The advancement of the information age undoubtedly has had an enormous impact on the shaping, complexity and our understanding of the Creative Media Industries. The ways in which content is constructed and communicated is evolving constantly and as such studying and practising in the field requires constant adaptation. The purpose of the Band Complete project is to engage students in several areas of creative media production and publishing by means of engaging in the professional life of a music artist. Band Complete is an educational project, conceptualised and created by C.Martinis and developed by SAE Athens.
The initial concept was that Music Business & Creative Industries students, according to their skills and the knowledge associated with their course, could strategically approach a very complex project, develop a project management strategy, produce creative ideas, employ marketing concepts and finally promote the band and organize a final event presenting the completed work. The Advanced Audio Production students would record, mix and master the songs chosen and help with the final event production and any other audio related issues emerging throughout the project. Students would work jointly with their course lecturers and the Band Complete coordinators. When special skills and expertise were required, external collaborators would be engaged.
However, after 2 years of running the project, as SAE Athens developed multiple creative media courses, it became evident that students of those departments were able to produce creative media content needed for the Band Complete project. This meant that interesting collaborations and synergies could be developed and the need for external assistance could be minimized.
This idea presented multiple advantages:
- Network building takes place between students from various departments
- Practical education is offered for a number of different courses
- Expertise is shared among departments
- Skills and knowledge are transferred
- A sense of community is built between students of different courses and lecturers from diverse backgrounds
In this context, a first step was to engage the Digital Film Making students in the Band Complete project in order to produce a video clip for the band, along with other video promotional materials. Following this we expected to involve students from the 3D & Interactive Animation, Web Development and Game Production courses, in order to further support the Band Complete project content production.