Film & Visual Culture and Stage Design & Scenography BA

FILM & VISUAL CULTURE

If you want an exciting career in the creative industries, but also want to understand the role that Film and Visual Culture plays in wider society, studying at Liverpool Hope is the right choice for you. Film and Visual Culture is an intellectually stimulating degree that combines practice and theory, giving you the opportunity to both create and analyse a range of cultural texts - from fiction film and documentary, to photography and animation.

This degree is underpinned by creative and critical practice. It is creative because it gives you the opportunity to develop practical skills in the fields of screenwriting, filmmaking (drama and documentary), photography and animation. It is critical because it involves the in-depth study of film history and theory, including the way in which cinema intersects with a range of social and political issues. You will graduate with a degree underpinned by academic rigour, but with the transferable skills needed to pursue a wide variety of careers in the creative industries.

The degree is taught by leading international scholars and practitioners and you will also benefit from access to outstanding library resources and an extensive range of practical equipment and studio space. Extra curricula activities support the curriculum by widening critical and creative horizons. Recent activities on the degree include fieldtrips to the National Science and Media Museum, Tate Britain, and the Manchester Animation Festival. We also have regular group visits to local film screenings.

- Study in the most filmed-in city in the country outside London.

- Our local partners include FACT, one of the leading independent cinema venues in the North West.

STAGE DESIGN & SCENOGRAPHY

On this course you will be trained to design and make immersive worlds for different audiences. It’s about exploring drama and performance through the interactions between bodies, environments and creative technologies. How can light function as an actor? How can a set be built by sound alone? How can we subtly direct our audiences without them knowing? What are the ethical challenges of creating a performance solely for one person? As worldbuilders, you will learn about the different approaches to designing and creating your own immersive performance environments, supported by technical training that will prepare you for the creative sector.

Your three years begins with an introduction to immersive performance practices and scenographic design before you journey into the exciting challenges of audience participation and interaction. Moving outside of the campus, the city of Liverpool itself will become a site for performance, echoing the work of immersive practitioners such as Punchdrunk, dreamthinkspeak and Shunt. Your final year will involve a push into new and experimental performance technologies, presenting performance projects in virtual worlds and the development of escape rooms and other ludic practices. This will culminate in you selecting either to complete a placement within an arts organisation or to take the lead as project manager of a major performance project of your own devising. This final year will also require you to complete an independent research project on a topic of your own choice.

This course is for those who are passionate about theatre and performance but are more interested in working behind the scenes.