Digital Documentaries MA

Cardiff University

Our documentary programme integrates both the theory and practice of documentary production, giving you the opportunity to turn your ideas into innovative films for a variety of audiences.

Documentaries are a vital, successful and constantly evolving media with an ever-growing number of places where they are screened, broadcast and streamed.

With us, you'll be trained in the craft and technical aspects of filmmaking, producing films of integrity and importance.

Hands-on film making

Intensive practical workshops, group sessions and one-to-one guidance will help you locate subjects and stories that matter to you, find a method of making and a mode of encounter with your subject, develop distinct shooting and editing strategies, and evolve your own unique visual language.

On this degree you’ll gain a range of skills including:

• Producing, directing, camera, sound and editing.
• Learning how to communicate imaginatively through the moving image.
• Researching and writing original non-fiction film.
• Developing visual storytelling.
• Shooting and editing.
• Project management, scheduling, budgeting, distributing and fund-raising.

We’ll train you to be an all-rounder, with valuable expertise in directing, production managing, camera operating, recording sound, editing, and pitching your projects to funders and promoting your films to festivals.

The best documentaries are driven by passion

We support all types of filmmaking, including campaigning and issue-led films, long-form investigative documentaries, observational and character pieces, experimental films and documentaries about the environment.

In the final Master’s degree project, you'll be able to present either a long form documentary or a portfolio of shorter pieces of work for different platforms and digital media.

You'll also have the unique chance to work with a mentor from the creative industry, to pitch your idea to them, receive feedback in the making of your film to engage with the documentary industry and improve your CV.

You’ll be taught by the best

Our teaching is informed by practice and academic rigour. Our internationally leading faculty consists of academics and programme makers who are at the forefront of knowledge within their field.

The programme’s tutors have worked in the BBC and internationally, combining a unique breadth of knowledge of both academia and the industry.