Media Production BA (Hons)

Some optional modules may be studied on the Clifton campus.

Core modules:

Media Techniques 2

Building on your prior knowledge and skills, this module presents a series of practical challenges designed to hone your craft skills in media production. A series of mini-briefs in areas such as camera operation, sound design, production design, directing, and post-production will enhance your skillset in preparation for larger scale productions in the future.

Branding for Media Production

This module focuses on the development and production of brand assets and treatment in contemporary media production. It gives you the opportunity to produce a portfolio of varied visual and interactive material in support of a brand. Building on your existing technical skills, you will be encouraged to use new and advanced software features in production of branding assets and will be introduced to new areas of exploration to enhance your portfolio and CV.

Media in the Workplace: Experiencing Work

This module focuses on self-employment, entrepreneurship and your potential future career. Seminar and workshop exercises will enable you to plan for your future career and build a career development portfolio. In the second half of the module you’ll undertake a work experience placement.

Optional pathways

Pathway 1: Extended work-like experience

Get the experience you need for after you graduate, and really understand how the things you study translate into the world of work with a work placement. Your highly experienced Employability Team will help you find a placement to suit your career goals from our huge network of companies, charities, institutions, and beyond.

Pathway 2: An international exchange

Travel the world, meet new friends, and have experiences you will remember for the rest of your life.

Our flexible curriculum has been designed to allow some amazing opportunities for you. Your second year of study is divided into two semesters, giving you the opportunity to take part in an international exchange. You could study with one of international exchange partners in Australia, Europe, USA, Canada, Thailand and many, many more.

Our dedicated team will support you in finding and arranging a suitable exchange. And don't worry about the cost, they will help you apply for any grants or loans you may need, as no one should miss out on the chance to broaden their horizons.

Learn a new language

The University Language Programme (ULP) gives you the option of learning a totally new language or improving the skills you already have. Learning a new language can enhance your communication skills, enrich your experience when travelling abroad and boost your career prospects. Find out more about the University Language Programme.

Pathway 3: Taught modules

Creative Documentary

This module will encourage you to examine the key critical issues of documentary production such as authenticity and ethics. To prepare you for your dissertation in Year Three, you'll create a 5-10 minute documentary as a group (or individually) and be encouraged to creatively and critically engage with the given styles and genres of documentary.

Short Film Production and Exhibition

Enhance your production skills through the creation of a short film. You will use a range of equipment and practical craft techniques to your idea from creation, through professional planning, filming, and editing to promotion and festival entry. You will be supported in a variety of roles in your team with professional advice from practice-based academic tutors and our technical team.

Fictional Storytelling in Audio Production

This module offers you intermediate skills in audio design and production. A series of interactive classes will enable you to analyse how sound design can be used to construct genre, and create a sense of time and space. The expressive and emotive qualities of sound will be explored, as well as an understanding of how sound communicates with its audience. You will work in groups to write, record, edit and share an audio piece that includes elements such as dialogue, sound effects and music.

Talking Media: Arguing, Debating, Speaking, Performing

This module looks at argument, speech and debate within media forms (e.g. TED talks, panel shows, radio phone-ins, blogs and vlogs). Using examples from different forms, it examines both the format of media debates (e.g. issues of ‘balance’ and notions of a ‘centre’; questions of expertise; managing hostile, angry and heckling voices) and successful techniques for making an argument and ‘pitching’ ideas.

Some optional modules may be studied on the Clifton campus.

Core module:

Media Production Major Project

This module enables you to undertake a sustained, single piece of independently researched and produced production work on a subject of your choice, under the supervision of a tutor.  It allows you to build on, consolidate and refine advanced skills and interests in media production. Alongside the practical project and developmental work you will produce a critically reflective contextual essay that discusses your major project.

Client-Led Media Practice and Production

During this module you'll be able to focus on the development of skills in media production by completing a media project that will be set to a 'real brief'. This is an opportunity for you to enhance your employability options by participating in live projects with a real purpose. This module will encourage you to make connections between theory and practice.

Optional modules typically available include:

Non-fiction Storytelling in Audio Production

You will work in small production teams to write, record, edit and exhibit a piece of non- fiction audio, which can include elements such as presenting, interviewing, music and soundscape.

Experimental Media Production

Explore a different perspective on creating and producing media content. Explore how film, video, photography and sound can be generated through non-traditional and experimental processes. You will have the opportunity to produce a portfolio of audio-visual pieces, which complement your work in other areas of the course.

Getting Noticed: Media Production Futures

Getting Noticed is a negotiated module where you will work as a team to develop, execute and review a self and community promoting event. Through collaboration with appropriate stakeholders and fellow students you will devise supporting marketing materials, gather funding and deliver a celebratory showcase event.

Media Production and Tourism

This module enables students to explore and analyse media representations of tourism by the tourist industry and in popular culture such as film and TV. The module provides an historical, theoretical, and critical overview of the major debates which relate media and tourism. The 'gazes' theorised in the disciplines of media consumption and tourism studies are examined and compared, and the role media plays in terms of global access is explored.

You will demonstrate your skills and understanding in this field by working on your own media and tourism production. Clients that NTU have worked with previously include Nottingham City Council, Nottingham County Council and the National Trust.

Media in the Workplace: Becoming Career Ready

This module focuses on becoming career ready. It will focus on a broad range of careers (not just those in the media and creative sector). The module will give you the opportunity to start your careers search and it aims to give you some of the practical skills, knowledge and tools to equip you for beginning that search and becoming career ready.

The Body and Popular Culture

How is the body represented in popular culture? Examine key ideas such as how we might understand the various meanings surrounding the body across a range of media and cultural forms. By studying a selection of case studies, you'll explore the way that the body is addressed and located within popular culture, for example, from music to sport.

Lifestyle and Consumer Culture

Explore key approaches to understanding lifestyle and the culture of consumption. You'll be introduced to many important theoretical approaches to understand lifestyle and consumer culture and you'll use many case studies such as travel and tourism to evaluate these.

Cultural Policy

Explore a range of debates within the developing field of policy study, which relate to the development of media. You'll examine some of the key institutions within which policies relating to film, television, the visual arts, heritage and other creative industries are determined. You'll explore questions such as: what is cultural value and how important are the cultural and creative industries?

DJ Cultures: History, Theory and Technique

From obscure roots, the art of DJing has in recent decades exploded into the limelight as a major form of popular culture. No prior experience of DJing is required to take this module, which combines a basic ‘taster’ introduction to DJ technology and the practical techniques of DJ performance with a theoretical consideration of various styles of DJing, their histories, their related musical experiences and their wider cultural significance and influence.