Film and Screen Production MA

University of Derby

This practical MA has three pathways in Film, Documentary and Scriptwriting, so you can focus on what you’re passionate about. You'll join a diverse range of students with interesting stories to tell in a supportive and creative community.

You can choose to specialise in film-making, documentary-making or scriptwriting, and under the mentorship of your tutors, you will gradually build the practical, aesthetic and technical skills needed to develop an original creative project. This could be a short film or documentary, or a script for a full-length film, television series, or play.

This MA also ensures you build up the commercial awareness and interpersonal skills you will need to succeed in the industry. For instance, we’ll cover pitching technique and how to articulate and sell your ideas.

You will explore the wider, more complex problems posed by content production as well, and develop theoretical understanding so you can appreciate the context (historical, social, commercial, environmental, international) of your own and others’ creative work.

Throughout this MA, you will get the opportunity to engage with industry professionals. Your tutors are high-profile film-makers and scriptwriters in their own right, and they use their connections to ensure you benefit from masterclasses and Q&As with other prominent directors, writers and producers.

If your interests are in research and academia, you can choose to undertake an advanced research project instead of the creative project. For this, you will conduct a major, extended, in-depth critical review of the theoretical and historical dimensions of your practice. This can be good preparation for further study, such as practice-based doctoral research.