Re: creativity

I understand exactly what you mean! In effect, it appears incorporating a dramatic writing section in you course would be idea, and I like a small book called An Anatomy of Drama by Martin Esslin. I also believe in acting and movement. The goal would be to create a technical vocabulary on why one performance is more convincing than the other. Hard to beat Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares (although that may be a bit too method for the UK :).

One could also stress the word "technical" means essentially "technique," and each sub-medium of film has its unique technique. The only two that really touch the emotions for the audience are the writing and acting, and everything else serves that purpose. For example, I dp'd a project where I was fortunate enough to photograph some amazing scenes, and I was behind the camera, emotional and choking back tears. Yeah my lighting and framing was the best I could do, but people so far love the movie because of the writing and acting.

Said it before, I'll say it again: Capturing clean pic and audio is easy. Getting a million people to pay $10 to watch your production is very hard.