Creative Media Production* BA (Hons)

You explore the history and contemporary practice of documentary cinema, examining its social, political, and cultural impact while learning how documentaries tell compelling stories and highlight real-world issues. You research a topic you’re passionate about, develop a treatment and script, and produce your own documentary, placing it in a contemporary context. Running alongside Studio Practice and Pre-production and Post-Production Skills, assessment is individual and integrated across modules.

You explore media across print, film, video, games, and new formats while examining historical, political, and cultural perspectives. You study how messages are created, cultural dynamics, social class, and audience theory, gaining tools to critically analyse media content and its impact on society. Media is investigated as an industry, a range of texts, and a social activity, with opportunities to challenge orthodoxies and apply theoretical perspectives across formats. Through debates on ethics, responsibility, and your place in the media landscape, you apply academic research and methodology to produce your own work, culminating in a presentation.

You study post-production both theoretically and practically, exploring picture and sound editing in narrative and non-narrative digital media. Historical and formal analyses cover montage, meaning creation, juxtaposition, and editing devices, while the use of sound and music is examined across various media formats. You gain technical skills to edit and finalise your documentary project, working individually on the footage shot for the integrated Documentary Production project.

You develop practical audio-visual and pre-production skills to plan and support digital media projects. Studio-based sessions cover single-camera operation, camera handling, lighting, sound recording, shot composition, and filming dialogue and interviews. You also learn essential pre-production workflows, including risk assessments, consent forms, budgets, shooting schedules, storyboards, and call sheets, while taking part in simulated on-set exercises to build teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. All planning is applied individually to prepare the pre-production documentation for your integrated documentary project.

You explore and analyse visual storytelling, learning how meaning is conveyed across different visual forms. Through examining experimental cinema, video art, photography, stop motion, and more, you develop an understanding of both traditional and unconventional narrative techniques. Using this knowledge, you select a theme or sequence and translate it into your own visual language, experimenting with creative approaches and the aesthetics and politics of the moving image.

You explore the origins of stories and the principles of narrative, plot, and character development, learning to turn ideas into narratives for digital media. By studying narrative theory, myths, fairytales, and character archetypes, you reinterpret these concepts in your own creative writing. The module covers key storytelling principles—inciting incident, three-act structure, genre, and theme—and guides you in writing a screenplay, applying script formatting, and developing skills in research, pitching, and justifying your ideas.

You explore contemporary audio recording and post-production, combining creative, theoretical, and technical skills. The module covers sound acquisition, multi-track post-production, and digital delivery for film, TV, podcasts, documentaries, sound installations, and cross-platform media. You develop audio storytelling, composition, and critical analysis of production styles, including fiction, non-fiction, and abstract soundscapes. You gain collaboration, communication, leadership, and professional skills, as well as insight into audio production across the creative media industry.

You explore directing actors and performers across various media, including television, film, podcasts, and branded content, with a focus on the actor–director relationship and creative collaboration. You study acting methods, rehearsal techniques, blocking, coverage, acting for camera and voice, and practical exercises with professional actors. Assessment includes a multi-camera practical exam, filming a two-page television script and a podcast project, directing voice performers, and developing both technical and interpersonal skills.

You examine advertising, social media, brand management, and personal identity, exploring how individuals and companies build a professional online presence. Key concepts like semiotics, gender, representation, sustainability, and basic marketing theories are applied to modern media platforms, including synthetic media, branded content, blogs, vlogs, and AI tools. You critically analyse your own strengths and unique voice for the marketplace, while also considering law, ethics, copyright, libel, accessibility, and usability.

You work in teams to produce a transmedia project based on content developed in Storytelling for Emerging Platforms, advancing your technical skills and focusing on innovation, audience interaction, and cross-platform dissemination. You explore the technical requirements of each format and platform and factor in beta testing or audience engagement. You create innovative artefacts and prototypes, assessed through a final group production artefact (70%) and an individual 1,000 word written report (30%).

You are introduced to socially engaged practice and public engagement by exploring historical and contemporary social movements, activism, and inequalities, as well as the impact of social media on cultural and political landscapes. You work in groups to design and deliver a practical project—such as a community art initiative or outreach programme—focusing on creative ways to reach communities and generate social impact, while learning how to craft and disseminate an effective message.

You build on Writing Narrative, Plot and Character by extending narrative skills to transmedia and interactive storytelling, including web documentaries, games for change, VR, and social mobile apps. You explore emerging platforms and technologies to connect audiences, brands, and content, developing a sophisticated transmedia project across three formats with distinct distribution strategies. You explore autonomous creative writing, audience research, market analysis, and pitching ideas effectively.

You work in small teams to develop and deliver an original media project for an external client, following a real-world, intensive production schedule. You cover pitching, concept development, mentoring, and production, emphasising client compliance, deadlines, and audience research. You practice professional communication, respond to feedback, and create innovative content that meets or exceeds client expectations.

You develop a sophisticated proposal for an original media content project, forming the basis for their final project. You research contemporary production practices, technologies, formats, audiences, and platforms, evaluating relevant social, cultural, economic, and ethical factors to justify their project. The proposal is rigorously defended, supported by extended research, and results in a polished draft ready for production in the Major Project Production module.

You produce a self-managed final creative project that showcases your cumulative skills, focusing on originality, narrative, content, and technical execution. You work individually while collaborating with peers, demonstrating planning, audio-visual production, and professional awareness of legal, social, and ethical issues. You explore your chosen media area in depth, applying and synthesising knowledge from your studies, supported by industry mentors. The project emphasises autonomy, critical analysis, and readiness for professional practice, building on work developed in Major Project Development.

You explore contemporary and emerging media technologies, platforms, and production techniques, including AI, VR/AR/MR, interactive media, gaming, sensors, and haptic feedback. You critically analyse the impact of these technologies on media and communications through case studies and industry research, developing advanced skills to position your own Major Project within appropriate audiences, trends, and distribution strategies

You engage with professional practice in creative media production, gaining an understanding of the media job market, sectors, and roles, while networking with industry practitioners and developing employability skills. You produce creative media content to deadlines, explore different job placements, and build professional portfolios, including websites, CVs, and online presences using a range of content management systems and digital tools. You also undertake activities to prepare for short-term work experience and write an exit strategy outlining your professional goals over the next five years.