EU/International induction: September 2019
£13,000 (INT) *
Overview
Television is an exciting and world leading industry and the major employer in the creative industries in the UK. This course will enable you to realise your potential and develop the multi-skilled essentials needed to work in the fast-changing world of television and digital production.
Why study BA Television and Digital Production at Middlesex University?
This course has been designed to keep pace with advances in television and the new platforms emerging alongside it. New areas at the forefront of contemporary small screen media including streaming, 360° degree and immersive video, professional social media content and webisodes are also part of the curriculum. You will learn to meet established industry needs by creating original ideas and formats across documentary, reality, studio and drama, for broadcasters, online channels, new platforms and VoD streams.
All the modules on this course will prepare you for your career. Core modules will explore how production companies work and the range of positions in industry. You will develop creative, technical and production skills and explore routes to gaining employment in the sector, including work placement opportunities.
This is a future facing degree where you will learn everything you need to know about content creation for broadcasters, streaming and Video-on-demand. We have strong links to industry contacts, with regular masterclasses from leading programme-makers and small screen creatives, and professional bodies including ScreenSkills, PACT (the Producers Association for Cinema and Television) and Film London so you can ensure that you will be well positioned to fill the skills gaps in television and emergent fields.
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Course highlights
- Get skills certification around AVID, Pro Tools and Da Vinci Resolve
- Pitch to BBC Commissioning Editors
- Take advantage of independent production company visits, trips to studio recordings/live broadcasts, work placements and client commissions, all of which immerse you in today’s small screen industry and not just a classroom simulation
- Your tutors will be television professionals and specialists, and our visiting lecturers include directors, producers and broadcasters from C4, the BBC, ITV and the independent sector
- You’ll remain in close contact with the industry throughout the course and will be tutored on how to join the television industry with networking and placement opportunities essential aspects of the degree
Find out more
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Course content
What will you study on the BA Television and Digital Production?
Throughout your three years, you’ll be working across different genres from music videos, sitcoms, talent shows and quiz shows to dramas and documentaries, with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment and the support of industry experts.
You will gain substantial practical production skills in single and multi-camera projects that will enable you to become an accomplished professional. Your talent and vision come to fruition when you produce your graduation showreel in Year 3. Work placements, practical, creative and career focused modules ensure you have all the tools necessary to work in TV and digital production.
This course allows you to specialise in the roles of your choice both on location (including Director, Producer, Researcher, Script writer, Production Manager, Director of Photography, Sound Recordist, Editor, Designer), and in the studio (including Studio Director, Floor Manager, Gallery Production Assistant, Vision Mixer, Gallery PA and Vision Control).
Modules
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Year 1
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Exploring the Studio (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module enables you to understand and undertake studio roles and responsibilities including camera operator, lighting director, sound recordist and floor manager. It also introduces you to the skills needed to work in a studio gallery, including vision mixer, production assistant, researcher and studio director.
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Shooting on Location (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module introduces you to Single Camera TV and Online Production Skills in both fact and fiction. You will learn different forms of small screen storytelling, practicing the crafts of camera, lighting, sound and editing through workshops and productions.
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Pitching and the Industry (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module introduces you to the way the industry works from independent production companies to broadcasters and emerging platforms and networks such as Netflix, Vice and Vimeo. You will also learn about the production process including how to develop a story or format idea, research and write a proposal plus develop a pitch.
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Screens and Platforms (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module introduces you to the creative and practical aspects of both factual and fictional TV and digital production. Programme types, genres, creativity and artistry will be explored in relation to national and international TV and digital production context.
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Year 2
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Multi-skilling for Studio and Digital Production (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module builds on a range of established techniques required for television studio production, including VT inserts. It further develops your ability to research for TV programmes, develop, repurpose and promote creative content. By working on a range of studio shows you will enhance production skills for live, on-demand and multiplatform delivery.
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Producing and Directing for TV (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module develops the skills and responsibilities required to run a professional production on location as well as enhancing skills for single and multi-camera directing and producing.
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Drama, Documentary and Reality TV (30 credits) - Optional
This module develops your command of sound and image making processes to create documentary, drama and reality TV series. Drawing on national and international examples, you will examine how ideas are developed for TV genres and emerging platforms. You will then create script and format ideas.
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Promotional Video (30 credits) - Optional
In this module you will use a range of established production techniques to create music videos, adverts or corporate promos. Working to a client’s brief, you will gain genuine broadcast and/or non-broadcast industry experience.
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Advanced Production Skills for Innovation (30 credits) - Optional
In this module you will develop advanced skills in Camera, Lighting, Sound and Post Production for studio and on location. You will also be introduced to innovative new technologies at the forefront of filmmaking and live streaming.
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Year 3
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Major Project (60 credits) - Compulsory
In this module you will consolidate your editorial and/or craft skills in the form of a Major Project. Working in production teams, you will make, to a professional standard, a graduation film. This will prepare you for production-related positions in television and digital production.
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Entrepreneurship and Employability (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module provides you with a broad understanding of the production cultures and practices of the TV industry. It prepares you for work in TV and the wider media sector. You will also undertake a work placement and/or freelance work.
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TV and Future Platforms (30 credits) - Compulsory
This module gives you the opportunity in the form of a research project to specialise and focus upon an aspect of the industry that especially interests you professionally and/or artistically.
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You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.
Teaching
How is the BA Television and Digital Production taught?
As well as working on projects, both alone and in groups, you will learn through a blend of workshops, screenings, seminars and technical laboratories.
We have very strong links to the television, film and digital media sectors in London and beyond and you'll learn from the industry's leaders. Over the past year, our students have received masterclasses from:
- Carl Callam, BBC3 Commissioner
- Mark Cooper, Head of Music at the BBC
- Nick Wood, BBC Sitcom Director (Not Going Out, Citizen Khan)
- Alex Pillai, Director, Da Vinci’s Demons, Robin Hood
- Chris King, the Editor of Senna and Amy which won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2016
- Lucy Drake, Casualty (BBC1)
- Iris Maor, Production Manager
- Sasha Djerkovic, Documentary Director
- Jacquie Hughes, Content Officer, Ofcom
Our students have recently won Royal Television Society awards (for Best Drama and Best Documentary Cinematography) and won last year’s Best Unscripted Programme Award at the Edinburgh Television Festival out of 2500 entries. Every year our 3rd years pitch their graduation projects to commissioning editors at the BBC.
Work placement
You will have the opportunity to do work experience in TV or digital production as part of the course. Such placements have included BBC Studios, ITV, Sky Sports and a range of independent production companies and facility houses.
Assessment
All assessment is designed to prepare you for a career in TV and digital production. You will be assessed on areas such as production work, scripts, treatments, format ideas, and other creative and professional tasks. There are no exams. You will receive regular feedback on your projects from your tutors as well as fellow students.
Entry requirements
Fees and funding
Student work
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The Switch - A music talent show developed and produced by Middlesex BA Television Production students.
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A snapshot of the work produced by our Television students during 2016 - including drama, documentary and live studio productions.
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A Mouser Productions short film Produced and Directed by Alicia Rovira-Parker.
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Music is Vision is an Award winning short documentary about the blind community of Vangani, a village in Maharashtra, India. Director: Abdulaziz Alfuraih
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Safest Place in the World - A moving documentary made by Middlesex students on the shootings at Utoya Island in Norway in 2011.
Careers
How can the BA Television and Digital Production support your career?
The UK television industry, with over 50,000 employees, is one of the strongest in the world. The creative media industries workforce earn 24% more than the average income of the UK working population.
Because of the diverse nature of the degree, a wide range of exciting television and digital production roles will be open to you.
Our recent graduates have worked on such shows as The X Factor, The Only Way is Essex, Geordie Shore, Big Brother, Celebrity Juice, The Circle, Grand Designs, Location, Location, Location and Masterchef.
Accreditation
BA Television and Digital Production has been awarded the ScreenSkills Tick, the industry kitemark of quality, following a rigorous assessment process by experts working in the Creative Industries. The ScreenSkills Tick is awarded to practice-based courses which best prepare students for a career in the industry.
Facilities
We have some of the finest television production and post-production facilities in UK higher education. Sony has designed the TV production suite for us with two TV studios at its centre, which includes state of the art galleries for Production, Lighting and Sound, in which we are able to run multi-camera productions in full High Definition XD Cam 50Mbps. The studio facility also benefits from having an Avid Isis 5000 server in conjunction with 2 x 4 Channel Airspeed Multi-streams, which also support our Post Production editing suites and News studio and gives us central storage in a tapeless environment.
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Our students preparing with Nick Wood, BBC comedy director
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Our TV studio gallery
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Our second year students in Studio A
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Our TVP students recreate the infamous Mannequin Challenge and showcase our excellent facilities in Hendon.
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Campus life
Staff profiles
Basil Glynn
Programme leader
Basil has published on various aspects of television in numerous books and journals with particular research interests in TV around the world and horror.
Paul Kerr
Senior lecturer
Paul is an award-winning television producer who has made dozens of programmes for the BBC and Channel Four as well as many international co-productions. He is also the author and editor of a number of books and articles on television and film.
Deborah Klika
Senior lecturer
Deborah’s creative practice and academic interest is in comedy, specifically the TV Sitcom and more recently comic narratives in film. Other areas of research include psychoanalysis, character, how to shoot the visual joke and discursive frames.
Tom McGorrian
Senior lecturer
Tom is an award-winning television director who has made a variety of productions for both Broadcast and Business TV. His specialist research interests include factual programming and developing media practice.
Student profiles
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Danny Fisher
Television and Digital Production BA graduate
Looking back on my career so far, one year since graduating in Television Production, the course has been paramount to my success. Not only did it make my confidence flourish, it opened up a gateway into the industry I love. I am now writing, working in the industry, and have done so even before I graduated, because of the course. I most certainly couldn’t have done it without the experience given to me whilst studying.
The things I learnt and the people I met brought my knowledge up to industry standard. The facilities made it possible for me to work in a real-life studio environment, in groups that would echo a real crew. My lecturers helped me grow, to ensure I was heading down the correct avenues to achieve my future ambitions throughout every stage.
I am currently working on MasterChef: The Professionals, as a Production Secretary, and this opportunity was given to me through contacts I met whilst at University. I was interested in going into Production during my second year, and my lecturers helped me meet people to make my ambitions become a reality. The lecturers are dedicated to every student and I was lucky enough to eventually meet someone who is now my employer.
I am forever grateful to the course and cannot recommend it enough. To anyone in doubt, I feel as a spokesperson for the course, do it! Take every opportunity you can, and you may just succeed!
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Richard Tipple
Television Production BA graduate
I chose to study this degree because I wanted to work in TV and I wanted a course that was more focused on the 'hands on' skill of film-making rather than the theory.
The degree taught me a skill set that I use every single day in my working life. I learnt how to film, how to edit, how to light and most importantly how to tell a story using pictures. It gave me the tools to shape the foundation of what I do professionally. After leaving University I got a job that I wouldn't have got if it wasn't for the showreel and practical experience I amassed during my final year. Every job since I've built on these foundations.
I'm incredibly lucky to work in a creative field and earn a very good wage at the same time. I owe Middlesex for that. I owe Roddy Gibson (my tutor) a hell of a lot. Mostly for his patience!
My advice to new students is make sure you know what you want to get out of the course before you begin. Middlesex stands out because its staff want to get you to where you want to be. Know that, communicate that and you'll be in a great position. I did a lot of growing up at University and I couldn't have chosen a better place to do it.
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Emilie Andreassen
Television Production BA graduate
What really appealed to me about the course was the balance between lectures and practical work. I got the opportunity to try out all the things I learnt about in the lectures in my practical work. I also found it great that we got to make so many different films throughout the three years studying here.
The course has great industry standard equipment; brand new studios and amazing editing suits. Most of this equipment is the same as what I have used and seen during my internships in Norway. This makes you feel that you are working at a very professional level and it gives you the opportunity to make your films look stunning. It also gives you more confidence when considering sending your films out to Film Festivals or to possible employees. This all gives you a good taste of how it works in the real industry.
Contact us
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