Film Production, BA

​​​Welcome to Film Production; the whole team look forward to meeting you!

​You will be required to be creative, well-organised, reliable, enthusiastic, and will work both independently and in teams. We will inspire you to learn, create, question, and ultimately succeed in developing your creativity as well as a range of skills.

​As part of your degree, you will be working with film production equipment from the very first week of teaching. Over the course of your first year, you will be introduced to a wide variety of different film production roles, including cinematography, directing, sound design, editing, and producing. It might be interesting for you, at this stage, to familiarise yourself with the various and wide-ranging roles found in the Film industry.

​This course is predominantly taught in face-to-face classes; these sessions will be where you will learn how to use specialist film equipment. Face-to-face classes will be enhanced with the online resources available on your module virtual learning environment (Blackboard) pages. Additionally, during welcome week you will meet your Personal Academic Tutor (PAT) who will be your main point of contact for any questions or concerns you may have during your studies.

​The staff and students on the degree are part of a wider community of creative practitioners in Canterbury Christ Church University, this includes performers, composers, producers, game designers, photographers, and dancers. We hope that you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to gain inspiration from this diverse community and expand and enhance your own creative practice.

​Follow us on Instagram: @cccu_film

T​o get yourself ready for September, do watch as many different films and other media as you can, whether in the cinema, on television, or on streaming sites. Start to consider different genres and try to watch, and challenge yourself, by viewing films you would not usually choose. When watching, you should also be thinking about making films, and can even start right now, whether on your own phone, DSLR (stills camera) or video equipment.

If you don’t know Canterbury, do familiarise yourself with the city and check out the local cinemas, including the Curzon (we now have two) and the Gulbenkian. Make sure you get a student discount card and keep an eye out for information about the Film Production society (run by students from the Film Production course).

A good place to look at film reviews is the Guardian's website; these come out on a Friday. Mark Kermode also does film reviews on his podcast show (with reviews also uploaded to YouTube) and there are many independent film critiques on other sites; focus on those that offer evidence from the film to support their ideas. Some film websites and publications do have subscriptions - it's a good chance to look for student discounts.

It's also important to think about short films; this is the format that you will make with us and also one of the most common ways to get started in the industry. Please also look at websites such as Screenskills, BAFTA and Kent Film Office as they are a great way of finding out what's going on locally and nationally, you could also start to follow key film figures on social media.

During the semester we recommend that you check your university email every day as this is the main place where tutors will contact you. Your email inbox is also where you will be sent news about exciting opportunities as well as information about events that are happening around the campus.​

The text recommendations below are an excellent introduction to Film and can be used for many of the modules, but please note that there is no requirement to purchase every book you require for your studies as the University library has a very good selection of course books which gets updated every year.

• ​​Bordwell, D. & Thompson, K., Smith, J., (2026). Film Art: An Introduction. 13th ed. McGraw-Hill.

• ​Cook, P., (2019) The Cinema Book. 3rd Ed. BFI.