With the BBC's move to MediaCity in Salford, this is a time of potentially immense and significant change to the northern media landscape and this course aims to provide students with a range of creative, practical and critical skills that they can apply within and beyond the developing Television Industry.
Why study this course?
Do you enjoy a diverse range of challenges, have a knack for writing, or a visual imagination; perhaps you tell a good story? If you look forward to meeting different kinds of people every day - and getting on with them, travelling, working to deadlines, thinking on your feet, problem solving, have a limitless capacity for ideas and infinite patience, then Television Production may be for you.
The media are increasingly central to both the national economy and our understanding of modern life. TV, radio, cinema, newspapers and the Internet are not only agencies and means of communication, but they influence our ideas about the world and our place in it. Media studies graduates gain from an important mix of academic and practical learning which equips them to deal with fast-changing environments, not only at work but also in their everyday experiences.
There are no clear or traditional career paths into the media and there is fierce competition to gain entry to what is seen as a glamorous career. Television is exciting and interesting, but also extremely hard work with no fixed pattern of working hours or continuity of employment. A degree in Television Production isn't a passport into that world, but it is a start.
Features:
The balance between the practical and academic learning is the central strength of the programme here at the Warrington campus. We aim to produce ‘critical practitioners' and students are encouraged to view the synergy of theory and practice as highly relevant to their own production work, and to relate the study and analysis of other forms to their own creative development.
The Department of Media continues to benefit from its links with broadcasters and content providers of regional, national and international reputation, and through its range of programmes is developing further formal relationships with a range of media content providers. Warrington students enjoy a reputation for professionalism and hard work when they undertake work placement studies.
Television Production at Warrington is not a training course - we emphasise the balance between academic skills and practical studies because we believe it is essential for students to become ‘thinking practitioners'. Television Production offers the opportunity to develop a combination of knowledge and skills which may well provide an employer with the qualities they require, but which also equips the student with the capacity for independent thought and action which will enable them to survive in a competitive environment.
Students are offered access to a range of skills and equipment in order to produce practical and written work. In Television Production this may range from camera, sound, lighting and editing tuition, to writing treatments and scripts. Students will undertake practical work in a variety of environments - single camera factual/documentary, television studio and even small scale drama production. Such skills cannot solely be acquired in the classroom and after a series of intensive workshops, students are encouraged to develop their skills further on their own initiative.
Students are offered access to facilities on a 24 hour, 7 day a week basis, provided they have achieved certain standards in both individual and team work, and demonstrate the ability to take responsibility.
Hand in hand with the practical studies involved, students will undertake a range of academic modules, which aim to develop awareness of the social and cultural issues involved in working with communications media. This will involve a combination of modules that enable students to pursue their own interests, as well as gaining a grounding in the essential issues and debates centred on the media. At Level 6 (Year 3), the student is encouraged to study particular areas in more depth.
Single Honours Television Production and Media Studies
Level 4 (Year 1)
Core modules include:
- TV Studies 1: Elements of Factual Production
- TV Studies 2: Elements of Drama Production
- Media Texts in Context
- Power, Persuasion and the Media
Level 5 (Year 2)
Core modules include:
- TV Studies 3: Broadcast Content
- Academic Research Methods
- Understanding Media Organisations
- Work Based Learning
Level 6 (Year 3)
Students choose from a range of core and optional modules which include:
- TV Studies 4: Broadcast Documentary
- TV Studies 5: Non-Broadcast Video
- Media Dissertation
- Analysing Documentary
- Reading the News
- Working in the Media
Across all of our programmes, we adopt a mixture of formative and summative assessment, which means assignments will range from creative tasks undertaken on students' own initiative, formal written exams and essays, formal and informal presentations, to taking part in feedback sessions with staff and other students.
These take place at various intervals throughout the course and not solely at traditional exam periods. Most practical television production is assessed through coursework and on the basis of individual contribution to team and group-based work.
On a practical footing, media studies graduates are often enterprising self-starters who gain a wide range of jobs inside and outside the media. While some of our graduates go straight into employment in the media industries, many more utilise the key transferable skills in organisation, self-motivation, analysis, problem solving and communication which fit them for the wider job market.
Though it has to be emphasised that there is no longer such a thing as a guaranteed ‘job for life' in the media sector, which is now highly decentralised and consists mainly of contract and freelance employees, students have gone on to work successfully across a range of specific media positions including researchers, camera operators, journalists, directors, editors and technicians.
TV Production and Media Studies (Single Honours)
| UCAS points: |
A minimum of 260-300 UCAS points from GCE A Levels or equivalent |
| BTEC: |
BTEC National Diploma/Certificate: merit/distinction profile |
| Irish/Scottish Highers: |
B in 4 subjects |
| International Baccalaureate: |
28 points |
| QAA: |
QAA recognised Access to HE Diploma, Open College Units or Open University Credits |
| OCR: |
OCR National Extended/Diploma: merit/distinction profile |
| Extra Information: |
The Advanced Diploma: acceptable on its own
Welsh Baccalaureate (core) will be recognised in our tariff offer
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