Film & Media Studies

The democratization of media technology in contemporary society has transformed the way one perceives and records the world. Mobile devices have made it possible to record images and videos of everyday life anywhere and anytime, and one now has means to edit these images and produce them into secondary texts. This course focuses on "place," and while setting up a specific place as a field, it tackles documentary as a method of preserving the history, culture and memory of that place. 

This course examines a focused corpus of artworks: Jacques-Louis David, THE DEATH OF MARAT and THE INTERVENTION OF THE SABINE WOMEN; Antoine-Jean Gros, BONAPARTE VISITING THE PLAGUE VICTIMS OF JAFFA; Théodore Géricault, THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA; Eugène Delacroix, LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE; Gustave Courbet, A BURIAL AT ORNANS; and Edgar Degas, LITTLE DANCER AGED FOURTEEN. It conducts an historical study of these landmark works, while opening onto broader perspectives such as the history of the tableau vivant, theater, and cinema, and initiating a reflection on their place within contemporary visual culture. Two sessions are devoted to the relationship between history painting and early cinema, with a particular focus on Jean-Léon Gérôme's JERUSALEM and Luc-Olivier Merson's REST ON THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.
 

In this course, students are introduced to a range of practices from across the disciplines that are taught on the Media Production BA. Centered around a series of lectures from staff practitioners, students are introduced to the different approaches employed, whether by digital artists, designers, filmmakers, art-activists, or practice-research academics. Insights are given into multifaceted processes, how to find inspiration, explore themes and turn interests into final work and how to take action. The lectures are complemented by a number of seminars and smaller group sessions where students widen the scope of enquiry, to look at specific examples of contemporary media practice, identifying modes and methods. 

The course examines the relationship between film and literature, focusing on narrative structure, genre, and adaptation. Using key films such as The Birth of a Nation, Citizen Kane, and works by Alfred Hitchcock, it explores concepts of film syntax and the role of the auteur. Literary and cinematic genres like melodrama and the Western are studied through texts such as The Ox-Bow Incident. The course also analyzes major adaptations, including The Turn of the Screw, Much Ado About Nothing, and Atonement, highlighting the dialogue between literary and cinematic storytelling.

This course focuses on the technologies, analysis, and expression of ideas in both print and digital media. It discusses how journalistic content is selected, written, and structured in both print and digital formats. Students study different styles of writing (news, opinion, analysis), and review how to think critically and communicate responsibly as a future journalist or media professional. 

This course focuses on contemporary fiction that looks to our future as radically dystopian. It explores the reasons for dystopia and the way we construct, through film and literature, images of an uncertain future and the challenges we face as a society. This course also discusses speculative fiction, specifically the impact of scientific and technological development on our society as constructed and proposed through literature and film.   

Pre-requisites: Advanced knowledge of Spanish 

This course examines gender studies within the field of media including how gender shapes representation, identity, and power through film, visual culture, and digital media. Topics include: gender as social construction, performance, and technology; representations of violence; the impact of new media, social networks, and AI on gender identities and narratives. 

This course focuses on critical analysis of media messages and impacts of various media including TV, music videos, newspapers, advertisements, websites, and social media on children and youth. It empowers the class to explore, understand, analyze and control the effects of mass and digital media on young people and oneself.

This course discusses the principles of sound and its role in media production. It focuses on how to capture, edit, and distribute audio using professional tools while exploring the language and creative power of sound. It examines the evolution of audio media from radio to digital platforms and the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on sound creation. 

This course explores the historical relationship between theater and film in contemporary Spain. It examines their evolution within the broader context of performance history as a way of transcending traditional divisions into genres and creative expressions.