Filmmaker brings storytelling skills to academia — and RRU conference
Learn more about the School of Communication and Culture.
Check out details of the free, virtual 2025 Conference on Communication Ethics, to be held Feb. 19 and 20.
From music videos to live sporting events, dramas to comedies and reality TV to documentaries, Dwayne Beaver has walked a varied path as a filmmaker, storyteller and communicator.
As an associate faculty member in Royal Roads University’s School of Communication and Culture, Beaver is exploring the nexus of narrative and academic research while working on a project examining the evolving depictions of the RCMP in film and television since the force’s creation.
Beaver is one of the presenters taking part in RRU’s 2025 Conference on Communication Ethics, a free, virtual event being held February 19 and 20. In his session called A Filmmaker Researches Backwards: Exploring Narrative and Academic Intersections he plans to discuss how a documentarian may start with and get emotionally invested in an idea and, in researching backwards, discovers truths that steer the resulting narrative. This is a contrast to the academic practice of establishing a hypothesis, then working to prove it.
During his session, Beaver will talk about The Mountie in the Movie — his in-progress film project presented in three distinct narrative forms: a documentary, a drama and a comedy — and how creative and academic research practices can intersect to deepen public understanding.
A former military brat who was born on the East Coast, Beaver lived all over the country and moved 30 years ago to the West Coast for its burgeoning film industry. His move from film and TV to academia — he’s also an instructor in Capilano University’s School of Motion Picture Arts — wasn’t part of a long-term plan but it was a natural progression, he says.
“Academia gave me a tool to continue expressing myself in narrative forms. That was a really important discovery for me,” says Beaver, a 2014 graduate of Royal Roads’ Master of Arts in Professional Communication program. “I watched a lot of academics struggling with how to disseminate their research. How do they turn their research into something people will read, watch or listen to?
“How do I take something that reads like thick academic text and make it practical and accessible for someone outside that world?” says Beaver. “And I think a lot of my colleagues in academia feel the same way.”
For Beaver, the challenges of sharing academic knowledge and making a film or TV show are the same. "It's about finding the best way to communicate an idea that has multiple layers," he says. "Usually, there's a philosophical or core theme, and that needs to carry an emotional connection—otherwise, it won’t resonate with the person reading, watching, or listening."
The fifth annual Conference on Communication Ethics “aims to challenge, clarify, and expand our ethical capacities as professional communicators,” according to the event web page. It runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT on February 19 and 20, and session topics include: Social Media Threats to Diplomacy in the Trump Era; AI and Ethical Communication Practices; Professional Communication in Indigenous Contexts; and Climate Crisis and Sport. View the conference schedule for the full list of sessions.