BA (Hons) Film Production

Our BA (Hons) Film Production course is hands-on from the outset, and you'll gain a solid grounding in fundamental, traditional practices, such as shooting on film, as well as exploring the complex creativities of digital production and modern filmmaking protocols. The specialist and focused nature of the course will help you develop your understanding of the creative and commercial realities of film production.

As well as learning practical filmmaking, you'll study cinema in its various forms to achieve a working knowledge of eclectic practices within fiction and non-fiction filmmaking. Your practical skills are informed by an understanding of the cultural and historical contexts of film practice.

Making films is a collaborative process and teamwork is a key part of the course. You won’t only work with your peers, lecturers, and technicians on the course, but with contemporaries and staff from other subject areas across AUB too. We have formal and informal link-ups with BA (Hons) Visual Effects for Film and Television, BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance, BA (Hons) Acting, BA (Hons) Make-up for Media and Performance, BA (Hons) Animation Production, and others. These collaborations are what builds our creative community here at AUB, with BA (Hons) Film Production at its core.

All undergraduate courses at AUB offer an optional placement year, to be taken between your second and third years of study.

If you’re unsure about this optional placement, you don’t need to decide now. Once you’re here and studying with us, the course team will discuss the placement options with you, so when the time comes, you can make a decision that’s right for you.

Students on BA (Hons) Film Production have the chance to broaden their horizons through exciting exchange and international summer programmes. These opportunities allow you to study abroad at one of our brilliant partner institutions, experience different cultures, and enhance your academic journey.

At this level, you’re asked to consider how film production relates to the current media environment and today's world. You’re introduced to the core principles of film production through technical tuition, practical application and historical and contextual study. You’re also encouraged to experiment with your practice and back up your decision-making with informed research and reflection.

You'll learn set protocols, effective collaboration and health and safety, essential within the film industry, and which will be reinforced throughout the course. Through practical workshops you engage in many aspects of the production process, enabling an informed and guided choice of specialism at the end of the year.

During Level 5, your specialist skills are developed, your practical and critical abilities are enhanced, and you become further accustomed to the teamwork that’s an essential feature of the film production process. You deepen your specialist learning and develop your ability to reflect on and evaluate your work. Your contextual knowledge and understanding are extended, and you become prepared for the more rigorous pace and scale of work demanded by Level 6.

Relevant health and safety practice continues to be emphasised throughout the year of study. Specialist skills training, some of which is certified, is offered as part of the curriculum and will continue into Level 6.

Final year students demonstrate their abilities within their respective specialist roles and their commitment to the collective responsibility for the pre-production, production and postproduction of graduation films. Level 6 enables you to develop and consolidate your specialist production roles, building on your previous learning. You’re required to undertake significant independent study while also contributing effectively as a team member to the production process.

Successful fulfilment of the demands of Level 6 will allow you to demonstrate your professional practice, your creative and technical abilities, and intellectual maturity, all of which are necessary for effective operation in the film and media industries, or for progression to postgraduate study.

2024 Kodak/NAHEMI Awards

• Winner | Craft Award for Best Editing– The Real Deal
  
• Third place/Best in Brief | Tea Rebellion
• Third place/Second in Brief | Death's Open Mic
• Second in Brief | Baz and Biscuit, Breaking Point
  

2024

• Winner | Sky Arts Awards, Film – Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex
• Nominated | Student Academy Awards, Alternative/Experimental – Lullaby for the Lost

• Winner/Best in Brief | Bag of Bags
• Best in Brief | Jack and the Edamame
• Best Animation | The Wrong Choice
• Third in Brief | Nothing to Wear, Plastic Fan
  

2023

• Winner | RTS Southern Awards, Best Student Drama – The Cubicle
• Winner | RTS Southern Awards, Best Student Factual – P is For Paradise

2019 — Winner | Regional RTS Awards, Best Student Drama – Zebra

• Winner | 21st Madrid Experimental Cinema Week, The Audience Award
• Winner | Waterspite Festival, Best Cinematography
• Nominated | Exposures Film Festival Manchester, Best Screenplay
• Nominated | Screentest Festival Best Sci-Fi Fantasy, Best Performance, Best Production
• The National Student Film Festival
• The Cambridge International Student Film Festival
• Kodak Student Commercial Awards
• New York City International Film Festival
  
• Saatchi New Director's Showcase
• Toronto International Film Festival exhibition

Our graduates have gone on to work on such productions as Harry Potter, Gravity, Sherlock Holmes, and a host of BBC dramas, while others are employed at companies like Framestore and DreamWorks. Graduate career destinations include:

• Screenwriter of Slumdog Millionaire
• Director of The Killing and Bora Bora
  
• Boom operator for The Hurt Locker and The Sweeney
• Recordist on Men Don't Lie and The Glowing Hours
• Partner/co-founder of BOKO Creative and BOKO Advertising
• Film editor for Finnish TV
• Prop assistant on Les Misérables
• Sound assistant on Fast and Furious 6
• Director of Calm With Horse
  
• Director of How to Have Sex
• Camera operator on Captain Phillips
• Sound editor on Casino Royale and Harry Potter
  
• Art department on The Crown and The Witcher
• Production assistant on Michael McIntyre's Big Show
• Colour grader for BBC factual programmes

Alumni from the BA (Hons) Film Production course include: Simon Beaufoy, writer of 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire; Chris Dickens, editor of Slumdog Millionaire and Submarine; Chris Jones, co-author of The Guerrilla Film Makers Guide; Mark Blaney, producer of Africa United; Nick Love, writer and director whose recent credits include The Firm and executive producer of Monsters; and Molly Manning-Walker, whose directorial debut How to Have Sex was nominated for three BAFTAs.