This core module has two main objectives. Firstly, it is designed to develop further your analytical skills in order to examine individual films in greater detail. Secondly, it is intended to encourage you to understand world cinema in relation to a variety of social, cultural, political and industrial contexts. The module will explore such issues as the relationship between film form and modes of production (from industrial film-making through to low-budget art film), theories of film style and aesthetics, and the political function of cinema. The module consists of two interwoven strands, one strand focusing on various modes of American film production, the other exploring films from a number of different national traditions. Across the whole module, you will gain a thorough grasp not only of the historical factors shaping various national and international cinemas, but also of some key critical and theoretical concepts within the field of film studies.

This course focusses on the relationship between media, representation and power. We engage closely with the most influential cultural theories of modern times, putting them to work to understand how power operates through forms of mediation in late capitalist societies. We address these issues through analysis of a contemporary cultural phenomena ranging from the food poverty to the spectacular brand management of the British royal family, from Pride parades to our culture’s obsession with weight. We focus on a range of media including advertising, film, photography, multimedia art, theme parks, news media, social media and the internet.

Example topics covered include:

• Photography, beauty and ‘truth’
• Nationalism and spectacle
• Bodies and representation
• Capitalism, consumer culture and the branded self
• Art and the politics of representation
• Postmodern culture, simulation and war
• Queer theory and queer cultures
• Marxist theory, media and work

This module is designed around active learning – helping you to develop skills to do your own research.

Lectures address cross-cutting methodological debates as well as established methods (such as interviewing, discourse analysis, ethnography and quantitative surveys). Most of your time, however, is spent in seminars where you will try out methods such as interviewing, analysing media texts, and doing observation on campus.

There are ample opportunities for feedback as you develop ideas for your project-based final assessment, and build diverse skills to support your final year dissertation.

This module explores how consumption, advertising, branding and promotion shape society. In the module we will ask questions such as:

• Why do many people find shopping so appealing?
• How does consumption relate to our identities, our hopes and our futures?
• What is consumption doing to the world? Are we shopping ourselves to death?
• Does consumption shape inequalities – both at a national and global level?
• How does advertising and branding speak to us?
• Do we now live in a ‘promotional culture’ in which we must ‘sell ourselves’?
• Why do some people resist consumer culture?

Critical Reflections explores a number of key interdisciplinary philosophical and cultural theories and concepts such as: Aesthetics, Formalism, Phenomenology, Semiotics, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Class, Society, Feminism, Queer Theory and Gender, Difference and Postcolonialism. This will enable you to analyse, engage with, and reflect upon artworks in your own discipline. It also allows you to establish a common set of concepts which can be shared by students from different LICA subjects including Design, Film, Fine Art and Theatre; with ideas and examples specifically tailored towards these disciplines.

This module explores different approaches to both the analysis and the production of documentary film. As well as considering a range of styles of documentary film, typically including expository, poetic, observational, reflexive, political, and personal modes of documentary film, you will also examine key debates concerning the ethics of documentary filmmaking. An indicative list of film screenings includes Nanook of the North, Grey Gardens, Dont Look Back [sic], The Arbor, Sans Soleil, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Gleaners and I, and The Act of Killing.

The module aims to develop an understanding of historically important European films from the 1950s to the 1980s and the stylistic and historical significance of these films. It will explore the thematic importance of these films and consider the critical debates relating to this period of filmmaking enabling students to develop a critical understanding of the conditions of production, reception and distribution of these films.

This module examines a historical genre that now occupies the economic centre of Hollywood film production. The module focuses centrally on film and comic book aesthetics; on questions of narration and visual depiction in these two related media; on the shifting norms of this film genre in relation to technological change across history; and on the significance and uses of the comic-book film in society. The module develops ideas and skills introduced in the core Film Studies modules taken as part of the film studies and combined degrees.

Do we need to take Rachel Dolezal’s claim to ‘identify as black’ seriously? How does the visibility of figures like Caitlyn Jenner help ordinary trans* people? Does Rihanna’s video for Bitch Better Have My Money glamorise violence against women? Is Beyonce, as bell hooks argues, a ‘terrorist’ for her affect on young women of colour, or does her argument disempower Beyoncé’s huge female audience? Is fan culture reshaping the media landscape, or are fans just dupes of consumer capitalist media corporations?

The relationship between gender and representation has never been more contentious or more contested than it is today, as a new generation of feminists take on media images of gender. This course does not attempt to give answers, but instead focuses on asking questions. Our focus will be on engaging closely and critically with media through feminist scholarship and activism.

Media studied include TV dramas ( Orange is the New Black, Game of Thrones, Cucumber), reality TV and (RuPaul's Drag Race,America’s Next Top Model), images of masculinity from the camp gay stereotype of the 20th century to lad culture, and the changing nature of celebrity from Marilyn Monroe to Beyoncé.

Everyday life is often described as bombarding us with images, and contemporary culture is therefore frequently understood as a visual culture.

• What do such statements actually mean?
• How far is our culture a visual culture?
• What role do media play in a visual culture?
• How is vision linked to practices – including representation, the gaze and embodiment – of power and inequality?
• In what ways might these practices be challenged or resisted? Does vision only involve seeing, or is visual culture multi-sensory?

This module will introduce theories and practices that have addressed these questions. Examples of topics studied include:

• The relationship between vision and knowledge
• The gaze and power (eg the gaze as gendered and raced)
• Media, representation and identity
• Technologies of vision
• Material practices of vision
• Vision as multi-sensory.

On this module you will have the opportunity to gain a critical understanding of recent and ongoing themes in Media and Cultural Studies and Sociology on the topic of vision and visuality, media and culture, develop different reading and writing skills and participate in lively discussions and analytical exercises.

In the Short Film Production module you will develop, produce and complete a short dramatic film. You will be taught and given the opportunity to follow industry standard practices throughout your project. You’ll participate in at least two class productions as both a key role member (roles like Writer/Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Art Director, and Sound Designer/Editor) and a minor role member (roles like Assistant Director, Script Supervisor, Assistant Camera, Gaffer, Grip, Sound Recordist, Boom Operator, and etc.). You’ll keep a production diary outlining your individual contributions, and be given the opportunity to gain real world experience of what working on a film production is like in the various roles. You’ll write up your experiences in an essay critically analysing the production process and outcomes.

You will need to have completed Introduction to Film Studies to take this module.

Television remains one of the most pervasive and prevalent communication mediums. It shapes how we perceive and make sense of the nation, and offers representational frameworks through which a sense of identity and community can be constructed. Television has its critics - who consider it vulgar, mundane, stupefying, 'chewing gum for the eyes' - yet despite consistent predictions of its decline, television appears to have weathered the storm of fragmentation and digitalisation and remains a crucial media site that shapes national values and debate. This module introduces students to the field of television studies, its empirical and theoretical tools and the critical perspectives that help us explore and evaluate the recent history of television and explore its possible futures.

Want to "go viral"? In this module you will make stuff: tweets, blogs, videos, GIFs, wikis, music mash-ups, photo essays, machinima, memes. We will hang out in social media worlds like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pirate Bay, 4chan, Second Life, World of Warcraft, Know Your Meme, tumblr. You will learn to tie all of these media and platforms together into a viral video and social media campaign. You will become digitally literate while at the same time exploring the most cutting edge new media theory. When you complete this module you will know how to make most types of simple digital media, you will develop a portfolio of content that may assist you in entrepreneurial work in the new media industries, and most importantly you will understand how new media are challenging existing forms of culture, politics, law, and business.

This module aims to give students a grounding in “the contemporary” as a key critical concept used in artistic discourses, and provide a number of ways that students can explore and articulate their own contemporaneity. In conversation with cutting edge ideas from art, science, technology and popular culture, the module will enable participants to discuss and identify what they are contemporaries of, how they relate to their own time as artists, citizens and critical writers and what this necessitates in their own practices.

Students will engage in critical discussion of key terms used to define the current moment, such as Anthropocene, Singularity, Post-Truth, and Globalisation, as well as understanding how particular technologies and phenomena, such as distributed and decentralised networks, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering are reshaping the contexts in which the arts are made. These topics are explored through lectures and seminar discussions in which students are encouraged to produce and define their own position and modes for articulating what makes them contemporary.

The module is designed for creative students who wish to use writing and material practice to explore their own relationship to the ecologies, politics, trends, technologies, and aesthetics that typify our experience of the world today.

This module will explore the work of some of the most historically important female film-makers from the 1890s through to the present, considering films from around the globe. The module will examine the significant but often marginalized and obscured roles that women have played in industrial, experimental and avant-garde film production across a spectrum of roles from costume and production designers through to screen-writers, editors and directors. You will be invited to reflect upon the fact that, despite playing key roles in the development of the medium, women continue to be excluded at all levels of film production. The decision by Hollywood star and activist Geena Davis to establish a campaigning ‘Institute on Gender in Media’ is a measure of the urgency of this subject.

The module will engage with revisionist film histories concerned with interrogating the dominant bias of academic and popular histories of the medium; it will also draw on feminist film theory concerned both with a critical understanding of mainstream cinema and the development of politicized women’s cinemas. The module will examine a series of female directors and their work, and each week will be oriented around the screening of a case study film that will be the focus for the seminar. An example of directors included is Alice Guy-Blaché, Dorothy Arzner, Leni Riefenstahl, Ida Lupino, Laura Mulvey, Mira Nair, Kathryn Bigelow, Marziyeh Meshkini, Lynne Ramsay.

Assessment is by a combination of coursework essay and exam.

You will spend this year working in a graduate-level placement role. This is an opportunity to gain experience in an industry or sector that you might be considering working in once you graduate.

Our Careers and Placements Team will support you during your placement with online contact and learning resources.

You will undertake a work-based learning module during your placement year which will enable you to reflect on the value of the placement experience and to consider what impact it has on your future career plans.

This module centres on the artistically and politically adventurous phase of American filmmaking circa 1967-1979. Typically topics studied include:

• Introduction – Hollywood breakdown (Easy Rider, Medium Cool)
• The future of allusion: New Hollywood’s nostalgic mode (The Godfather)
• Popular feminism (Klute, Woman Under the Influence)
• Politics and conspiracy (The Parallax View, All The President’s Men)
• Disaster movies (The Poseidon Adventure)
• Comedy (Annie Hall)
• Exploitation cinema I: blaxploitation (Coffy, Foxy Brown)
• Exploitation cinema II: horror/body genres (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
• Blockbuster cinema and the franchise film (Star Wars)
• The end of the New (Apocalypse Now)

Culture and creativity are key assets that cities use to attract a ‘creative class’ and succeed in a global context of urbanisation. But do the kinds of cultures and creativities promoted give citizens (and non-citizens) the right to the city? Can cultures and creativity be ‘used’ for economic competitiveness and foster a social production of city space? This module examines how social, artistic and media practices shape cities and people, and urban development in the Global North and South. It combines theoretical readings and discussion based seminars with case studies that examine examples of creative urbanism in cities such as Gaza, Hamburg, Sao Paulo.

This module explores Hong Kong cinema from the mid-1980s up to the present – an era whose beginning witnesses the international breakthrough of a new wave of local filmmakers, and which goes on to encompass the early 1990s’ production surge, the 1997 handover to mainland China, the crippling economic crisis, and the outbreak of the SARS virus. The module will give you the opportunity to develop an understanding of a number of basic industrial, aesthetic, social and cultural trends marking Hong Kong films in the contemporary era. These include the emergence and impact of independent production; the rise of ‘high-concept’ filmmaking; the movement toward pan-Asian co-productions; the importance and cross-marketing of star performers and local musical traditions such as Cantopop; the popularity of genres like the swordplay film; and aesthetic tendencies such as episodic plotting and the narrative ‘thematisation’ of politics and identity. Emphasis will be placed not only on representative mainstream product, but also on the emergence of a distinct Hong Kong art cinema, whose presence and success on the international festival circuit has brought artistic credibility to a predominantly popular cinema, and which has heralded the arrival of a fresh wave of local ‘auteur’ filmmakers.

This module provides an opportunity for students to develop an understanding of the ways in which creative practitioners produce and deliver their work. It will provide an overview of the challenges faced by freelance practitioners, producers and small cultural companies within the creative industries. You will also develop a working understanding of the key management and enterprise skills involved in delivering creative projects. Working in groups you will put your learning into practice through the delivery of your own live creative arts project. This will enable you to understand the skills, knowledge, attributes and behaviours relevant for employment in the arts and creative industries.

This module allows you to undertake a major independent research project on a topic of your choice, presented in the form of a dissertation or a practice-based project and an essay. The module is taught through lectures focused on research skills and one-to-one supervision. Upon completion, you will be able to demonstrate your ability to undertake a major project that includes conducting research, engaging in a sustained critical analysis of relevant texts, building an argument and applying this to practice.

How do we make sense of the various understanding of being a fan nowadays? How has the experience of being part of a media audience transformed over the decades in different parts of the world? In what ways do fan culture and audience community manifest social transformations in both the local and global scale?

This module aims to provide you with a critical understanding of fandom and audiences in a global and transnational context. You will first be introduced to the contested concepts and typologies of ‘audience’ and ‘fan’ and the cultural hierarchy of knowledge underneath theses definitions. The module will focus on four dimensions – participation, pleasure, performance, and power – by investigating fan culture and audience communities of a wide range of transmedia texts (television, music, film, and other media) in a global perspective. You will analyse the multi-layered dynamics between individual fan, fan community, audience participation, media texts, and the industry through sociological and interdisciplinary lenses, for example, cultural studies, feminist studies, queer studies, and postcolonial studies.

This module covers topics such as: the infrastructures and locations of cinema; the evolution of film exhibition and distribution; film festivals in a global context; the role of film archives and cinematheques; film criticism; digital film cultures and networks of informal distribution.

Students develop a comprehensive understanding of cinema as a socio-cultural institution, by considering film in terms of circulation, reception, and heritage. This approach entails a focus on the role of mediators (i.e. programmers, distributors, critics) and locations (i.e movie theatres, film festivals, archives) in shaping the consumption and preservation of film.

The module provides historical and analytical skills to understand the evolution of film cultures from modernity to the contemporary digital age. This holistic perspective is achieved by combining theoretical components with the discussion of case studies from a variety of cultural contexts and locations (e.g. the introduction of cinema theatres in colonial Nigeria, the multiplex in India, the birth of film festivals in Europe and their contemporary role in the promotion of Latin American and Middle Eastern cinema).

Students develop skills throughout the module by collectively managing and producing content for a blog expanding on the topics discussed in class. The weekly updates will be developed and discussed at seminars, and peer-assessed on a routine basis. In order to articulate their personal contribution to the blog, each student writes a short reflective piece on their experience, as well as an individual essay on a case study of their choice.

This third-year course will add to the theoretical, historical and cultural aspects of film investigated in Years 1 and 2, while focusing more closely on the challenging aesthetic and critical debates surrounding the concept of modernity. It will look at films made in the silent era, in post-war Europe and in Britain and the US. Writings on film will be considered in conjunction with viewings of particular films, close analysis of specific filmic techniques and methods, and historical and theoretical approaches to film. The course will also pay attention to the debates of classical and contemporary film theory, feminist approaches and other critical traditions (semiotics, structuralism, formalism, cognitivism). Students will be introduced to key debates in classical and contemporary film theory, with topics exploring the relations between film and art, cinema and politics, cinema and psychoanalysis, and, above all, the question of how films produce meaning(s).

This module comprises a written dissertation (8,000 words) or a media project (4,000 words + practical project) that students will complete in their final year. It offers students the opportunity to undertake an independent piece of research (under supervision) and to apply their understanding of key concepts, theories and debates in media and culture to their own individual dissertation or project.

Students will plan, present and design a proposal in tutorial groups, with a detailed, step-by-step web-based guide available for extra support. They will develop an idea for a research project, work out what is possible, which methods to use, and begin to plan it. They will then communicate their dissertation proposal to other students and then write it up in a way that clearly states their research topic, aims and methods, and where it situates within wider sociological debates.

Students will carry out data collection and analysis, and write it up as a dissertation. They will meet regularly with their supervisors to discuss their progress. Media projects may include creative/journalistic writing, audio production, video materials, artefacts, photographs or online campaigns, materials and environments.

In this module, you will learn about the basics of journalism -- reporting and storytelling using digital technologies. From audio recording and video production to writing, photography, and innovations using data, technology, and interviews, this module is an introduction to journalism of today and tomorrow. You will also interact with key theories and practices of journalism, discussing and debating international perspectives. In the end, you will have a final journalistic product based on a story of your selection.

This module offers a broad overview of the history of the musical genre in cinema. It begins by examining the use of sound in silent cinema before focusing on the original success of musicals with the arrival of synchronised sound in 1927. The module then tracks the success of movie musicals from the 1930s-1950s, with particular focus on Hollywood successes of MGM, Busby Berkeley, the Astaire-Rogers cycle and the emergence of the self-reflexive musical. Elements of the Hollywood musical in the 1960s and beyond are then studied, with a focus on the importance of the musical soundtrack in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and other films. The module will also examine other traditions where the Musical has been significant, such as India and France. In addition to this, aspects of race, gender and sexuality in the movie musical will be discussed. Some recent Hollywood successes (such as La La Land [2016] or The Greatest Showman [2017]) are studied towards the end of the module in the light of the Musical tradition

This module offers an introduction to the broad area of silent cinema and to a range of critical approaches to this rich area of study. You will have the opportunity to view and analyse a number of important films. We will also explore a number of critical questions raised by this material with regard to the writing and study of histories of cinema (and popular culture in general). We will examine the relationships between technology and form, the economics of film production, distribution and reception, the relationship between cinema and national identity, the social and cultural impact of new (entertainment) media and the study of cinema audiences.

This module will explore how the politically powerful and the politically radical use the internet to consolidate and revolutionise the distribution of power around the globe.

Like many communication platforms before it, the internet is mobilised by the politically and economically powerful as well as those seeking radical change. However, unlike other platforms, it has created an almost universally accessible platform for public dialogue. Pro-democracy revolutionaries, freedom hackers, feminist mediasmiths, anti-capitalists, data leakers, and others use the internet to organise their social movements. Conversely, those opposed to the liberal project, such as authoritarians and extremist groups, also use the affordances of the internet to distribute their message and rally their supporters.

This module examines these issues and investigates the implications of “big data” control by governments and corporations. The module looks also at the understanding social networkers and other content uploaders have of this “big data” control along with the consequences that it comes with.

This module addresses contemporary debates in sociology and cinema by focusing on a single film each week. Its overall aim is to employ cinema for the purpose of social diagnosis.

The module engages with cinema as a social fact, before linking together cinema (producing images of the social) and sociality (socialisation of the image) for analysis.

We live in societies in which forecasting and planning for the future is an important activity for governments, institutions, businesses and individuals. We live in societies in which imaginings of the future as a better time or as a more fearful one circulate in the here and now, calling us into action or invoking threats or desires. This module considers how we should understand the future from sociological and cultural perspectives. The module will address both how we can look into the future through various techniques in order to gain a foresight into what might happen, and we will look at the future – how images of the future circulate in the present through the work of scientists, artists, filmmakers, writers, academics, politicians and others.

‘Transgressive Cinema’ is a practice-based module that aims to broaden students’ understanding of film as a form of political enquiry. The module introduces students to critical practices in film, video and expanded cinema that favour process over the end-product. Among the key questions the module addresses are the following: How can film go beyond describing and critiquing the world “as is” and constitute the critique formally? What are the political implications of a film’s formal construction? How do we identify legacies of colonialism in filmic construction and how do we challenge them through creatives devices that transgressive cinema offers? How do we problematise the dominant forms of spectatorship in film practice?

So, while these questions involve rigorous thinking, in practice the module offers a platform where playful experimentations are encouraged. Bringing critical thinking and making into focus, the module invites students to re-examine the dominant aesthetic and narrative conventions of the film/video medium and explore formal elements and their political implications in theory and by practice.

Over the course of this module, students will engage in topics such as: - What is "transgressive cinema" (historically and in recent practices) - Materialist film practices in Britain and the wider European context (1965-1985) - Challenging the perception of language: use of voice, narration, and text as image - Identity politics and video - Queer practices - Performing to camera - Camera-less films - Expanded Cinema - Multiple screens - Abstract film and video. These topics will be explored by students via watching the assigned films, discussing the relevant texts in relation to films and responding to series of practical briefs/tasks to experiment with those ideas.