
MA Film Production
Lincoln, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
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TUITION FEES
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STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
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Introduction
Welcome to MA Film Production
MA Film Production offers a blend of practical and critical work with an industry focus, giving you the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to progress to a career in film and related areas or to further study. The course will enable you to develop the multi-skilled essentials needed to work in the fast-changing and internationalized creative industries.
You'll be encouraged to take your creativity and artistic ability to the next level and become part of the next generation of innovative filmmakers. The program offers a wide variety of workshops focusing on screenwriting, directing, cinematography, lighting, producing, sound recording, editing, effects and color grading, and more. You'll have the opportunity to work with industry-standard equipment and benefit from expert guidance from supportive technical tutors. The staff has a wide range of industry and subject experience, including at the BBC.
Prioritising Face-to-Face Teaching
At the University of Lincoln, we strive to ensure our students’ experience is engaging, supportive, and academically challenging. Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, we have adapted to Government guidance to keep our students, staff, and community safe. All remaining Covid-19 legal restrictions in England were lifted in February 2022 under the Government&rsquo's Plan for Living with Covid-19, and we have embraced a safe return to in-person teaching on campus. Where appropriate, face-to-face teaching is enhanced by the use of digital tools and technology and may be complemented by online opportunities where these support learning outcomes.
We are fully prepared to adapt our plans if changes in Government guidance make this necessary, and we will endeavor to keep current and prospective students informed.
Features
There may be opportunities for students to work on professional productions for our enterprise arm, New Media Lincs, and to volunteer for the Indie-Lincs International Film Festival, which is based in the Lincoln School of Film and Media. In the past, students have worked as runners on professional productions in the local area and visited a film festival in Hong Kong.
All international students are allocated a mentor as part of the School&rsquo's International Buddy Scheme.
"This information was correct at the time of publishing (July 2023)"
Admissions
Curriculum
Film Production 1 (Core)
This module enables students to gain practical production experience in different aspects of factual filmmaking, including story development, scriptwriting, directing, camera, lighting, sound recording, and editing skills. These skills are developed through the production of two short factual-based films, which are assessed. Students are encouraged to explore the craft of filmmaking and understand their role as filmmakers in the wider creative landscape. Their professional practice will be supported by specialist workshops, production exercises, discussions, screenings, tutorials, and independent work.
Film Production 2 & Final Project Pitch (Core)
This module is designed to enable students to use a chosen medium (radio or single or *multi-camera production or screenwriting or photography or design or new media) as a means of personal expression.
The module will be organized around providing students with the opportunity to further develop technical skills and techniques in their chosen specialism so as to: develop an original concept, undertake appropriate production research, schedule the project, produce the project, and edit the project. A smaller project within this module aims to enable students to conduct the research, development, and planning necessary for the final master's project in their chosen specialism.
Final Film Project (Core)
This module aims to provide students with the opportunity to realize the project idea that they developed in Project Pre-Production. The project is expected to be, depending on the student's chosen specialism, a program, a script, an extensive still image or design portfolio, or a new media project. It is intended that the project will contribute to the development of the student as someone capable of conceiving and realizing a creative project to a professional standard. It is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop their conceptual, critical, creative, technical, and organizational skills to a high order.
Media Ethics, Law, and Regulation (Core)
This module is designed to provide the opportunity to develop an understanding of the ethical context of media production, media law, and regulation in the UK (EU) and the USA. The module will be organized around discussion and examination of the ethics of media production, rights of free expression, the common law of libel, ECHR and HRA, current UK and US communications acts, journalists' codes of practice, and content regulatory codes.
The Art and Craft of Film (Core)
This module is designed as an introduction to the work of professional practitioners in film such as the screenwriter, directors, cinematographers, art directors, sound designers, and editors. Guest speakers are professionals from the industry and aim to share their craft secrets with students. Assessment is via presentation.
Approaches to Screen Studies (Option)†
Providing an advanced introduction to recent debates on film, culture, and society in various national, international, and transnational contexts, Approaches to Screen Studies seeks to promote a deeper understanding of the world of cinemas. Looking at examples of film industries that challenge or disrupt the dominant Hollywood paradigm, it turns its attention toward concepts such as censorship, exile, propaganda, resistance, underground, dissent, identity, and repression, as well as to new modes of cultural production, policy, and their transformation.
Disruptive Influences on the Creative Industries (Option)†
This module provides the opportunity to develop an understanding of the structures of media systems regionally, nationally, and globally, with a specific focus on private and public funding sources and the organization of media production, distribution, and exhibition for traditional as well as new media platforms and outlets.
The module will be organized around discussion and examination of:
- UK creative industries and their relation to global media systems and markets.
- Existing media markets and the identification of future markets
- The development of new media technologies and their impact on media markets
- Normative practices operating in media corporations and small and media-sized businesses
- Case studies of innovation and creativity in media production.
The module will also have contributions from visiting media professionals.
Gender, Media, and Culture in a Global Context (Option)†
This module examines the multi-directional and variable relationship between gender, media and culture. We will interrogate the category of gender as a tool of cultural analysis and its relation to media and popular culture. Gender will be presented as central to media and cultural formations, while media, mediation, and culture will be presented as central to gender formations. Key concepts to be examined in relation to gender will include body, class, power, sexual difference, masculinity/femininity race/ethnicity, identity/non-identity, and subjectivity. These concepts will be introduced and examined in relation to case studies, media practices, and texts from a variety of historical and geo-political contexts.
Human and Inhuman in the 21st Century (Option)†
Taking as its point of departure the Anthropocene, a concept that acknowledges the entwined future of human and material worlds, this module continues to explore the ideas, questions, and debates central to political life today, attending to the collapse of the traditional dualisms of humanist thought: self/other, mind/body, free will/determinism, organic/technological, culture/nature, human/animal, one/many, etc. It considers the expression and mediation of these issues in popular culture, dominant discourse, and creative practice.
Media Ecologies 1 (Option)†
This module is designed to tackle critically the current disintegration between discrete media forms. It recognizes that long-established boundaries between modes, practices, and conventions of media have become diffuse. Where, in the past, individual media forms were comfortably self-contained and distinctive, today these forms are experienced as a type of informational content that we access on multiple devices and in multiple contexts.
The module understands contemporary media to be a complex, entangled ecology, a dynamic system in which any one product, device or image is always multiply connected, and in which our use of such media is necessarily informed by such connections. It insists that media activity is informed by a pattern of relations between individuals, political and economic institutions, commercial brands, and technologies.
The Working Screenwriter: Art and Industry (Option)†
This module is a practice-based and practitioner-led experience, in which students will have the opportunity to create materials relevant to the construction of a feature screenplay.
The process will begin in earnest with AfterEight, an entire eight hours dedicated to kick-starting feature ideas and developing these into robust and sustainable screen stories. At the end of this intensive process, supported by lecturers and practitioners, and modeled on the highly popular 24-hour film challenges, students are expected to have the bones of a feature film story, which they can develop further and use as a basis for their screenplay.
A series of masterclasses and guest lectures by screenwriters, directors, writer-directors, cinematographers, and producers will provide an insider overview of the film industry today, with advice on getting employment and credits. Students can learn how to survive as a freelancer in the early years and how to approach screenwriting/writing-directing as a long-term career. The demands of being a screenwriter are different from those of the writer-director and each will also be addressed.
How You Study
This course is designed to provide an educational context through practical workshops in production techniques, exploration of ideas in seminars, and more focussed individual discussion in tutorials. Students have the opportunity to develop an advanced level of creative, conceptual, technical, critical, organizational, and research skills, all of which are appropriate for employment in the media industry. Independent study consolidates learning.
Weekly contact hours on this program may vary depending on the module options chosen and the stage of study.
Postgraduate study involves a significant proportion of independent study, exploring the material covered in workshops and seminars, and making projects.
How You Are Assessed
Assessment is conducted using a range of methods which include media productions, pitches, presentations, case studies, and essays.
The University of Lincoln's policy on assessment feedback aims to ensure that academics will return in-course assessments to students promptly - usually within 15 working days of the submission date.
Gallery
Program Outcome
How You Study
This course is designed to provide an educational context through practical workshops in production techniques, exploration of ideas in seminars, and more focussed individual discussion in tutorials. Students have the opportunity to develop an advanced level of creative, conceptual, technical, critical, organisational, and research skills, all of which are appropriate to employment in the media industries. Independent study consolidates learning.
Weekly contact hours on this Program may vary depending on the module options chosen and the stage of study.
Postgraduate study involves a significant proportion of independent study, exploring the material covered in workshops and seminars, and making projects.
Scholarships and Funding
Several scholarship options are available. Please check the university website for more information.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
This programme aims to provide students with the high-level technical skills and knowledge required to establish careers in the media industries in areas such as film-making, post-production, and project management. Some students may choose to pursue careers in teaching or undertake a research degree at doctoral level.
Graduates of the programme have gone on to work in the media industries and in further and higher education. These roles include: Film Festival Co-ordinator, Feature Film Director, Film Editor, Video Producer, UniLad Adventure Video Editor, Post-production Editor at Envy, high school teacher in media, Lecturer, and University Video Development Co-ordinator.
After graduating from the University of Lincoln, alumnus Lisa Rustage worked on major feature films including 'Ready Player One', 'Jason Bourne', 'Ophelia', and recent blockbuster 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. She says: “After attending a cast and crew screening in March 2018 and seeing my name in the credits of a Steven Spielberg film ('Ready Player One', 2018), it was emotional to see how far I have actually come! I broke into feature films on 'Jason Bourne' (2016) in the editorial department, which was the most challenging feature I have been on to date. It was a tough time, but I pushed through and found myself on set for 'Ready Player One'. Off the back of each film I kept meeting more people in the industry, working up to second assistant editor, which I am now.”
International student Anthonia Ziregbe’s documentary 'View within the Straight Lines' was screened at the Cambridge International Student Film Festival 2019.