BA (Hons) Film & Television

Level One

Mediation and Representation examines theoretical approaches, media contexts, and media forms to develop critical understanding of key concepts. Attention is paid to recent technological changes that radically impact on production and distribution in the global media market.

Production Planning introduces practical techniques, using multi-camera studio methods. Basic production organisation, script and planning methods are developed alongside critical and analytical understanding of television as a medium.

Script, Screenwriting & Realisation introduces writing and storytelling for the screen and also non-studio based shooting techniques and digital editing. Creative exercises and independent study culminate in a short film script and its audio visual realisation. Students learn to evaluate work with reference to critical frameworks.

Audiovisual Principles & Practices complements, reinforces, extends, underpins, and unifies knowledge and skills from across Level One to ensure a foundation for advanced study, offering greater specialisation for Single Honours students.

Landmarks in Film & Television 1: Hollywood in Context chronologically and critically surveys the rise and continuing influence of Hollywood within the history of the USA and the rest of the World, using a variety of theoretical approaches to film, TV and popular entertainment.

Landmarks in Film & Television 2: Beyond Hollywood examines significant developments for film and TV outside the USA, recognising separate and parallel practices in other places and cultures.

Level Two

Public Service Broadcasting studies the concept, history and possible future of PSB in the UK. Considers implications of broadcasting policy and reports from government committees on broadcasting. Case studies from radio and TV and comparisons with other broadcast systems allow closer debate of key issues.

One of the following:

Single Camera Projects (option) develops single camera production skills in a range of genre projects. Technical camera operation, lighting, sound recording, post production, non-linear editing and multi track sound mixing are covered as well as creative approaches to production and directing.

Multi Camera Projects (option) students work creatively within genres with the opportunity to expand and develop these, using advanced studio production techniques involving programme development, planning, script development, role practice, set design and graphics/overlays, lighting and programme running paperwork. Projects culminate in live assessments.

Script & Screenwriting Projects (option) explores and develops the craft of scriptwriting for radio and screen and provides a basis for students to create and develop their own ideas.

Analysing Film & Television as Industries 1 examines  the political, commercial and cultural determinants behind the history, current organisation, and potential futures of the UK audiovisual production environment, including how it relates to the US and Europe.

One of the following:

Television & New Media Entertainment (option) reflects recent emphases in TV Studies away from established genres towards ‘ordinary television’: previously under-theorized non-fictional, ‘postdocumentary’ forms such as lifestyle television, chat shows, game shows, reality TV and serious magazine programmes. Looks also at the threat to TV from various forms of new media and how it is responding.

Representing Reality (option) representations of real people’s lives and experiences have become a potent area of debate in the contemporary public arena. This module considers how today’s documentaries have been shaped by key practitioners over more than half a century, culminating in the thirst for 'reality' that characterises present schedules and news-stands.

Realism in Narrative Fiction (option) develops understanding of the complex problem of realism in film and media studies as it relates to fictional narrative forms. Students engage with academic debates around realist texts and examine these in relation to historical, contemporary and potential examples.

Modernism and Experimental Forms (option) places experimental approaches in the context of key moments in the evolution of a broad range of media practices. Focuses primarily on the emergence of Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but will also consider later periods that can be considered crucial to an understanding of principles underpinning experimental work.

Women in and at the Movies: Stars, Icons and Audiences (option) concerned with the cultural construction of womanhood, the ‘female’ and notions of femininity: the economic and cultural value of the female film star to Hollywood; the development of female film genres or the feminization of certain genres; how debates about female identity inform models of spectatorship, with respect to both psychoanalysis and ethnography.

Media Research: Methods & Proposal Design covers research methods used when analysing media products, institutions and audiences; and how to design and outline coherent, rigorous, detailed, practicable and ethically sound research proposals.

Analysing Film & Television as Industries 2 extends and deepens the analysis of production environments begun in Part 1.   It relates specifically to students’ potential futures as practitioners in these sectors but also considers how development and transformation affect their identities, and those of their peers, as informed and engaged consumers and citizens.

One of the following:

Society, Aesthetics & Digital Media (option) The technical rationality and control associated with digital media and culture are constantly plagued and undermined by forms of irrationality and otherness. Philosophical, psychoanalytical and aesthetic

eory on issues of time, memory, the uncanny, alterity and the virtual in digital media provides ways of thinking around this theme and questioning its ethical and political significance. Includes discussion of how digital media artists, producers and practitioners explore these issues in productions, installations, artworks, etc.

Globalisation & Contemporary Culture (option)  is a guide to key theoretical concepts and debates, organised thematically around critical studies, cultural contexts, media technologies and forms.

Representing Difference (option) surveys methods of analysis of media representations and approaches to representing difference. Considers issues such as gender, nationality and ethnicity primarily in film and broadcast media. Alternative approaches such as semiotics, content analysis and discourse analysis are contrasted with psychoanalytic methods, post-colonial theory and the concept of Third Cinema.

Horror & Fantasy (option) introduces theoretical and contextual approaches to fantastic fictional forms with the emphasis on horror and ‘dark’ fantasy. Examines texts from cinema, television, photography, music video, digital games and art practice, taking them seriously as ways of making sense of, and sometimes criticising, the cultures in which they are produced.

Authorship & Agency (option) considers three different determinants for a film or broadcast text:  the author, the genre and the production/distribution institution. Students debate the relative importance of these to a number of given case studies. Analysis is underpinned with consideration of the development and utility of each approach.

Debates & Developments in Children’s Film & Television (option) concentrates on UK examples, drawing on the USA for elements of comparison, informed by politics, ideology and economics. Case studies consider the historical construction of ‘childhood’, the question of what is children’s film, the value of children’s literature and recent adaptations into cinematic blockbusters, the child as consumer, citizen and object of policy, the importance of children’s TV in public service broadcasting debates, and fears about its future.

Practices of Listening (option) A broad look at audio-culture from the twentieth century to the present, offering challenge and insight to Film & TV specialists. Vision is often privileged, resulting in a relative paucity of language for discussing sound. This problem is addressed, looking at texts from key theorists and practitioners, considering sound not in addition to vision, but independently, in music, radio, art and daily life.

British Television Drama (option) Drama is a key component of TV in the UK, carrying out a Public Service function and creating a sense of National Identity. The module considers continuing series (Soap Operas), Drama serials, single plays and television films, situation comedy and comedy drama, underpinned by a survey of critical approaches.

The Art (and Craft) of the Cinematographer (option) explores and contextualises the work of the cinematographer in both fictional and documentary production, from pioneers in the early 1900s, whose skill was considered a craft, to cinematographers today, when technological advances and development of techniques and lighting might suggest that their work is more an art. Practical sessions reproduce technical and artistic advances, using today’s technology, influential cinematographers’ work is viewed and discussed, and personal engagement with some of these is facilitated through master classes.

East Asian Cinemas (option) A guide to specific films and accompanying theoretical concepts. Key films provide a platform for debating the political, institutional and cultural context of individual cinemas and regions in an increasingly globalised industry where audiences and producers are exposed to a variety of film styles. Critical engagement and debate are encouraged within the broader structure of  World Cinema, alongside cultural and globalisation studies.

British Experimental Film & TV (option) focuses on how the emergence of film and video technologies has given rise to more marginalised voices being heard. “Experimental film”, “artists’ moving image”, “video art”, etc, are often overlooked by both histories of art and the media, yet are some of the most pioneering and unusual work. The motivation behind this practice is studied, alongside the (non-) institutional structures that allow it to be made, and methodologies of studying the texts themselves.

Genre & Film (option) explores how genres affect appreciation of films and their various international contexts, enhancing understanding of the ways in which films function as socio-cultural products as well as a commercial entertainment medium. Emphasis is on a particular genre: e.g. the crime/gangster film may be traced from Hollywood in the 1930s to its contemporary, multi-faceted, multi-cultural form with its ongoing concern with issues of criminality and its relationship to masculinity, ethnicity and power. The module deals with developments in order to stress both the universality and specificity of film genres.

Level Three

Media Independent Study A 10,000-word dissertation is the culmination of the student's undergraduate investigation into the structures and debates surrounding cultural production and takes the form of an extended essay. Regular support and supervision ensures that the chosen subject facilitates involvement with issues relevant to contemporary media practice.

Film/TV Production Project One advanced concept-led project or project portfolio using technologies centred upon Single Camera, Multi Camera or Scriptwriting; an opportunity to produce practical work to an advanced level of creativity and to undertake interdisciplinary production with students on other School of Media course as appropriate.

One of the following:

Adaptation: Generic Transformation (option) examines adaptation of novels into live drama and film, but does not overlook other forms, e.g. poetry, graphic novel, radio and opera. Categorisations and theories are addressed, and techniques and methods from the formulaic to the experimental. Case studies may include cultural myths (Frankenstein; Alice in Wonderland; Sherlock Holmes etc.), individual writers (Poe, Kafka) and institutions (the BBC classic serial).

Film and Society (option) Film as a medium, art, social communication, and complex technology dramatically re-shapes how we see the world. Studies interaction between genres (westerns, blockbusters and their alternatives, musicals, horror, ‘art-movies’) and schools/movements (realism vs. expressionism, Hollywood, neo-realism, Avant Garde, The New Wave, Das Neue Kino, social and socialist realism, etc.), linking to cultural and social changes in Euro-American modern history.

Popular Fiction across Media (option) Current debates and contemporary phenomena addressed across a range of texts. Science fiction and horror are employed to examine issues such as censorship, ideological represent-ations and underlying trends of technology related to communication

Science Fiction in Film & Television (option) Analyses the range and diversity of a genre encompassing many highly popular texts. Metaphor and allegory are explored to understand how science fiction has been appreciated and has developed from cult to mainstream acceptance and popularity. Innovation and cross-fertilisation of generic forms are also be considered.

Eco-cinecriticism (option) Ecological film and media study is new, full of contra-dictions and uncertainties. Debates around eco-crisis make it rich and pertinent. Examines feature films with environmental themes, blockbusters that spectacularly exploit ecological fears, ‘green’ experimental cinema, representations of nature in wildlife documentaries, propagandist documentaries, and film-making as a wasteful and destructive industry.

Film & Television under Pressure Investigates current challenges and difficulties facing film and TV and resultant complications in studying them. One-way production and consumption processes compete with non-linear, responsive or interactive “media“ such as the internet, social networking and computer games. Film and TV are stretching to fit these developments, with fascinating, often unpredicable, consequences.

One of the following:

The Journalist in Anglo-American Movies (option) Films in which journalists figure centrally form a substantial genre in their own right and contribute to ongoing public debate about the social role and ethics of the profession. Critically compares different representations of journalists in film and assesses how these relate to continuing moral and political issues faced by the profession.

Televising History (option) Examines the increase, since the 1990s, in history programmes in Britain, Europe and North America, many of which contribute to viewers’ sense of national, regional and personal identity. Considers the accompanying proliferation of platforms – digital, satellite, Internet – and genres, alongside the range of scholarly responses which have similarly expanded in terms of approach and discipline.

Exploitation Cinema (option) Examines the cultural significance of so-called exploitation films, which can reveal (and revel in) themes, images and narratives suppressed from the mainstream, dealing with lurid, scandalous subjects in a seemingly excessive, gratuitous manner. Some theorists argue that perceived ‘excess’ is a foundation for developing new critical methods, providing a fascinating alternative to approaches more comfortably contained within ‘classical’ systems.

Representing the Unrepresentable (option) Schindler’s List (1993) met critical acclaim and commercial success – but furore in some quarters, not only for how it represented the Holocaust but for daring to represent it at all. Using this example as a reference point, the module critically examines several moving picture accounts of the Holocaust in the context of long-standing debates around the nature, ethics, and function of documentary, drama-documentary, and fictionalisation.

One of the following:

Weimar Cinema (option) The film industry and culture in Weimar Germany (1918-1933) is influential, contradictory and ambivalent. The module investigates the aesthetics of Expressionism and New Objectivity, constructed in competition and co-operation with Hollywood and other European states, and how these relate to the political spectrum.

Hollywood in the 1970s (option) Surveys and assesses a period that represents a break with a range of ideological, aesthetic and commercial traditions together with a process of retrenchment and recuperation. Post-classical Hollywood saw both films and the industry experience ideological and socio-cultural upheaval, demonstrated through cinematic modes of representation, industrial re-structuring and artistic transformations.

Literature, Film & Gender (option) Looks at various texts from literature, drama, film and television by men and women at different historical moments and explores these through a variety of theoretical standpoints from within gender studies. Attention is also paid to differences between literary and filmic texts in relation to questions of gendered representation.

Television Crime Drama (option) Tracing the origins of the modern Television Crime Drama from its literary origins through crime film, this module considers various critical approaches to the genre. Through a mixture of textual and contextual analysis students consider crime drama as both a measure of the zeitgeist and a monitor of the relationship between the citizen and the state.

Latin American Cinemas (option) examines the development of cinema production in this region and explores the diversity of approaches to style, theme and business models, taking the work of key filmmakers as case studies. The relationship between politics and film is reviewed, as are the connections and interdependences between Latin American film cultures and those from other parts of the world, including Hollywood.

Heroes and Villains in Film (option) will examine a range of heroes produced by the twentieth and twenty-first century, analysing their cultural context and their relationship to genre, and provide a means by which we can understand the changing mores of audiences. Taking a range of heroes, antiheroes and villains from the western, science fiction, comic book superheroes and literary adaptations, we will examine heroic virtues, the sins of the villain, and the often confused interplay between the two, in order to arrive at a greater understanding of what makes a hero, why we need them, and how film has negotiated the need for men and women who somehow answer our unspoken prayers and desires.

High satisfaction rates for Lincoln School of Media in the National Student Survey. Typically, 73% of Lincoln School of Media graduates achieve 'Degree' category employment within 12 months of graduating. National growth in the creative industries continues to provide encouraging employment prospects.

We are ranked nationally in the top 25% of departments for research. 95% of media-related research at Lincoln was international standard, and 15% world-leading, in the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2008.

The School is home to the AHRC funded 'Televising History' project led by Professor Ann Gray. Experienced practitioner staff includes winners of prestigious film festival awards.

Our students are building a strong reputation in the industry – not only through their record of graduate employment but also by entering work into competitions. We have an outstanding tradition of success at the Royal Television Society Midlands Awards, where in October 2009 projects by our students took First Prizes in the Animation, Entertainment and Factual categories as well as for Best Overall Student Production. This achievement is unprecedented by any university.

The staff includes continuing media practitioners who maintain valuable industry contacts. The programme benefits from advice, collaboration and guidance provided to the Lincoln School of Media from senior managers and practitioners in many creative industry and community organisations. Honorary doctorates include international film director Mike Newell. Among our visiting professors are Neil McKay, BAFTA-award winning television dramatist, and documentary maker Nick Gray. Professor Brian Winston, an Emmy-award winning filmmaker and world-renowned expert on documentary, is a former Dean of the Faculty and continues to work closely with the School.

The School engages in significant external outreach and community work. We have an in-house production arm augmenting a graduate start-up centre to encourage graduates to stay within the region to locate their creative industry businesses. Connections with both corporate and community bodies in the region resulted in a successful bid to OFCOM in 2007 for a five-year Community Radio licence for Siren FM, which broadcasts from the building.

The School has gained recognition as an Approved Partner in the BBC North initiative and with Avid, the editing software manufacturer. We are also a licensed deliverer of the BBC Health and Safety awareness course, which is available to all students and staff. A major Knowledge Transfer Partnership involves production for Interflora.

The academic team are engaged with professional bodies such as the Royal Television Society, the British Society of Cinematographers the UK Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association and the Art, Design & Media Subject Centre of The Higher Education Academy.

Lectures, workshops, seminars, group projects, screenings, research, independent study

Specific careers in film and television include Broadcast Researcher, Production Assistant, Programme Producer, Production Manager, Audio and/or Video Editor, Journalist. Other media-related careers for which the course can prepare you are Advertising & Public Relations, Media Relations & Management, Marketing & Market Research, Information Technology, Education (Secondary, FE & HE), Publishing, Arts & Media Administration, Performing Arts.

The Lincoln School of Media houses two major television studios, sound studios (including multi-track) and eight audio editing suites, eight Avid editing suites, a dedicated script development lab, various other media production facilities including digital media labs, a multi-format transfer facility, photography studios, darkroom and workshop, design studios, and a range of seminar and lecture rooms – all located within the purpose-built MHT Building, allowing for integrated and converged ways of working to support educational activity and development of a vibrant centre of excellence. The new University Library houses print-based materials and provides electronic access to an extensive range of resources.

The programme uses continuous assessment as the basis for determining the level of student performance. Some small use is also made of class-based tests.

BA Hons Film & Television at Lincoln is designed to enhance your understanding of issues pertinent to national and global media industries as well as individual films and programmes; to expand your ability to engage in independent study as well as work creatively in a team; and to provide opportunities to develop creative, critical, technical and organisational skills linked to employment in the media industries and elsewhere.

According to the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS), “40% of vacancies for graduates in the UK do not ask for specific degree subjects. A degree is taken as evidence of intellectual prowess. More important to potential employers is the range of transferable skills and experience which you can demonstrate.” Transferable skills which employers value include constructing arguments and advancing them through discussion, and understanding theoretical models and being able to question and criticise them. These are central to the study of Film & Television at Lincoln.

We do not specify A level subjects but seek evidence of media-related creativity and/or critical awareness such as qualifications in English, Art, Design, Media, Theatre, Sociology or Film Studies. We particularly value personal statements that demonstrate relevant experience, a broad range of interests and a real passion for learning about film and television.

2012 Entry	UK/EU	International
Full-time	£9000	£12033
Part-time	£75 per credit point	£100 per credit point
Placement (optional)	Exempt	Exempt
Assessment Only	£38 per credit point	£50 per credit point

For further information and funding your study please see our Fees & Funding pages.

Fees and Funding