BA (Hons) Film Production
Core modules†
Year 1
Module: Camera and Lighting
Indicative Tutorial Team: Robert
Ferrin
Summary: This module offers
students the opportunity to gain
core competencies in professional
camera and lighting equipment
operation for both drama and
documentary production work.
Undertaking intensive hands-on
workshops, students’ skills and
creativity are honed and tested
thorough weekly formative exercises
designed to foster knowledge and
practical application across both
drama and documentary disciplines.
Student groups will pitch their script
ideas in Week 5 for tutor progression
feedback.
Module: Creating Short Screenplays
Indicative Tutorial Team: Bernard
McKenna, Kate Iles
Summary: In this module, students
have the opportunity to develop
basic scriptwriting skills by focusing
specifically on the study and writing
of short screenplays. The focus will
be on analysis and implementation
of narrative devices (including
narrative shortcuts and use of
sound), development of story and
character (and the inter-relationship
between the two), and on skills in
writing visually and succinctly. The
particular character of the ‘short’
screenplay will be examined,
analysed and practiced. Scripts will
be written with a view that they be
made as a short film in Semester 2
for the ‘Producing Drama’ module. A
formative task involves an ideas
pitch for tutor feedback.
Module: Documentary Production
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Lucia
King
Summary: After a thorough
introduction detailing the ranging
genres, production methods and
styles of historical and contemporary
documentary films, students will
develop their own ideas for
documentary subject matter and
subsequently shoot their own
documentary film. This module will
focus on the documentary
filmmaking process and is aimed to
strengthen practical and theoretical
knowledge gained prior to and
throughout the filming of the group
documentary project. An individual
reflexive account provides students
opportunity to consider their
creative role and the finished project
in relation to documentary genre
practices. A formative task involves a
group idea pitch for tutor feedback.
Module: Editing and Sound
Indicative Tutorial Team: Paul
Carter, Robert Ferrin
Summary: This module offers
students the opportunity to gain
core competences in professional
sound-recording equipment and a
chosen piece of editing software for
use in both drama and documentary
production work. Through intensive
hands-on workshops, students’
creative and aesthetic skills are
tested and honed through weekly
exercises designed to test knowledge
and practical application across
drama and documentary forms. A
formative task informs project
development and tutor feedback on
progress.
Module: Genre Filmmaking
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Mark de
Valk
Summary: This module offers
students the opportunity to gain a
core understanding of film genres
and their application to filmmaking
and to creating meaning within the
frame. Students will explore how
genre is created through semiology
(the use of signs and symbols) within
the frame to express a range of
meanings and how they support
narrative. A group film project is
designed to advance student
understanding and development of
filmmaking creative practices.
Students undertake an individual
case-study examining a genre film or
a director working within a particular
genre. A formative task pitching the
group film project idea and planned
framic elements affords project
progression tutor feedback.
Module: Producing Drama
Indicative Tutorial Team: Kate Iles,
Richard Trebilcock
Summary: This module offers
students an opportunity to be
involved in the production of a short
filmed drama from the creation of an
original screenplay (as developed in
Semester 1, Creating Short
Screenplays) to delivery of the final
film. Students are able to participate
in both the basic creative dimensions
of fiction filmmaking including
directing performance,
cinematography and editing and the
organisational dimensions of
producing and production
management. Working in key roles
throughout the pre- production,
production and post-production
stages of the film making process,
students will develop the ability to
work creatively and organisationally
in groups of 4. The aim of this
module is the recognition of
filmmaking as a collaborative art
form. Students also set up a personal
website and an online social
presence. A formative task affords
project tutor development feedback
on project progression.
Module: The Director: Auteur
Filmmaking
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Mark de
Valk
Summary: This module offers
students the opportunity to gain a
core understanding of how the film
director composes and populates the
frame in furtherance of creating
meaning. Students will explore how
a director’s voice can be read as
being the ‘author’ of a film through
the creation of mise-en-scene. An
individual micro-film project is
designed to advance student
understanding and development of
directing a micro-film, one that
focuses on to create basic mise-enscene elements in furtherance of
developing an original vision for the
script. An individual case-study
affords students the opportunity to
critically analyse a film director as
‘auteur’. Students undertake a
formative task to pitch their story
concept and plans for mise-en-scene
to the tutor for project progression
feedback.
Year 2
Module: Cinematography
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Lucia
King, Richard Trebilcock
Summary: This module develops
cinematographic skills, acquired from
Lv4 study, to inform creative
authorship and technical camera
operation. Students will understand
that the conceptual development of
visual narrative in film is a vital
compliment to cinematographic
technical ability. Utlising examples
from contemporary
cinematographers, students will
critical analyse how practice informs
the filmmaking process, this will be
realised to produce a group short
film. Studies and experimentation
with genre and semiotics will take
place during workshops that explore
cinematographic methodologies.
These workshops are designed to
advance students’ key core skills in
lighting, camera, direction and miseen-scene, inclusive of a written
critical analysis. A formative task to
present a working script and
shot/lighting plan affords project
progress tutor feedback.
Module: Directing Drama: Master
Filmmakers
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Mark de
Valk
Summary: Building on key core
filmmaking and directing skills
studied at Lv 4, students will develop
and hone particular personal and
ideological themes, to directorially
draw upon as a filmmaker, in pursuit
of creating bold, innovative and
forward-looking stories and mise-enscene. Understanding film as an art
form, as a means to developing an
original voice, will serve to develop
directorial craft skills. A series of
‘master filmmaker’ directors will be
analysed to broaden and deepen an
understanding of cinematic language
for mise-en-scene. Students will
research and write a critical analysis
examining examples of a particular
director’s work (other than those
studied on the module). A formative
task will afford students feedback on
project and research progression.
Module: Editing
Indicative Tutorial Team:
Summary: Following on from key
core editing techniques learned at Lv
4, students develop a deeper
understanding of the theoretical and
historical practices and aspects of
cinematic editing both as a technical
skill and as narrative convention. The
module will focus on the
development of aesthetic and
practical skills applicable to the
filmmaking process and how image
construction and structure
contribute to creating mise - en scene. After a historical overview,
students will examine specific areas
of editing through lectures and
workshops focusing on areas such as:
sensation vs perception, editing of
moving image, cutting sound, colour
grading and delivery. Students will
produce an individual portfolio that
demonstrates a range of editing
techniques, including narrative and
experimental image juxtaposition.
Students will research and write a
case-study analysing a particular
editorial practice or industry
practioner. A formative task affords
tutor feedback for project
progression.
Module: Film Sound
Indicative Tutorial Team: Paul Carter
Summary: This module follows on
from Level 4 sound studies to
develop students’ practical sound
production technical skills including
location shooting and in postproduction through a group project.
The module examines the historical
and contemporary relevance of
sound production in relation to the
filmmaking process and how it
contributes to mise-en-scene. The
focus will be on the practical and
aesthetic elements of sound
production to understand how it
operates and how it contributes to
theme. Students will individually
reflect on their sound work. A
formative task affords project
progression tutor feedback.
Module: Rebel Filmmaking
Indicative Tutorial Team: Dr Mark de
Valk
Summary: Students will explore the
theory and practice of rebel
filmmaking as it manifests in a range
of national and international
contexts and across fiction and nonfiction forms. Rebel filmmaking will
be understood as a strategy
employed by ‘first time’ or
transgressive filmmakers to write
and direct films outside the
‘mainstream’ context; to subvert
traditional production means; to
counter/challenge the economics
and ideologies of the mainstream
cinema; as a product of
‘found’/retro/alternate technologies;
as a means for marginalised/
oppressed groups to gain access to
methods of film production. The
module draws on the students’
practical experiences of filmmaking
across all the production modules of
the programme to make a short
‘rebel’ film that experiments with
narrative or documentary practices.
Students will self- film a critical
reflexive analysis (to-camera) and
verbally discuss how they engaged
with non- conformist/alternative film
practices per their role in the group
film and how their themes challenge
convention/power systems. A
formative task affords a group
project pitch to their tutor for
project progression feedback.
Module: Screenwriting and
Character
Indicative Tutorial Team: Kate Iles,
Imruh Bakari
Summary: Building on the Level 4
module Creating Short Screenplays,
and on the demands of drama
production, students explore the
central role of the scriptwriter in the
film production process. Whilst
acknowledging the collaborative
process involved in the development
of initial ideas for the screen,
students will also have the
opportunity to develop their own
sustained screenwriting style with an
emphasis on the importance of
character in the production of
engaging screen narratives. The
module is designed to facilitate those
students choosing the Level 6
Adaptations option module and
those writing a feature length
screenplay for their EIS Level 6 Final
Major Project. A formative task
affords project
progression tutor feedback.
Module: Volunteering: Community
Filmmaking
Indicative Tutorial Team: Kate Iles,
Robert Ferrin
Summary: This module allows
students to produce a moving-image
live-brief artefact in consultation,
and in conjunction with, the
voluntary/charity sector. The aim is
that students will make a positive
and personally rewarding
contribution to the regional
community whilst also reflecting
critically on the collaborative
experience and developing practical
skills which will enhance
employability and personal
development. A formative task
affords feedback on project planning
and client agreement.
Year 3
Module: EIS Final Major Project
Indicative Tutorial Team: Richard
Trebilcock, Dr Lucia King, Kate Iles,
Paul Carter, Robert Ferrin, Dr Mark
de Valk
Summary: The Final Major Project is
either a group film production
(running time negotiable with
supervisor) or an individual featurelength screenplay (80- 100pages);
this is an Extended Independent
Studies (EIS) project. The practical
project is supported by an individual
‘mini-viva’ session (10mins) where
students have the opportunity to
critically account for, and analyse,
their particular creative contribution,
research and specialist role on the
project to a panel of tutors. Genre
and subject area are determined
through negotiation with personal
project supervisors with whom
students will have regular tutorials to
discuss creative progress, issues and
logistical challenges for the
production. 2 Formative tasks are
undertaken to receive feedback on
the project’s progress across both
semesters.
Module: Showreel and
Entrepreneurship
Indicative Tutorial Team: Robert
Ferrin
Summary: Following on from Lv5
studies on the Digital Distribution
and Global Producing: Film Festival,
Marketing and Networking options,
this module prepares students for
post-study employment
opportunities. The module aims to
provide students with a realistic
knowledge of the current
employment possibilities within the
film industry and develops the
important aspects and
understanding of industry
requirements needed for graduate
entry into the film industry.
Professional and current
practitioners will advise and tutor
students on seeking and securing
work within a particular sector, ones
that compliment skills acquired on
the Film Production degree. To hone
interpersonal skills, each student will
present their completed website and
showreel, inclusive of a reflexive
accounting of their creative choices.
A formative task affords tutor
feedback on portfolio progression.
Module: Advanced Post-Production
Indicative Tutorial Team: Richard
Trebilcock
Summary: This module develops
understanding of how advance postproduction techniques are deployed
in the modern film production
process. Using a wide range of
Adobe Creative Cloud applications
(Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects
etc.) you will create a short film
sequence utilising and
demonstrating post- production
techniques. Seminars and workshops
will explore examples of postproduction techniques in current use
and provide historical context to
improve understanding. This module
will equip students with advanced
skills in post- production appropriate
to entry into the film and media
production industries. A formative
task affords project progression tutor
feedback.
†Please note the University cannot
guarantee the availability of all
modules listed and modules may be
subject to change.