Film, Television and Moving Image MA

The module introduces some of the significant approaches to moving images while being mindful of the Western-centric vision they offer where relevant. Classes explore connections and relations of content, form, structure, and audiences of cinematic arts using examples of various global film, TV, and artists’ moving images. While reflecting on how our relationship to visual culture has changed over the past century, this module aims to look at key debates and rupture points in the study of moving images and encourages you to think about visuality, a nineteenth-century term, interwoven with power relations. Through this framework, content focuses on contemporary debates, such as decoloniality, intersectionality, the impacts of AI on moving images, sustainability, and visual technologies of power. These topics are historically and geographically contextualised while critically addressing the question of visuality: who is visualising and what is rendered invisible in this process and how to think of decoloniality in relation to moving images. In doing so, this module reflects on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and how moving image can foster and support equality, diversity and inclusion in the modern world. EDI principles are further reflected in our reading lists, approach to teaching and assessment design. Workshops to help you develop your ideas and practical learning skills to support the production of your video essay are run alongside classes which explore assigned texts and films through detailed analysis and reflection.

This module, building on the learning from your other modules, allows you to independently research and produce an aspect of screen work. Its flexibility allows you to complete a substantial piece of research led writing or practice suited to your career aspiration. You will design and develop your project with supervisory support and within a structured timetable of progress. You can choose between completing an in-depth piece of academic writing or a research-informed practical project. By the end of the module, you will accomplish one of the following: a) an academic dissertation; b) a film/moving image curation project, accompanied by a substantial commentary; c) a screenplay for a 30-minute film or TV programme, or episodes of a web series, accompanied by a substantial commentary; d) an essay film or creative non-fiction film between 10 and 12 minutes long, accompanied by a substantial commentary.

The module will be supported by workshops designed to improve your skills in whichever format you are working on. While the core modules will prepare you for all aspects of this final piece of the portfolio, the optional modules allow you the flexibility to choose the modules that best suits your interests:

• Programming, Curation and Exhibition will prepare you for the curation project.
• Screenwriting will prepare you for the screenplay creation.
• Innovative TV Narratives will help you with a Dissertation or creation of a screenplay.
• Introduction to Documentary for Social Change could help you prepare for a dissertation or
• essay film / creative non-fiction film.
• Interactive and Immersive Media Production Skills will help you with your creative non-fiction
• film.

This module requires you to conceptualise and execute a significant piece of work that will become part of your portfolio and you can choose whether that be in the form of a dissertation, curational work, screenplay or short film. You will chose your Major Project output in consultation with the course team.
 

In this module, you will work in teams to respond to a live industry brief to create a short screen piece for an external client. To support this project, you will have practical workshops and seminars that build essential skills in collaboration, film-making and technical skills in creation, camera work, sound, and editing. Your final project, a short film and supporting materials, will reflect professional standards and norms for legal compliance and final exhibition. This compliance includes action and reflection on how your work can promote sustainability and inclusivity, using BAFTA albert to carbon footprint your production. You will develop your understanding of the importance of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the Screen Industries through application and adherence to industry practices; this includes positive action and consideration of cast and crew and embedding of BFI/BAFTA Diversity Standards. Additionally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will guide your storytelling, with the live briefs designed to support you in addressing global challenges and social justice like poverty, inequality, and climate change. Underpinning the practical teaching and learning on this module is online independent study designed to support your development of industry-related knowledge: using Blackboard as a platform to provide learning through industry organisations such as Screenskills, the Production Guild, and other aligned institutions, you will be able to gain industry-recognised certification in areas such as sustainability, diversity and disability and inclusion in the film and television industry. Direct links with Westminster Enterprise Network and the University of Westminster's Careers Service further supports your own career development, by providing expertise to aid the transfer and application of skills learnt into the working world.

This module explores the dynamic relationship between creativity and intellectual curiosity that characterises Practice as Research (PaR). Central to PaR is the concept of ‘exploring through doing’; it provides unique ways to investigate wide-ranging cultural and social phenomena through creative practice and written reflection. Students will develop and execute a PaR project on a topic that excites them, and which shows awareness of sustainability and equality issues relevant to their chosen topic. Case studies presented in class highlight how PaR can innovate screen practices and advance diversity, inclusion and social justice. The creative component of the student's project not only provides research insights but cultivates professional skills relevant to future career aspirations. Exploration of emerging technologies for research-led practical experimentation is also encouraged. This module helps students with their Major Project by introducing a range of research methodologies, while developing crucial research, creative practice and project management skills.
 

What roles do programmers and curators play in film culture and exhibition making? This module introduces core professional practices and research skills required in the exhibition of film across a range of platforms, from cinema to festivals, gallery exhibitions to online streaming and new technologies. Drawing on international contemporary and historical case studies, the module will be led by practitioners and guest speakers active in the field. Through a variety of individual and group exercises, as well as field trips, the module will provide an opportunity to develop practical skills to plan, conceptualise, and communicate about/with film within a curatorial context.

In surveying key issues and debates in contemporary curating we will engage with historical and emerging theories that aim to expand and diversify the sector globally. A critical focus will be placed on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) as essential components of the contemporary exhibition landscape. We will look at curation as a decolonial practice examining ways to dismantle barriers that marginalised communities face, ensuring that diverse voices and narratives are represented in film culture. Furthermore, the module will incorporate discussions surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to quality education, gender equality, and reduced inequalities. By examining the intersection of film and social justice, students will reflect on how film exhibitions can serve as platforms for advocacy, raise awareness of global issues, and promote sustainable practices within the cultural industries.

This module will encourage you to develop new models for the exhibition of film, shaped by the practices of contemporary programmers, curators, filmmakers, and artists and builds skills to support the final major project.

This creative practice module provides students with the opportunity to develop a story idea for a fiction film and equips them with professional skills required of a screenwriter in the industry. To enhance future employment prospects, students learn how to write an industry-standard synopsis and form a research strategy to support development of their ideas into a professionally formatted screenplay. Given the power of film to shape audiences’ attitudes and views, we emphasise the screenwriter’s responsibility to advance principles of equality and inclusion through the construction of stories and characters that reject damaging stereotypes and scenarios. To support this, we analyse film narratives from a wide range of global and cultural contexts. This module develops essential skills for students undertaking a Major Project in screenwriting.

Innovation and adaptation have always been central to the work of the TV storyteller. This combined theory-practice module explores how TV storytellers disrupt, subvert and advance the language and grammar of the medium to create narratives that arrest our attention, highlight important issues, and challenge and provoke us. Students are introduced to professional skills in developing ideas for TV and encouraged to seek out new ways to engage audiences within the context of a continually evolving landscape of creative forms, emerging technologies and social phenomena. In small groups, students form a Writers’ Room to brainstorm and workshop an innovative series idea and are guided on how to work this up into a professionally formatted proposal. This module develops creative practice skills and theoretical understanding needed for Major Projects in either television screenwriting or television research.

This module is a survey of documentary film aesthetics and theoretical issues concerning sites of documentary film exhibition and spectatorship. We will explore the historical role of non-fictional film, analyse the form and content of historical and contemporary film/moving image examples, and consider the ethical, social and political debates and implications of documentary film. We will consider the role of non-fiction moving images within cinematic and wider noncinematic contexts of image circulation and exhibition, especially television broadcasting as well as online journalism, museums and art galleries, or grassroots and informal contexts of moving image dissemination. With the proliferation of sites and institutional contexts of documentary film/moving image exhibition, we will also explore the implications of these changing contexts of exhibition on documentary aesthetics and spectatorship.

This module will develop your skills in cutting edge interactive and immersive media production technologies. You will be introduced to a range of interactive and immersive storytelling platforms. You will research and explore different approaches to interactive video creation, geolocated audio, audio-visual interaction, and other online and interactive multimedia work. You will also be introduced to extended reality technologies and will have the chance to analyse and experiment with 360 content, immersive audio, AR projects and VR experiences. As the module progresses you will focus on developing your own interactive or immersive production project, learning how to implement your ideas and design them with a specific target audience in mind. On the module, you will develop theoretical knowledge and practical skills via in-class discussions, lectures and practical exercises, with opportunities for presentation and peer-feedback.