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Film BA Honours

With access to professional facilities and strong links to London's film industry, develop your creative identity as a filmmaker on this highly respected course
Code
P303
Start
September 2024
Duration
3 years full-time
Usually 6 years part-time
Attendance
Full-time
Part-time
Fees
£9,250 (UK)*
£16,600 (INT)*
Course leader
David Cottis

Why choose Film BA Honours at Middlesex?

If you want to work in the exciting world of film, you will need strong practical skills and solid theoretical knowledge. This highly respected course delivers both evidenced by the success of many of our graduates who have gone on to work on Star Wars productions, for Disney and the BBC, while some have set up their own companies or continued their studies at the National Film and Television School.

What you will gain

As well as learning foundational filmmaking skills that will help you develop your craft, you'll benefit from our extensive industry connections and placement opportunities.

Our students have produced outstanding films that have won many awards across film festivals.

3 great reasons to pick this course

  • Excellent London location
    Our location in London gives us access to studios and links with the industry
  • State-of-the-art facilities
    As a student, you will have access to our fully-equipped Studio and Kit Hub
  • Collaboration and soft skills
    Our programme emphasises the skills involved in collaboration, and the 'soft skills' of communication and problem-solving that will be necessary for your career

What you will learn

You’ll have our state-of-the-art facilities at your fingertips to help develop your own creative identity and produce your best possible work. These include a TV production studio designed by Sony, post-production suites for editing, colour grading and sound editing, a sound dubbing studio for mixing Dolby Atmos, studios for recording ADR and foley, and a motion capture and greenscreen virtual studio. You'll also have access to our equipment loan store, The Kit Hub, where you can borrow a vast range of cameras, lighting and sound kit.

As we head up the UK-wide Creative Campus Network, you'll benefit from information and opportunities from our industry contacts. We're also partnered with Film London, ScreenSkills and the GLA Creative Academy to provide you with free access to additional industry-recognised resources and training.

Our partnerships with Avid, Canon, and others mean that you'll benefit from top equipment and development opportunities to help you with your future career. We've built strong partnerships with local film studios, allowing you to access work placement opportunities. Several of our students have worked at the London North Studios, as runners/marshals or set builders with Brandon B whose video work is seen by millions around the world.

By joining us on this course, you'll have a chance to:

  • Benefit from new industry-recognised assessment strategies that we're developing
  • Prepare for working life through our employability-focused modules across all three years
  • Pick and choose activities that interest you through our ‘spotified’ system
  • Learn to produce award-winning productions that are distributed across many short film festivals and industry events.

Keep informed

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Our communications are designed to support you in deciding your future and keep you up to date about student finance, employment opportunities and student activities available at Middlesex University.

Across the three years, you’ll learn about the complete film-making process by making films and cover a range of production roles, post-production, scriptwriting, cinematography, and direction, informed and/or co-designed by professionals working in the film industry.

Year 1

An introduction to the central practical and theoretical skills involved in filmmaking; directing, producing, scriptwriting, cinematography, editing, sound, and art direction

Year 2

This is where you begin to specialise, focusing on the specific skills that will take through your study and career.

Year 3

A focused final year, leading to a major project which will be your calling-card to the industry.

A film degree can open a lot of doors and we’re here to help you find the right career path with employability support embedded into the course from day one. Graduates of this course work in a variety of departments, including film production, live studio production, research, camera, sound, art departments (including set building) casting, and post-production.

We help you undertake critical analysis and evaluation of screen language to help you understand all the tools that are available to you as a filmmaker. You will learn and use digital technologies and creative processes to develop your technical competencies.

We co-designed the curriculum with industry and community partners, so you will undertake projects and briefs that will turn heads when you go into the industry. There is a strand through the programme for us to focus on your personal development including diagnostic explorations to identify development goals and trajectory; strengths, developmental needs. You will have a dedicated advisor who will help you select relevant activities and micro-credentials that best suit your desired trajectory into employment.

Modules

  • Year 1 - Compulsory

    • Story and Aesthetics (30 credits)

      In this module you will apply narrative and aesthetic insights to your own production work and develop audio-visual literacy to understand effective storytelling on screen. You will underpin filmmaking practice with particular reference to the aesthetics of cinematography, mise-en-scène, sound, performance and editing and will develop creative techniques to generate screen stories and format structures.

    • Production Skills (30 credits)

      In this module you will experiment with a wide range of production roles and craft skills in preproduction, production and postproduction and respond to briefs and practice-based and problem-based learning to develop creative and technical practices. You will be encouraged to be resourceful and creative in the process of filmmaking and develop an interest in the creative, technical and management possibilities of areas of production.

    • Industry & Collaboration Hub: Practices & Roles (30 credits)

      In this module you will gain an understanding of the processes, etiquette, protocols and roles involved in professional film/tv production and foster values of safe working, sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion into production practice. The module promotes and raises awareness of a variety of transferable professional and personal skills (aka ‘soft skills’) and facilitates appropriate behaviours, such as collaboration, collegiality and cooperation.

    • Content Creation (30 credits)

      In this module you will explore the capacity of film/tv as a form of communication and apply storytelling techniques and production skills to deliver group projects in response to briefs. You will consider production decision-making for a range of different types of screen production, contexts and audiences and provide experience with different genres and formats.

  • Year 2 - Compulsory

    • Story and the World (30 credits)

      This module fosters critical enquiry into the specific ethical and philosophical issues around filmmaking practice. It will motivate you to engage with current political, social, cultural and ideological realities through their filmmaking work and awaken the excitement of exchanging ideas through film language. You will develop critical awareness when planning and writing scripts and concepts and communicating ideas through pitching and/or presenting.

    • Production Skills Development (30 credits)

      This module will allow you to explore the aesthetic possibilities of work that is creative in the application of production and craft skills and will guide and inspire you to find your preferred production roles/interests and further develop practical skills in specialist roles. It will advance your knowledge and experience in production and craft skills and develop your understanding of undertaking, documenting and presenting pre-production, production and post-production workflow.

    • Industry & Collaboration Hub: Networks and Careers (30 credits)

      This module aims to further your understanding of the business of screen productions and generate knowledge about contexts within which an emerging filmmaker/content producers can build a career for themselves, e.g., the freelance sector. You will learn about the value of ‘personal branding’ and self-promotion and promote and facilitate your own sense of agency, by supporting professional development through tailored Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshops.

    • Creative Production (30 credits)

      This module teaches you how to creatively interpret briefs, develop and realise high-quality work; strengthen skills in specialist roles through making work together; cultivate the skills necessary to face technical and production challenges and further develop effective team working skills and professionalism in practice.

  • Year 3 - Compulsory

    • Advanced Ideas Development (30 credits)

      This module allows you to consolidate an understanding of specific theoretical frameworks and to reflect critically on the relationship to your own practice. You will be encouraged to consider filmmaking as “praxis” (or a process based on the interdependence of theory and practice) in order to enhance your appreciation of film form and context and extend the skills necessary to research and pitch ideas professionally, utilising screen language in the pitching process.

    • Advanced Production Skills (30 credits)

      This module will increase your depth of understanding in your chosen specialist role and you will be supervised to professionally prepare a major project. You will advance your skills in these specialist roles to help you apply sophisticated comprehension of industry practices to your projects. You will learn to hone your professionalism when creating developmental materials to communicate ideas and work-in-progress.

    • Industry & Collaboration Hub: Entrepreneurship and Freelancing (30 credits)

      Learn about finding useful and fulfilling work in the screen industries and develop research and practical skills in relation to preparing for employment and/or setting up a production-related business. Further develop and utilise ‘soft’ skills, such as team dynamics, crisis management, negotiation and mediation and develop a short/mid/long term career plan post-university.

    • Major Project (30 credits)

      Develop high-level critical and practical skills to explore film/tv/screen media in creative, ambitious and innovative ways; provide an environment that reflects current industry processes and conditions when bringing a major project to realisation. Manage a major project with a clear sense of purpose, audience and context and learn the skills and confidence to present your work effectively and professionally to others, both as a work-in-progress and as a completed project.

To find out more about this highly regarded course, please download the Film BA Honours specification (PDF).

  1. Teaching and independent learning
  2. Assessment and feedback

Facilities

The facilities, studios and workshops at our £80 million purpose-built Grove building on campus in North London are recognised as among the best in the country. With a wide range of digital media, equipment, software and library facilities on-site, you'll benefit from unique levels of access to both the latest forms of technology and traditional tools with expert support to help you develop your work.

Our production facilities:

  • Post-production suites for editing, colour grading and sound editing including hardware by Avid, Tangent and Blackmagic
  • Audio dubbing studio for mixing Dolby Atmos with Avid S6 Console & 7.4.1 JBL Cinema Speaker System
  • Motion capture & greenscreen virtual production studio.

Studio and location filming equipment:

  • Over 50 high-end 4K cinema cameras
  • Over 100 Canon & Sony DSLRs mirrorless kits with prime and zoom lenses
  • Arri, Kinoflo and Aputure lighting kits
  • Camera stabilisation systems including dolly tracks, motorised and manual sliders, GlideCam, mini jib arm and studio jib crane arm, EasyRig, gimbals
  • Atomos monitors and external recorders
  • Wireless video systems and wireless follow focus
  • Wireless timecode systems with digital slates
  • Sound Devices and Zoom sound recorders
  • Sennheiser shotgun, stereo and ambisonic microphones
  • Specialised location microphones including hydrophones, binaural, contact and boundary microphones
  • Sennheiser wireless kits and DPA and Sennheiser lavalier microphones.

Digital media workshops:

  • 80 iMacs and Mac Pro workstations
  • Colour grading monitors
  • Wacom Cintiq creative pen displays
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Avid Media Composer
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • ProTools
  • iZotope RX.

We offer lots of support to help you while you're studying including financial advice, wellbeing, mental health, and disability support.

Student support

We offer lots of support to help you while you're studying including financial advice, wellbeing, mental health, and disability support.

Additional needs

We'll support you if you have additional needs such as sensory impairment or dyslexia. And if you want to find out whether Middlesex is the right place for you before you apply, get in touch with our Disability and Dyslexia team.

Wellness

Our specialist teams will support your mental health. We have free individual counselling sessions, workshops, support groups and useful guides.

Work while you study

Our Middlesex Unitemps branch will help you find work that fits around uni and your other commitments. We have hundreds of student jobs on campus that pay the London Living Wage and above.

Financial Support

You can apply for scholarships and bursaries and our MDX Student Starter Kit to help with up to £1,000 of goods, including a new laptop or iPad.

We have also reduced the costs of studying with free laptop loans, free learning resources and discounts to save money on everyday things. Check out our guide to student life on a budget.

How can the BA Film support your career?

We know that it is a great time to be studying film. The industry is booming and the film and television industries are crying out for new talent. Several of our 2022 cohort have already got jobs at Envy, at Disney, on Netflix’s Top Boy, an indie for Channel 4, HBO, African Movie Channel, editing the Stranger Things campaign, even working on Queen's Jubilee BBC live coverage.

Middlesex University is fortunate to be surrounded by film studios, with which we have established relationships allowing you to find work placement and experience opportunities. Several of our students have worked at the London North Studios, as runners/marshals or set builders with Brandon B whose video work is seen by millions around the world.

Our graduates go into entry-level roles in film and television, such as runners, production assistants, social media coordinators, assistant editors, and location assistants, and then move quickly into more senior-level roles such as assistant producers, junior editors, assistant location managers, and casting directors.

Several of our graduates have set up their own businesses in videography, social media, and visual marketing, examples include Speeding Films, Aquifer Film Studio.

Our alumni are close contacts and come back to tell us about working at the BBC, Channel 4, QVC International, ILM, Shine TV, the Venice Biennale, HBO, Netflix and Sky Sports.

MDXworks

Our employability service, MDXworks will launch you into the world of work from the beginning of your course, with placements, projects and networking opportunities through our 1000+ links with industry and big-name employers in London and globally.

Our dedicated lifetime career support, like our business start-up support programme and funding for entrepreneurs, has put us as a top 10 university for producing CEOs – Novuana, 2023.

MDXcelerator Student Start-Up Support

Want to be your own boss? You'll have the chance to pitch your business to gain mentoring and grants of up to £15,000.

Global network

You’ll study with students from 122 countries who’ll hopefully become part of your global network. And after you graduate, we'll still support you through our alumni network to help you progress in your chosen career.

  1. UK entry
  2. International entry
  3. How to apply

The fees below refer to the 2023/24 academic year unless otherwise stated. Course fees are subject to annual inflation.

UK students

Full-time: £9,250

Part-time: £77 per taught credit

International students

Full-time students: £16,600

Part-time students: £138 per taught credit

Additional costs

The following course-related costs are included in the fees:

  • A free electronic textbook for every module
  • All printing and copying required for your study
  • Self-service laptops available for loan for a maximum of 24 hours
  • Audio-visual equipment available for loan, including digital stills cameras, digital video recorders, digital audio recorders.

The following course-related costs are not included in the fees and you may be required to purchase these to complete the course. The costs are approximate and may change due to changes in pricing at the retailer.

  • Your filmmaking expenses, for example, location rental, transportation, catering for cast and crew, props and set decoration materials, etc. The amount you may spend – to be shared by the core filmmaking team – varies year by year. You will generally spend more money on your films as you progress through the course, but increasingly raise your budgets through fundraising activities, including crowdfunding
  • Additional books that you wish to purchase
  • External hard drives for your filmmaking projects. These vary widely in price, but you will want to buy good quality drives (eg, G-Tech) to protect your work. You must plan to back up everything to at least one other drive – preferably two.

Scholarships and bursaries

To help make uni affordable, we do everything we can to support you including our:

  • MDX Excellence Scholarship offers grants of up to £2,000 per year for UK students
  • Regional or International Merit Awards which reward International students with up to £2,000 towards course fees
  • Our MDX Student Starter Kit to help with up to £1,000 of goods, including a new laptop or iPad.

Find out more about undergraduate funding and all of our scholarships and bursaries.

Fees disclaimers

1. UK fees: The university reserves the right to increase undergraduate tuition fees in line with changes to legislation, regulation and any government guidance or decisions. The tuition fees for part-time UK study are subject to annual review and we reserve the right to increase the fees each academic year by no more than the level of inflation.

2. International fees: Tuition fees are subject to annual review and we reserve the right to increase the fees each academic year by no more than the level of inflation.

Any annual increase in tuition fees as provided for above will be notified to students at the earliest opportunity in advance of the academic year to which any applicable inflationary rise may apply.

Dr David Cottis
Senior Lecturer in Scriptwriting and Programme Leader for BA Film.

David received his Ph. D from Birkbeck College.  He is also a theatre director, writer, lyricist, and dramaturg, most recently working with James Martin Charlton on the horror play Black Stone for Just Some Theatre Company. His five-actor adaptation of Oliver Twist was taken on national tour by the Love and Madness Company, his short plays Cash and Semolina were seen at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and his opera libretto She Stops at Costa's was shortlisted for the English National Opera's 'New Voices' project. He has edited A Dirty Broth and A Ladder of Words, two anthologies of Twentieth-Century Welsh Plays in English for the Parthian Press, and wrote the chapter on Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical. His book How Stage Playwrights Saved the British Cinema: The Well-Made Screenplay will be published by Bloomsbury Press.

Dr Vesna Lukic
Lecturer in Film Production (Documentary)

Vesna is a visual artist, filmmaker and practitioner researcher. She completed her PhD at the University of Bristol and also holds BA and MA degrees in Fine Art from the Arts University in Belgrade. Her interests lie in film as a mode of interdisciplinary research, and her current practice explores contemporary documentary film, film archives, colonial heritage and memory. A key focus of Vesna’s work comprises collaborative filmmaking practices and she co-led an award winning campaign film project on restorative justice for people with learning disabilities and/or autism. She regularly publishes her academic work, most recently in the Journal of Media Practice and Education and Screenworks.

David Heinemann
Senior Lecturer in Film

David directs documentary and drama, and works as a sound designer. He obtained his MFA in Filmmaking at Columbia University in New York, and is nearing completion of his practice-as-research PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, on the cinematic representation of psychosis.

David has published articles and book chapters on various aspects of cinema, including an ongoing exploration of the role of the voice in narrative cinema – an interest which is reflected in his practical work: the recent short documentaries Remember, thou art clay and Voices Apart, and the drama Unburied. His latest film, Rising, was part-funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council award for Voices Apart. David runs the production company Broken Island Films, with branches in the UK and Lithuania www.brokenislandfilms.com

Dr Ben Tyrer
Associate Lecturer in Film Theory

Ben received a doctorate in Film Studies from King’s College London. His teaching and research focus on the intersections of film, philosophy and psychoanalysis, and the relationship between theory and practice in art and politics. His interests include popular culture and ideology critique, the constructions of race, class and gender/sexuality on screen, Left Bank filmmakers, the Greek weird wave and Game of Thrones. He is the author of a monograph on film noir, has published two edited collections on psychoanalysis and culture, and has written on film and theory in Studies in French Cinema, Film-Philosophy, and Screen.

Dr Lara Thompson
Lecturer in Film (FHEA) 

Lara writes and lectures on film. Her interests include the relationship between cinema and photography, issues of temporality and the impact of film aesthetics on storytelling and sensory experience. She is particularly interested in the way the study of film theory and aesthetics affects practical filmmaking. She received her MA and PhD under the supervision of Prof. Laura Mulvey at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her book Film Light: Meaning and Emotion (2015, Manchester University Press) focused on the emotional impact of light in cinema. She has published and delivered conference papers internationally, including at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, at CUNY in New York, at Lund University in Sweden and at the University of Amsterdam. Lara has produced two short films and has been a cinematography jury member for Watersprite, the UK’s largest international student film festival at Cambridge University. Lara is also a novelist. She won the Virago New Crime Writer Award for her cinematic debut novel One Night, New York (Virago, 2021).

Current work

For Holocaust Memorial Day 2019, BA Film students produced a short film in collaboration with Big Grange Local, Barnet Multi-faith Forum, and the residents of East Finchley.

BA Film and BA Animation students and graduates, along with their academics, have together produced a powerful and moving videos for the launch of the Violent Crime Prevention campaign for the VCPB (Violent Crime Prevention Board).

Showreels

Have a look at the videos below for more examples of the brilliant work our students are doing at Middlesex.

  • Elvina Nevardauskaite

    BA Film graduate (Director and cinematographer)

    We had the opportunity to try our hand at a number of production roles and to use a variety of equipment and post-production software. After a few months on the course I found, to my surprise, that a lot of my classmates wanted me to be the cinematographer on their shoots. I have always had a fascination for the visual style of films, so I embraced the chance. I gained a lot of experience working with various cameras on both documentary and fiction films.

  • Ben Charles

    BA Film graduate (Paint & Roto Artist at Industrial Light & Magic)

    “On the BA Film course I developed my presentation skills and portfolio to a level where I now feel comfortable talking to clients about my work.”

  • Marco De Rosso

    BA Film graduate (Lecturer and director)

    "MDX has given me the most important opportunity that a filmmaker can ever ask for: the chance to create freely and mess up in a safe space - so that I won't need to do it in the real world. Each and every one of the experiments, short films, essays, and trials (and errors) of these three years have both helped me shape my personal vision as a filmmaker and achieve a sense of direction in my career."

  • Isabel Mouchos De Baere Campos Neves

    BA Film graduate, (Production assistant at Industrial Light & Magic)

    "I’m currently working as a Production Assistant at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) under the Jedi Academy internship. I am learning how production works in a post-production environment and the various different aspects involved within.

    There are not enough words to describe the joy and pleasure it was the be part of the BA Film degree and the doors it has opened for my future. I will always be thankful to my lecturers, the Middlesex staff and my friends and colleagues, who have made it possible for me to grow, learn and help achieve my dreams one step at a time."

  • Darryl Culson

    BA Film graduate (Trainee location manager)

    "Upon graduating from Middlesex, I’ve had the opportunity to work on productions by Netflix and Warner Brothers, and I’ve been able to expand my learning from industry professionals. I started out as a runner and now I’m a trainee in the locations department, an area in film I have always had a passion for. I get to shadow location managers throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production cycle. I'm so greatful for university, and hopefully one day I will achieve my dream of becoming a location manager."


We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.

Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.

Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.

At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.

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