Ethical Movie Summary

Let’s Go to the Movies: Ethical Lessons from Hollywood

In teams of 4-6 students, students will come up with a list of “Best Ethics Picture Nominees” by watching, reporting on, and preparing a presentation summarizing several movies that illustrate some type of ethical dilemma. Teams have discretion in the choice of movies (within reason) and are encouraged to be creative. You don’t necessarily have to select the most recent or famous movie on a Wall Street scandal. It can be an old or new film. It can focus on a character who was unethical or one who did the “right thing” when confronted with an ethical dilemma. The movie must illustrate some type of ethical dilemma (even if not the main plot). The lessons learned must apply to business, even if the movie itself is not about business.

Required:

1. Each team member will identify and report back to their teams on a movie for potential nomination. Use the attached form to brief your teammates on your movie selection.

2. Each team members should submit their summary form to the instructor for approval to be included in the presentation. The form will summarize the movie plot, characters, ethical dilemma and resolution for each movie.

3. Teams will meet to select the “best picture” from the list of nominees. You can use whatever criteria you choose to select the best picture.

4. The final deliverable will be a 10-15 minute presentation that summarizes the nominees and highlights the ethical issue brought out in each film. The video should culminate in the selection of one movie as “Best Picture”.

5. Every team member must present. You are encouraged to use “short” video clips to highlight the ethical issues.

6. Please be respectful of other students when selecting your scene. Try to refrain from using scenes with extreme profanity or situations that would make members of the class uncomfortable.

7. My understanding of copyright laws (which are constantly evolving, especially for digital media) is that limited footage from the films can be re-produced for multi-media presentations so long as the original source was legally obtained and it meets the “fair use” and “educational” provision of US Copyright law. See attached guidelines excerpt from the proposed Educational Guidelines on Fair Use (fairuse.stanford.edu)

Deliverable Dates:

11/5 Nomination Summaries Due (one per team member). I will review and get back to you if I have any concerns about your nominations.

11/26 and 11/28: In class presentations.

Team Members:______________________________________________

Movie Title: _________________________________________________

Year of Release: ___________ Production Co. ___________________

Plot Summary (in your own words. Do not plagiarize)

Main characters (Actor/Actress):

Ethical Dilemma: Provide a brief summary of the ethical issue depicted in the movie.

Values in conflict: What were the major values in conflict in the ethical dilemma?

Resolution: How did the character/characters resolve the ethical issue?

Lessons Learned: What did you learn or what would you have done differently?

Proposed Guidelines for Students or Instructors Preparing Multimedia Works (http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions)

There are extensive proposed guidelines for the creation and use of multimedia works. Multimedia works include music, text, graphics, illustrations, photographs, and/or audiovisual images combined into a presentation using equipment. For example, an instructor in copyright law may use a software program such as Microsoft PowerPoint to create a class presentation that includes still and moving images, music, and spoken words.

In general, students and instructors may create multimedia works for face-to-face instruction, directed self-study, or remote instruction provided that the multimedia works are used only for educational purposes in systematic learning activities at nonprofit educational institutions. Instructors may use their multimedia works for teaching courses for up to two years after the first use.

There are also certain “portion limitations.” An educational multimedia presentation may include:

· Up to 10% or 1,000 words, whichever is less, of a copyrighted text work. For example, you may use an entire poem of less than 250 words but no more than three poems by one poet or five poems by different poets from the same anthology.

· Up to 10%, but not more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work.

· Up to 10% or three minutes, whichever is less, of a copyrighted motion media work—for example, an animation, video, or film image.

· A photograph or illustration in its entirety but no more than five images by the same artist or photographer. When using photographs and illustrations from a published collective work, you may use no more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less. Or,

· Up to 10% or 2,500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less, from a copyrighted database or data table. A “field entry” is defined as a specific item of information, such as a name or Social Security number in a database file record. A “cell entry” is defined as the intersection at which a row and a column meet on a spreadsheet.

Only two copies of an educational multimedia project may be made, only one of which may be placed on reserve. An additional copy may be made for preservation purposes, but may only be used or copied to replace a copy that has been lost, stolen, or damaged. If an educational multimedia project is created by two or more people, each creator may retain one copy for the educational purposes described in the proposed guidelines. Permission is required for uses that are commercial or go beyond the limitations of the proposed guidelines.