BA Film & Theatre

Pursue your love of making and thinking about film and theatre – two major cultural industries in the UK – with our BA Film & Theatre course. 

Develop your own creative confidence and voice through experimentation and exploration in the Minghella Studios, a dynamic, collaborative environment in which film, theatre and television makers in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television work with and alongside each other.

Film, theatre and TV shape the world around us and have the power to change minds. The creative arts are recognised by audiences, creators, and policymakers as powerful areas for economic growth, cultural debate and rights advocacy. In this degree, you’ll examine the cultural impact, cultural legacies and digital futures of these art forms, studying a diverse and international range of practices – from the mainstream to radical and experimental works – and the contexts from which they emerge. 

Your practical work will be informed by the critical study of film and theatre, with the opportunity to also engage with TV. The aim is to enable you to specialise in your developing creative interests. You’ll experience all three media through collaborative practice of films, performances and television programmes, while applying theoretical knowledge to your work.

You will be taught by cutting-edge academics, industry professionals and a dedicated team of technicians. We support our students to become critically thinking, ethical practitioners, learning flexible strategies of design, knowledge exchange, and creative collaboration with other makers, as well as with communities, organisations, and funders.

You will also have the chance to undertake industry placements, professional collaborations, and study abroad opportunities, to develop your practice in a range of contexts.

Our studios are situated on the University of Reading’s green campus, a leader in sustainable practice across the higher education sector.

The first year of the course will offer you an equal balance of foundational knowledge and supported practice, delivered by the lecturers, researchers and technicians who lead our core modules. You’ll engage in critical discussions and hands-on exploration as you are introduced to the histories, practices and critical frameworks that inform theatre and film, and help you develop a range of creative, academic and technical skills that will prove invaluable throughout the degree and beyond.

The second year is your chance to specialise based on your own interests, either collaborating with a professional theatre company to create a performance project, or forming your own company of film-makers to devise, develop and produce your own film project. Throughout this year you’ll enhance key skills and develop more specialist technical and production expertise. You will delve into work within and beyond classical and conventional theatre, film and TV traditions and contexts.

Optional modules will allow you to expand your interests and investigate various areas in detail, such as:

• authorship and genre
• industry practices
• key socio-political and cultural issues
• acting, directing and dramaturgy
• reworking Shakespeare
• the employment landscape in the arts sector.

In your final year, you’ll enrich your expertise as a skilful and knowledgeable creator and critical thinker, culminating in a collaborative performance, a written dissertation, or an independent creative research project. The course will give you the tools and independence to select your path with confidence by the third year of your degree.

Optional, research, and practical-based modules will deepen your knowledge of film, theatre and TV; these modules are based around our academics’ current world-leading research and practice.