BA (Hons)
Film and Media Studies

This unit will Indentify and analyse historical and national film movements, teaching students how to engage in critical analysis of the moving image and understand key elements of theoretical and formal discussion of the cinema industry.

The history, institutions and popular culture of Manchester are used as a resource for study skills and provide the context for first year film & media research.

Informed analysis of historical and contemporary media issues, as these function within the national and the global context. Introduces you to key concepts within media studies and develop their awareness of contemporary global media. 

Introduction to cross disciplinary creative practice. This unit provides a basic knowledge, understanding and experience of a variety of creative processes. You will engage in a series of practical exercises, engage in analysis of contemporary art, develop their self evaluation skills along with an introduction to research for practice skills.

Professional Project is a work experience and career development unit in year two. In this unit you get to engage with media professional talks, blog creation, work experience or an enterprise project and develop your future career.

This unit examines the relationships between screen media theory and screen media practices.  You will examine the instances of creativity that these convergences have and can produce.   

The unit offers students a greater understanding of in-depth advertising analysis and discourse, in particular the ability to manage other areas of creative commercial rendition. This would include illustration, photography, film, creative copy, editing and other media outlets to the direction of original concepts as answers to a specific set of problems.

This unit offers a critical analysis of the history and practice of documentary activity within film and photography.  Key documentary movements are considered here, with a view to appreciating their historical and cultural importance and also to tracing the integration of the documentary form into social commentary with its acceptance as mainstream media. 

This unit examines European national cinemas from 1945, looking at how the past is re-interpreted by the successive generations of film makers.  It will consider Italian, Spanish and Polish national cinemas amongst other national schools, looking at how the past is re-interpreted by the successive generations of film makers.

This subject will explore the concepts, practices and theories of gender and sex in commercial and alternative film, television and media formats.  The subject will enable students to develop frameworks for the study of interactions between the aesthetic and historical demarcations of sex and gender; those freely practised and those subject to censorship.

Media Narratives covers the ways different media produce stories. Topics covered include:

• Adaptation
• Myth
• Fairy tales
• Classical narratives and non linear narratives     

The unit offers a unique introduction to new media practice and web 2.0 technologies. The unit explores in-world online practice and development of virtual learning environments through mass multiplayer online gaming.

The unit offers a critical analysis and contextual understanding of the practices of photography. Students develop photographic skills through understanding of historical and contemporary representations of images and photography.

The unit explores historical and contemporary scriptwriting practice for film and media production. The unit develops student understanding of drama production and understanding of technique, practices and theories that underpin the creative writing process.

This unit examines the histories and theories of television and places the format within contemporary media.  It uses case-studies from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Asia, European Television and also from public service broadcasting networks.

This unit offers students advanced research in an area of film/media studies in which they have already completed a number of units of study. Students have a choice of completing one of two possible assessments for this unit, either the Film Media Dissertation (12000 word written thesis) or the Film Media Creative Dissertation (time/movement/creative film/media work).

This unit will examine the aesthetics and the material cultures of animated fantasies and consumer identities.  The two fields will be explored as linked themes, working with examples of cinema and consumer culture from the United States, Europe & the United Kingdom and Japan being amongst those considered. 

This unit is an overview of the chronology of the British film industry from the 1930s to contemporary cinema, which explores national identity, British star systems, black representations within British cinema and regional film.  It works amongst other topics with Korda, Second World War cinema, Ealing comedies, James Bond films and Carry On films.

This unit will examine the way in which comedy is constructed and understood through various media such as comics, cartoons, animation, radio comedy, stand-up, TV, film and the internet.               

The unit critically evaluates the role of the journalist in modern media. Students develop an awareness of the role of the journalist across a number of different media outputs and the central role the journalist functions at in communicating news to the public.

The unit offers a critical analysis of the practices of the film production and the process of concept, production and distribution. Students explore a number of film production methods and draw on knowledge gained through both experiential and secondary learning.

This unit will examine the horror film considering earlier material for its emphasis on the monster and moving to post-1960 cinema for its emphasis upon human monsters and the psychology of horror.   It will examine the construction of monstrosity through mythic, psychological and ideological frameworks and will also explore the production and reception of horror texts. 

This course will examine the history, form and cultural status of graphic novels and comics in America, Europe and Japan.

Science fiction examines issues of identity, technology and philosophy in film and media representations. Topics covered include artificial intelligence, time travel, virtual reality, space exploration.

This unit will consider the changing nature of genre in Hollywood film production and marketing, concentrating in particular on the test cases of film noir and the musical.  It will also examine the nature of the construction and consumption of the star image within the Hollywood system.

This unit will examine the phenomena of global circulation within cinema, exploring the historical and theoretical frameworks developed in relation to this field.  It will consider colonial discourses and third world cinemas looking amongst others at examples from Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, China, Thailand, India, Africa and South America.

‘Youth: Cultures and Subcultures’ deals with subcultural production, style and music and how they express communal identities. Topics may include: Mods and rockers; Goths; Online identities; and extreme sports.