Film, Television and Moving Image MA

Course summary

Our innovative Film, Television and Moving Image MA builds on its prestigious heritage as one of the longest-running degree programmes of its kind in the UK. We aim to equip you with wide-ranging skills, knowledge and critical awareness to meet your career aspirations in sectors in which moving images play a central role. Our curriculum incorporates an exciting variety of learning and teaching activities designed to foster your capacity for researching and rigorously analysing different aspects of film, television and moving images. You’ll have the opportunity to develop key skills for communicating about and with moving images across a range of contexts and platforms.

Although this is not a film production course, you can choose to have a broad-based learning experience in film, television and moving image, or specialise in moving image curation or screenwriting via our pathways.

The core teaching team consists of members of the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries. The course has close links with the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), the leading research centre in the UK for arts and design, whose members include internationally renowned filmmakers, film and television theorists and historians, and moving image artists and curators. To ensure that you develop the skill sets, the full range of critical awareness that is in demand, and to deliver an exciting learning experience for you, we combine research-enhanced teaching with classes delivered by film, television and moving image art professionals.

The course combines core and optional taught modules. The design and delivery of our taught modules draw on CREAM’s research excellence in documentary, Asian and European cinema, moving image curation, and television history. The coursework requirements for some modules are research essays or a combination of research essays, presentations and research-informed content production for online platforms. Other modules require a broad range of research-informed professional modes of writing such as a pitch, a treatment, a screenplay, a curatorial proposal or an exhibition review. You’ll also undertake a substantial piece of independent research as a major part of your MA studies. To provide you with the flexibility to undertake a piece of independent research suited to your career aspiration, the final project module offers you the choice between writing a traditional dissertation or completing a theoretically-informed professional project such as a curating a film programme or moving image exhibition, writing and producing a series of themed blog posts, or writing a screenplay.

Top reasons to study with us

• Pathways suited to your career aspirations – Our choice of pathways give you the flexibility of a learning experience suited to your career aspirations
• CREAM research expertise – This course has strong ties with CREAM, the leading UK research institute for arts and design. Our teaching is informed by their research excellence in documentary, Asian and European cinema, moving image curation, and television history
• Industry knowledge – You’ll be taught by an experienced team of film, television and moving image art professionals, as well as learn from guest speakers from the moving image and culture industries, and arts and media sectors

Graduates of the Film, Television and Moving Image MA have progressed into careers in film and television distribution, marketing, arts administration, and an increasing number go on to pursue doctoral research.

Our graduates also find work in state-funded arts bodies, culture and media industries, and independent arts sectors. The knowledge and understanding, and specific and transferable skills developed through studying on this course, have no doubt helped our graduates find employment in all sectors of the moving image and culture industries, and in the arts and media sectors.

This course will prepare you for roles such as:

• Content creator
• Digital curator
• Film programmer
• Researcher
• Screenwriter
• Script reader

Graduate employers

Graduates from this course have found employment at organisations including:

• Cake Distribution
• Fluid Touch Pte Ltd
• ITV
• Jellysmack London
• MUBI
• Saatchi & Saatchi
• TeachFirst
• WeVision