Directing Fiction

This module offers new directors the opportunity to develop a single camera studio skillset. This module is devised to give students a strong basis in Directing upon which to build their skills as they progress though the programme.

This module investigates how the moving image is read from a variety of vantage points. It offers a critical, contextual, historical and theoretical approach to films, citing the work of significant practitioners, to illuminate the crafting of narrative and visual storytelling. The aim is for this deep engagement with the medium to inform students’ understanding of their practice, and how their artistic choices shapes their work.

This module is dedicated to working with text, and the tools to understand the process of script analysis, in realising a vision for a story. To advance student director’s skill sets, the module will explore directing with multiple camera and the complex creative relationship and practical challenges that are thrown up by deep analysis, interpretation and the translation of the script to the screen. By addressing the layers of subtext, drama beats, character goals, performance, blocking, framing, lighting, sound and production design, students will be challenged to character goals, performance, blocking, framing, advance their visualisation skills and critical analysis of story.

This theory and practice module examines Directing, through the context of performance, by establishing a range of correspondences to the histories and traditions in which performance and storytelling composition. Students will examine a broad spectrum of performances, presented through the influences of other cultural disciplines, such as literature, theatre, and the dimension of physiological and sociological, (to better understand the dynamics of emotions, relationships and behaviours).

The Major Project requires students to apply their contextual, theoretical and practice-based learning to the development, production and completion of a moving image portfolio. It could be a single film, or a series of shorter pieces that students make, as a record of their development as critical practitioners in the role of a director. This is an opportunity to realise work that addresses an area of creative interest, relevant to students’ overarching professional aims, in becoming new entrant directors.