Film & Screen Arts

UCAS code: W692

Here's what Arts University Plymouth says about its Film & Screen Arts course.

BA (Hons) Film & Screen Arts is a practical filmmaking course that focuses on the craft and aesthetics of contemporary filmmaking. With a focus on cinematic storytelling, the course allows you to design and create storyworlds for a range of audiences, providing real insight into the global filmmaking industries.

This course allows you to gain the skills necessary to succeed as a practical filmmaker such as cinematography and lighting design, directing and camera operation, sound design and mixing, production decision and art direction, editing and post-production. You will also explore specialist techniques including production design, screen direction, sound production, set-building, editing, visual effects, social media production, and experimental image-making.

Why Choose This Course? During this course, you’ll have the opportunity to design and make films, from your initial idea, to shooting and screening, all while considering your work in relation to culture, society, and the wider world. You’ll have the opportunity to develop a wide range of projects beyond traditional film, including screen-based installations, site-specific cinema, music video, and video art. Led by a team of filmmakers and media producers, all areas of your learning will be underpinned by a rigorous critical and cultural understanding of film in its many contemporary forms.

Unique to an independent arts university, our curriculum allows you to engage with areas of practice including Fine Art, Photography, Commercial Photography, Fashion Communication, and Costume through regular university-wide workshops and lectures.

Students should expect practical skills and workshops covering all filmmaking roles and access to professional filmmaking equipment, from motion picture film cameras to industry-standard digital cinema cameras. You’ll also benefit from specialist studio facilities, including infinity green screen cove, sound recording studio, and editing workstations in class. Every unit incorporates hands-on filmmaking that builds to support location filmmaking excursions and live briefs. You’ll be encouraged to enter film festivals in the UK, Europe, and beyond, as well as have the opportunity to showcase work in an on-site independent cinema.

Through our new cutting-edge industry partnership with Real Ideas, you will gain access to Europe’s first-of-its-kind immersive dome; this state-of-the-art facility is compatible with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality, animation, games software, spatial audio, 360 recorded and live-action content.

Our experienced technicians support your practical learning, and you’ll have access to our outstanding facilities including film studios, green screen studios, sound recording and post-production studios, vocal recording booths, and foley studio space. Our Multimedia Lab is stocked with specialist media equipment, including Arri Alexa, Arri Super 16mm cinema cameras, underwater film and photography kit, and much more.

In addition to practical skills, you’ll be challenged to consider the societal role of film, multi-platform consumption by audiences, and effective strategies to showcase your work. From initial idea, to shooting and screening, you’ll be guided to think critically about your creative techniques in the context of culture, society, and the broader world.

Gain Real-World Experience and Industry Exposure Our international network allows students to engage in a semester of study at our partner institutions across Europe and North America. We have partnerships with University Miguel Hernandez in Spain and UCDI in Mexico for the International Student Film Project. We also have established links with NAHEMI, BFI London, the Royal Television Society, and the Aesthetica Film Festival, as well as independent filmmaking professionals in the UK and abroad.

You’ll develop hands-on film production skills, from writing and production design to cinematography and editing, and will explore theoretical approaches to contemporary filmmaking. You will have the opportunity to work with external clients on professional jobs throughout the programme, and will be supported to develop yourself as a filmmaking professional, in whatever context best suits you as an individual. Our students have had their films selected for screening at a huge range of international film festivals, including Aesthetica Film Festival, the Paris Festival Signe de Nuit, Slamdance (Utah), New York Tribeca Film Festival, Raindance International Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival, MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art), and Cornwall Film Festival, winning Best Student Film. We have won a whole host of Royal Television Society Awards, including Best UK Undergraduate Fiction, and this year won NAHEMI Eat Our Shorts Best Film (audience voted), and Plymouth Film Festival ‘Best Student Film’.