BA (Hons) Film & Screen Studies

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year, based at UCA Farnham to bring students from around the world to one hub of creativity.

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Launch Week
You’ll begin by taking part in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and seminars based around ideas generation, creative practice, and development. This week will help students develop their understanding of creativity and different sources of inspiration via different approaches, concepts, and mediums.

History of Film: Industry and Technology
You’ll look at the development of film within Europe and Hollywood to consider the creation of new filmic technologies, national film industries and their transnational connections. Key film movements such as German Expressionism and the French New Wave will be covered, together with some global examples.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The unit provides an opportunity for you to explore what is meant by equality, diversity, and inclusion and the implications of these concepts for creative practice. It will equip students to understand how our social identities (such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation, and religion) contribute to the inclusion and/or exclusion of individuals in creative spaces.

Television Studies
You’ll be introduced to a range of fundamental concepts essential to the understanding of television studies. It will connect television to the history of film, considering some of the central similarities and differences between these mediums.

Opportunity Week
This week will help you develop your understanding and appreciation for fast-paced idea generation while working within a team. You’ll work to create an idea, develop your concept, and produce a short film in 24 hours.

Screen Theory
Through a range of theories, you’ll be able to deepen your understanding of moving image. You will read the work of foundational thinkers and consider the times and places from which they emerge, beginning to consider how certain theories respond to one another and intertwine.

Moving Image Analysis
This unit enables you to consider and understand moving images in terms of style and form, providing insight into both visual qualities and sound. You’ll also learn how narrative and character are constructed on screen, combining an understanding of how stories are created and presented through moving image.

Storytelling and Representation
You’ll develop a concept for a short film, applying your understanding of film theory, form and style. The emphasis will be on pitching a visual story exploring character with the aim of realising your ideas through a short script or film. The creative brief for this unit will also focus on issues of representation as introduced within the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity and Screen Theory units.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university. Collectively they form a small fraction of your curriculum that is determined through your own personal choice and interest.

PLE Digital Outcome
In this unit you will collate a digital record, reflecting on your learning journey through the first year of your degree. You will be identifying key points and developments within all units undertaken. We are interested in seeing a detailed account of your academic, technical and creative progress and development.

Launch week
A series of interdisciplinary seminars and workshops on how to evaluate your own work and recognise your points of strength. This week will investigate how creative risk-taking, invention and experimentation helps to develop your work.

National Industries And Local Filmmaking
You’ll build upon your understanding of the history of European and Hollywood cinema by connecting these industries to global film movements. Through case studies, you will deepen your knowledge of film as an international and transnational medium which is shaped by the geographical contexts from which it emerges.

The Conscious Practitioner
This unit aims to promote progressive values and attitudes to diversity and inclusion in creative practice. Students will have the opportunity to explore global perspectives and influences on creative practice, drawing upon interactions with varied identities, cultures, politics, and histories. The unit will explore how beliefs, values and attitudes drive behaviour and practices. Students will reflect on the development of their own creative influences, perspectives, practices, and sense of belonging as developing creative professionals in global and contemporary spaces.

Opportunity Week – Game Jam
This week consists of a series of interdisciplinary seminars, screenings, and workshops on creative game-building subjects through the lens of a ‘Games Jam’ event. You’ll see the possibilities and potential of what you could create in a short space of time, with the influence of their individual practises and subjects.

You’ll explore further innovation, technique, and technology in production, distribution and exhibition of a fully functioning and playable video game.

Researching Non-Fiction
This unit provides a cultural, critical, theoretical and historical overview of the ways in which selected creators from a variety of international contexts have responded to real-life events. You’ll explore a range of non-fiction moving image texts that take real-life events as their starting points, including film, television and new media.

Film Festivals
This unit focuses on the development of the film festival, from their inception to the current landscape. This will consider the use of new technologies, the way films are marketed and circulated from an industry perspective and how festivals can be run sustainably, informed by current research in this area.

ATOM Activities
This unit is an extension of your Year 1 ATOM Activities.

PLE Digital Outcome
You’ll build your industry community and professional networking footprint, creating a digital folder evidencing that you are actively engaging in sustainable professional development. You’ll showcase current and newly established professional networks and identify common interests.

Elective units
You'll also undertake two elective units across the year - choose from:

• Animation: Industry and Technology – you’ll learn about the development of animation from early cinema to the contemporary, considering both technological shifts and the role of animation studios.
• Transmedia Worlds - This unit brings together the concepts essential to the understanding of film, media and the performing arts through a consideration of adaptation and transmedia worlds.
• Audio World building: Sound for Moving Image - The unit will give you the opportunity to explore different forms of sound in relation to genre, and develop your understanding of recording Foley and environments, directing voice artists, and mixing sound.
• Immersive Production: Developing an Experiential Concept for Film and Television Production - This unit will give you the opportunity to explore cutting edge and future focused technology so that you have a broad comprehension of the expertise and skills required if you want to delve further into immersive media production
• The Individual Performance Project – You’ll create a short live performance comprising at least two different elements, including things like a monologue, a piece of storytelling, a poem, a piece of dance/movement or a puppet show.
• Theatre Production – You’ll work together with students from a wide range of courses to make a live theatre production.
• Applied Music - In this unit you will deliberately expand who you share and create music with to include a wider sense of community.
• Film Production – You’ll work together with students from a wide range of courses to make a short film, which could also include animated material or a game component.
• Industry Insight: Crewing Up – Delivered at the Maidstone Studios, this unit gives you insight into the many roles in moving image production.
• Shakespeare Festival - In this unit you will embrace the language of Shakespeare, staging performances of his work in in an outdoor festival setting at sites around UCA Farnham.
• Showreels for the Creative Industries - This unit is designed to help you identify your career aspirations within the creative industries, and to build a professional showreel that best showcases your work.
• Verbatim - you will learn about the history of Verbatim techniques in theatre. You will explore Verbatim texts and performance practices including ‘headphone’ theatre and documentary theatre practices.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

This course offers the opportunity to study abroad for part of your second year. To find out more about studying abroad as part of your course please see the Study Abroad section:

• Study abroad information

Launch Week
Through interdisciplinary seminars, screenings and workshops, Launch Week focuses on ground-breaking, creative work that has had surprised, shocked, and changed the way we view the world. This will help you see the possibilities and potential of what you could create and achieve in your final year.

Engagement, Reception And Criticism
You’ll build upon your understanding of the ways in which films are produced and distributed so you can consider in greater detail how they are received. You’ll develop in-depth knowledge of key concepts such as cult cinema, audience studies and professional film criticism and engage with ongoing debates surrounding our engagement with the moving image.

Preparation For Dissertation
This unit will build upon your independent research skills as developed in Researching Non-Fiction and prepare you for your dissertation. You will take your research skills and apply them to a topic of your choice within film and screen studies which will form the basis for your dissertation in the second semester.

Future Of Screens
This unit will bring together the topics of film production, distribution and reception and add to this a consideration of the future of the moving image by exploring cutting edge technologies and developments. You’ll work together to shape the direction of the unit and explore your own choice of moving images via student-led screenings and seminars, and showcase your understandings with a creative project with an open brief, and a written essay.

Opportunity Week
This week comprises a series of interdisciplinary lectures, seminars and workshops centred around life after graduation. This week will help students develop their understanding of the creative industries, working professional environment and what they can expect after graduation.

Dissertation
Your studies culminate with the formation and realisation of your dissertation. This is a substantial period of sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject related to the contextual and/or theoretical concerns of your discipline or chosen area of practice, towards the provision of structured written argument.

Tuition fees - 2023 entry

UK students:

• Integrated Foundation Year - £9,250
• BA course - £9,250

EU students:

• Integrated International Foundation Year - £9,250 (see fee discount information)
• BA course - £9,250 (see fee discount information)

International students:

• Integrated International Foundation Year - £16,950
• BA course - £16,950

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2023 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850 (UK students) and £3,390 (International students). You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

The fees listed here are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules. Costs may increase each year during a student’s period of continued registration on course in line with inflation (subject to any maximum regulated tuition fee limit). Any adjustment for continuing students will be at or below the RPI-X forecast rate.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources.

Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

You'll find everything you need to know for your level of study on our scholarships page.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

Our industry connections include:

• Avid
• Kodak
• BKSTS
• BECTU
• NAHEM
• Envy
• The Royal Television Society
• The Guild of Television Cameramen
• Tangram Post Production
• Warp Films
• Working Title
• BBC
• Picture Productions
• Paramount Pictures
• ITN
• Mainframe
• Big Minded TV

We've hosted a number of visiting lecturers, including:

• Alex Garland, novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director of titles including The Beach, Ex Machina, Dredd, Sunshine and 28 Days Later
• Barrie Vince, editor of Get Real, A Private Function and Moonlighting
• Gustavo Costantini, Argentinian sound designer, musician and Professor of Sound Design at the University of Buenos Aires
• Joe Martin and Danielle Clarke, director and producer of documentaries Win a Baby, Going Straight, Scientologists at War and Britain's Young Soldiers
• Julie Noon/One World Media – Julie made Syria's Torture Machine, The TA and the Taliban, and Cooking in the Danger Zone
• Philip Ilson, director of the London Short Film Festival
• Sean Bobbitt, cinematographer for films including 12 Years a Slave

As well as coursework, our students are supported in external projects and have made professional-level film work for organisations including:

• Alive & Well
• London Life
• Royal Marsden Hospital
• Sailability
• The March Foundation
• Who Needs Heroes

Our students have undertaken work experience on major blockbuster films and award-winning features, such as:

• Lilting
• The Favourite
• Snow White and the Huntsman
• Thor: The Dark World
• Anna Karenina
• Game of Thrones 

Graduates of our Film & Screen Studies go on to develop their careers under several different roles. These include:

• Film journalist
• Film and media critic
• Film festival programmer
• Film historian
• Film publicist
• Lecturer

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 new UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

More portfolio advice

BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 64 new UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Merit, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
• 64 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

• Non-UK equivalent qualifications

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we will need to see your portfolio for review. We will invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. If you are unable to attend an Applicant Day you can upload a portfolio digitally, there is also the option to submit it online via your UCA Applicant Portal. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please chcek the level of English language required:

• English language requirements