BA (Hons) Media Production

Script, Screenwriting and Realisation

An introduction to the basics of writing and storytelling for screen based media production. Students will develop their own creative writing techniques informed by critical concepts of storytelling.. Creative exercises and independent application culminate in the production of a short film script followed through to its realisation.

Photography

This module provides an introduction to the fundamental elements of photographic production, both technically and conceptually. Particular consideration will be given to image experimentation, idea generation, project development and delivery. The work of historical and contemporary practitioners will be introduced and critically explored.

Production Planning

An introduction to the practical techniques employed in production planning using multi-camera studio production methods. To develop their skills as practitioners, students will learn basic production organisation, script and planning methods. Students will also develop a critical and analytical understanding of television as a medium.

Design and Visual Communication

Digital Media

Radio and Sound

Students will acquire the basics of radio research for factual production. Technical and studio expertise will combine with academic concepts behind radio and sound in both theory and practice. Using sound as an experimental medium and art form, students are encouraged to think creatively in terms of their practice and this is actively encouraged and developed.

Digital Media

This module focuses on the technical and conceptual skills needed to effectively employ a range of multimedia applications to produce screen-based work. Students will acquire skills in the use of digital media software and hardware and undertake practice on their own initiative to develop their skills, particularly through the use of software programme tutorials.

Mediation and Representation

This module is organised around an examination of critical studies, media contexts and media forms to enable students to develop a critical understanding of key concepts that have informed studies of media, Attention will be paid to recent technological changes that have radically impacted on methods of production and distribution in the global mass-media market.

Media Production Options

Students choose two of the following practice options to run through both semesters

• Radio & Sound Projects - Advanced concepts, techniques, and skills in the areas of radio broadcasting, sound, and music production will be developed with an emphasis on encouraging creative, experimental, and innovative approaches. Students will be introduced to the formats of documentary, drama and live radio production and will develop original scripts through to final production.

• Single Camera Projects - The module will develop technical skills in camera operation, lighting, sound recording, post production, non-linear editing and multi-track mixing as well as creative approaches to production and directing. Script development will be taught to enable students in follow through scripts to a successful conclusion.

• Multi Camera Projects - This module will include advanced studio production techniques, programme development, planning, script development, role practice, set design, graphics/overlays, lighting and programme running paperwork. Exercises will help students to develop advanced studio practices, facilitating the production of work to an industry standard.

• Script and Screenwriting Projects - Initially elements of craft will be presented in lectures and practised during workshops as students create their own short scripts. Scripts will be developed from initial idea through to final draft. Later in the year students will study the craft of writing longer scripts for radio, film and TV. This will be supported by an analysis of the craft of writing for radio film and TV.

• Digital Media Projects - The module will provide advanced practical, theoretical and professional skills in the use of digital media software and hardware including motion graphics, soundtrack design, special effects and digital compositing. Students will work with pre-visualisation techniques, including scripting and storyboarding, to develop concepts and ideas.

• Photography Projects - Through a series of practical workshops, short exercises and collective feedback sessions, students will acquire an understanding of the way that medium format photographic and imaging equipment and materials can be used within print, exhibition and installation contexts.

• Design Projects - Using diverse and developing skills, we offer a range of projects and workshops that challenge students to solve communication problems in innovative and thoughtful ways. Intelligence and analysis through research is encouraged to inform creative approaches to design problems.

Semester A Critical Studies

In Semester A all students take the first module and choose one other critical studies module from the options that follow:

• Analysing & Working in the Media Industries - Students will be introduced to key issues in the history and current organisation of, and possible changes in, the media as institutions and cultural practices with specific reference to their status as industries.

• Television & Entertainment Culture (option) - Through a critical examination of contemporary factual television culture, this module will show that this culture can be understood as having been dramatically reconfigured in recent years by socio-political and commercial pressures and their associated entertainment values and changing discourses of selfhood.

• Representing Reality (option) - The aim of this module is to develop students understanding of how documentary in its present state has been shaped by key practitioners active over the course of the last century, culminating in the thirst for reality that shapes our present schedules and news-stands.

• Photography, Digital Media & Design in Context (option) - The content forms an examination of concepts relating to production, distribution and consumption of photographic images, design for print, and media products. Using the development of magazines and documentary approaches, students will examine these production practices within a framework of historical references, technological development, the political and social context of production and critical debate.

• Public Service Broadcasting (option) - Students study the concept, history and possible future of Public Service Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. The implications of broadcasting policy and reports from government committees on broadcasting will be considered in relation to the formation of the concept of Public Service Broadcasting.

• Realism in Narrative Fiction (option) - This module is intended to develop students’ understanding of the complex problem of realism in film and media studies as it relates to fictional narrative forms. Students will engage with academic debates around realist texts and examine these in relation to historical, contemporary and potential examples.

• Modernism & Experimental Forms (option) - Experimental approaches will be placed in the context of a number of key historical moments in the evolution of a broad range of media practices since the emergence of Modernism in the late 19th and its rise in the early 20th century. More recent periods that can be considered crucial to an understanding of the principles underpinning experimental work will also be examined.

Semester B Critical Studies

In Semester B all students take the first module and choose one other critical studies module from the options that follow.

• Media Research Methods and Proposal Planning - This module focuses on the research methods used when analysing media products, institutions and audiences and on how to design and outline coherent and detailed research proposals with respect to these subject areas.

• Society, Aesthetics & Digital Media. (option) - The major theme of this module is that the technical rationality and control, often privileged in the discourses of digital media and culture, finds itself constantly plagued and undermined by various forms of irrationality and otherness.

• Globalisation & Contemporary Culture (option) - This module will provide an overview of conceptual themes and issues within the culture industry and the arts in relation to globalisation. Debates brought forward include, national and cultural identity, global representation, global technologies, multiculturalism, trans-nationalism, cosmopolitanism and global activism channels.

• Representing Difference (option) - Methods of analysis of media representations and approaches to representing difference will be considered in this module as well as issues such as gender, nationality and ethnicity apparent in film & broadcast media. A range of critical approaches will be considered and contrasted and Post-colonial theory and Third Cinema will be utilised in relation to these.

• Horror & Fantasy (option) - Students will be introduced to a range of theoretical and contextual approaches to fantastic fictional forms with the emphasis on horror texts and ‘dark’ fantasy. Through lectures and seminars, students will be encouraged to apply the approaches we will cover though the analysis and discussion of a range of relevant media output.

• Authorship and Agency (option) - Three different determinants for a film or broadcast text will be considered, the author, the genre and the production/distribution institution. Students will debate the relative importance of these three determinants to a number of case studies. This analysis will be underpinned through a consideration of the development and utility of each of the approaches.

• Debates and developments in children’s film and television (option) - This module investigates and analyses the debates about and developments in children’s film and television largely in the UK but drawing on the USA for elements of comparison, informed by politics, ideology and economics.

• Practices of Listening (option) - This module will examine audio-culture from the twentieth century to the present day. Vision has often been privileged over the aural and the content of this module will address this problem, primarily by considering texts from key theorists and practitioners in the field. Sound will be considered not in addition to vision, but independently, in music, radio, art and daily life.

American Exchange Opportunity

The course includes the opportunity at Level 2 for a limited number of students to take part in the single semester Moorhead Exchange Programme in the US.

Research & Development (Semester A) and *Research & Development ( Semester B)

These two companion modules will introduce students to a range of professional skills relevant to the requirements of Research & Development proposals and processes as found in the media and creative industries. Initially students will research and develop a proposal for a major original production (or other proposed piece of creative industry output) and make a professional presentation about the process of developing this creative concept. This will be followed up in Semester B where students have the option of researching and developing a case study of an actual media organisation or undertaking the role of mentor for public production teams engaged with the Community Radio Station. In both case these will result in professionally compiled documents that meet the requirements of the module syllabus.

Media Practice (Semester A) and Media Projects (Semester B)

These two companion modules require students to produce one advanced concept led project or project portfolio per semester using the technologies relevant to either Single Camera, Multi Camera, Radio and Sound, Scriptwriting, Digital Media, Design or Photography.

The two modules provide opportunities to produce work to an advanced level of creativity and technique in a practice based medium and will also offer scope to undertake interdisciplinary production. Practical projects will be mainly self-directed with support provided through tutorials and seminars. A lecture series will accompany this where form, content, audience and modes of delivery will be discussed and debated.

Media Independent Study

The Media Independent Study is the culmination of each students undergraduate investigation into the structures and debates surrounding cultural production and takes the form of a dissertation. The chosen subject will require detailed research into issues relevant to contemporary media practice. Lectures, seminars and personal tutorials will support this project.

The course includes the opportunity at Level 2 for a limited number of students to take part in the single semester Moorhead Exchange Programme in the US.

The course benefits from two major television studios, five radio studios (including a multi-track studio), eight audio editing suites, eight Avid editing suites (as part of an approved Academic partner scheme), a dedicated script development lab, two digital media labs with over 30 iMac workstations, a multi-format transfer facility, a photography studio with digital darkroom and dedicated workshop, two design studios, and a wide range of seminar and lecture rooms. All of this housed within a purpose-built facility that allows for integrated and converged ways to support the educational experience.

If you want to work in the media and communications industries or graduate with a range of skills considered desirable by most employers, then this is a course worth finding out about. If you relish academic work but also want to work with others to make programmes, projects and produce tangible things then maybe this could be the course for you. With nearly two hundred undergrads in each year this is a busy place with some of the best production facilities in any university.

A good rounded education with evidence of high achievement in related subjects; the ability to analyse, write and most importantly be able to respond to the production workshops and projects at the core of the course. For example we don’t expect prior knowledge of TV studio production but you need to be able to work in groups of anything from 2 to 15 on productions in a range of media. An ability to manage and develop your own learning is pretty important to get the most out of the range of opportunities we offer.

Assessment methods include: programmes and portfolios in a wide range of media, produced individually and by groups. Other methds include essays, reports, presentations, self/peer evaluation and research files. There are no formal examinations.

The BA (Hons) Media Production aims to provide an educational context in which students develop creative, conceptual, critical, analytical, technical, organisational and research skills appropriate to employment in the media industries. The programme of study aims to be distinctive in meeting the demand for aspiring media professionals who understand the uses of technology and the rapid pace of technological change and thus embodies a purposeful response to the UKs economic need to develop its creative and cultural industries at national, regional and local level.

The graduate employability track record is secure, with increasing numbers of media employers and previous alumni returning to Lincoln each year to recruit the next generation of professional, capable and creative people.

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

Fees and Funding