Film and Moving Image Production BA (Hons)

This unit will focus on developing your knowledge of creative, critical, and collaborative film production, through workshops, lectures, seminars and screenings. In workshops you will be hands-on, developing and experimenting with fundamental creative craft skills in cinematography, sound, and production design, deepening your understanding of these roles as they operate in the film industry. You’ll explore how frames, sequences, sounds and visual design combine to construct location, character, story and meaning. You will develop a deeper understanding of iterative creative processes and how they apply to relevant departments in film production, and debate key contemporary and historical themes as they relate to representation through camera, sound and design. You’ll deepen your awareness of the contexts of producing in a UK and international context, learning about the industry bodies that define the moral, ethical, and health and safety aspects of professional production.

40 credits

In this unit, you’ll explore the techniques and disciplines of screenwriting, directing and editing. You’ll explore industry-standard approaches to filmmaking, from development to pre-production, production, and post-production, as you adapt a short fiction film from a literary source. You will start the journey to being ‘set ready’ as you learn and apply fundamental set etiquette and inter-departmental collaboration to run a professional film set. Collaborating with actors from the BA (Hons) Acting, you will understand what it takes to craft an ensemble performance and how to manage the technical production to capture performance. You will deepen your application of communicative skills to ensure you are able to perform your role within the production pipeline. You will develop an awareness of the key challenges to contemporary film production, including sustainable production and responsible storytelling as you undertake BAFTA Albert Certification. In this unit, you’ll consider the key contexts of film, analysing texts using a broad set of theoretical methods, including semiotics, narratology, feminism, and postmodernism.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

In this unit, you’ll build your fundamental knowledge of film craft, undertaking workshops to consolidate your knowledge and creative practice in screenwriting, producing, directing, editing, sound design, cinematography, and production design. You will explore wider cultural, social, political, and global contexts, such as technological development, climate change, gender, race, class, and sexuality. You will develop and produce short-form documentary and original fiction shorts that explore aspects of these global contexts in depth through intermediate storytelling. Learning the ethical responsibilities as a filmmaker will be an integral component of your studies as you explore documentary form and fictional constructions of reality. You will develop your creative concepts through experimentation and iteration, while enhancing your collaborative skills on a series of shorts. You’ll learn how to pitch professional presentations to secure financing and greenlight your projects. Additionally, you’ll gain experience in professional casting, learning to negotiate contracts with agents, writing casting calls, auditioning actors, and consolidating your production knowledge.

80 credits

This unit focuses on understanding your practice in a wider context through interdisciplinary working. You will work on fast-turnaround projects, including commercial film projects and cross-course collaborations. You will pitch your creative projects to external industry clients and peers, undertake workshops on pitching, pitch decks/documents, and attend pitch reviews. You will also engage in a range of workshops to enhance your communication of creative decision-making, covering treatment writing, pitching, budgets, and pre-visualisation. You will develop a research proposal for your final year research report, formulate key questions about your chosen subject, develop a critical methodology and bibliography. and undertake a literature review. In preparation for creative specialism in your final year, you will be supported in writing proposals for specialist study in a specific craft, such as writing/ directing, editing, producing, production design, camera or sound design.

40 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This is the first and shorter of the two units that make up your final year of study. This year will also allow you to extend your knowledge and understanding of a specific area of the degree encountered earlier in your studies. Your specialism lectures and practical workshops will explore processes for planning and delivering creative work tailored to the outcomes of your craft project briefs, enabling you to explore specific materials, processes and relevant technologies in detail. You will consolidate and extend your ‘set-readiness’ by taking part in a series of large crew production workshops. Working from your research report proposal, you will enhance your critical thinking through research, analysis, and critical writing of an in-depth research report in an area of film production, technology, industry, culture or audience that reflects your interests. At the end of the unit, you will submit a final project proposal that outlines a detailed plan for your specialist creative practice in the final unit of study.

40 credits

Your final unit allows you to resolve your creative practice, working from the project proposal developed in the previous unit. You’ll be immersed in film production that reflects professional industry processes, contexts, and cultures. Working in various production teams, you will apply your craft and specialist knowledge as a Head of Department, and in supporting roles, to produce and post-produce the full slate of short films. You will develop confidence in self-managing your learning and creative decision-making while working in specialised production roles. This unit prepares you for a career after graduation, with support to develop a five-year employability plan, including seeking industry placements, internships, mentors, and employment, and building your final film for festival submission. At the end of the year, you will play an active role in planning, producing, and executing a two-day film festival to showcase your year group’s work, engaging in event management, curation, programming, technical delivery, branding, and promotion for the specialist creative industry and public audiences.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.