Film and Television Production

Entry requirements

Applicants must hold a degree (with at least 2:2 Honours standard) or equivalent or demonstrate their ability to undertake the course through the accreditation of prior learning.

The specific requirements for admission are detailed below:

i) Applicants should normally hold a good honours degree in any Film Production/Studies, Cinematic Arts, Media Production, Photography and Video, Animation, Visual Arts or cognate subject from a University of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, from the Council of National Academic Awards, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council or from an institution of another country which is recognised as being of an equivalent standard.

ii) Applicants may be interviewed along with the presentation of a body of work that can take the form of, but is not limited to, a portfolio and/or showreel and proposal. Applicants must be able to satisfy the panel at interview that their work is of a standard that will allow them to deal with the intellectual and practical rigours of the programme.

iii) Applications are welcomed from diverse backgrounds however where there is a discipline shift the applicant must represent a coherent rationale for this shift and evidence prerequisite knowledge, skills and experience.

The programme is devised specifically to support continuing lifelong learning for professions in a rapidly changing field. Therefore APL (Accreditation for Prior Learning) will be considered as evidence of exceptional ability appropriate to recruitment to the programme. Applications from professionals with extensive professional, industrial and/or commercial experience but lacking recent or higher level academic qualifications will be encouraged. APL (Advanced Prior Learning) will be considered as evidence of exceptional ability appropriate to the course.

Months of entry

January, September

Course content

MA Film and Television Production is an interdisciplinary course that combines work and learning in the film, television and screen-platform formats and genres. Its aims are to produce advanced level students with a sense of social responsibility, combined with the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the growing screen media sector. This is in line with Ulster University’s civic commitment to wellbeing and economic prosperity. To achieve this the course will deliver a range of industry-focused creative and technical and research skills, supported by theoretical and historical knowledge of screen media.

The course is focused on the staples of contemporary screen media - work in-studio and on-location; dramatic and documentary forms; coverage of live events, light entertainment, serial and feature length drama. Students will produce screen artefacts that use the effective manipulation of moving visual images and sound, including understanding relevant industry standards and how they are defined and achieved. This will be done through an understanding of key production processes and professional practices relevant to screen industries.

To complement the production skills acquired through practice, students will develop an advanced knowledge of the central role that film and television, and broader media agencies play at local, national, international and global levels of economic, political and social organisation, and the ability to explore and articulate the implications of this. They will also develop a knowledge of a range of texts, genres, aesthetic forms and cultural practices, associated with screen media, and the ability to produce close and informed analysis of these.