Taught courses
Film Studies MA
The MA in Film Studies attracts an international cohort of students from various backgrounds; many of them are mature students with a wealth of life and employment experience. Seminars are held in small groups, where students are encouraged to share ideas from their own unique cultural perspectives.
Modules during the year offer an in-depth study of cinema across different national contexts and historical moments: New Hollywood's relationship to the mainstream, for instance, and the role of place, gender and identity in European cinema. There is a particular focus on "world" cinema - East Asian films, for example – and a core module in film theory and analysis. While students who have previously taken Film Studies find their understanding and engagement taken to a new level, the theory module ensures that students who come to the subject fresh are given the tools and training to quickly get to grips with studying cinema.
You will develop a critical understanding of the importance of theory, method and analysis to the study of film, and you will be encouraged to test out original approaches, both in seminars and written work. The MA is concerned with all that is new, vital and innovative in film, looking at recent developments within their historical contexts. Current modules focus on American cinema (mainstream and independent), post-1960 British cinema, European cinema (with specialist studies on Gender and Sexuality and Place and Identity) and World Cinema (with case studies that include films from South Asia, South East Asia, Latin America, and Iran).
The programme is informed by staff research into a variety of areas, including gender and ethnicity, transnationalism, film narratology, fandom, digital media, political cinema, the grotesque, religion, philosophy, cinema audiences and film reception. You will be able to carry out research at the British Film Institute (the largest film archive in the world), and benefit from the impressive range of cinemas available in Kingston (with its 14-screen Odeon cinema) and central London. The Film course will equip you with essential research skills and prepare you for further study or for work within education, journalism, film archives, and other related areas.
The spine of the MA is Research Methods, which runs throughout the year and guides you towards the capstone of the degree: the Dissertation. This 15,000 word extended essay on a topic of your choice is worth one third of the total credits, and it gives you the opportunity to explore an original subject in depth.
As the Dissertation is so important, and enables students to really become independent scholars - it provides excellent preparation for a PhD - each topic is supervised by a specialist. The supervision team includes published experts in a range of national cinemas, genres and research areas (film and philosophy, German and French cinema, film audiences, cult Asian cinema), and five professors with extensive experience of research at the highest level.
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Film Making MA
Our Film Making MA course will provide you with professional film production skills in both digital and analogue equipment, and with an understanding of contemporary cinema theory. It takes its inspiration from all forms of cultural production that have challenged the official versions, including the work of artists, musicians, painters and performers, the movements of Italian neo-realism and the new cinemas of Africa, Latin America and Iran. The focus is placed firmly on developing clear and simple storytelling techniques that transcend arbitrary formal categorisations of drama, documentary or genre. You can make dramas, documentaries, drama-docs, docudramas and digital shorts but you will make films.
The Film Making MA aims to encourage you to synthesise personal experience, critical knowledge, and craft skills in order to express yourself through moving pictures. The course is founded upon a belief in moving forwards strengthened by a sound knowledge of history and culture and the past.
Our programme draws inspiration from artists and film makers who have challenged official versions in attempting to represent some kind of truth; artists who have made it their business to challenge conformity. People like Alan Clarke, Alan Bleasdale, Franco Rosso, Charles Burnett, Ousmane Sembene, Ermanno Olmi, Ida Lupino, Maya Deren, Agnes Varda, Jill Craigie and Lynne Ramsey. The Slits, The Specials, The Equals, Public Enemy, Steel Pulse, Burial and Plan B. Artists who have told the stories of their characters and put them in a positive light.
You will study the basic principles of film making, develop an understanding of the nature and potential of visual storytelling, and discover the importance of sound, lighting and the screenplay in film making. You will produce a portfolio of moving-image projects to illustrate your technical ability in cinematography, sound recording, editing and writing/direction. You will also gain a sound knowledge of the theories of contemporary cinema and the history of film criticism.
Like the Film Studies MA, our Film Making postgraduate programme is led by experts who don't just teach, but also pursue their own professional practice and have decades of experience in specialist areas. You are taught the principles of crystal-clear sound by a sound designer and installation artist, while a professional photographer and film maker runs the module on light and lenses. Above all, the Film Making MA is driven by an ethos of collaborative, truthful and original work, based on a respectful approach to practitioners and their subjects. Students from the programme often work with staff on joint projects - such as The Road to Gibara, a documentary about Cuba's Cine Pobre festival by a team of female students and a member of female staff, working as an international co-operative.
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