going and how the film school can educate for these new directions.

All 7 artistic research fellows have been offered shared office space at both the Lillehammer and Oslo campuses of NFS, and a number of initiatives have been enacted to give them closer ties to the two locations. Many of these initiatives have involved teaching and leading workshops at the BFA and MFA programmes.￼

The first, and largest scale project completed to date was the workshop based on Lipsyc’s artistic research project Lone Wolves Stick Together. This project brings together cinematic storytelling, live-action role playing (LARP), games, and virtual reality. As a step in the development of the project, Lipsyc ran a semester-long workshop with several groups of BFA students, primarily Production Design and Sound, at Lillehammer in the fall of 2018. The project culminated in a large-scale, live action version of the Lone Wolves Stick Together game in the NFS film studios, which was open to public participation throughout the month of January, 2019.

This project not only introduced a new form of storytelling to the filmmakers connected to the BFA community at NFS; it also introduced new ways of working and creating within flat, non-hierarchical structures² according to new (for filmmakers) principles of environmental design³. While the project primarily involved students (and faculty) from Production Design and Sound, several other disciplines were involved to a greater or lesser extent, including Directing, Cinematography, and Editing.

The end result of Lone Wolves Stick Together has provided many valuable insights into future directions for NFS. While the school will not become a regular organiser of LARPs, the experience of working with non-traditional storytelling formats and emerging methodologies for co-creation of narratives has already had an impact on planning the curriculum for the immediate future and will have a direct impact on the cohort being accepted for the fall of 2019.

In addition, the project has garnered significant international attention and impact, and became an important element in disseminating the goals and results of CEFIMA and the Norwegian Film School. It is no exaggeration to say no other film school in the world has undertaken a similar project, and this has made both the school and the Centre interesting to a new constituency. ￼

While Lipsycs project has been the most visible in the NFS daily life, several of the other artistic research fellows have also begun to impact the pedagogical development of the school. Bendik Stang and Frederick Howard (the latter a film and television producer who also started a fellowship in 2017 but whose project is not part of the HINN funding for CEFIMA) were both part of the core group of professionals and experts who participated in the revision of the MFA programmes in the spring of 2018. Stang and Howard have, in addition to Levy and Festøy had short teaching engagements for the MFA students and these engagements originated in their artistic research projects.

At the end of 2018, MFA Head of Studies Jan Lindvik also initiated a longer workshop for the MFA, where the students will have the experience of working with Lipsyc and Levy on an artistic project the two of them initiated in the summer of 2018. Like Lone Wolves Stick Together, this project — Deaf Music Palace — introduces non-traditional ways of creation and of working while giving the students the experience of co-creating an innovative virtual reality narrative installation.

Other Artistic Research Projects

In 2018, there have been two projects connected to CEFIMA, both funded through the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. The first, Order in Chaos, led by editor and professor Niels Pagh Andersen, has been wrapping up and delivered the final report in early 2019. Andersens project, which digs deeply into the art and craft of editing as well as the contemporary documentary film, will result in an electronic publication combining text, audio and video in-depth interviews, and long clips from several major international documentaries edited by Andersen once a suitable publisher has been found.

The other project, Queens Game led by dramaturge and professor Maureen Thomas, started at the end of 2018. This project brings together fiction and historical narrative with interactive gameplay and augmented reality, and involves a collaboration with industry through formal agreements with companies Snow Castle Games and Expology. As Thomas is also primary supervisor for Elin Festøy and a member of the growing Norwegian Film School artistic research group, this ties her expertise in interactive narrative and the work she is doing to the PhD students as well as to the MFA programme.￼

Artistic Research Café

CEFIMA and NFS have long been in a dialogue with the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) about formalising a collaboration, and in 2018 this came to fruition. The inaugural initiative is the Artistic Research Café, and monthly series of talks and presentations aimed at giving the broader film and games communities an opportunity to gain insight into the work being done in these media under the umbrella of artistic research. The Forum had its first event on Monday, October 29th, and continues as a monthly event on the last Monday of the month from January 2019.

The inaugural event (and the first 3 events of 2019) have attracted more attention than anticipated, demonstrating both a latent curiosity in the community about the work being done at NFS and CEFIMA, as well as a need for industry professionals to engage with cutting edge artistic challenges. The early success also means that already CEFIMA is finding ways to communicate with the film school constituency in Norway.

Finally, the success of the Artistic Research Café has encouraged both NFS and NFI to build on the relationship and extend the collaboration to further events. Among other things, the anticipated partnership between NFI and NFS on professional development and short-form workshops for industry and professionals becomes much simpler to organise with the routines of collaboration established.

The Artistic Research Cafés will continue, but NFS (and CEFIMA) will build on them for 2020 by planning a monthly series of Master Classes.

Pedagogical Development

“The Artist as Film School Teacher” — follow-up

From the very beginning, pedagogy and increased pedagogical awareness and competence among the faculty have been cornerstones for CEFIMAs mandate. The Nordic experiment with the online course “The Artist as Film School Teacher” was in the planning stages when CEFIMA was awarded, and the progress of that experiment was documented in the annual report for 2017.

As was planned, the experiences gained and evaluations performed of that course were used in the planning and creation of the new and local version of the course, “Filmskolelæreren — pedagogisk grunnkurs”. This course was planned and developed through the spring of 2018, and launched to coincide with the school year 2018-19. The course began with a two-day gathering in November 2018, with 10 participants representing faculty at both the BFA and MFA levels, as well as one of the PhD artistic researchers.

This course is approved to give 15 ects in film school pedagogy, and is becoming a formal requirement for teaching at NFS. The initial cohort will complete the course in May, 2019 and at this time there are plans to run it again for the school year 2019-20 to ensure those not in the first cohort have the opportunity to gain the formal teaching competency offered.

Student involvement

A key aspect of the study programmes at the Norwegian Film School is emphasis on student input into the programmes themselves, and the control the students have over their own learning outcomes through the use of statements of intent in major production exercises. The continual loop of feedback, assessment, and programme planning is well described in the application.

NFS has run evaluations of production exercises consistently for the past 9 years, and recently there have been signs of the format needing renewal. In the fall 2018 semester, students took the initiative to renew the evaluation format at the BFA, and as a result a new format was tried for the Short Film production exercise that semester. This student-initiated format shows promise but needs further work. As a result, the Dean of NFS, Karin Julsrud, has announced the formation of a group to examine and renew the evaluation format. This group will comprise of 3 faculty — including the Head of CEFIMA — and 3 students and work through the spring of 2019.￼

At the end of 2017, NOKUT announced stipends for students wishing to contribute to the planning and execution of parts of their own education. CEFIMA was awarded one of these stipends, and a call was sent out to the BFA students in the fall of 2018. Three groups — the Screenwriters, Directors, and Producers — responded to the call, and they were given a budget and support to organise two practical workshops for themselves. These workshops were completed in December, 2018.

MFA programme renewal

In 2017, NFS undertook a review and overhaul of the MFA programme. After the proposed changes were approved by the HINN regulatory committee in September, work has continued to flesh out the content of some of the revamped disciplines and specialisations. This work has been led by Dean Karin Julsrud, supported by the Head of Studies for MFA Programmes, Jan Lindvik. The commitment of the Dean to the renewal of NFS programmes starting with the MFA has given CEFIMA an opportunity to participating in the creation of new educational programmes earlier than anticipated.

CEFIMA has contributed closely to this work, in part by the fact that CEFIMA project manager Henning Camre has been an integral part of the work. In addition, external expertise has been in the work through the addition of Bendik Stang, CTO of Snow Castle Games; Troels Linde, CEO Gaekken Technology DK/DE; and Lotte Mik-Meyer, MA International Development and Media Studies, documentarist and lecturer to working groups. All of these were important in the work in the first half of 2018, which focussed on integrating new technologies and storytelling techniques into the MFA curricula.

One the revised MFA was launched, CEFIMA has continued to play a part in the execution of the curriculum. This is most visible through early workshops MFA students were given in virtual reality and augmented reality storytelling, the contruction of a state-of-the-art VR lab, and the previously mentioned Deaf Music Palace, but it can also be stated with some certainty that the influence of CEFIMA exists in virtually every part of the MFA. It would not have been possible to create a programme that explores the meeting points of cinematic and serial storytelling, virtual and augmented reality, interactive narratives, and entrepreneurship without the existence of CEFIMA at the Norwegian Film School.

Early evaluations from students, and feedback from collaborators like NRK and from the film industry have been very positive. This will enable future collaboration and development.

2. Networking and dissemination

Ongoing initiatives

One of the major initiatives in 2017 was the establishment of an international digital network led by Danish game designer and creative consultant Christian Fonnesbech. This network, which takes the form of a Facebook group, has exceeded 500 members, with new media and transmedia storytellers from the Scandinavian countries as well as Europe, North America, the Far East, and Australia. Discussions to date have focussed on virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality (VR, AR and MR) technologies and their potential uses for art and storytelling.

Out of this group has grown an online resource modelled on Wikipedia — www.cefima.org/wiki. This resource went live in early 2018, and is becoming popular as a central hub for both established and emerging artists who are looking for resources to help them understand and develop stories for new platforms.

Several of the participants in the Facebook group have also been recruited as guest instructors, workshop leaders, and potential teaching staff for CEFIMA and the Norwegian Film School. To date, Australian storyteller and transmedia artist Christy Dena, has begun as supervisor for both Lipsyc and Levy, lead creatives for Danish VR companies Khora and Makropol have contributed to workshops as both MFA and BFA, and several other interactive storytellers, VR artists, and games professionals have taught at the MFA.

Initiated, but not yet started

There are several projects initiated in 2018 that have not yet begun. These projects should come to fruition through 2019 or early 2020.

The next step in the collaboration with NFI involves a large-scale VR lab for professional storytellers looking to engage with this new medium. This project is planned for October 2019, and will require financing from local, regional, national funding bodies. It will involve storytellers from across Norway and the intent is also to include some participants from the global south through a collaboration with the film festival “Film fra sør” and key creatives from India, southern Africa, and Latin America. Funding for this event ￼will need to be finalised before the end of May, 2019 in order to hold the event.

Another key strategic initiative launched but not yet begun is a development stipend for professional storytellers in film, television, and games who are exploring new storytelling and media formats. This stipend will enable the creation of pilots, prototypes and related material that can form the foundation of professional production, and commits the recipients to contributing to the NFS educational programmes through case studies and master classes. The stipends have an application deadline of March 29th and a duration of 6 months.

At the end of 2018, planning began for a major international conference with CEFIMA as host, tentatively planned for the fall of 2020. This conference will emerge out of the networks being built and the artistic research being done, and focus on emerging and new storytelling formats.

Other Achievements

The fall of 2018, NOKUT completed an evaluation for the four Centres for Excellence awarded in 2016. One key criticism of CEFIMA was the fact that too much responsibility was concentrated on one person: the Head of the Centre, and there was a need to ensure better support in order to better the chances of success on all fronts. This has led to a decision to reorganise both strategic leadership and project support.

As a direct result of this, CEFIMA will hire a Strategic Advisor in order to establish a management group. This will also include two part-time students and a head of Artistic Research.

This also led to the hiring of two 50% contract positions: a Line Producer who can work with the Artistic Researchers as well as BFA and MFA students to support their production need and a Creative Technologist who ensures the staff and students have access to someone who enables the use of cutting edge technology in the planning and production of their projects. The Creative Technologist also will lead WP3: Digital Image Creation.

Both of these positions started January 1st, 2019.

Another key hiring in 2018 was the engagement of professor Kjell Vassdal to head WP1: Visual Grammar for XR Formats. Vassdal was to start the fall of 2018, but due to a leave of absence to work as Cinematographer on NRKs tv-series about the terrorist attack in Norway on July 22nd, 2011, he was on leave until mid-December.￼

In terms of international collaborations, these are in progress but more slowly than anticipated. In the spring of 2018, the Head of Centre and project manager Henning Camre were in Toronto and met with both Sheridan College and OCAD University. The initial meetings were very positive and there is agreement in principle to move forward.

In addition to this, both Camre and the Head of CEFIMA have identified other potential collaborators, primarily in the UK and Germany. Some of these have been contacted and initial meetings are planned for late spring, 2019.

Anticipated milestones not reached

On the whole, CEFIMA has achieved many of the milestones planned for 2018, but not all. Some are delayed and some have changed.

Delays

WP2: Audio and WP4: Dramatic Structure for Interactive and Immersive Environments are both delayed. Both are now planned for the school year 2019-20

Seminars and discussion forums within HINN and in collaboration with NORDICIL are on hold.

The start of training programmes for artists and industry in collaboration with NFI has begun but not progressed as far as planned.

One-to-one collaborations with Sheridan College, SIRT, and OCAD U are not yet formalised.

A small scale symposium for the spring of 2019 has not been planned.

The proposed international conference for fall 2019 / spring 2020 is now planned for fall 2020.

An international advisory board has not yet been constituted, although there are a number of international connections being used as an informal advisory group.

Alterations

The “Storytellers on New Platforms” network has been altered from a formal to an informal network for a variety of reasons, primarily the time available to the initial external members.

The exploration of collaboration with the National Film School of Denmark / DADIU is on hold due to political conditions in Denmark.

Background for milestones not reached

One key feedback from the NOKUT / Diku site visit in November, 2018 was, “Attention is now needed to the structuring and leadership of the Centre.” This was a very precise comment, and NFS and CEFIMA are taking steps to address this. Many of the delays mentioned above are due to a concentration of responsibilities on the Head of the Centre, leading to a bottleneck. The intention is that with a new staff and leadership structure being enacted in the winter/spring 2019, this will enable more rapid development and a more dynamic organisation better equipped to meet the challenges faced.

There are also some external factors that were not considered when planning for 2018. For example, NFI has its own internal considerations when engaging in collaborations, and these do not necessarily align with the schedules proposed by CEFIMA. It took some time to find a mode of collaboration that works for both parties, and we believe the pace of collaborations will increase through 2019.

Many other film- and media schools in the CILECT network are in similar situations to NFS, where much time and effort is being spent finding good ways to modernise the curricula, and international collaborations are often dependent on funding. NFS is engaging in discussions with some of the more natural collaborators, and exploring the funding programmes available through Diku.

It was also impossible to predict a year ago that the National Film School of Denmark would become embroiled in a high-profile political controversy towards the end of 2018. This controversy has sapped their ability to engage in collabortation at present, although the institutional will is still present. As a result, the plans agreed to in NORDICIL are on hold until the Danish school are once again able to return their attention to these collaborations. The Rector of the Danish Film School has a good dialogue with NFS Dean Karin Julsrud and the other heads of the Nordic film schools.

Internally at HINN, the delays are in large part due to time pressures of other activities. In 2018, much of the institutional energy at HINN was devoted to building the new, amalgamated institution, preparing documents for the visit by NOKUTs quality assurance committee in April 2019, and writing and sending an extensive application for full university status. At the same time, CEFIMA and NFS have been similarly preoccupied with activities related to the establishment of artistic research activities and the revised MFA. Now that these activities are behind us, it should be possible to prioritise internal dissemination activities for 2019-20.

Aims of the SFU initiative:

Artistic Research-based education, integrated models and student engagement

In Norwegian law, Artistic Research (AR) is separate and equivalent to Research & Development (R&D). The Norwegian Film School was from the very outset designed as a fine arts programme, and as such engages in AR but not R&D.

Artistic research as an artistic parallel to scholarly research in general is enshrined in the Act relating to Universities and University Colleges, cf. Section 1.1, as a joint goal for higher education institutions in Norway. The subject area of art encompasses the whole arts field as it is manifested in Norwegian institutions of higher education.

⎯from the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, http://artistic-research.no/; emphasis in original

Artistic Research in the context of higher education in Norway is defined as publically available artistic production, which may be accompanied by critical reflection⁴. At the Norwegian Film School, we have come to specify that both the artistic process and the artistic work should be publicised, and that the critical reflection should originate with the artists “statement of intent”. A key factor is that the artistic work is neither the subject nor the object of artistic research but is in fact the research in and of itself. It is the publication (in the sense of “making public” as opposed to any form of scholarly publication) of intentions, process, and reflection that separates artistic research from any other form of artistic production either inside or outside the academy.

The methods of artistic research are well-integrated into all 3 cycles of education at NFS, as demonstrated in the application for SFU status and the interviews during the site visit. The aim, then, of CEFIMA is not so much to expand AR-based education into the existing programmes, but to introduce AR-based education into areas where it has not existed previously.

Plans for 2019

Overview

A major focus for 2019 will be a variety of projects, both internal and external, which will give the needed insight into new storytelling formats and work methodologies in order to create the appropriate education for teaching future storytellers.

￼Milestones

The spring of 2019 will see the revision of the CEFIMA Strategic Plan, and some highlights will include:

Reorganising the leadership and support for strategic development and execution of activities.

Establish Artistic Research Café as a regular and important event in the Norwegian film, games and media landscape.

Plan and execute the VR intensive lab planned with NFI and Crossover Labs, tentatively set for October 2019.

Formalise international collaborations and send applications to Diku for the North America Partnership Programme, as well as possibly Erasmus, Horizon, and Nordic Council.

Work with HINN and NFS leadership to finalise study plans for a PhD in Artistic Research for film and related storytelling media.

Continue to foster the development of student-originated projects as well as relevant artistic research projects by faculty.

Initiate a series of short-term development projects aimed at increasing the institutional awareness of and competence in non-traditional and emerging audio-visual storytelling formats.

Initiate, in collaboration with NFI, short- and long-form educational programmes for the Norwegian film and games industries.

Plan, in coordination with HINNs Pro Rector for Education, dissemination activities at the institution.

Staffing

Steering group

NFS Dean — Karin Julsrud

Head of Centre — Fredrik Graver

Strategic Advisor — TBA

Head of NFS Artistic Research — TBA

Student 1 — To be hired spring 2019

Student 2 — To be hired spring 2019

Administration

Administrator — Janicke Vibe

Coordinator — Charlotte Midtbø

Faculty and staff

Cinematographer — Kjell Vassdal

Creative Technologist — Rafal Hanzl

Line Producer — Ingrid Nordby

Senior Advisor — Henning Camre

Networking consultant — Christian Fonnesbech

Artistic Research

Artistic Researcher — Maureen Thomas

Artistic Research Fellow — Nadja Lipsyc

Artistic Research Fellow — Cecilie Levy

Artistic Research Fellow — Elin Festøy

Artistic Research Fellow — Bendik Stang

Artistic Research Fellow — TBA — to begin fall 2019.

Student involvement

One key activity for 2019 is student-led curriculum development. This will include specific workshops planned by groups of students, research trips initiated by students with a goal of bringing specific inspiration or knowledge back into the film school community, and the support for student-led experimental productions.

End notes

¹ The first PhDs in Artistic Research were established in Norway at the beginning of 2018 at the National Academy of Music, and the National Academy of the Arts. When the Ministry of Education announced the new PhD programme it also announced the existing Artistic Research Fellowship Programme would be terminated. The Norwegian Film School, and its parent institution HINN have not yet established a formal PhD and as such the fellows are not properly PhD candidates yet. It is anticipated, however, that a PhD solution will be found by mid-2020.

² Traditional film production consists of well-established hierarchies, where (somewhat simplified) the director is the unquestioned artistic leader of the production and the producer is the unquestioned administrative leader, and the balance between these two will depend on their contractual relationship.

³ «Environmental design» is related to a term that is better known i the film industry: world building. In this way of working the act of creating a story begins with the creation of a world or environment, where the story (or stories) will take place, and drawing on this environment for inspiration and guidelines for the narratives being created.

⁴ This definition was published in the report «Vekt på kunstnerisk utviklingsarbeid (KU)» (2007). http://www.uhr.no/documents/vekt_paa_kunst.pdf (authors translation)