Film BA(Hons)
Immerse yourself in the world of film, where time, space, form and ideas translate into emotion and meaning. As part of multi-disciplinary teams, you’ll develop your craft through hands- on experience in a specialist facility that mirrors real-world practices.

Key details
Location | Penryn Campus |
---|---|
Course Duration | 3 years |
Attendance | Full-time |
UCAS code | W610 |
Contact | 01326 254350 |
Apply now
Introduction
In developing your understanding and articulating your own response to impactful cinematic storytelling, you’ll engage with the contexts of film culture while developing as a critically aware professional, ready to join our alumni in this fast-moving global industry.
You will:
- Get networked, learning from our award-winning staff, together with visiting professionals taking part in masterclasses. In the last year, this has included Carol Morley, Jonathan Glazer, Rubi Shah, Dan Perri, Emily Morgan, Joel Collins and Kim Longinotto.
- Develop gradually by learning through doing, engaging in reflective and imaginative thinking and using professional filmmaking production workflows on a course that's endorsed by ScreenSkills, the industry-led skills body for the creative industries.
- Get the chance to work on our in-house micro-budget short and feature films through the Sound/ Image Cinema Lab – including Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019), Make Up (Claire Oakley, 2020), Long Way Back (Brett Harvey, 2020), The Tape (Martha Tilston, 2020), and the forthcoming FilmFour production Enys Men (Mark Jenkin, 2021).
Covid-19 update
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have reviewed and made changes to our courses to provide flexible, blended delivery that offers high-quality digital engagement and access to face-to-face teaching in our facilities. You can see how your course may be adjusted by viewing the changes for the current academic year by visiting our welcome letters & latest course updates pages
What our students do
Students and Staff Nominated for Film Festival
Turner Prize Winning Filmmaker Speaks at Falmouth
Students Sweep Nominations for RTS Awards
BAFTA Win for BAIT
Film Backed by Falmouth University Nominated for Two BAFTAs
Graduate Enlists Falmouth Talent to Bring Research to Life
Dream Comes True for TV Student
Television Staff Shortlisted for National Media Awards
Animation, Film & TV Students Sweep RTS Awards
BAIT Film by Lecturer Mark Jenkin Gains International Acclaim
What our graduates do
Falmouth film graduates work in the development and production of feature films and television, with credits like Game of Thrones, the Star Wars franchise, Blade Runner 2049 and The Great British Bake Off. Our 16 years of alumni work in production at Warner Bros, Sony and Universal, and post-production at Envy, Technicolor, White House Post, Molinare and Evolution. They’ve also secured roles in production design at Lucasfilm, and in the camera department for shows screened on the Discovery Channel.
Our graduates’ work has been featured at world-class festivals, secured development from the BFI and BAFTA, and been published in titles like Total Film, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Little White Lies.
Student placements have included NBC/Universal Pictures Hothouse, Envy Academy, Sky, Cannes Film Festival, MTV, BBC and Channel 4. We’ve also produced a slate of feature films on our campus, including the multi-award-winning Wilderness (Doherty, 2017).
Film Alumnus Shares Expertise
Graduate Film Selected for Popular Film Fest
Los Angeles Film Award for Graduate
Graduate Film Shortlisted for Grierson Awards
Graduate Film Shortlisted for Sheffield Doc Fest
Film Alumna Working at Award-Winning Production Company
Instant Success for Ambitious Film Graduate
Film Graduate Working At BBC Studios
A Different Path: From Film to Games PR
Lights, Camera, Action!
Film Graduate Lands Dream Job Working with Aliens
Producer Position for Film Graduate
Jackson-cam in Action
Film School Promo Win
Course details
What you'll learn
Building on a range of approaches to cinema through viewing, discussion and analysis, you'll direct your own learning. Choose from pathways including documentary, narrative or experimental short filmmaking, production, post-production editing, grade and sound design, marketing and publicity, and short and feature-length screenwriting.
Learning to create, work and negotiate with others in a productive and collaborative environment will shape you into a dynamic professional.
You'll understand how working with others can help broaden your own thinking and knowledge to give impact, relevance and reach to your creative work.
Our film school boasts Screenskills and CILECT accreditations, which are awarded to courses delivering the very best creative thinking, industry-relevant training, exceptional staff, facilities and partnerships.
In the first year of your Film degree, you'll be introduced to the fundamental principles of filmmaking as an art form, industry and cultural object. You'll have the opportunity to get to grips with a variety of skills and craft specialisms and start to think about the wider contexts of film culture and business. The focus of the first year is on laying the groundwork through collaboration, project development and the innovative and groundbreaking moments in film history, helping you to gain a deeper understanding of the filmmaking process and its results. Live briefs, set in a similar mode to those found in the contemporary film and creative industries, will prompt your work. You'll also have the chance to visit an international film festival.
Modules
Production Cultures 1
This module will introduce you to the creative, technical, organisational and interpersonal skills that are central to successful film production. A series of weekly tasks will develop your knowledge of the language of cinema, while encouraging networking within your cohort. Film is a communal, collaborative art and the final project will be completed by crews of six students working in defined industry roles – writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor and sound designer – to produce a short film.
Production Cultures 2
This module will extend the creative, technical, organisational and interpersonal skills developed in Production Cultures 1 to encompass budgeting, design, marketing and film distribution.
Cultural Contexts
In this module, you'll begin thinking of film studies as an intellectual and academic discipline through the study of key approaches to theory, criticism and modes of analysis.
Industrial Contexts
This module foregrounds a range of contexts, both historical and contemporary, to consider how industry, audience, and film texts are inextricably bound together in film and television industry practice.
You'll build on your interests and passions by embarking on specialist pathways - focusing your learning and cinema knowledge in an environment that recognises and embraces the medium’s changing nature. These pathways include gender and representation, experimental film, short and feature film screenwriting, environmental cinema and all aspects of production and post-production. We also offer the opportunity to engage in placements at NBC/Universal Hot House programme.
Modules
Skills Development
Identifying your own interests, you'll develop skills in a chosen specialism – sound design and editing, editing and post-production, producing, screenwriting or cinematography and art direction – and showcase your growing understanding of collaborative practice, professional processes and industry contexts.
Creative Delivery
Building on Skills Development, this module allows you to deploy and evolve skills and competencies in applied filmmaking practice from the conception of creative ideas through project development and production to delivery.
Projects developed and created for this module will go through an industry-style pitching process (not assessed) that will ensure they're significantly imaginative, practicable and aligned to professional practice.
Genre
This module aims to develop your understanding of the role genre plays in film industry and culture, both historically and contemporarily, and how the idea of 'the cinematic' is closely connected to genre and has spread in influence to other modes and forms of media entertainment.
Cinema of Experience
This module will inspire you by offering contemporary cinematic examples and conceptual frameworks to situate film and serial narrative/documentary forms in wider cultural, social, political and global contexts, such as gender, race, class and sexuality.
In your final year, you’ll continue your work in exploring the wider contexts of film culture and cinema through a dedicated module exploring the voices of The Other. If you’re interested in postgraduate study, you may choose to undertake a dissertation in a cinematic subject area related to your interests. Pursuing filmmaking practice, you’ll immerse yourself in a year-long project of creative cinematic endeavor. You’ll channel your learning into a cinematic object, such as a narrative or documentary film, an experimental film or feature-length screenplay. This year is even more closely aligned to industry practice than the previous, with professionals choosing the work that you’ll create and sitting on assessment panels to judge its development. The artefacts assessed will reflect, in form and content, contemporary film and creative industries practice.
Modules
Pitch Deck
Through this module, you'll become immersed in film practice. Assessment will reflect professional creative industry processes, contexts and cultures, resulting in an ambitious, innovative and complex cinematic project.
The Other
This module opens your eyes to the potential offered by digital technology in cinema. Starting from a historical perspective, you'll be invited to appreciate the creativity of the under-/less privileged and to recognise cinema as a potent and flexible medium of expression and communication for all backgrounds and cultures.
Dissertation
Focusing on academic study, you'll develop high levels of subject expertise and intellectual autonomy as you originate, research, and write a dissertation in an area of your choice.
Sales Deck
This module reflects professional creative industry processes, contexts and cultures. As a result, you'll work on an ambitious, innovative and complex cinematic project that could propel you into a career in the film, television and combined creative industries.
The modules above are those being studied by our students, or proposed new ones. Programme structures and modules can change as part of our curriculum enhancement and review processes. If a certain module is important to you, please discuss it with the Course Leader.
From module information to course aims and assessment criteria, discover the full course details.
We are making changes to our curriculum framework for courses starting in 2022. Modest amendments to our course module structure will provide you with new opportunities to collaborate and co-create with students from across disciplines during your studies.
This course page will be updated when these changes have been finalised and applicants will be notified.
How you'll learn
From taking on live briefs with industry clients through our creative agency MAYN, to attending panels and masterclasses with scholars and practitioners, you'll learn to meet the needs of your chosen sector and mirror the film industry's workflow and creative environments. You'll learn from lecture and production series, our careers masterclass programme, final-year supervision scheme, workshops, tutorials, and self and peer evaluation.
Each year is also your chance to gain work experience and internships, and we'll encourage you to get involved in industry and academic opportunities and events.
How you'll spend your time
Year | Timetabled teaching and learning activity | Guided independent study |
---|---|---|
1 | 39% | 61% |
2 | 35% | 65% |
3 | 32% | 68% |
How you'll be assessed
Year | Written exams | Practical exams | Coursework |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 0% | 25% | 75% |
2 | 0% | 25% | 75% |
3 | 0% | 33% | 67% |
The above percentages relate to 2019/2020 data.
Assessment methods
- Continuous assessment with no formal examinations.
- Visual, verbal and written assignments.
- Dissertation in your final year.
Staff
You’ll learn from an experienced team of writers and makers, including short and feature film directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, screenwriters, sound designers, and art directors. Our facilities team includes specialists in lighting, cinematography and post-production picture and sound editing.
Some members of staff only teach on specific modules, and your course might not feature every member shown here.
Dr Neil Fox
Since arriving at Falmouth University in April 2013 I have fallen in love with Cornwall and found a...
Dr Anna Misiak
Former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California, Anna Misiak holds a PhD from the...
Dr Kingsley Marshall
Dr Kingsley Marshall is Head of Film & Television at the CILECT and Screenskills accredited School...
Professor Chris Morris
Christopher Morris is a documentary filmmaker and professor of documentary practice. His work in...
Angela Annesley
Angela is a senior lecturer on BA(Hons) Film and a painter/printmaker specialising in woodcut...
Dr Nadine Boljkovac
Nadine Boljkovac (PhD, Cambridge) is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Falmouth University. She is a...
Richard Butler
After graduating from Nottingham Trent University in 1998 with and HND in Electrical and Electronic...
Dr Laura Canning
Laura Canning is Course Leader BA(Hons) Film and currently teaches on core modules in Film,...
Mark Douglas
Educated in British and North American universities, Mark was appointed lecturer in Cultural...
Paul Farmer
Since January 2014 I have worked as an Associate Lecturer and now a Lecturer in...
Peter Felstead
I joined the University in 1991 when I moved to Cornwall. My first role was to run the photography...
Dr Lucy Frears FHEA
Dr Lucy Frears' practice-based research on Locative Media includes immersive sound, memories,...
Brett Harvey
Brett studied film at St Helen's College and Truro College. Since graduating he has written and...
Simon Harvey
Simon is a producer based in Truro, Cornwall. He has produced three feature length films; The...
Duncan Hendry
I joined Falmouth University in September 2008 having moved from Swindon, I have over 40 years...
Mark Jenkin
Working in digital and analogue mediums and hand-processing super8/16mm film Mark is predominately...
Dr Jem Mackay
Dr Jem Mackay is a filmmaker/artist who has been exploring collaborative systems within creative...
Denzil Monk
Denzil is a lecturer in Film specialising in producing at the School of Film & Television at...
David Morris
Originally from Dublin, Ireland, David graduated in Film at Falmouth University before moving to...
Paul Mulraney
Paul Mulraney is a lecturer and creative director, specialising in professional practice in film ...
Doug Smith
I graduated from the University of Hull in 2002 after taking a BA in Music Technology. Music being...
Luke Smith
Before I joined Falmouth University in January 2016 I had spent 20 years working in the British...
David Smithers
After graduating with a degree in History and Media from the University of Leeds, David started his...
Dr Verena Von Eicken
Verena von Eicken is a lecturer at the School of Film & Television. She was awarded her PhD in...
Facilities
- 129-seat cinema, with Christie M Series 2.5k projection and 7.2 surround sound.
- Four large production studios:
Production Studio 1: multipurpose studio equipped with three Sony HXC-FB80 studio cameras, chromatte grey - screen and full lighting rig. Integral live gallery including 4-input Tricaster Ultra HD production system.
Production Studio 2: multipurpose studio and support area for studio 1.
Production Studio 3: multipurpose studio with lighting rig.
Production Studio 5: Specialist green screen studio with infinity cove & 360 degree subject lighting rig. Access to Xsens motion capture kit and VR/AR/MR equipment.
- Nine Mac Pro edit suites with Avid Media Composer, Adobe Creative Cloud Suite & Da Vinci Resolve.
- Two specialist grading suites featuring DaVinci Resolve and 4K preview screens.
- Two 28-seat ‘Post Hubs’ for post-production software training, equipped with dual screen Apple iMacs. Software available includes Avid Media Composer, Adobe Creative Cloud, Da Vinci resolve and Pro Tools. Production management software is also available.
- 25-seat dubbing theatre with Avid S6 mixing desk and Pro Tools Ultimate.
- Three further post-production audio suites – all equipped with Pro Tools Ultimate.
- Foley/ADR suite with access to a wide range of mics, foley traps and props.
- All post-production suites network-linked to Avid NEXIS shared storage system for seamless access and integration of projects.
- Digital cameras (HD to 4K) including Arri Alexa, RED, Sony, Canon, Blackmagic, Panasonic, and Arri SR3 and Bolex 16mm film cameras. Odyssey 7Q+ External Recorders are also available.
- Wide range of hot and cold (LED) lighting equipment including systems by Arri, Dedo & Kino Flo alongside traditional blondes and red heads.
- Grip and gimbal systems available include Free-Fly Movi M5, Wally Dolly, Indie Dolly, PD1 Dolly, Koolertron Sliders, Glidecam 2000, Libec and Camcrane Jibs.
- Audio equipment includes Sound Devices 633 mixers, recorders and an extensive range of microphones.
- Four animation software studios containing powerful Dell Precision Workstations with Cintiq 24” & 27" pen displays. Software available includes Autodesk Maya (3D), TV Paint (2D) and Foundry Nuke Studio (VFX Compositing), alongside Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.
- Dedicated stop-motion animation studio equipped with Canon EOS camera bodies, Nikon lenses, manfrotto grip and Dragonframe capture software.
How to apply
Apply via UCAS
Ready to join us? If you're applying through UCAS Apply and Track, you'll need to reference the university and course codes below.
- University code: F33
- Course code: W610
Apply now
Applying as an international student?
International students can apply for a course through UCAS, via an agent or directly with the university. For more information about how to apply as an international student, visit our International applications page.
Application advice & interview information
We consider all applications on their own individual merit and potential. We invite all applicants to an interview day or audition to give them the opportunity to demonstrate this along with what inspires and motivates them in their field. Applicants will also be able to show their portfolio or give a performance depending on the course. We welcome applications from all subject backgrounds, whether you’ve specialised in STEM, the arts or humanities.
As a guide our typical offer at undergraduate level is 104 – 120 UCAS Tariff points, primarily from Level 3 qualifications such as but not limited to A-levels, a BTEC Extended Diploma or a Foundation Diploma.
For applicants whose first language is English we require you to have or be working towards GCSE English Language Grade 4 (C), or equivalent.
If English is not your first language you will need to meet the same standard which is equivalent to the IELTS Academic 6.0 overall score, with at least 5.5 in Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. We accept a range of in country equivalencies and approved tests.
If you need a student visa to study in the UK, you'll need to take a recognised language test that is approved and vouched for by the University. You can read our English Language Requirements for more information.
UK/EU applications: 29 January 2021 (for equal consideration)
Late applications will be considered if there are places available.
International fee payers can apply throughout the year. But we recommend applying as early as possible, to make time for visa and travel arrangements.
What we're looking for
We want someone who:
- Can identify what led them to apply.
- Understands film’s cultural and historical contexts.
- Can develop their potential in communication.
- Can self-motivate, work well in a team and never give up.
Fees, costs & funding
Tuition fees
£9,250 per year - full-time UK/EU
£16,000 per year - full-time international
£9,250 per year - full-time UK
£16,950 - full-time EU
£16,950 - full-time international
Tuition fees are set annually and are subject to review each year. The University may therefore raise tuition fees in the second or subsequent years of a course, in line with inflation and/or the maximum permitted by law or Government policy. Students will be notified of any changes as soon as possible.
Typical course costs
- £50 - Recurring annual costs
- £50 - One off costs for the course duration (compulsory trips, final portfolios or shows, etc)
- £650 - Optional study visits and placements for the course duration
If you need to bring equipment or materials with you, these will be outlined in your Welcome Letter.
The figures above don't include accommodation and living costs
Funding
For information about funding available, please visit our undergraduate funding page
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