Film BA(Hons)

The first year of your Film degree will focus on developing your film knowledge through lectures, seminars and screenings, as well as nurturing your talent in all areas of short film development and production. You’ll further your understanding of industrial and creative contexts by examining current filmmaking trends in form, style, theme and narrative. You’ll have the opportunity to network with experienced professionals through our series of panel discussions and masterclasses, helping to enhance your industry skills and employability profile. You’ll also have the chance to visit an international film festival. 

Modules

Production Cultures 1

This module will introduce you to the creative, technical, organisational and interpersonal skills that are central to successful film production. A series of weekly tasks will develop your knowledge of the language of cinema, while encouraging networking within your cohort. You’ll begin to understand the key industry roles – writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor and sound designer – needed to produce a short film. 

Production Cultures 2

This module will extend the creative, technical, organisational and interpersonal skills developed in Production Cultures 1 to encompass budgeting, design, marketing and film distribution. You’ll also deepen your knowledge of production roles, paving the way for you to specialise in Year 2. 

Cultural Contexts

In this module, you’ll consider the key moments and milestones of the development of film as an art form, industrial product and object of academic and critical study. This will prepare you for deeper cinematic research across your Film degree and develop your scholarly research and essay-writing skills. 

Industrial Contexts

This module foregrounds a range of contexts, both historical and contemporary, to consider how industry, audience, and film texts are inextricably bound together in industry practice. You’ll collaborate with others to produce a presentation that highlights your research and communication skills.  

You'll build on your interests and passions by embarking on specialist pathways of your choice, deploying the skills you learn in a self-initiated project – typically within screenwriting, experimental, documentary or narrative filmmaking. Each week is designed to focus your learning and cinematic knowledge in an environment that recognises and embraces the medium’s changing nature. We also offer the opportunity to engage in placements through a number of external partnerships and opportunities. 

Modules

Skills Development 

Identifying your own interests, you'll develop skills in a chosen specialism – sound design and editing, editing and post-production, producing, screenwriting or cinematography and art direction – and showcase your growing understanding of collaborative practice, professional processes and industry contexts.

Creative Delivery 

Building on the Skills Development module, you’ll work to produce either a narrative film, documentary film, experimental film or screenwriting project for assessment. 

Genre 

This module aims to develop your understanding of the role genre plays in film industry and culture, both historically and contemporarily, and how the idea of 'the cinematic' is closely connected to genre and has spread in influence to other modes and forms of media entertainment.

Cinema of Experience

This module will inspire you by offering contemporary cinematic examples and conceptual frameworks to situate film and serial narrative/documentary forms in wider cultural, social, political and global contexts, such as gender, race, class and sexuality.

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme, or after your third year if you’re studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the Employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

In filmmaking practice, you’ll immerse yourself in a year-long project of creative cinematic endeavor, where you will develop an ambitious and innovative piece of work that sits alongside your research. You’ll also produce a festival strategy or equivalent as well as build your professional profile to help launch your career after graduation. Alongside this, you’ll continue to explore the wider social, political, industrial and artistic contexts of film culture and cinema, choosing from a dedicated module examining the voices of The Other, and a dissertation in a cinematic subject area related to your interests. Each module results in a long-form piece of scholarly writing which will position you ideally for postgraduate studies. 

Modules

Pitch Deck 

Through this module, you'll become immersed in film practice. Assessment will reflect professional creative industry processes, contexts and cultures, resulting in an ambitious, innovative and complex cinematic project.

The Other (optional)

You’ll explore global cinematic practices which have traditionally sat outside the dominant film canon and popular culture. You’ll examine non-traditional screen representations to the evolution of cinematic storytelling techniques and the formal fashioning of film visuals.  Starting from a historical perspective, you'll be invited to recognise cinema as a potent and flexible medium of expression and communication for all backgrounds and cultures. 

Dissertation 

Focusing on academic study, you'll develop high levels of subject expertise and intellectual autonomy as you originate, research, and write a dissertation in an area of your choice.

Final Major Project

You'll be immersed in film practice and assessment that reflects professional industry processes, contexts and cultures. You’ll carry out an ambitious, innovative and complex cinematic project that will help to springboard your career in the film, television and combined creative industries. 

Futures

This module will help to prepare you for pursuing a career after graduation. You’ll be supported by the University’s Employability Team and a supervisor from the course to help build your professional profile. 

Why study an Integrated Foundation Year route?

If you’re taking on a new subject that you haven’t studied in depth before, have been out of education for a while or have a non-standard educational background then an Integrated Foundation Year degree may be the right choice for you. It is a four-year degree with an Integrated Foundation Year to start, which allows you to explore the primary elements of your subject before progressing on to the remaining three years of the BA(Hons) degree.

What you'll learn

If you choose this pathway, you'll study five core modules in your Foundation year. These are all designed to help you explore the foundational elements of your subject. You'll gain relevant technical skills, learn to experiment and take risks, develop an understanding of professional practice, have opportunities to work across disciplines and collaborate with other students on live project briefs.

Modules

Explore

You'll begin your foundation year by working collaboratively with others to explore themes of the future. You'll take risks, experiment through play and be supported to break through barriers.

Technique

You'll take subject-specific workshops and develop essential technical and practical skills in your area of study. You'll also enhance your analytical and organisational abilities.

Apply

You'll work with your peer group to think beyond discipline by addressing a societal or global issue. You'll then showcase your work to your peers and deliver and accompanying evaluation of your process.

Industry

You'll enhance your creative and practical skills in your subject specialism by responding to typical industry briefs, underpinned by focused research and experiments. You'll also gain industry insights through guest lectures and workshops.

Launch

You'll develop your unique identity in your specialism through the production of a self-initiated body of work. Your final project will be the bridge to your next year, fully supported by evaluative reviews and critical analysis of the work you have created.

After the Foundation year, you progress into Year One of the full three-year degree, equipped with a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, and develop a practical and technical skillset and the confidence to excel in your chosen subject.

If you apply for and enrol onto a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year, you’ll have the option to switch onto a five-year version including a placement year. That means you’ll complete the first three years of your course before completing a placement in industry in your fourth year and returning to Falmouth for the fifth year of your programme. 

The Integrated Foundation Year pathway for this course is new for entry year 2023 and subject to validation.

On this Film degree, you’ll learn through a series of lectures, seminars, bookable tutorials, and self and peer evaluation. 

You’ll benefit from our School of Film & Television’s industry connections with a curated visiting lecturer programme, panel discussions, technical workshops and masterclasses with industry practitioners. Our learning by doing approach to the course means you’ll gain an understanding of your chosen sector and mirror the film industry’s workflow and creative environments. 

Each year is also your chance to gain work experience and internships, and we'll encourage you to get involved in industry and academic opportunities and events. 

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning and teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework.

Assessment methods

• Continuous assessment with no formal examinations 
• Visual, verbal and written assignments 
• ‘Campfires’ (timetabled group drop-in sessions) and bookable one-to-one tutorials 
• Optional dissertation in your final year