Acting & Performance
Postgraduate
Online
Description
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Type
Postgraduate
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Methodology
Online
Our degree programme focuses on preparing actors to work and flourish, both on stage and screen. Using the camera as a teaching and learning tool, this course offers a uniquely creative springboard for innovative and confident actors.
You’ll graduate with all the practical, artistic and academic skills needed for a successful career in the competitive world of acting and performance. The course is practically based with a bias towards innovative assessment.
Our Acting & Performance course is ranked in the top 30 of drama and dance courses in the UK, according the The Guardian's 2017 university league table.
About this course
With a dual emphasis on recorded and live drama, you’ll be immersed in learning the core skills of voice and movement, along with the latest techniques for camera, microphone and stage. We’ll encourage you to draw on your own personality and background in your explorations and performances too.
With our strong track record for producing BAFTA and Oscar winners from across our media disciplines – and with first-class film and TV studios at our Farnham campus – you’ll be encouraged to work closely with peers on other courses, including Film Production, Animation, Creative Writing and Computer Games Arts. This way you’ll become part of our vibrant and collaborative creative community.
Our partnership with Farnham Maltings – a leading performance venue located in the heart of Farnham – means you’ll also benefit from its network of professional theatre makers and extensive resources, including performance and rehearsal spaces, and a screening room.
Reviews
Subjects
- Acting
- Drama
- Theatre
- Cinema
- Project
Course programme
- Year 1
- Year 2
- Year 3
In your first year you'll examine the interconnection between stage and screen. The three perspectives and practice units integrate historical and theoretical enquires by examining early cinema's relationship to theatrical traditions of the time and conversely contemporary theatre that incorporates film and digital techniques.
- View the programme specification for 2016 entry
- View the summary specification for 2017 entry
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.
Course modules-
Acting Skills 1
You'll be introduced to a basic set of skills, covering movement and voice development.
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Stage Screen Connections
You'll explore the development of early cinema and its origins in theatre, and examine the effect of early advances in film technology on performance style and practice. In parallel, you will study contemporary theatre-makers who incorporate film and digital techniques into their work.
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Approaches to Acting
Introduces you to some of the theoretical and practical approaches to creating a role, looking at the theories of Stanislavski and contrasting them to those of Mamet, this will be accompanied by the practical exploration of scenes from Chekov in rehearsal.
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Violence and Revenge
You'll look at the influence of two historical theatrical writers and their relationship to contemporary cinema and performance. You'll be introduced to Jacobean drama and its cinema counterpoint, by using the idea of 'exploding' a classic text and interrogating it through resonances in present day culture and drama.
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Research and reflection
You have the opportunity to undertake a self-directed piece of work, you'll draw on your knowledge of theatre and screen-plays, dramaturgical skills and experience in using different media. You'll also complete an individual research project, in which you are required to investigate the uses of new technologies in live performance, and respond to the work of an artists or companies whose work crosses the boundaries between live and recorded form.
Year 2 revolves around the themes of making stories and finding voices. The three perspective and practice units explore these themes across stage and screen.
- View the programme specification for 2016 entry
- View the summary specification for 2017 entry
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.
Course modules-
Acting Skills 2
Develops advanced skills in movement and voice studies, explores radio drama, social dances, stage fighting and creative writing.
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Social Realism
Through a series of case studies you will look at approaches to realism in film, theatre and television, and take part in filming scenes from a television drama.
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American Classics
Using examples of scenes from the plays of American writers you will explore the underlying themes, subtexts and metaphors that they employ and how these are interpreted and translated into a performance.
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Improvisation
You look at the uses of improvisation in both theatre and film and explore techniques, as an actor for developing improvised performances.
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Self-generated Performance
Gives you the opportunity to devise and realise both an individual project and a group project.
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Study Abroad (optional)
This optional unit designed to broaden your educational experience and to deepen your understanding of cultural diversity, enabling you to study within a different cultural context and gain fresh perspectives.
The final year is about 'making it your business'. Year 3 concentrates on addressing your needs in sustaining your career after graduation.
- View the programme specification for 2016 entry
- View the summary specification for 2017 entry
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.
Course modules-
Public Presentations
The culmination of your studies. These productions and films will be shown to an invited audience of industry professionals and will take place in established venues in Farnham and/or London; there will also be public presentations.
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Professional Development
Focuses on the business of acting and how to apply your acting skills to practical approaches to help you make your way in the arts and entertainment industry.
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Dissertation
You'll undertake a substantial period of sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject related to the contextual and/ or theoretical concerns of your discipline or chosen area of practice, towards the provision of structured written argument.
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Or Combined dissertation and critical reflection
Two periods of sustained, individually negotiated research on subjects which are likely to be related to the contextual and/or theoretical concerns of your chosen areas of practice, towards the provision of structured argument.
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Or Practice as research
Two periods of sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject which is likely to be related to the contextual and/ or theoretical concerns of your chosen areas of practice, towards the provision of structured argument.
- View the programme specification for 2016 entry
- View the summary specification for 2017 entry
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.
Course modulesActing & Performance