Film Studies |
www.essex.ac.uk/lifts | E
admit@essex.ac.uk | T +44 (0)1206 873666
The Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies offers courses in literature, film, theatre, and creative writing, either as specialised paths or in combination. The growing synergy between these fields is reflected in our teaching. As our staff tend to range across different fields, we offer dynamism and variety with no loss of speciality. We also pride ourselves on being a friendly department, responsive to your needs and committed to providing an environment conducive to learning. You may also choose from a variety of courses taken jointly with other departments.
Why study film at Essex? The visual media are central to our experience of the modern world. The ability to read and interpret the images and stories that surround us is crucial to our understanding of contemporary life.
At Essex, our courses in film offer you a chance to both examine and interpret our media dominated society. Our courses cover every aspect of how to ‘read’ the cinema, from the basic comprehension of how a film is put together technically to its social and historical significance. You will become familiar with the development of film history and theory, and with the different traditions of film in Hollywood, Europe and the non-Western world.
Whether you opt for our single honours course or one of our joint courses, film studies is a challenging discipline that yields some of our deepest insights into contemporary culture, and asks some of
the most pressing questions of recent times. How does the cinema affect us as individuals and as groups, communities or nations? Do the moving pictures reflect our beliefs or help to organise the way we see the world? How powerful are the visual media in shaping our interpretations of modern life? While exploring these and other questions, you will acquire skills in written and oral communication, visual analysis, research, and self-directed and group projects. You will learn to look at film not only for the pleasure it can provide, but also to understand its structure, its history and social significance.
The Centre for
Film Studies Located in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, we co-ordinate film-related activities at the University and provide a focus for different academic departments working in film studies. We sponsor special screenings, organise conferences, and host speakers and filmmakers from this country and around the world. We also house a substantial collection of videos and DVDs.
More widely, the University boasts an excellent Film Society, which screens both recent blockbusters and less mainstream films, while the Art Film Society is dedicated to screening smaller-budget, international cinematic works. You will have access to a screening theatre, and will be able to book practical facilities for shooting and producing independent film and media projects.
Our courses BA Film Studies We have a distinguished history of combining critical and creative work, and have long been home to poets, novelists, translators, dramatists and actors, alongside literary critics, drama scholars and film theorists. BA Film Studies draws on this unique tradition and gives you the opportunity to develop skills in analysing film and in making film. You will explore different world cinemas, learn about the history of film, its formal aesthetics, and its contexts of production and reception.
For your modules in filmmaking, you are given initial instruction by staff in the Media Centre before being taught by practitioners at the Colchester-based Signals Media Arts company. This allows you to apply your academic knowledge of film to collective, as well as personal projects, you work on with industry professionals.
BA Film Studies and Literature This course allows you to graduate with expertise in two disciplines. The interdisciplinary study of literature and film helps you gain a deeper understanding of the historical and aesthetic interrelations between the two art forms. By encouraging you to make formal and theoretical connections between written and visual texts, this course gives you skills in both literary and film analysis. For further information on the literature modules this course involves, see Literature, page 163.
BA Film Studies students practising their media production skills
BA Film and Creative Writing This course develops existing strengths in film and creative writing at Essex. It allows you to pursue your interests in filmmaking and creative writing in an integrated study programme. Its distinctive syllabus combines hands-on practical filmmaking, creative writing workshops, and theoretical and contextual studies. It will encourage you to form links between theory and practice, and to make critically-informed choices in your own creative work through the knowledge you gain of film history, literary classics and writing across a range of genres. A second-year module on screenwriting, taught by a film professional, forms the keystone of the course, bridging its two parts.
126 | Undergraduate Prospectus 2012
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