Film - MA

Teaching

Teaching and assessment

Assessment is by coursework and the dissertation.

Programme aims

The programme aims to:

• develop your understanding and skills to a notably higher level of sophistication and achievement (appropriate to an Master’s level award) than would be expected at degree level, such that you leave the programme with a substantial analytic and critical understanding of film and film studies
• develop your understanding and skills to the level necessary for entry into a research programme in Film Studies
• develop your ability to think independently, argue with clarity and force, to discern areas of research interest within the field and be able to frame viable research questions
• provoke reflection on areas of critical and theoretical approaches to cinema and its context
• nurture the intellectual skills cited above in the context of written work (essays and dissertations) as well as in the context of interpersonal interaction (seminars, research papers, supervision)
• attract outstanding students irrespective of race, background, gender, and physical disability, from both within the UK and from overseas
• develop existing and new areas of teaching in response to the advance of research and scholarship within the subject, as well as new developments in filmmaking practice.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

You gain knowledge and understanding of:

• the techniques which comprise film and related, moving audio-visual media, and the ways in which they are used to create meaning and experience
• concepts and practices integral to the production and reception of films, including authorship, genre, industry, stardom, style, modernity, national and transnational cinemas
• conceptualisations of our engagement with film, including the cultural, aesthetic, industrial and economic contexts in which viewing and exhibition occurs
• critical approaches to film, including an understanding of the historical and contemporary debates within film theory
• film histories and historiography, particularly as it informs the concepts and practices cited in the second point above.

Intellectual skills

You develop intellectual skills in:

• constructing arguments and produce evidence appropriate for research at Master’s level
• the ability to reflect critically on debates within the conceptual practices of the discipline
• designing and implementing research projects informed by interdisciplinary approaches in the humanities.

Subject-specific skills

You gain subject-specific skills in:

• articulating, in written and oral contexts, an understanding of film commensurate with the first four programme aims noted above
• analysing narrative and other forms and structures shaping films
• the ability to draw on interdisciplinary intellectual knowledge, methods and techniques drawn from other disciplines (such as psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literary theory) in the study of film
• mastery of the vocabularies developed to enhance the analysis and understanding of film and related media
• analysing, with precision, the images and sounds which comprise films.

Transferable skills

You gain the following transferable skills:

• the ability to communicate effectively in both oral and written contexts, at a level appropriate for the conduct of original research
• the ability to create, manage and self-direct essays and research projects, with the advice and supervision of teaching staff
• the ability to integrate skills of argument and reasoning with those of empirical observation
• the ability to contribute effectively to the exploration of a question or problem in the context of group discussion and analysis, through a combination of intervention, leading of discussion, and focussed attention to others
• the ability to deploy the subject-specific understanding of the nature of film and related media – in relation to, for example, social and ethical questions – in the context of participation in society as workers and citizens
• the ability to use various IT skills, ranging from word-processing and audio-visual presentation to research through web-based sources, at a level of sophistication commensurate with the production of original research.

Careers

Arts graduates have gone on to work in a range of professions, from museum positions and teaching roles to film journalists and theatre technicians. Our graduates have found work at Universal Pictures, the London Film Festival and other arts, culture and heritage-related organisations, as well as in film production, as editorial assistants and as web designers.

Study support

Postgraduate resources

Film at Kent has excellent viewing and library facilities, with a large number of films screened weekly during term-time the custom-designed Lupino Cinema. The Templeman Library has extensive book and specialist journal holdings in film and related areas; there is also a large and growing reference collection of film on DVD and Blu Ray, with individual and group viewing facilities. The Department also benefits from the presence of the Gulbenkian Cinema on campus, which runs a varied programme of new releases and classics.

In 2010, we moved into the purpose-built, and RIBA award-winning, Jarman Building. The new building is home to a range of professional standard editing and studio facilities, plus a dedicated postgraduate centre and teaching and social spaces.

Internationally recognised research

Our staff produce internationally recognised research at the intersection of film theory, history, practice, and the conceptual and stylistic analysis of moving image media. Based on this expertise, we are able to support research across a wide range of topics, including: moving image theory, history and criticism; American, European and Latin American cinemas; British Cinema; the avantgarde; and digital media and animation. There are also close connections between Film and the Aesthetics Research Group.

The Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Film and the Moving Image promotes our excellence in research and hosts a range of research events including symposia, visiting speakers and workshops.

Film-making

The Department embraces filmmaking and practice-based research in film and media. Richard Misek is a leading video essayist. His feature-length documentary Rohmer In Paris (2013) has been screened at over twenty film festivals on five continents, and exhibited at venues including the British Film Institute, the Barbican Centre, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the Museum of Moving Image (New York), Forum des Images (Paris), and the Louisiana Museum (Denmark). He has been Primary Investigator on two Arts and Humanities Research Council projects exploring audiovisual film and media studies (2016-18), and has recently produced a series of virtual reality video essays in collaboration with world-leading Melbourne-based VR studio Vrtov and the British Film Institute. Lawrence Jackson worked in various crew capacities in the UK film industry for three years before working in-house, then freelance as a Bi-Media Producer for BBC Northern Ireland Drama. As writer-director, he has five short films and as producer-director, around 50 hours of radio drama to his name. The shorts, shot in locations from Margate to Northern Ireland and Prague to Newcastle, have been shown at the Munich Film Festival, London’s ICA Cinema and on BBC2.

Dynamic publishing culture

Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. They have recently contributed to journals including: Screen; Cinema Journal; October, The Moving Image; Animation; Games and Culture; Journal of Film and Video; Film History, Film Criticism and Early Popular Visual Culture. They have recently published books with Oxford University Press, University of Amsterdam Press, Rutgers University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Columbia University Press, University of Minnesota Press, I.B. Tauris, Wiley-Blackwell, and Cineteca di Bologna. The peer-reviewed journal Film Studies is edited by staff at the department.

Global Skills Award

All students registered for a taught Master's programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.