IB Diploma Programme Film HL (first assessment 2021; 2017 guide). This topic equips the HL-only COLLABORATIVE FILM PROJECT (35%): a completed film (at most 7 minutes) created by a core production team working to a shared artistic intention, plus an individual project report (at most 2 000 words) and a list of sources. Each student works in a chosen production role and contributes to ALL phases of the filmmaking process; the report reflects on the process of collaboration, its successes and its challenges. This handout teaches the team discipline, the film and the report. All worked examples are original.

Must-know for the collaborative film project:

The core production team 核心制作团队 is small by design: each member carries one chosen production role (from the portfolio's seven) and contributes to every phase of the filmmaking process: development (the idea, the research, the artistic intention 艺术意图 agreed as a team), pre-production (script, schedule, locations, permissions), production (the shoot) and post-production (the cut, the mix, the finish). The intention is shared and written down before the shoot: a film is many decisions, and the team that never wrote its intention argues taste instead of purpose.

Worked example. Four students make “The Last Bus”, a real-time 7-minute short: one screenwriter-director, one camera, one editor with sound, one producer with production design. The shared intention: a journey that never leaves the vehicle, tension carried by the frame rather than the cut.

The completed film 成片 (at most 7 minutes) is the collective outcome: original work in which each member's role is visible. The discipline: the film serves the shared intention, and the cap forces structure (every scene either builds the journey or leaves); the roles interlock (coverage the edit can rhythm, a schedule the shoot can keep); the craft taught by the portfolio pages is applied at full scale. The film is judged as a film: meaning made on screen by the elements working together.

Worked example, continued. Halfway through the shoot the bus interior location is lost to a schedule clash; the producer's re-plan (fewer set-ups, longer holds) protects the intention, and the constraint reads as style.

The project report 项目报告 (at most 2 000 words, plus a list of sources) is the individual voice inside the collective outcome: what the member set out to do in their role, the decisions they made with the team, and a reflection on the process of collaboration, the successes AND the challenges encountered as a member of the core production team. The discipline: the report claims the member's decisions, not the team's; disagreements are written from both sides and resolved against the shared intention; the challenges are kept (the schedule clash, the scene that would not cut) because they evidence the collaboration, not shame it.

Worked example, continued. The camera member's report: the intention read as restraint (two lens plans compared, the wide chosen to hold tension); the collaborative decision (the held wide against the director's coverage, argued from the written intention, not seniority); the challenge (the lost interior halving the shot list) and what it taught.

• The deliverables: one completed film (at most 7 minutes) and a project report (at most 2 000 words) with sources (film).
• The team: core production team, one chosen role each, all four phases contributed (team).
• The intention: shared, written before the shoot, arbitrating disagreements (intention).
• The report: individual voice, own decisions, collaboration's successes and challenges kept visible (reflection).
• The worked “The Last Bus” project understood: intention, interlock, re-plan (worked).

Boundary notes: the collaborative film project is marked on the film as a film and on the report's honest account of collaboration: the examiner must see the team, not just the member. All worked examples are original.