This module offers an introduction to core screen craft skills in camera, editing and sound recording. You'll gain an understanding of good industry practice right from the start of your studies and we will introduce you to protocols and procedures that allow you to “up-scale” from these smaller productions at Level 4 to the graduation films at Level 6 and beyond. You'll learn through workshops, lectures, seminars, inductions, screenings and, of course, hands-on exercises. As your confidence builds on the technical skills, you'll explore the creative and aesthetic potential of cinematic storytelling (a combination of image, sound and editing). You'll complete a number of projects on industry cameras. You'll provide peer-to-peer feedback throughout the module to further your skills in critically analysing and assessing these screen craft skills and in articulating visual storytelling principles. The module provides a basis for further study and practice in cinematography, editing and sound. It also underpins the craft/technical skills and understanding of these practices needed by students who may then choose to focus on other disciplines such as directing, screenwriting or producing.
View the full module definitionIn this module, you'll learn not only to watch films but also to do visual analyses of what you experience (what you see, what you hear, what you feel, what you think). We'll study a range of films from across the globe and from different time periods. This module presents a diverse curriculum with many non-white and women filmmakers, non-Anglophone films, films from different time periods and different places on the globe, mainstream commercial movies, as well as experimental pieces. You'll come away with a firm grounding in film language and academic writing at university level.
This module will introduce you to the creative, practical and theoretical issues surrounding professional practices in drama productions for the screen. It provides a solid grounding for further study in the upcoming practice based modules, with emphasis on exercising a balance between the creative and logistical requirements of screen production. Through seminars and practical workshops, you'll explore story structure, visual storytelling techniques and the creative use of sound and sound design, as well as crew functions and responsibilities, management of time and resources, production methods and risk management. You'll apply and bring together the craft skills you are learning on other modules, working in teams towards a final short production, with a firm emphasis on the collaborative nature of film production. The production teams will present and discuss their work in progress with the class from early ideas through script development to rough cut screenings and the final films. You'll develop skills in critically evaluating your own and others’ work at each of these stages of shaping a production, and key employability skills in teamwork, problem solving and communications.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll develop core screen craft skills in camera, lighting, set construction and sound recording. You'll gain knowledge and experience of good industry practice and we'll introduce you to protocols and procedures that allow you to “up-scale” from smaller productions at Level 4 to the graduation films at Level 6 and beyond. You'll also gain experience in Live Briefs and presenting to clients. You'll learn through workshops, lectures, seminars, inductions, screenings and, of course, hands-on exercises. As your confidence builds on the technical skills you'll explore the creative and aesthetic potential of cinematic storytelling (a combination of image, sound and editing). You'll complete a film on 16mm and will support other students in making their films. All students will provide peer-to-peer feedback throughout the module in order to further your skills in critically analysing and assessing these screen craft skills and in articulating visual storytelling principles. The module provides a basis for further study and practice in cinematography, editing and sound. It also underpins the craft/technical skills and understanding of these practices needed by students who may then choose to focus on other disciplines such as directing, screenwriting or producing.
View the full module definitionThis module will introduce you to the practical discipline of producing television content for broadcast and online platforms. You will produce content weekly in the TV studio with some programs being streamed live in this exciting, fast turnaround module. You will explore different genres of factual television, a huge area of employment and a sector within the screen industries that continues to grow. You will learn new studio skills and crew roles such as TV studio vision mixing, lighting, graphics, multi-camera directing, studio camera operator, and sound supervisor, floor manager, factual researcher, floor runner. You will develop studio specific skills such as scheduling, writing presenter dialogue, multi camera scripting and running orders, auto cue and key transferable skills so valuable to employers such as troubleshooting, planning, negotiation and diplomacy.
View the full module definitionEntering higher education is exciting; but it can also be a daunting experience. At ARU, we want all our students to make the most of the opportunities higher education provides, reach your potential, become lifelong learners and find fulfilling careers. However, we appreciate that the shift from secondary education, or a return to formal education is, in itself, quite a journey. This module is designed to ease that transition. You'll be enrolled on it as soon as you receive an offer from ARU so you can begin to learn about university life before your course starts. Through Into ARU, you'll explore a virtual land modelled around ARU values: Courage, Innovation, Community, Integrity, Responsibility, and Ambition. This innovative module is designed as a game, where you collect knowledge and complete mini tasks. You'll proceed at your own pace, though we you to have completed your Into ARU exploration by week 6. If for any reason you're unable to complete by that date, we'll signpost to existing services so that we can be confident that you are supported.
View the full module definitionThis is a major practice-led module designed to build upon your Level 4 creative storytelling, and critical and reflective skills. A documentary can provide us with imaginative, engaging and moving stories. Since the birth of cinema, the form has evolved and kept pace with technological change, audience sophistication and innovation in practice. Documentary filmmakers seeking a way to represent reality and to express a “truth” about society or people can be faced with a series of complex moral and ethical problems. In this module, you'll be able to discuss and respond to these practical, critical and moral issues. This module focuses on storytelling skills, idea generation, research, interview technique, proposal writing, pitching and directing. You'll build upon your skills of working independently and in teams, through practical group exercises and analysis. The module is structured around different production projects, which explore a range of styles and approaches. Towards the end of each project, group feedback on near complete projects will facilitate peer-to-peer learning whilst an individual workbook will encourage deep learning of issues discussed and technical skills learnt.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll develop advanced specialist skills in technical/creative areas of filmmaking. You'll select from a choice of specialist units in producing, directing performance, cinematography, screenwriting, location sound and production design, although availability of these options may vary from year to year. These intensive units will be delivered by workshops, lectures, seminars and screenings. You'll test your skills and learn through a series of short exercises and projects. You'll build on the skills gained at Level 4 and explore specific craft areas you can take forward into your final year and career. The module embeds professional practice in key areas of the film and television production process whilst continuing to encourage your creativity, imagination and idea generation.
View the full module definitionProducing fiction films is usually a considerable team effort. In this module you will collaborate with colleagues and with actors. Fiction or scripted films have always been the staple at the cinemas on the big screen; however, the rise of streaming services has brought audiences back to the small screen. While this module focuses on the particular storytelling requirements of the short film format, you will learn the core skills of imagining, planning, filming and editing cinematic scripted scenes, the building blocks of a high-end series spanning multiple episodes, a BAFTA-winning feature film or even a YouTube web series. This module capitalises on the skills, knowledge and storytelling ability acquired in Level 4. You’ll cover scripting, auditions, casting and how to work with actors. You can explore a range of styles, conventions and methods of engaging audiences. Working in small production groups, you'll devise, develop and produce short fiction films building an understanding of working to industry protocols and practices. During the module you'll be provided with practical workshops, technical support, opportunities for critical and technical discussions, briefings, critiques, reviews and tutorial support.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll develop post-production specialist skills in technical/creative areas of filmmaking. You'll select from a choice of specialist units in editing, immersive storytelling, digital effects and sound design/sound mixing, although availability of these options may vary from year to year. You'll also work on a Live Brief where you will use all your skills to share your creative ideas with a client. These intensive units will be delivered by workshops, lectures, seminars and screenings. You'll test your skills and learn through a series of short exercises and projects. You'll build on the skills gained at Level 4 and explore specific craft areas you can take forward into your final year and career. The module embeds professional practice in key areas of the film and television production process whilst continuing to encourage your creativity, imagination and idea generation.
View the full module definitionRuskin Modules are a great opportunity to explore challenges and ideas outside your area of study. Working with students from a range of courses, you'll be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines, and apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, realise your potential and help you prepare for the world of work.
You’ll focus on the development, features and impact of independent cinema in the US and beyond. Alongside close examination of a number of key films, you'll consider areas such as the financing and promotion of independent film-making, and investigate how and why certain directors choose to work outside the protective infrastructures and high budgets provided by a studio system. You’ll also look at US-based film-makers starting out in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch and Joel Coen, and how they influenced later international film-makers, such as Quentin Tarantino, Gregg Araki, Vincent Gallo and Lukas Moodysson. You’ll explore how Awards ceremonies and Film Festivals can showcase 'peripheral' cinema, and critically examine the role of independent distribution companies. Your assessment will take the form of a critical essay and an oral seminar presentation on the work of an independent film-maker of your choice.
View the full module definitionIn film studies we are most used to reading film theory and criticism by academics, cultural critics and historians. Filmmakers themselves (directors, producers, camerapersons, editors, or individual experimental filmmakers) have often written about film in illuminating, sometimes provocative, accounts of their craft that deal with aspirations spanning aesthetic, ethical, ideological, technological and theoretical concerns. The form of filmmakers’ writings has included manifestoes, journal articles, transcribed interviews, and monographs. In the course of this module, we will look at a range of filmmakers whose ideas have been manifest on the page (as well as the screen) to communicate their vision of cinema. In each instance we will also look at the broader historical and cultural context that filmmakers have operated in. Every week of the module will involve a screening, lecture and seminar devoted to an analysis and discussion of a particular filmmaker’s work, comprising one or more films and one or more accompanying texts. The range of filmmakers that you will explore on the module have a global outlook and span historical to contemporary figures as well as narrative cinema, non-fiction filmmaking and experimental cinema.
View the full module definitionYou'll address issues of spectatorship and representation through a range of theoretical approaches including psychoanalytic theory. You'll also explore the intersection of pleasure and terror in our encounters with the image, considering the ways in which film taps into our unconscious, and the role of the body, the senses, and emotion in shaping our responses to moving image culture. You'll look at the future of film studies by addressing the changing conditions of spectatorship in the age of digital cinema.
View the full module definitionThe Film and Television Production Major Project module will allow you to engage in a substantial piece of individual research and creative/technological work, focused on a topic of your choice that is relevant to your degree course. Your topic will be assessed for suitability to ensure sufficient academic challenge and satisfactory supervision by an academic member of staff. Your project can be a dissertation or an agreed combination of solo creative/technological practice and an individually authored piece of writing. In Trimester One you'll have a series of lectures to prepare you for this level of research, help you to develop of an appropriate methodology, and to decide upon the shape of your project. Your supervisor will then meet with you to formalise your negotiated assessment outcomes, agreeing and documenting any % split between writing and creative practice. In Trimester Two regular meetings with your supervisor will take place, so that the project is closely monitored and steered in the right direction. The project developed in this module is the most self-directed piece of work that you will produce during your undergraduate studies. The successful completion of this module will enhance your employability, evidencing your ability, appropriate skillset and specialist interests.
View the full module definitionThis module is the culmination of your production adventure on this course, where your student filmmaking aspirations and those of your peers reach their zenith, creatively and technically. With an emphasis on self-directed learning, you'll be embedding solid production practices and craft skills acquired at Levels 4 and 5 and extending these towards craft specialisations and industry-standard working practices and protocols. The module will prepare you to leave your university course and enter the creative industries with a significant body of work and transferable skills. In the first trimester, you'll be starting the development and research on these larger, team-based Graduation Films. In the second trimester, the focus will move towards production of the commissioned Graduation Films and culminate with your professional presentation of the final films, together with a marketing plan for the films and yourself. These will be productions crewed to industry models. Whether you are involved in a drama, documentary, TV studio production, dance or music film or some other form of visual expression, you'll have a major production role. Individually, you'll need to demonstrate your capacity to work to a planned schedule, research your craft area and subject matter imaginatively and thoroughly, take account of current thinking on the issues your projects raise, develop your work in ambitious but feasible ways, respond positively to feedback and criticism and arrive at creative solutions. You will be expected to display, in both preparatory and finished work, an advanced understanding of the methods, techniques, materials and processes appropriate to areas of specialisation and your role/s. Your developmental work will be subject to peer and tutor review and assessed with your finished work.
View the full module definitionThis module builds on your practical and soft skills from Levels 4 and 5. You’ll be making required visual content for real-world clients. These may be short films for companies’ websites, a portfolio of content for social media, coverage of a business event or conference or some other aspect of corporate and commercial content. These will all have the production values expected at Level 6. With an emphasis on self-directed learning, you'll be working to industry-standard working practices with rigorous planning and production management. You'll need to discuss with your clients what their key messages are and provide an agreed creative response to these. Working with the client is at the heart of this module and prepares you for some aspects of the post-university employment and potential freelance landscape. Collaborations and Commissions will focus your skills on producing creative solutions to client-based live briefs and/or working with creative partners from outside the course.
View the full module definitionGaining work experience enhances employability, and work based learning offers you the chance to key gain industry knowledge, skills, contacts and networking opportunities. This module will give you the opportunity to explore a working environment in the industry that you have identified as relevant to your future career. The module will encourage self-managed learning, and serves to enhance your employability by developing communication, personal organisation, team-working, and networking skills and providing opportunities to apply those skills to real-world experiences thereby increasing self-reliance and confidence. The experience can be used as a basis for directing and focusing your career plans and can influence your final year projects. Lectures, group tutorials and seminars will explore skills analysis and reflective writing. You are required to identify, negotiate and agree with an employer (or employers) the terms of the placement or freelance work in association with a module tutor, to ensure that the module learning outcomes can be achieved. You will be given guidance and will be required to submit a placement/freelance registration form and risk assessments for approval by the module tutor. The work may be carried out in a variety of settings depending upon your requirements, areas of interest and availability of opportunities. The minimum period will be a minimum of 100 hours, and you can undertake more than one placement/freelance work for the module. You will also create a workplace diary that logs activity and supports an analysis of the learning achieved during your experience alongside evidence to support your application process. You are also asked to create a reflective report on your work experience. The report will include market and background information on the employer, market sector analysis, an outline your role(s) on the placement(s); academic and vocational analysis; transferable/employability and specialist skills analysis, knowledge and experience analysis; a final evaluation (impact on your final year and career aspirations); and will include copies of the submitted registration and risk assessments and other supporting appendices. Alongside contributing to module sessions and briefings, additional module support will be provided by the Anglia Ruskin University Employability Services through drop-in support and CV Surgery sessions and the Anglia Ruskin Enterprise Academy (AREA). You will also have access to a range of online employability information via the Careers and Employability Portal and AREA network.
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