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Study information

Programme Specification for the 2023/4 academic year

BA (Hons) Drama and Film & Television Studies with Employment Experience Abroad

1. Programme Details

Programme nameBA (Hons) Drama and Film & Television Studies with Employment Experience Abroad Programme codeUFA4DRAEGL03
Study mode(s)Part Time
Academic year2023/4
Campus(es)Streatham (Exeter)
NQF Level of the Final Award6 (Honours)

2. Description of the Programme

The BA Drama and Film & Television Studies at the University of Exeter is a challenging and flexible degree that builds on two internationally-renowned centres of excellence in research, teaching and practice. Our teaching grows out of our wide-ranging, world-leading research and we provide a supportive and high-quality environment for learning. The programme provides you with a sense of the range and variety of textual, performance-based, filmic and televisual work, introduces you to theoretical approaches that enable you to engage critically with theatre, film and television in their historical and cultural contexts, and develops your imaginative and practical engagement with the art-forms.

Drama modules are taught by staff with expertise in theatre, drama, and performance theory from classical antiquity to the present-day, and in practice fields including acting, directing, scriptwriting, voice, applied theatre, live art, digital theatre-crafts, puppetry, dance, and intercultural performance training.

Film & Television Studies offers the opportunity to study an exciting range of film and television from different periods and international contexts; you will watch films from American, European, and other World cinemas, as well as learning about the trends and technologies of television. You will gain a deep and wide ranging knowledge of film and television as cultural, social, industrial and global phenomena and familiarity with different conceptual and theoretical approaches to them. The range of material studied will equip you to understand the complex histories of these media as well as how important issues of cultural difference are raised through them, giving you the tools and vocabulary to take a questioning attitude to your own media culture. We encourage you to make the most of the facilities available to broaden and enhance your study of film, not just on campus and in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum but also through the lively film culture (art-house cinema, media facilities) in the city itself.

The programme covers a wide range of material allowing you to develop and follow your own interests with the provision of modules by active researchers who are at the forefront of their respective fields.

This programme is studied over four years. The first two years and the final year are university-based, and the third year is spent gaining employment experience at a suitable location abroad.

This Employment Experience Abroad variant of the programme is a great way to incorporate graduate-level work placement or placements undertaken outside of the United Kingdom directly into your programme of study, to reflect critically upon these experiences, and for them to count towards the assessment of your degree. There is no better way to gain valuable employment experience that can be rewarded and recognised clearly by future employers. With preparation, support and approval from the College of Humanities, including in foreign languages if required, you can also demonstrate adaptability and resourcefulness by organising suitable placements in areas of employment related to your interests and potential future career. This variant of the programme also provides a great way to demonstrate to employers your adaptability, cultural awareness, independence and resourcefulness. Experiencing the differences and similarities of education and people in another culture will increase your confidence and broaden the ways in which you see and relate to the world and the world of work.

You are required to find your own placement with suitable employers and organisations with preparation, support and approval from the College of Humanities. If you are taking this variant you are strongly encouraged to take HUM2000 or HUM2001 (Humanities in the Workplace) at stage 2 and must participate in the pre-departure briefing sessions for Humanities Employment Experience Abroad.

Advice and guidance on your programme can be sought from your personal tutor and programme director. All staff offer regular office hours that you can drop into without a prior appointment for this purpose.

3. Educational Aims of the Programme

The BA Drama and Film & Television Studies aims to:

  • create an environment for scholarship and learning in which the stimulus for independent study is provided by an interest in and involvement with each discipline’s past, present and future potential.
  • involve you in a wide range of learning with broad coverage, content, and methodology.
  • create a genuine curiosity about each discipline and to recognise that this curiosity has to be grounded in engagement with the practice and analysis of the specific discipline.
  • promote a sense of the complex social, cultural, and aesthetic interactions between the production and reception of scripted, performance-based, filmic and televisual works.
  • foster in you, an appetite for, and skills to make, effective drama.
  • enable you to develop a high level of awareness, collaboration and co-operation in group activity.
  • develop a clear sense of the interdependent relationship between theory/criticism and practice.  
  • provide a basis for further study in Drama, Film, Television, or related disciplines, and for teachers of Drama, Film and Television at all levels.
  • develop a range of subject specific, academic and transferable skills, including high order conceptual literacy and communication skills, and those based on social interaction and communication.
  • enable and encourage you to engage with current critical and theoretical debates relating to film and television

4. Programme Structure

5. Programme Modules

The following tables describe the programme and constituent modules. Constituent modules may be updated, deleted or replaced as a consequence of the annual programme review of this programme.

http://intranet.exeter.ac.uk/humanities/studying/undergraduates/modules/

In each stage you will take 60 credits’ worth of Drama modules and 60 credits’ worth of Film & Television modules.

You may take optional modules as long as any necessary prerequisites have been satisfied, where the timetable allows and if you have not already taken the module in question or an equivalent module.

You may take elective modules up to 30 credits outside of the programme in the second and final stages as long as any necessary prerequisites have been satisfied, where the timetable allows and if you have not already taken the module in question or an equivalent module. 

Stage 1


60 credits of compulsory Drama modules and 60 credits of compulsory Film Studies modules

Compulsory Modules

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
DRA1016 Performance Analysis 30No
DRA1018 The Creative Actor 30No
EAF1501 Major Debates in Film Theory 30No
EAF1506 Interrogating Screens 30No
HAS1905 Employment Experience HASS 0No

Stage 2


60 credits of optional Drama modules, and 60 credits of optional Film Studies modules.

 

Compulsory Modules

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
HAS2905 Employment Experience HASS 0No

Optional Modules

Subject to choosing 120 credits for the stage overall, you must:

b select 30-60 credits from this list of Drama modules - students can only take one 30-credit seminar module and one 30-credit practice module

c select 30-60 credits from this list of Film Studies modules.

d select 0-30 credits from this list Humanities in the Workplace modules.

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
DRA Stage 2 Option Modules 2023-4 [See note b]
DRA2026 Applied Drama: Interactive Theatre 30 No
DRA2028 Performance and Participation 30 No
DRA2044 Acting Shakespeare 30 No
DRA2045 Theatre and Health 30 No
DRA2047 Interpretive Acting 30 No
DRA2061B Digital Theatrecrafts 30 No
DRA2071 Adaptation in Contemporary Theatre and Performance 30 No
DRA2072 Culture in / as Performance 30 No
DRA2083 Intermedial Performance Practice 30 No
DRA2087 Activism and Performance 30 No
DRA2092 Modernist Drama in Contemporary Theatre 30 No
DRA2104 Approaches to Comedy 30 No
DRA2105 Eco-Theatre: Outdoor and Immersive Performance 30 No
DRA2106 Theatres of Space, Form and Colour 30 No
DRA2107 Popular Performance Practices 30 No
DRA2108 Introduction to Creative Producing: Making Change and Shifting Cultures 30 No
DRA2109 Ensemble Acting: Co-Creation 30 No
FTVS Stage 2 CH option modules 2023-4 [See note c]
EAF2500 European Cinemas: Art, Industry, Entertainment 15 No
EAF2502 Shots in the Dark 30 No
EAF2508 Cinescapes: Time, Space and Identity 30 No
EAF2510 Adaptation: Text, Image, Culture 30 No
EAF2511 Television: Times, Trends and Technologies 30 No
EAF2512 European Cinemas: Art, Industry, Entertainment 30 No
HUM HUM2000-HUM2001 [See note d]
HUM2000 Humanities in the Workplace 30 No
HUM2001 Humanities in the Workplace 15 No

Stage 3


120 credits of compulsory modules

Compulsory Modules

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
HUM3997 Employment Experience Abroad 120Yes

Stage 4


0-30 credits of compulsory Film Studies modules, 0-30 credits of compulsory Drama modules, 30-60 credits of optional Film Studies modules, and 30-60 credits of optional Drama modules.

Compulsory Modules

Subject to choosing 120 credits for the stage overall, you must:

e select a Dissertation in either Drama or Film Studies: DRA3094 or EAF3514 or EAF3516 (you cannot choose more than one module from this group).

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
DRA3094 Theatre Dissertation [See note e]30No
FTVS EAF3514-EAF3516 [See note e]
EAF3514 Film Studies Dissertation 30 No
EAF3516 Creative Film Dissertation 30 No

Optional Modules

f select 30-60 credits from this list of Drama modules. If you select EAF3514 or EAF3516 as your Dissertation, you must select 60 credits of options from the Drama list.

g select 30-60 credits from this list of Film Studies modules. If you select DRA3094 as your Dissertation, you must select 60 credits of options from the Film Studies modules list.

CodeModule Credits Non-condonable?
FTVS Final Stage CH option modules 2023-4 [See note g]
EAF3501 American Independent Film 30 No
EAF3508 Beyond Sex and the City: Becoming a Woman in Western Cinema 30 No
EAF3513 British Screens 30 No
EAF3514 Film Studies Dissertation 30 No
EAF3515 Something to See: War and Visual Media 30 No
EAF3516 Creative Film Dissertation 30 No
EAF3518 Queering British Film and Television 30 No
EAF3520 Beyond Sex and the City: Becoming a Woman in Contemporary Western Cinema 15 No
EAF3521 Film Audiences 30 No

6. Programme Outcomes Linked to Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods

Intended Learning Outcomes
A: Specialised Subject Skills and Knowledge

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
On successfully completing this programme you will be able to:
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) will be...
...accommodated and facilitated by the following learning and teaching activities (in/out of class):...and evidenced by the following assessment methods:

1. Identify Drama and Film & Television Studies as broad subject disciplines.
2. Identify and evaluate the variety of approaches and critical traditions taken within the disciplines.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of recurring themes in the disciplines, evaluate key developments within a topic and relate them to an overall conception of the subject matter.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the distinctive character of texts produced in the principal genres and traditions across the historical range of Film & Television Studies and of the distinctive forms, practices, traditions, and practitioners of Drama and performance, and relate them with issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history.
5. Show knowledge of the dominant concepts, methods and debates informing the study of the discipline.
6. Appreciate and describe how texts and performances produce and reflect cultural change and difference.
7. Demonstrate knowledge of the cultural and socio-historic contexts in which the elements of the discipline have been produced, presented and consumed.
8. Apply critical terminology and, where appropriate, methodological, linguistic, stylistic, and/or formal terminology to an understanding of Drama and Film & Television; utilise appropriate bibliographical style.
9. Demonstrate comprehension, and creative and intelligent engagement with group and collective processes, and the processes by which creative outcomes and performances are generated and realised.

ILO’s 1-8 are acquired through lectures, seminars, workshops, studio-based sessions, rehearsals, study groups, tutorials and other learning activities throughout the programme. The degree of specialisation of subject knowledge increases during the programme, culminating in the dissertation and special subject modules. Modules in the final stage are most closely related to the research specialism of the staff teaching the module. The precise method of teaching varies according to each module. On team-taught modules you will normally engage in both lectures and seminar groups. In smaller options you will normally spend most of your contact time in seminar groups and workshops.

Your learning is further developed through engagement with assessments, following guidance from tutors and lecturers and through feedback on work submitted.

The assessment of these skills is through a combination of methods, which may include presentations, performance, and participation in seminars, log-books, web-based assessments, portfolios, essays, exams, other written reports/projects, and a dissertation. The assessment criteria pay full recognition to the importance of the various skills outlined.

Intended Learning Outcomes
B: Academic Discipline Core Skills and Knowledge

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
On successfully completing this programme you will be able to:
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) will be...
...accommodated and facilitated by the following learning and teaching activities (in/out of class):...and evidenced by the following assessment methods:

10. Draw thematic comparisons between materials from different sources.
11. Articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to Drama and Film & Television.
12. Apply critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts.
13. Engage creatively and critically with the possibilities for performance implied by a text or score and, as appropriate, to realise these sources sensitively through design and performance, and through a sensitive understanding of appropriate performance vocabularies, techniques, structures and working methods.
14. Communicate effectively in oral and written presentation, command a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terrminology.
15. Apply bibliographic skills appropriate to the discipline, including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of conventions in the presentation of scholarly work.

ILO’s 10-15 are developed throughout the programme in all modules, with the emphasis becoming more complex as students move from stage to stage. They are developed through lectures, seminars, and studio work; written work, and oral work (both in practical presentation and seminar discussion), and reinforced through the range of modules across all three stages. They will culminate in the substantial and independent research skills demonstrated within the dissertation and stage three modules.

The assessment of these skills is through a combination of methods, which may include presentations, performance, and participation in seminars, log-books, web-based assessments, portfolios, essays, exams, other written reports/projects, and a dissertation.

Intended Learning Outcomes
C: Personal/Transferable/Employment Skills and Knowledge

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
On successfully completing this programme you will be able to:
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) will be...
...accommodated and facilitated by the following learning and teaching activities (in/out of class):...and evidenced by the following assessment methods:

16. Apply advanced literacy and communication skills in appropriate contexts including the ability to present sustained and persuasive written and oral arguments.
17. Analyse and critically examine diverse forms of material, both textual and visual.
18. Acquire and interrelate substantial quantities of complex information of diverse kinds, in a structured and systematic way, and involving the use of the distinctive methodological and interpretative skills of the subject areas.
19. Acquire and interrelate substantial quantities of complex information of diverse kinds, in a structured and systematic way, and involving the use of the distinctive methodological and interpretative skills of the subject areas.
20. Interrogate and apply a variety of theoretical positions, and weigh the importance of alternative perspectives in a critical and self-reflective manner.
21. Exercise independent thought and judgment.
22. Engage with others through the presentation of ideas and information in groups, and work towards the collective negotiation of solutions.
23. Plan and execute written and other forms of project-work over both short and long timescales.
24. Complete tasks under time-constrained conditions and effectively manage deadlines and targets.
25. Employ information-technology skills, including the ability to access and assess electronic data via the internet and through other forms of interactive media.
26. Adapt and transfer the critical methods of the disciplines into unfamiliar contexts, including a variety of working environments.

Personal and key skills are delivered through all modules, and developed in lectures, workshops, study groups, tutorials, work experience and other learning activities throughout the programme.

The assessment of these skills is through a combination of methods, which may include presentations, performance, and participation in seminars, log-books, web-based assessments, portfolios, essays, exams, other written reports/projects, and a dissertation.

ILO’s 16 -21 are also strongly developed in the course of the assessed essays and other written work produced through all stages. These assessments work on the principle of offering formative feedback to support the development of your written work within as well as between modules. Feedback on one assignment is intended to inform the next piece of work you undertake on the module; the next piece of work on the programme, or the future learning of graduates.

ILO 22 is associated especially with the range of group presentations, performances, studio-based sessions and practical tasks taking place in modules during all three levels. Group presentation assessment brings into focus an important range of skills for students, including sharing workloads, responsibility for tasks, team-working, collaborative and communicative skills. Individual contributions to group work are also assessed individually, most often in the form of a reflective presentation report or reflective portfolio.

ILO’s 23-25 are also accomplished in the course of ‘real-time’ formal assessments such as presentations, performances, and end of module exams, which occur in all three levels of the programme.

ILO 26 is particularly related to the optional module ‘Humanities in the Workplace’, and to the range of work conducted in the field beyond the University.

7. Programme Regulations

Programme-specific Progression Rules

To progress to Stage 2 you must also achieve an average mark of at least 50% in Stage 1, otherwise you will be required to transfer to the relevant three-year programme. This is to ensure that only those students who are likely to succeed in their Employment Experience Year Abroad are selected.

HUM3997 Employment Experience Abroad counts as a single 120-credit module and is not condonable; you must pass this module to graduate with the degree title of BA Drama and film & Television Studies with Employment Experience Abroad. If you fail the Employment Experience your degree title will be commuted to BA Drama and Film & Television Studies.

Classification

Full details of assessment regulations for all taught programmes can be found in the TQA Manual, specifically in the Credit and Qualifications Framework, and the Assessment, Progression and Awarding: Taught Programmes Handbook. Additional information, including Generic Marking Criteria, can be found in the Learning and Teaching Support Handbook.

8. College Support for Students and Students' Learning

All students in Drama and Film & Television Studies have a personal tutor for their entire programme of study who is available at advertised ‘office hours’ (staff changes are likely due to Research Leave etc.). There are induction sessions to orientate students at the start of their programme. A personal tutoring system will operate with regular communication throughout the programme. Academic support will be also be provided by module leaders. You can also make an appointment to see individual teaching staff.

Programme handbooks and other useful information can be accessed via the student intranet: http://intranet.exeter.ac.uk/humanities/studying/taughthandbook/ .

Other useful information and student resources can be accessed via the Exeter Learning Environment (ELE): http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/login/index.php which has specific information on library skills, essay writing and research skills.

9. University Support for Students and Students' Learning

Please refer to the University Academic Policy and Standards guidelines regarding support for students and students' learning.

10. Admissions Criteria

Undergraduate applicants must satisfy the Undergraduate Admissions Policy of the University of Exeter.

Postgraduate applicants must satisfy the Postgraduate Admissions Policy of the University of Exeter.

Specific requirements required to enrol on this programme are available at the respective Undergraduate or Postgraduate Study Site webpages.

11. Regulation of Assessment and Academic Standards

Each academic programme in the University is subject to an agreed College assessment and marking strategy, underpinned by institution-wide assessment procedures.

The security of assessment and academic standards is further supported through the appointment of External Examiners for each programme. External Examiners have access to draft papers, course work and examination scripts. They are required to attend the Board of Examiners and to provide an annual report. Annual External Examiner reports are monitored at both College and University level. Their responsibilities are described in the University's code of practice. See the University's TQA Manual for details.

(Quality Review Framework.

14. Awarding Institution

University of Exeter

15. Lead College / Teaching Institution

Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS)

16. Partner College / Institution

Partner College(s)

Not applicable to this programme

Partner Institution

Not applicable to this programme.

17. Programme Accredited / Validated by

0

18. Final Award

BA (Hons) Drama and Film & Television Studies with Employment Experience Abroad

19. UCAS Code

W407

20. NQF Level of Final Award

6 (Honours)

21. Credit

CATS credits

480

ECTS credits

240

22. QAA Subject Benchmarking Group

[Honours] Dance, drama and performance

23. Dates

Origin Date

20/05/2019

Date of last revision

09/08/2022