If you’ve already completed a related Foundation Degree or HND, our BA (Hons) Film and Media Production (top-up) course offers you Honours-level skills and knowledge ready to boost your career opportunities. Our expert team will support you to extend your ability to find and tell imaginative and diverse stories that resonate with audiences everywhere.

Key information

Award:

BA (Hons)

Mode of Study:

Part-time

Duration:

18 months

Location:

University of Bolton

Start date:

25/09/2023

Course Details

The media and creative industries are flourishing and the North West is the key digital powerhouse outside of London. Traditional career routes in areas such as film and TV continue to seek new recruits, but exciting opportunities are also available with the broad range of organisations that now need moving images for their websites, social media platforms and promotional adverts. They want people who can create new and interesting content using their great storytelling skills and sound knowledge of the production process and workflow. This course aims to prepare you for a career in this exciting sector and offers transferable employability skills such as resilience, adaptability and team-working that are highly attractive to employers.

Your learning on this highly practical digital media production course is underpinned by critical and theoretical study, putting story at the heart of production. Our dedicated industry-experienced staff will support you to develop honours-level academic and research skills, and guide you as you expand your experience and outlook in relation to the world of film, media and the digital creative industries. We’ll also help cultivate your critical thinking skills, enabling you to challenge, question and explore the world around you and feed this into your creative work.

Our experienced team take pride in getting to know our students as individuals, and you can become part of our welcoming and supportive production family. Offering you the chance to share in our immense wealth of award winning industry experience, this course allows you to explore the various gateways into the vibrant media industry in North West England.

Highlights

The Guardian University Guide 2022 ranks our Film Production and Photography courses as fourth in the UK for student-to-staff ratio, so you can be assured that we offer you excellent access to individual tutor support and small group teaching.
Our lecturers have first-hand experience across a range of creative media and our excellent industry contacts mean we can offer regular guest lectures from professionals in the industry.
You’ll have access to first-rate broadcast-quality digital equipment.
We provide production budgets for student films to cover essential costs, and bring in professional expertise to advise and support you.
If you have no prior industry experience, we offer you the chance to undertake a work placement module.
We’ll encourage you to take part in screenwriting competitions, provide opportunities for festival submissions and festival involvement, and help you build your industry contacts.

Key Features

Eight dedicated video edit suites with sound processing capability.
Computer facilities for each student with dedicated media software.
Two fully-equipped studio facilities with lighting rigs, screens and equipment.
Sound recording facilities.
Professional HD film production equipment and a supply of ancillary equipment for professional production.
Guides for each individual module provide information about the programme.

You’re normally expected to have successfully completed a relevant qualification at Level HE5, such as a Foundation Degree or Higher National Diploma (HND), or a professional qualification at an equivalent level.
You'll be required to attend an interview and provide a portfolio of appropriate work.
If English isn’t your first language, you’ll also need IELTS 6.0 with no less than 5.5 in any band (or equivalent). We also accept a range of other English language qualifications – please visit our English Language Requirements web page for more details.

Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.

This top-up course is designed to prepare you for creative positions in the moving image industry, and offers you in-depth knowledge of working in film, TV and multi-platform formats. Our graduates possess a wide range of technical and creative skills and are ready to challenge, question and explore what’s possible in moving image media.

A key part of the course is your chance to benefit from a creative industries placement (if you have no prior industry experience) and extracurricular opportunities to help build appealing CVs, showreels and portfolios in preparation for employment.

As a graduate, you’ll possess a range of transferable skills such as creativity, communication skills, teamwork, managing deadlines, critical analysis, and commercial and cultural awareness.

What can I do with this qualification?

Film and Media Production graduates typically enter careers in the media, cultural and creative industries. Areas of work can include television and radio, film and video, digital media, journalism, writing and publishing, PR and media practice. Some of our graduates have set up their own companies or worked collaboratively with small production companies. Others have gone on to make films that have won accolades in film festivals around the world.

After graduation, you could choose to continue your studies by pursuing an MA or PhD in a variety of fields; for example, PR and communications, digital marketing, publishing, film production and journalism.

Alternative career options

Graduates can also use the qualification as a stepping-stone to enter a range of other careers. For some of these roles, relevant experience or postgraduate study may be required. Possible roles include:

Arts administration
Event organisation
Teaching
Local government
Advertising and marketing
Journalism
PR consultancy
Communications
Publishing

Course fees

Home students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Home fee of £6,000 for the academic year 2023/24.

Important note regarding tuition fees for the 2022-2023 academic year: EU nationals who meet residency requirements (have settled or pre-settled status) may be eligible for 'Home' fee status. If you do not meet these residency requirements, overseas fees will apply. Irish citizens living in the UK or Ireland will be eligible for 'Home' fee status under the Common Travel Area arrangement. Please read the student finance for EU students web page on www.gov.uk for information.

The fees for a student's course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.

For 2022-2023 entry, the maximum government approved undergraduate tuition fee for UK students is £9,250 per year. The University is able to charge this fee subject to an approved Access and Participation Plan for 2022-2023 and its current rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework.

Bursaries

Click here for more information about the scholarships and bursaries available to University of Bolton students.

For details of how to apply for this course, please choose your status from the options below:

You may apply directly to the University using the University's online application form. Please select your chosen start date from the list below:

You should have to hand:

Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
Details of any employment history including name, address, dates and role
Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
Details including e-mail addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference

Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.

Please ensure your data is correct at each stage of the application before you proceed to the next page. If you use the back button at any time during the application, you should check the validity of the data you have already input.

If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or admissions@bolton.ac.uk

Apply online: University of Bolton BA (Hons) Film and Media Production Top-up - 25 September 2023

International applications are not possible for this course

As an international student you are not allowed to study this course because of the restrictions on your visa.

We offer a wide range of full-time courses in lots of different subjects, many of our courses start in September and January. If you would like to see what courses are available please visit our Course Search.

University of Bolton Group Partners

Bolton College
University Collegiate School
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University of Bolton

For valued members of the University of Bolton Group and progressing students, we try to make our application process as simple and as fast as possible.

By selecting the link for your chosen course from the list shown below, you will be taken directly to our online application form. Please read the user guidance before completing this, and ensure you upload all supporting documents such as certificates and your personal statement when you apply.

When you are asked to add a contact email address, please ensure you add your college/university email account address as well as your personal address. If you do not add your college address as your contact address, we will be unable to identify you as a partner and offer you the benefits of being part of our group.

If you are ready to apply directly, please select your chosen start date from the list below.

Before applying, please read the entry requirements section of this page.

If your course runs at multiple locations or has various start dates, please be sure to select the correct application link from the list below.

Before beginning your application, you should have the following information to hand:

Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
Details of any employment history, including name, address, dates and role
Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
Details including email addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference

Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.

If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Undergraduate Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or UGadmissions@bolton.ac.uk

Apply online: University of Bolton BA (Hons) Film and Media Production Top-up - 25 September 2023

We look forward to receiving your application and you continuing your academic journey with us!

Much of the work involved in this course is based around practical media projects. You’ll be expected to create different types of content as well as write essays, presentations and pitches. Some online course activities are student-generated and controlled to resemble the practices you are likely to encounter in the media industries.

We place emphasis on group work, activity-based assignments, workshops, demonstrations, projects and guided independent study. Some of the modules will be delivered in a more conventional way through classes, lectures and presentations. You’ll be taught by tutors who have extensive industry experience, and by specialist guest lecturers.

You’ll also be expected to devote a significant amount of time to independent study, and our online resources will assist you with this. Assignments will require time outside of lessons to complete. Work-based learning is a key element of the course, and the completion of industry briefs and professional quality work are designed to ensure you are ready for employment when you graduate.

There are no examinations. All assessment is through coursework. You can expect formative assessment to help you learn and develop your knowledge and skills and summative assessment on which you’ll be graded. Your summative assessment briefs will contain tasks such as making films, writing essays and reports, writing scripts and outlines, giving presentations and pitches, carrying out practical exercises and work-placements (if you have no prior experience).

Modules

The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.

Pre Production Research and Planning
Major Project
Contextualising Theory
Professional Practice
Short-form Commission
Industry Experience

Assessment methods

Level	Assesment method
Level one	Coursework 82%, Practical exams 18%

Learning activities

Level	Learning activity
Level one	Guided independent study 72%, Scheduled learning and teaching activities 28%

Disclaimer

The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.