Capstone project

A capstone project represents the culmination of your interests and skills developed throughout your studies. Capstone's are typically individual projects, though you have the option to enlist the help of peer DMD students who may have complimentary skills to help bring your project to fruition. The capstone project must include a major research component, demonstrated media production skills and techniques, and participation in the online capstone project exhibition. Capstone projects must be able to be completed within the duration of the capstone experience. In order to successfully complete the capstone project, a good understanding of media, production workflows, and project scope will be needed. You will produce documentation, meet deliverable and milestone deadlines, introduce relevant theory and analysis, and participate in the capstone project online exhibition.

Project deliverables

The capstone project is broken down into the following deliverable categories. See each category for more information about deliverable requirements:

1. Proposal
2. Agreement form
3. Proof of concept
4. Progress reports
5. Statement
6. Project document
7. Project explainer video
8. Capstone project exhibition

Expectations

Each project should demonstrate a minimum of entry-level skills for their chosen field.

1. Define a project proposal
   1. Outcomes
   2. Context and impact
   3. Themes
   4. Scope: What can you do in 1 semester?
   5. Identify a production process and timeline
   6. Identify faculty or industry mentor
   7. If a group project, what roles and workload must be defined.
2. Minimum of three (3) Check-ins with advisor, mentor, or client.
   1. Notes or takeaways from meeting
   2. Student facilitates meeting by being prepared to show progress, prepare questions ahead of time, and schedule meetings.
3. Account for faculty reviewer feedback. Failure to consider reviewer feedback can result in a lower overall project grade, particularly if the project outcomes suffered as a result of ignoring advice or analysis.
4. Project deliverables
   1. Project should either be based on a clearly defined career intention or a well defined concept and theme. Expressive projects must be well articulated in the project statement.
5. Deliver a final presentation and contribution for student exhibition of work.

Types

While project types may overlap, in general, they can be broken down into a few types. You can map project categories to the following:

• Client-based project
  • This project is based on fulfilling stakeholder needs and requirements.
• Experimental and experiential art or design
  • This type refers to creative projects that feature aesthetic explorations often based on new or existing theory and practices.
  • Often the purpose of experimental work is to create new knowledge, explore meaning, and phenomenology.
• Story-driven
  • Story driven projects comprise of fictional or non-fictional stories told through digital narrative media. These stories can be either new or reimagined existing stories.