Film Studies - BA (Hons)

This module introduces you to Hollywood film through its early, classical and post-classical traditions. The module is structured around the examination of these three stages of development, with a range of debates that also allow you to evaluate American cinema through its stylistic, generic, industrial and historical features.

This module introduces you to the key debates that have been central to the development of film studies as a subject. The module begins by considering the development of film theory in its historical and critical traditions, before continuing to discuss a series of topics that will be relevant to both the module and your wider studies on the degree as a whole.

A key aspect to understanding filmmaking, is the actual process. This module will provide you with an introduction to conventional filmmaking techniques, such as lighting, camerawork and sound recording. This also includes an introduction to pre-production operations. This will be in the form of visual and sound acquisition techniques, as well as strategies to plan for this. You will be expected to operate a range of equipment, reflecting typical processes to do with narrative and documentary filmmaking. This foundation can be built upon to support future production endeavours.

In this module you will explore the development of the film and television documentary by critically investigating the medium through a range of lectures, readings and screenings, and applying this to produce your own short documentary. We will consider different genres of documentary, such as direct cinema, mockumentary, investigative, ethnographic, docu-soap, experimental, docu-drama, reconstruction and the music documentary, as well as some of the contemporary issues facing documentary film makers. We will engage with a variety of academic debates that relate to the documentary, which include realism, representation, ethics and ideology, and the social, political, economic and technological contexts in which documentary can be critically located.

This module builds on the skills of critical and contextual analysis you have previously developed on the course and applies them to an analysis of European film and television. This module will prepare students who wish to develop expertise and knowledge in European film and television history and their cultural, distribution and funding contexts.

This module looks at what it takes to create, manage and draw audiences to a film festival or screening event. The aim is to develop your appreciation of the complexities of event management from establishing goals and selection through to the logistics of programming, managing budgets and executing a marketing campaign to draw audiences.

The module is an opportunity to learn and critically reflect on the skills of collaboration by enabling you to create an interdisciplinary project with students from complementary disciplines, or with academic staff. Collaboration is a vital employability skill within the Creative Industries and this module allows you to develop these skills, making use of University facilities and with the support of academic staff. Within this module framework, several kinds of collaborative opportunities are available. For example, with the approval of your supervisor, you can determine a project based on your own interests; your supervisor may set you a predetermined project to enable you to work with other students in a way that is appropriate to your subject area; or there may be opportunities for you to collaborate with staff on research projects. In all cases, you must apply your subject skills to an interdisciplinary project which will be agreed in advance with your supervisor.

This module will provide students with an overview of the cultural relevancy of 1970s cinema. Initially exploring the context of the decade and the fragmented nature of film narratives at the time the module will discuss the emergence and demise of ‘American New Wave/New Hollywood’ but also explore further the style, substance and aesthetics of the varying sub-genres of the time as well as the cultural and creative impact they had on both cinematic presentation and other aspects of the media industry.

This module offers an introduction to some of the ongoing academic debates on media fandom and subcultures. This is a broad-ranging topic, and as such in this module it will be primarily be considered from an audience and reception perspective, including your own. You will have opportunities to interrogate your own fan and/or subcultural identity in class and your own participation in fandoms and subcultures will form a part of class discussion and analysis.

This module is designed to explore issues surrounding sexuality in cinema. The module deals with issues surrounding censorship and control, the relationship between sexuality and identity through an approach informed by Feminist and Queer Theory and the ongoing pornography debate, which brings many of the themes of the module together. The module will enable students to place the representation of sexuality in a broader historical, social and cultural context and engage critically with the varied and sometimes polarised popular and scholarly debates that shape discussion of these issues.

This module builds on previous work around national/European film undertaken on the course, and takes as its focus a type of production that has been interchangeably termed as popular, marginal, extreme and ‘trash’ cinema. As well as exploring some of the hierarchies and taste boundaries that underpin the distinction between Europe’s ‘trash’ and ‘legitimate’ cinemas, the module also explores these tensions in classification through a series of case-studies in post war Italian, German, British and Spanish film. As well as considering the specific styles, themes and aesthetics of European ‘trash’ cinema, the module will also situate these texts within wider social cultural and historical tensions. Other issues explored in the module include the modes of production associated with European trash film, as well as its representations of race, gender and sexuality.

The module introduces you to the key debates related to the study of global cinema traditions, which have emerged over the last twenty years as a distinct aspect of critical interest within film and media theory.

The purpose of the module is to enable you to undertake a sustained, in-depth and theoretically informed research project exploring an area that is of personal interest to you. It is important that we can support you appropriately, so you will be guided towards choosing a research topic which is relevant to your discipline and in which your lecturers have expertise. The outcome may take the form of a written dissertation or a practice-based portfolio.

This module builds on previous film textual analytical skills and theoretical studies undertaken at previous levels of the course and applies them to the critical, historical and theoretical study of Bollywood cinema (aka popular Hindi cinema) and related cultural industries. This is an option module for all students with an academic interest in the analytical and theoretical field of reading films closely, and will prepare students who wish to develop expertise and knowledge in areas that focus on historical and contemporary issues of culture, diaspora and globalization.

The module introduces you to the key debates related to the discipline of cult film studies, which has emerged over the last twenty years as a distinct aspect of critical interest within film and media theory.

This module provides an opportunity to engage with and consider films that explore the perspectives and experiences of minority groups in western societies. The module will consider the intersectional barriers faced by those attempting to work within the film industry (both historically and in the current context) as well as the ways in which technology has democratized the form. The core consideration of this module will be who has been excluded from mainstream cinema, or had their work overlooked, and how in the current context this can be addressed. Further to this we will also focus on experimental film and video work and how non-mainstream contexts may provide an alternative place for film practitioners to explore their ideas.

This module builds on the work you have been producing at previous levels of your course by encouraging you to develop innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to recognise professional challenges. It will explore the concept of enterprise in relation to film, exploring what it is like to work as a freelance worker in the contemporary film business. Through a range of teaching approaches, which include interactive lectures, field trips, and guest speakers, you will investigate the techniques, processes and practices of innovation and enterprise.

You will build on your previous studies by developing skills in connecting research and practice. Through set readings, class discussions, e-learning and directed study tasks, we will identify and explore key debates, theoretical perspectives and concepts in studies of science fiction, so that you can develop your familiarity with this theoretical field. You will engage critically with a specific science fiction text by drawing on weekly course topics to expand your text through creative, experimental and innovative transmedia storytelling. Through this work, you will offer research-based, critical reflection on the relationship between science fiction texts and their wider social, cultural, political and technological contexts, on both a national and an international scale.