Year 1
Developing Screen Ideas
This module introduces students to the developmental process in the film industry and is fundamentally concerned with the generation of ideas and the creative processes involved in their realisation.
Film Studies One: Analysis and Issues
This introductory module is designed to stimulate students' intellectual curiosity. It will develop students' critical knowledge and skills base in ways which complement and inform the conceptual and practical work being done in other Level 4 modules. The module introduces Film Studies as an academic discipline, provides students with a toolkit of concepts for close analysis of a range of film texts and genres, links concepts to longstanding issues in film criticism and theory, and sets students on the path of historical and contextual film enquiry through the study of a diverse range of films.
Creating Memorable Characters
This module introduces students to the importance of character development and its centrality within the screenwriting process as a whole. While links are made to the importance of narrative structure, students will focus on how story can be developed through character rather than plotting. Thus, this module complements and supports the concurrent work in Developing Screen Ideas, which is more focussed on narrative structure and industry.
Film Studies Two: Film History
This introductory module is coupled with and follows directly on from Film Studies One. The module is designed to stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity in the field of Film Studies. It develops students’ critical knowledge and skills base in ways which complement and inform the conceptual and practical work being done in Video Practice and Production: Introduction, as well as students’ work in the other Level 4 modules.
Screenwriting Film Genre
Throughout the semester students develop their knowledge and understanding of how genres evolve, and the debates surrounding the classification of genres. Students develop in-depth knowledge of three to four key genres in film, and the codes and conventions associated with them through the critical analysis of a number of feature-length produced scripts. The genres studied may include, for example, horror, thriller, romantic-comedy, western, or science fiction.
Introduction to Writing Television and Radio Drama
This module introduces students to writing drama for television and radio. It is designed to build on students’ knowledge of character development and story structure and design gained from the Creating Memorable Characters and Developing Screen Ideas modules.
Year 2
Adaptation and Interpretation
This module explores how literary texts can be adapted for the screen. Students consider filmic rewritings of major literary forms including drama, the novel and short fiction and engage in the debate about the ‘fidelity’ of adaptation. The module combines a theoretical approach to the study of adaptation with contextual approaches to specific films, presented as case studies.
Writing for Television
This module uses the introductory knowledge of writing television drama from level four, and theoretical knowledge students gained in the autumn semester in Television: Contextual and Critical Studies as a foundation for students to develop their own ideas and scripts within the medium of television.
Contemporary Television: Studies in Format and Genre
This module builds on students’ knowledge of critical textual studies from the first year modules Film Studies One: Analysis and Issues and Film Studies Two: Film History, and serves to introduce students to the critical study of television.
Screenwriting: The Ten Minute Short
This module explores the theory and practice of writing for the screen, specifically the 10-minute short. Students engage with key practical manuals and critical studies of the screenwriting process and study a range of globally diverse shorts. The culmination of this work is the production of a 10-page screenplay, which is filmed by the Digital Film Production students in semester two.
Researching Film: Theories and Methods
This Level 5 module is designed to continue the focus on textual and contextual study and the development of subject-specific and generic skills established especially in Level 4 Film Studies: Analysis, Issues and History. As with the Film Studies module, it develops students’ critical knowledge and skills base in ways which complement and inform the conceptual and practical work being done in the Level 5 Video Practice and Production: Documentary and Drama.
Screenwriting Workshop
This module consolidates knowledge and skills relating to form, structure, style, character, genre, setting and visual writing, which students have acquired in previous screenwriting modules, and ensures they are able to understand and use concepts they may have yet to use in quite so much detail such as subtext, dramatic irony and theme.
Year 3
Dissertation
This year-long module represents the culmination of students’ critical development on the course. It provides an opportunity for students to explore a chosen area of Film studies. Students design and carry out a sustained and coherent piece of independent research in an area of scholarship that they wish to pursue.
Development and Story Design: Final Project
This module builds on students’ knowledge of the development, story design and outlining processes in screenwriting and is fundamentally concerned with the generation of ideas and the creative and practical processes involved in their realisation. Students develop ideas for a feature film. In intensive weekly workshop and feedback sessions students submit development documents such as premises, outlines, treatments, step-outlines, synopses and draft script pages for critique by their peers and module tutor.
Screenwriting: Final Project
This module uses the summative work from the Development and Story Design: Final Project module as a point of departure, and represents the culmination of students’ creative and self-reflexive development in screenwriting. It provides an opportunity for students to write the original feature-length film script or TV pilot and series they developed during the autumn semester.
Students receive notes and feedback from their tutor on their first and second drafts, and then for their third draft they receive an industry script reader’s report, which is provided by Industrial Scripts.
Professional Practice
This module will provide an opportunity for students to research progression routes into a career in screenwriting and / or related fields where they could transfer their skills, and will also develop the knowledge and skills that underpin their own creative, professional and personal self-development. Building upon level four and five practical screenwriting modules, this module prepares students for professional life after graduation and establishes the skills and resources needed to develop a sustainable practice and work in either a self-employed or employed capacity.
