4.5 - Incidental Fees and Access to Materials

Owned by Joachim Strand (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 09, 2018 by Adam Barrett
3 min read

Incidental Fees apply to all Screen Arts practical units offered by the Department of Screen Arts at Curtin University.  These fees are applied in accordance with the University’s Academic Policies: University Charges and Levies in accordance with the DEST administrative guidelines for higher institutions on HECS and fees.  Incidental Fees are charged for materials and items used in the production of programs or projects where students retain the work completed using the materials in question.  (Curtin University of Technology: Academic Policies/Fees/Approval Criteria, 20/02/01).


Incidental Fees are compulsory, and non-payment of Incidental Fees will result in penalties, as detailed below. However and perhaps more significantly, failure to pay the relevant fees may impact on other members of your production group, and shortfalls in amounts budgeted for the purchase of consumable materials also has repercussions on the Screen Arts department.  Because of this, the area is reviewing policies relating to non-payment of Incidental Fees, but until these are introduced, please endeavours to pay your Incidental Fees by the prescribed date.


Incidental Fees do not cover or include items of capital expenditure, so they are not used to provide any of the equipment or facilities essential to the course such as cameras, lights, sound recording equipment, editing suites, audio post-production suites and the television studio and control room.

 

The fees are designed to cover items that have a finite life and are “consumed” in the general course of production, such as batteries, light globes, filters and filter materials, scrims, gaffer tape, flats, paints and sundry such items that are used in the general course of production. The nature of changes in production technology means that the fees need to be reviewed regularly and amended to reflect the impact of these changes. The Incidental Fees for 2009 have been reduced where possible to cover the essentials detailed above as well as the provision of hard drives as required for some editing processes and the P2 cards used by many of the Department’s HD cameras, as these, like any recording medium, have a finite life and need replacing from time to time.


In addition to these items, the incidental fee is used to provide students with:

  • Storage and archival space on a dedicated server for each production group to Master their work and to access their Master for the compilation of showreels and/or copies for festivals, competitions or other agreed uses.
  • A DVD of their work in the unit, including copyright for library music used on a show-reel, and dubbing fees. *


In those units where camera tapes are used, and where students wish to use more than the number of camera tapes or resources allocated to projects within a particular production unit, they will be required to purchase their own additional materials, but should consult the MCASI Store for information about what brands and specifications are approved for use in our equipment. This allows each student or production group to determine the number of tapes they use during the production process rather than be limited to the set number included in the Incidental Fee for each unit, although in the vast majority of cases, the supplied recording media is more than adequate for all assessment exercises.


The date for payment of the relevant Incidental Fee will be set as the Friday of the week after official census in each semester, or one week after the final day for withdrawal from the unit(s).

Failure to pay the fee by the prescribed date will result in the following penalties:

  1. Students will not be able to access their results until the fee is paid, and
  2. Students will not be approved to Graduate from their course of study until all outstanding University debts are paid, including Incidental Fees.


*    Under Australian copyright law, student work and showreels are required to be cleared for mechanical copyright (music, sound effects, etc.).  The University has entered into a group coverage arrangement under which a single fee is paid by the University to cover all such student work for assessment and other on campus presentations ONLY. For any other type of performance and/or distribution, students MUST conform to Australian copyright law to individually clear their work. The Production Coordinator will assist students in obtaining the appropriate clearances.