Film Studies modules

Year one | Year two | Year three

Study routes

Students taking the Film Studies degree can choose to take one optional module per year in another programme such as Media or Journalism. Students cannot switch between programmes and must specify their choice at the start of the first year. Learn more.

First year modules

Block 1: Filmmaking 1 – Introduction to Moving Image Production

This introductory module to moving image production focuses on audio-visual storytelling for short film production, including introductions to camera, sound and editing techniques.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours
Studio/lab: 80 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 60 hours

Block 2: Film History and Theory 1 - Foundations of Film Studies: Concepts, Analysis, Film History

An introduction to the key tools and concepts for film analysis, concerns and debates of academic Film Studies and the history of global cinema as a visual medium and social and cultural institution. Students will engage with films as social, cultural and artistic products, as entertainment and communication, and learn to understand, decode and analyse their aesthetic and signifying practices.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours

Block 3: The Film Industry 1 - Disney, Warner Bros and the Business of the Film Studio

Understand the historic and current operation of major film studios, by reviewing their releases, changing structures over time, and their practices today. Through studying the activities of these key entities, students will gain an ability to analyse, evaluate and categorise the structures, market conditions and actions of studios.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Seminar: 30 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

OR you can select to study one route from the list below:

Media: Media, Culture and Society
Journalism: Understanding Journalism
English Language: Evolving Language
Creative Writing: Writers Salon
English Literature: Introduction to Drama: Shakespeare
History: Global Cities
Drama: Shifting Stages

Block 4: Professional Practice 1 – Film Reviewing

This module encourages critical thinking about the nature, character and function of public film discourse, specifically film reviewing. Students will explore and participate in the practice of film reviewing, learning how to speak and write critically about cinema in a way that is insightful, informative but also engaging for its audiences.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 140 hours 
Assessment: 100 hours

Second year modules

Block 1: Film History and Theory 2 – Cinemas of the World: Concepts, Movements, Case Studies

Explores some of the key theoretical and critical concepts and debates essential to a fully-rounded textual and contextual understanding of developments in World Cinema. The module focuses on contemporary developments and film, region and/or director case studies.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture 18 hours
Seminar 30 hours 
Tutorial 30 hours 
Workshop 30 hours 
Self-directed study 130 hours 
Assessment 62 hours

Block 2: Filmmaking 2 - Moving Image Portfolio

This module builds on the skills that students have acquired in the Introduction to Moving Image Production module. Students will work to three set briefs, with each brief focusing on a particular moving image production style and distribution method, such as moving image content for a website, a corporate film and a short film based on archival material.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours 
Studio/lab: 80 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 60 hours

Block 3: Professional Practice 2 – Screen Archives: Preservation, Conservation and Usage

Learn about the management and usage of screen archives and how to identify, approach and mitigate the threats that time and space pose to the preservation of film and media heritage for future generations.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 60 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

OR continue with the route selected in the first year:

Media: Public Relations
Journalism: Beyond News
English Language: Sociolinguistics
Creative Writing: Story Craft
English Literature: Digital Humanities
History: Humans and the Natural World
Drama: Theatre Revolutions

Block 4: The Film Industry 2 - Filmmakers

This module is about models of screen authorship, the roles of the filmmaker, and the practices of filmmaking. Develop knowledge and understanding of the questions, theories and controversies which have informed critical issues and theoretical debates on film authorship.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Seminar: 30 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

Third year modules

Block 1: Professional Practice 3 - Planning Film Festivals

Provides an understanding of the history, organisation and functions of global and domestic film festivals. Students will develop practical ideas and themes for a film festival including delivering pitches to professional practitioners and developing strategies for festival branding, design, marketing and audience development in conjunction with industry professionals.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Studio/lab: 60 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

OR

The Film Industry 3 - The Film Industry Now

Introduces current developments and opportunities available in the global film industries today, and teaches students how to understand the marketplace for film and media products, and how to position themselves within this marketplace. Students are taught in depth about working practices across the film and TV industries, and they are asked to review and analyse current trade developments.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Seminar: 30 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

Block 2: Professional Practice 4 - Delivering Film Festivals

This module offers students practical experience in organising and delivering a film festival at Phoenix Cinema and other venues as appropriate. Students will work closely alongside and industry professionals and community organisations and venues to deliver a public film festival hosted and presented by the student cohort.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Studio/lab: 60 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

OR

The Film Industry 4 – Fan and Material Cultures

Explores the role that consumers, fans and promotional activities targeted at these groups play in the cultural, historical and economic structure of the film industry. The goal is to familiarise students with the roles that they and other consumers and fans of movies play in a wider set of social, cultural and economic practices.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours 
Seminar: 30 hours 
Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 130 hours 
Assessment: 62 hours

Block 3: Filmmaking 3 – Independent Project: Idea Development and Pre-production

This module is for students to develop, plan and manage a moving image project to set deadlines. Students will develop a proposal for a self-managed programme of creative lens-based work from initial concept, script writing, storyboarding, through to the completion of pre-production.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 140 hours
Assessment: 100 hours

OR

Film History and Theory 3 – British Cinema: Creativity, Independents and Interdependence

This module asks students to explore and understand British cinema, its cultural specificity and its remarkable creative and cultural diversity within an industry-grounded framework, with a particular focus on the post-studio period since the late 1960s and developments between the 1980s and the present.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Lecture: 18 hours
Mandatory & guided film viewing: 22 hours
Seminar: 24 hours
Tutorial:16 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 120 hours
Assessment: 70 hours

OR continue with the study route selected in the first and second year:

Media: Gender and TV Fictions
Journalism: Music, Film and Entertainment Journalism
English Language: Language, Gender and Sexuality
Creative Writing: Creative Misbehaviour
English Literature: World Englishes
History: The World on Display
Drama: Performance, Identity and Society

Block 4: Filmmaking 4 – Independent Project: Production and Delivery

The focus of this module is for the student to produce and complete a creative moving image project independently and to develop its distribution strategy.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 140 hours 
Assessment: 100 hours

OR

Film History and Theory 4 – Film Studies Dissertation

The Film Studies Dissertation offers final-year students the opportunity to define and investigate in some depth a Film Studies topic of their own choice, subject to project validity and viability and approval by the Dissertation Module Leaders/Team.

This block module runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:

Tutorial: 30 hours 
Workshop: 30 hours 
Self-directed study: 140 hours 
Assessment: 100 hours

Prerequisite modules

In years one and two, students take two foundation modules in each of the programme’s four strands, namely filmmaking, film history and theory, the film industry, and professional practice. In year three they are given the opportunity to specialise in two of these areas by taking two modules in each. As such, these blocks of two modules in each of the four strands must be taken as a pair to enable students the necessary degree of specialisation. To ensure this, the second module in each block has the first as its prerequisite.

In addition, under the Education2030 system, students from other programmes will be entitled to take modules that fall within block 3 on our programme. While this does not present a problem for most modules in this position, it would be unwise to offer FILM3103 to students who have not taken previous filmmaking modules, and hence lack the necessary skills to succeed on this module, or who will not go on to realise the filmmaking project initiated in FILM3103 during FILM3104 in Block 4.

Instead, students from other programmes seeking to take a Film Studies module in Block 3 of year three will be offered FILM3113, which runs as an option at the same time as FILM3103. To ensure that this is the case and that students from outside the programme are not accidentally enrolled onto FILM3103, the previous filmmaking module, FILM2102 has been assigned as a prerequisite.

As such, the full list of prerequisites on the programme is as follows:

FILM3102 Professional Practice 4 – Delivering Film Festivals requires students to have taken FILM3101 Professional Practice 3 – Planning Film Festivals.

FILM3112 The Film Industry 4 – Fan and Material Cultures requires students to have taken FILM3111 The Film Industry 3 – The Film Industry Now.
FILM3103 Filmmaking 3 – Independent Project: Idea Development and Pre-production requires students to have taken FILM2102 Filmmaking 2 – Moving Image Portfolio.
FILM3104 Filmmaking 4 – Independent Project: Production and Delivery requires students to have taken FILM3103 Filmmaking 3 – Independent Project: Idea Development and Pre-production.
FILM3114 Film History and Theory 4 – Film Studies Dissertation requires students to have taken FILM3113 Film History and Theory 3 – British Cinema: Creativity, Independents and Interdependence.