Creative Documentary by Practice MFA

You will acquire advanced camera and editing skills in a context of critical enquiry about the social world. You will learn and explore diverse forms of factual storytelling including how to work with an ‘external commissioner’. You will learn how to take risks in pushing the boundaries of film form. You'll deepen you knowledge of documentary film history and learn how to tell long-form stories through images.

Students undertake modules to the value of 300 credits.

In the first full calendar year the programme consists of four core modules (total 135 credits) and three optional /elective modules (45 credits) - a total 180 credits. In the second (academic length) year you complete a graduation project (120 credits).

Overall total 300 credits

There are four compulsory core modules in the first year

• Introduction to the practice of Documentary and Ethnographic Film (30 credits)
• Advanced practice of Documentary ad Ethnographic Film (60 credits)
• Short 'commissioned' Practical Film Project and sustained reflection (15 credits)
• Research Work and Book (30 credits)

The research work and accompanying book refers to preparatory work for your final graduation project.

Students choose three modules from the following to achieve a total of 45 credits

• An Introduction to Social Theory (15 credits)
• The Story and I – Finding the Form (15 credits)
• Time and the Staged Index – The evolving narrative of Photography and Film (15 credits)
• Experimental and Interactive Storytelling – Form and Narrative (15 credits)
• Documentary Radio – a practice based introduction (15 credits)
• Documentary Film and the Anthropological Eye (15 credits)
• The Idea of Documentary (15 credits)
• Russian Cinema: Epochs and genres (15 credits)
• Global Cinemas (15 credits)
• East and South Asian Cinemas (15 credits)
• Performance, visual media and popular culture in Africa (15 credits)
• The French New Wave (15 credits)
• Genre in Italian Cinema (15 credits)
• Nordic Cinema: Contextualising Dreyer, Bergman and Dogme (15 credits)
• The Latin American Cinematic Tradition (15 credits)
• New Argentine Cinemas (15 credits)
• Hollywood Genres (15 credits)

In 2018 new courses in 'Writing well about international affairs' and 'Journalistic skills for a multi-platform world' will also be introduced.

You may apply to take other courses at UCL by agreement with the host department and the tutor for the MFA.

In your graduation film ('research project/design project') you will independently make a medium length creative documentary film/moving image story on a subject of your choosing. Pre-production begins at the outset of the second year supervised by the course tutors and project mentors. You will also produce a project diary reflecting on the entire work process.

All practice based courses are delivered in lectures, masterclasses and tutorials followed by supervised project work. Across the MFA you will spend significant time each week completing camera and editing exercises, building up a portfolio of work. All work is assessed, either formatively or formally, by the MFA teaching team.

There is no formal fieldwork but almost all film projects will involve working off-site in fieldwork type conditions.