Media and film studies

Analysing Film: Forms and Contexts

Module code: P5047
Level 4
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop, Seminar, Lecture, Film
Assessment modes: Essay, Report

Take a closer look. This module provides the key skills in close textual analysis that you’ll need throughout your degree. Using a range of contemporary film examples, you’ll consider how filmmakers create meaning.

Each week, you’ll consider a particular example of formal expression, gradually building to consider how each element works together to create meaning. 

You’ll discover a range of academic study skills, and experiment with different techniques in:

• note-making
• close reading
• referencing.

This module will leave you well-placed to study genre, history and world cinema throughout the rest of your degree.

Module learning outcomes

• Identify and accurately describe a range of filmic methods of story-telling and audio-visual techniques of expression, at an appropriate introductory level
• Deploy the above concepts in the critical analysis of the meanings, impacts and affects generated in selected film sequences, at an appropriate introductory level.
• Engage with relevant scholarship and form structured and coherent written arguments at an appropriate introductory level.
• Employ multimedia elements in the critical analysis of film.
• Develop a range of academic study skills, and a reflective approach to their academic practice.