Course description
Film BA Honours.
Course summary:
This three-year degree is one of the best known film courses in the world, with an international reputation for its academic and practical teaching. Our students’ films are shown at festivals all over the world, and have won Student Academy Awards and a host of honours in both the UK and across the world.
We operate from a purpose-built studio facility in Harrow, with two sound stages, a set construction workshop, and extensive post-production facilities. The environment is both academic and practical, scholarly and creative, and all students study film history, criticism and aesthetics alongside their practical work. You will learn to collaborate creatively as you develop production specialisms in areas such as writing, producing, cinematography, directing, production design, editing and sound. You will also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.
We aim to develop thinking film makers who have something to say to, and about, the world. A very high proportion of our students go on to work in film and television, and recent work from notable alumni includes We Need To Talk About Kevin (Seamus McGarvey, cinematographer), Senna and Amy (Asif Kapadia, director) and Skyfall (Neal Purvis, screenwriter, producer). Under the Shadow, the first feature directed by 2005 graduate Babak Anvari, has been selected as the UK entry for the 2017 Best Foreign Language film Oscar.The course receives substantial support from the industry and you will gain experience of working with professional actors, negotiating with facilities houses, equipment hire companies and local authorities.
Based at the recently refurbished Harrow Campus – home to the Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design – you will work alongside students from design, photography, music, fashion and journalism, in a unique hothouse of creative opportunity.
The academic side of the course is assessed through presentations and through coursework essays that build in length through the levels, up to a substantial dissertation in the final year, where you carry out in-depth research into an academic or practical area of your own choice.
In film practice you will have the opportunity to explore different disciplines such as editing, sound, production design, screenwriting, directing, cinematography, producing and directing, before specialising in the second year.
The emphasis is on group work, with small scale productions in the first year, larger groups in the second year, and substantial crews that also include 2nd years in the final third year productions.
