English with Film Studies (Q3W6)

This degree allows you to pursue an interest in Film Studies alongside the study of English Literature. It encourages you to view films and film-making from both a critical perspective and from an industry viewpoint. There will be an opportunity to develop skills in writing and practical film making, as well as in film theory and history.

You will have about 2 hours' contact time per course per week, plus screenings (we have a large-screen facility in our main lecture theatre). We place emphasis on small-group teaching. There is some practical work in film-making and in one module you will develop an original project as a script. In addition you will need to spend time viewing films in the library, completing creative exercises and compiling examples of film technique using the editing facilities. We arrange for a number of guest film speakers and film-makers to visit each year, and screen films students have made. We use a variety of assessment methods including 'take-home' exams and the team production of films.

English with Film Studies is taught by seminars and workshops. Two thirds of your courses will be chosen from those in English Literature.

First Year / Part One

In your first year, you must take a total of 120 credits, 40 credits of Film, 40 credits of English (the compulsory English modules: QXE1002 Textual Analysis and QXE1000 Critical Interpretations) the compulsory and other modules worth 40 credits (which could be taken in English, Creative Writing or American Literature and Culture, all of which are taught by staff in the department). For more information on the modules offered at part one, click here. Or, if you wish, you could sample courses, worth up to 40 credits, from other academic subjects e.g. History, Linguistics, Modern Languages, Psychology, Information Technology. To find out about part one modules in other departments, see the Gazette.

Compulsory Part One modules for Film Studies' students:

QXF1001 Introduction to Film History
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thick' (ie. taught in one semester), first-year module, compulsory for 'with Film' students, but open to all. It provides a selected introduction to American and European film history from its prehistory to the present, aiming to situate selected films (which are screened weekly) in their cultural and technological context. Topics will include: early cinema, German Expressionism, early Soviet cinema, the Hollywood studio system, the French New Wave, and contemporary cinema.

QXF1002 The Language of Film
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thick', first-year module, compulsory for 'with Film' students, but open to all. The module introduces you to the subject by taking the medium of film to be a language. The individual components of this language are analysed in detail. Lectures cover topics such as Film Narrative, Mise-en-Scene, Editing, The Camera, Music/Sound, and Acting Styles/Performance. Weekly Film screenings are used to illustrate relevant aspects of film language. A brief 'case study' of one genre or film-maker concludes the course. This module aims to provide you with a technical vocabulary to enable you to analyse and to discuss how films communicate meaning.

Second and Third Years / Part Two

In your second year you must take a total of 120 credits, 80 credits of English and 40 credits of Film, including the compulsory English module: QXE2022 Shakespeare, two Film modules (see below) and other modules worth 60 credits. It is impossible for a 'with film' student to take an 'elective' in another subject including those also taught within the English department, Creative Writing and American Literature and Culture.

All Film students study:

QXF2001 Film Theory / Film Culture
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thin' (i.e. taught across the whole year), second-year module. In the first semester the module investigates various approaches to cinema culture, building on the knowledge gained in the Part One film modules and developing analytical skills, to answer questions such as the following: What ideological functions has cinema served? How do we study popular culture and entertainment? What different interpretations have been given to the word "realism"? In the second semester, the module looks at more contemporary film theory, thinking about gender and sexuality.

QXF2002 Creative Writing and Production I
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thin' (ie. taught across the whole year), second-year module. In the first semester of this module you will study the practice of screen writing, and write a sequence of short film exercises building up to the production of a short script (maximum 15 pages) demonstrating an understanding of the tools of screenwriting discussed and worked upon in class. In the second semester you will produce three integrated pieces of work designed to illustrate your understanding of a range of concepts in film theory and film practice. The three pieces of work will be a proposal for a ten to twelve-minute video, explaining the rationale behind the project; the video itself, produced in collaboration with other students in your group; and a written report on the video, explaining the concepts in film language, history or theory that your exercise is designed to illustrate, and outlining any practical problems encountered in the process of making the piece.

For the remaining 80 credits, Students must choose a minimum of 20 credits from each of the sets A and B:

•    A QXE2022 Shakespeare
•    A QXE2003 Jonson to Johnson
•    A QXE2010 Writing the Renaissance
•    A QXE2101 Medieval Literature
•    B QXE2004 Romanticism
•    B QXE2005 Victorian Literature
•    B QXE2006 Early Twentieth Century Literature
•    B QXE2007 Late Twentieth Century Literature

For more information on the modules offered at level two, click here.

Third Year

In the third year you must take a total of 120 credits, 80 credits of English and 40 credits of Film. A dissertation is not compulsory but if you wish to take a dissertation module you can choose to take the 40 credit English Dissertation; the Film/ English Dissertation, which takes 20 credits from your English and 20 credits from your Film studies; or the 20 credit Film Special Project, which is taught in only one semester, though which semester you take it in is up to you. To find out more about modules offered in the English Department in the third year, click here.

Film students choose two courses from the following (the modules offered in a particular year depends upon the staff available):

QXF3004 The Films of Alfred Hitchcock
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thick', third-year module. Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps the most notable example of a director whose films are popular both with audiences and with critics seeking to establish the credibility of film as an art form. This module will allow you to test theories of authorship, while focusing your study of film theory and film practice onto a group of core, 'classic' works. You will view many of Hitchcock's available films, and read extensively but selectively in the secondary literature. The seminars will consolidate your understanding of Hitchcock in general, but also aim to encourage both a theoretical approach to the study of film texts, and a synthetic and critical approach to problems in film theory.

QXE3076 Screening the Renaissance
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thick', third-year module, which is also available to English students. Our new medium, film, is as fascinated by the concept 'the Renaissance' as its own brand new medium, theatre. Why? A century ago we admired it as the period when an individual fashioned himself as a perfect courtier, warrior, scholar, or artist. Ten years ago we deprecated it as a time when the self was spoken by the discourses of power: gender, religion, rank, wealth. And now? This module studies how the artefact, the Renaissance self, is reflected on by our own visual genres: documentaries, biopics, edutainments, musicals, films of sixteenth-century drama, and contemporary films set in the period. It reflects on the historiographical, aesthetic, and cultural discourses making up the concept of the Renaissance in twentieth-century visual representations

QXP3007 Writing and Production II
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thick', third-year module, which builds on the Level 2 QXF2002 Creative Writing and Production I module. It involves the writing of a script, with accompanying treatment plan, pitch, scene breakdown and schedules. Also involved is the production of pieces of film as a member of the production team.

Want to know more?

Contact:
Dr Steven Price
Department of English
Bangor University
Bangor, Gwynedd
LL57 2DG, UK

Phone/fax: +44 (0)1248 382102
Email: els024@bangor.ac.uk