Photography, Film and Screenwriting Taster Sessions

Digital Studio Experience

Students will take part in a high-resolution studio session using our professional Fujifilm GFX System cameras. They will be introduced to studio lighting and have the opportunity to create high-quality portraits of each other using industry-standard digital medium format equipment. All images will be provided for students to take away as a set of JPEG files. 

Students will also have the opportunity to engage with a range of analogue camera systems, including 5x4 large format view cameras, medium format, and 35mm film cameras, offering insight into both contemporary and traditional photographic practices.

Facilities Tour and Course Insight

A guided tour of our specialist facilities, including an overview of equipment, module content, and learning spaces. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions about university life, the course structure, and future career pathways.

Plus, one of the following practical sessions:

Large Format Studio Photography (4x5)

Students will use a 4x5 large format camera to create a portrait in the studio, producing a positive paper negative. This session introduces traditional photographic processes and hands-on image-making.

OR

Experimental Pinhole Photography

Students will explore a contemporary pinhole photography system, using on-site chemical development to produce images.

OR

Digital Darkroom Printing

Students will create a professional C-type colour print using our state-of-the-art digital enlarger. They can bring their own image file in advance and will be able to take their finished 12 x 10 print home.

The Power of Storytelling through (Fiction) Film

Dive into the heart of filmmaking: storytelling. Explore classic narrative structures like the three-act format and the hero's journey. Analyse film clips to understand how visual elements convey story. Learn the art of storyboarding, translating ideas into visual sequences. Practice creating storyboards for short scenes, focusing on shot composition and visual flow. Conclude with a group discussion on effective visual storytelling techniques.

Key components:

• Narrative structures in film
• Visual storytelling analysis
• Storyboarding techniques
• Hands-on storyboard creation
• Group critique and discussion

Duration: 2 hours

Lights, Camera, Action: Introduction to Film Production

Experience the excitement of a film set. Learn about key roles including director, cinematographer, and sound recordist. Handle professional cameras, lighting equipment, and sound gear. Understand basic shot composition and lighting setups. Participate in a mock film shoot, rotating through different roles to gain hands-on experience. Conclude by reviewing footage and discussing the challenges and solutions encountered during the shoot.

Key components:

• Film set roles and responsibilities
• Equipment handling and safety
• Basic shot composition and lighting
• Mock film shoot experience
• Footage review and production discussion

Duration: 2 hours

The Magic of Film Editing

Discover how editing shapes the final film. Learn about different editing techniques like cuts, fades, and transitions. Explore the concept of pacing and its impact on storytelling. Get hands-on experience with basic editing software, learning to assemble shots, add music, and create simple effects. Edit a short sequence, experimenting with different arrangements to see how it affects the story. Conclude with a screening and discussion of everyone's edits.

Key components:

• Editing techniques and terminology
• Pacing and rhythm in editing
• Introduction to editing software
• Hands-on editing exercise
• Group screening and critique

Duration: 2 hours

The Art of Cinematography

Delve into the visual language of film. Explore various camera movements and their emotional impact. Learn about shot compositions, from wide establishing shots to intimate close-ups. Understand how lighting creates mood and atmosphere. Practice setting up different lighting scenarios, from bright day to moody night. Experiment with framing and camera angles to tell a story visually. Conclude by shooting and reviewing short scenes, discussing how cinematographic choices affect storytelling.

Key components:

• Camera movements and their effects
• Shot composition techniques
• Lighting for mood and atmosphere
• Practical cinematography exercise
• Scene shooting and group critique

Duration: 2 hours

Documentary Workshop

This workshop teaches participants how to think about time and character through the documentary medium. 

Students will learn how documentary is always about storytelling, both through viewing brief examples from recent practice as well as through a series of practical exercises where participants will be thinking about the sequence of shots, editing within camera, and learning how to vary shot size and camera position.

Key skills acquired will include aspects of composition, pacing, working with or without a tripod, shooting for the edit, communication and co-ordination between sound and camera.

Sound in Cinema: More Than Just Dialogue

Explore the often-overlooked world of film sound. Learn about different types of film sound: dialogue, music, and sound effects. Understand how sound design enhances storytelling and creates atmosphere. Practice basic sound recording techniques and learn about common issues in production sound. Experience simple sound mixing, adding effects and music to a scene. Conclude by listening to and discussing how different sound designs change a scene's impact.

Key components:

• Types of film sound
• Sound recording techniques
• Basic sound mixing
• Sound design exercise
• Comparative listening and discussion

Duration: 2 hours

Foley / ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) Workshop

This hands-on, practical session introduces students to the world of sound-for-picture and gives them the opportunity to re-record dialogue and sound effects in the Film department’s 5.1 surround audio postproduction studio.

Maximum number: 6 students per group

Duration: 90 mins – 2 hours per group

Can be run in rotation with other sessions for larger cohorts. This session can only be offered on site at the university’s Ipswich campus.

Shooting for Sound Workshop

Students get to shoot a short drama film using ‘double system’: a camera, a professional external field mixer and a shotgun microphone. They will also learn how to break down and mark up a shooting script to create a shot list.

Minimum number: 6 students (Maximum number: 12 students)

Duration: 2 hours

Can be run in rotation with other sessions for larger cohorts.

Film Studies: Why Do We Love Horror?

Horror is one of the most enduringly popular and polarising film genres around. But why do audiences continue to enjoy horror so much? Is it simply morbid curiosity, or because we like particular genres and appreciate our familiarity with them? Or is it perhaps because our emotional responses to scary movies give rise to both negative and positive feelings and simulate how we’d respond to real scares? This interactive workshop gets students exploring the contexts and history of horror, its motifs and aesthetics, and some interpretations of some of the most infamous horror movie ‘monsters’. This session can be combined with other humanities subjects and may be of interest to English, Creative Writing or Media students. It can also be tailored to a more gothic and/or televisual focus.

Studies: Ethics and Representation

Films are susceptible to unanticipated responses – this is one of the exciting things about cinema, that it is open to interpretation. But who gets to decide what is fair, or accurate, in terms of what a film is showing or saying? Is it the filmmaker? The audience? The industry? Or a combination of all these groups? This session addresses the representational aspect of cinema and how a film’s subject and ethics can be read through its form, genre, and aesthetics. Students will analyse and discuss filmic examples and ideas such as stereotype, lived experience, fidelity, and offense and think about how film can raise awareness of social, cultural and political issues. This session can be tailored to a narrative cinema, short film, or documentary focus.

Film Studies: Movies and Marketing

Film is a unique medium because it captures like in a way that isn’t found in other art forms like photography or painting – it presents people, experiences, and stories in a three dimensional and ‘life like’ way and is a combination of many other art forms (such as writing, sound, costume, makeup, design). It is also distinct because of the amount of time and money spent promoting it to audiences, particularly in Hollywood and global block buster cinema. For instance, Barbie (2023) had a marketing budget of $150 million, $5 million more than its production cost. This marketing campaign though helped it make almost $1.5 billion dollars in box office revenue. This interactive session covers the evolution of movie marketing strategies and products; it gets students exploring how they respond to marketing campaigns and considering how they and wider audiences might influence and interact with these promotional strategies in the digital era.

Generating and Developing Ideas for Screenplays and Short Films

Professional writers need to constantly come up with new ideas. But where do those ideas come from? How can we ‘tame the muse’ to create something from nothing and how can we distinguish the good ideas from the not-so-good ones? This session explores methods for generating story ideas using a range of different creative prompts. Students will also learn how to develop and refine their initial ideas by asking a series of key dramaturgical questions. Shorter session and can be combined with other short Screenwriting sessions.

Writing and Analysing Short Films

Short films can make excellent calling card pieces, but they can be deceptively tricky to write. This workshop looks at the narrative principles unique to the short film form. Students will begin by exploring what kinds of ideas particularly suit this form and learn how to handle quick setups, employ rising conflict and how to build to a satisfying (but not necessarily closed) climax… all in under ten minutes! Students will go away armed with a series of useful analytical tools to help them assess existing short films in order that they can potentially apply those principles to their own creative work.

Principles of Drama and Why We Tell Stories

What key elements does an effective story require? This interactive session explores what makes a story ‘dramatic’ and what kinds of stories are especially suited to the screen. Students will learn about core underlying storytelling principles such as conflict, character motivation and development, stakes, change and movement. The session also provides a broader context by investigating the social, psychological and cultural functions of storytelling. Shorter session and can be combined with other short Screenwriting sessions.

The Logline: Pitching Your Film or TV in a Sentence (or Two!)

Professional writers need to be able to convey their story ideas concisely in order to hook an audience or to convince a producer, agent or broadcaster to read their work. This session introduces students to the concept of the ‘logline’ – a pitching tool used extensively in the film and TV industry. Students will learn about the difference between a ‘tag line’ and a logline, the three key components of a logline and how to distil a complex idea into a sentence or two. They will also explore principles of good practice by analysing the loglines of a number of famous films. At the end of the workshop, students will have the opportunity to try it out for themselves by either writing a logline for an existing film or pitching their own original idea to the group. Shorter session and can be combined with other short Screenwriting sessions.

Screenplay Formatting: How to Write a Professional-Looking Script

Film and TV executives can instantly tell whether a writer is a professional just by looking at the layout of their scripts. This session teaches students the basic principles of script formatting – how to set up a template (and which existing ones are worth using), where to put the different elements on the page, what goes into a scene heading / ‘slugline’, what to include (and not to include) in the action descriptions and how to present a script in a professional manner. Shorter session and can be combined with other short Screenwriting sessions.

Film Structure: The Hidden Shape of the Feature Film

How are feature films constructed? Why is it that similar patterns tend to recur at the same points in most movies, no matter what the genre might be? This session introduces a simple narrative structure that underpins many mainstream feature-length films. Students will learn to break films into acts, sequences, scenes and beats. They will also apply a basic structural model such as Syd Field’s 3-act paradigm to a number of classic, award-winning feature films.

A Day in the Life of a Screenwriter

This session explores what it’s really like to work as a professional screenwriter in the film and TV industry. After dispelling some myths about screenwriting, students will learn about the key differences between writing as a hobby and writing as a career, the personal qualities that professional writers need to develop, how to use the neuroscience behind creativity to establish an effective writing routine, and all of the things that screenwriters do when they’re not actually writing!  Delivered by a working screenwriter, this session may be of particular interest to English, Creative Writing or Media students.

Giving and Receiving Story Feedback

Even the most talented writers find it hard to see the problems in their own work, therefore getting an objective opinion is vital. But how do we give feedback on someone else’s creative work without offending them and how can we respond to feedback without coming across as closed or defensive? This interactive session explores the principles of giving and receiving story feedback by analysing a series of light-hearted real-life examples. From these examples, students will compile a list of principles for giving and receiving effective story feedback which can be applied to scripts, prose or other forms of creative work.