Film Studies

Film Studies is an academic, analytical and creative course. You will study the key elements of film form, including cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, sound and performance, which combine to create meaning and generate response. You will also consider film as an aesthetic medium as well as a means of representation. Beyond the text itself, the course places films firmly in their contexts: the social, cultural, political, historical and institutional factors that influence the final form.

Over the two years, you will closely analyse a diverse range of film, including documentary, film from the silent era, experimental film and short film. You will consider the Hollywood model, as well as British, European and global cinema industries. The differences between film as mainstream profit-driven form and film as artistic expression will be studied and discussed.

As well as studying a wide range of films and genres, the students will produce their own short film or screenplay which responds to a brief set by the exam board.  This constitutes 30% of their final grade.

As a result, there are close links to English Literature, Sociology, History and Philosophy, as the films themselves are seen of expressions of socio-political thinking at a particular moment in time and place.