Film Studies modules
Year one | Year two | Year three
First year modules:
Introduction to Film Studies
Introduces you to the key issues in cinema scholarship and the key modes of studying cinema. You will learn how film works as a text, with its own language, and also how film functions as a social and economic institution.
Introduction to Global Film History
Covers how cinema has developed from a technological curiosity to the globalised entertainment business it is today. You will complete historical research into the narrative of cinema history and learn about how filmmaking techniques were established and deployed around the world.
Introduction to Moving Image Production
Focuses on audio-visual storytelling and moving image production techniques for narrative and factual genres, as well as online platforms. You will also explore the relationship between key crew members in developing and producing stories.
Writing, Reviewing and Film Criticism
Enables you to establish your own critical identity by blogging, interviewing filmmakers and carrying out briefs for external partners. Along the way, you will develop your skills as a professional writer.
Film and New Media
Gives you a professional understanding of the modern film marketplace. You will explore the current environment for film production, funding and release, and trace the impact of digital technology on the film industry since 2000.
Second year modules:
Contemporary British Cinema
Explores key aspects of British cinema, the contemporary British film industry and the critical and contextual debates around them. It focuses mainly on the period since 1990, but also looks back to the longer history of UK genre trends, film culture, reception, critique and policy to help us understand the contexts and forces shaping more recent developments.
Disney
Focuses on one defining media institution – the Disney Corporation – and traces its development from a small-scale animation producer to the largest provider of family trans-media entertainment in the world. You will combine the study of animated film with a focus on family audiences and Disney’s various media activities, to understand how global media conglomerates function.
The New Hollywood
Focuses on one key period in American cinema history, between 1967 and 1980, when Hollywood developed a tradition of challenging art films. This course is concerned with the art of cinema, and the defining contribution made by a series of filmmakers to the development of American filmmaking, and global film culture.
Film and TV Genres
Focuses on what genre is and how it works. You will apply your knowledge to a very broad cross section of different texts to gain a clear understanding of how different genres are constructed, and how they change over time.
Script to Screen
Develops your skills as a filmmaker, pushing you into new creative territory. In the first term, you will work with professional scriptwriters to produce your own script – in the second term you will film it.
Professional Practice: Film Festivals
Will support you to develop your understanding of the role that film festivals play in the UK and abroad. You will be given the opportunity to gain some practical experience too, by planning and programming a themed film festival of your own!
Media, Gender and Identity
Develops your understanding of how film, TV and other media shape our perceptions of gender, and notions of identity more generally. You will build your skills as a critic and thinker through a close focus on a range of texts.
Film and Material Culture
Develops your critical and research skills by studying the cultural, industrial and historical significance of promotional and fan-produced materials for films, from press books and posters to trailers and radio and adaptations – and everything in between!
World Cinema
Introduces you to some of the key theoretical and critical concepts essential to a fully-rounded textual and contextual understanding of developments in non-Hollywood World Cinemas since 1945. You will explore questions of transnational cinema, migrant and accented cinema, extreme cinema, slow cinema and ‘new’ realisms.
Third year modules:
Film Studies Dissertation or Major Filmmaking Project
Gives you the choice of working on a group film project, or producing a detailed study of one filmmaking issue. Previous topics include textual analyses of Studio Ghibli’s films, investigations of the economics of Star Wars videogames and detailed studies of national identity in film.
Cult Film
Focuses on challenging, obscure, camp and intense films which have developed cult followings over the years. You will be exposed to stimulating underground films, learning about their broader social, theoretical, critical and historical contexts, to develop a clear understanding of cult film culture.
Filmmakers
Allows you to focus in detail on the work of one significant film director, writer or producer. The module sets the filmmaker within, on the one hand, social, cultural and industrial contexts (e.g. national cinema), and, on the other, wider theoretical issues such as the value of ‘auteurism’ to understand a collaborative medium.
Writing for the Screen
Offers the opportunity to receive professional training and practical guidance from an industry practitioner to develop your skills in creative scriptwriting for television, online video and film.
Audiences and Fandom
Focuses on the people who watch movies and aims to understand how and why we engage with filmic texts. You will develop your understanding of how films address viewers, but also what viewers get out of their relationship with the cinema.
Documentary
Explores the history, aesthetic forms and social practices of documentary film. You will study areas such as post-war commercial and political film-making, avant-garde documentary, the renaissance of the documentary feature and digital documentary forms and themes including ethnographic film, propaganda, docudrama, mockumentary, video diaries and home movies.