BEng (Hons) — 2025 entry Film Production and Broadcast Engineering

Behind every great advertisement, computer game, film, television programme, web episode, is a great story. As humans, we love stories – listening, reading, telling – we absorb them every day to learn about ourselves and to understand the world around us. What makes visual media so compelling is its ability to communicate this efficiently and effectively - sometimes one camera shot is all you need. During this module, you will explore storytelling and how to create enjoyable stories. You will discuss how this can be visually expressed using filmmaking grammar and basic film/television terminology. You shall develop visual communications tools and learn how they can be used to help create a great story. This module will give you a strong foundation in visual narratives and will underpin many creative projects you undertake during your degree and in professional media work. Work in these pre-production areas time, money and resources when preparing for the final production so this module develops skills that benefit the climate and the budget.  

This module starts the students journey into creating media with professional video equipment .  The students will learn professional operational skills working with sound and vision and they will be introduced to pre-production and planning to optimize their final production.  The students first learn how to evaluate the health and safety risks of filming on location and how to apply control measures to reduce the risk factor.   The students experiment with a range of camera, microphone and lighting techniques in the workshops and will put them into practice in the assignments.  During the module the students will be introduced to permission documentation, legal consent and copyright issues that need to be completed for a production that will be broadcast.  There is a lot of opportunity for creative ideas to be included in your final production and the technical tips and tricks shown in the workshops can lead to a strong narrative final production

This module is intended to develop understanding and awareness of aspects of professional audio engineering as well as introducing practical film and TV sound techniques. This module explores sound for film and high end TV, from recording production sound, through the post production process and to final delivery. It is intended as a detailed insight into high quality sound for film. Aspects of sound design, techniques of dialogue editing, meaning in music, and decoding the jargon within delivery schedules are discussed. This will help those interested in a career in film sound, or just to make the sound on your own films better. It will help in future careers understand the processes of film sound and enable you to interact with sound teams more effectively.

This module is central to your development as a broadcast engineer. It builds on the fundamentals concepts learned in first year with a wide range of practical applications related to operational engineering practice in TV studios and OB vehicles. The knowledge and experience gained is applicable to many jobs within the creative industries. You will learn the basics of television studio operational engineering techniques. The module balances understanding of the underlying theory with application in professional contexts, and the coursework is intended to allow you to put the theory into practice.    

This module will allow you to understand programming and how video can be used in computers. In particular, this module will provide you with a solid practical knowledge of the C programming language and its relationship to the underlying hardware and aspects of both high-level programming for manipulation of video and low-level manipulation of memory.

This module will develop your understanding and awareness of aspects of professional video engineering. You will investigate the source and channel coding systems for broadcast systems and the formats for film recording. You will also explore broadcast communication and methods such as modulation.

This module offers you the opportunity to choose your own assignments from a selection of industry briefs and this portfolio will also add to the variety of work available for your show reel that you will complete in this module.  The module is modeled on real media projects that you would find as a freelance media professional.  The assignment options may change but they will range from event documentaries, required by many companies as part of their marketing or to commemorate an occasion like a wedding.  Film competitions are offered in the assignment choice and some students have gone on to win both national and international competitions as part of this module.  You will also learn more about animation and this can be applied to a title sequence or short animation for the project options.  As we are in the same department as so many talented musicians, the module can offer a real opportunity to plan and film a music video to a professional standard.  The assignments will vary but will include projects that develop skills for professionally paid work. For many production roles a show reel is important for future freelance work so it is included in the assessment so you have a show reel ready for any future employer which can cover creative, technical and craft skills depending on your area of interest.

This module will provide you with the tools for understanding and building network applications by analysing internet protocols and, the interaction among them and video applications. We shall combine both theory and application, so as to provide you with the knowledge to design a video application network, with an emphasis on real-world applications.

The module inspires the student to take a cinematic approach to develop the narrative and mood of filmed productions.  The students will develop their editing skills and expand their post production techniques to produce high quality drama.  This is a very hands on module where the student will attend supervised workshops with professional camera equipment, lights and sound.  All the roles required on a location drama will be introduced and then each student will try every role.  This experience establishes a professional location drama shoot which will equip the students to work professionally on set.  Students will also be guided through preparing the pre-production documentation, permission documents, call sheets, risk assessments, etc.   Some students have gone on to work as production managers after completing this course and other students have won awards for their camera skills learnt on this module.

If you are interested in working in any part of media, broadcasting, streaming or TV production this module will introduce all the roles required to complete a live programme or broadcast.  From the planning and pre-production to the craft and transmission skills to broadcast the production.  The module is a practice based approach to learning many of the skills required in a studio production.  You will have the chance to design a new TV studio programme format and then selected formats will be made and broadcast live at the end of the module.  You will experience planning for the production and could work on the music and sound design, graphics, titles or animations, lighting, research on the production, script writing or even be the producer, if your programme pitch is chosen by the other students.  You will have the opportunity to learn about the roles and skills required during the live production from camerawork, graphics, video replay, vision mixing, lighting, sound mixing, vision engineering, floor managing or be the producer or directors’ assistant in the gallery.  While you will develop one particular role there will be many rehearsals that you can volunteer for other roles too.  With experience from this module many students have achieved freelance jobs at well known outside broadcasts and you may use these skills in your placement year and after you graduate  

This module will provide you with an introduction to research methods and the types of skills necessary for the planning and dissemination stages of research for your technical project. There are two aspects to this module; firstly, the Literature Review is intended to provide you with the experience of writing a literature review on a technical topic, which will assist you in writing the Technical Project. While the Project Progress report will allow you to develop a project plan for your technical project (a different topic to the literature review), considering possible risks and challenges, and how to mitigate them.

This module explores human vision and colour science relating to workflow in film and high end television. Cutting edge innovation in the form of High Dynamic Range standards and current practice, as well as film colour management such as the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) will be of essential use to a wide range of careers and further study. The coursework encourages the investigative mind, and a culture of testing and experimentation. You will learn about eye the eye-brain system makes sense of the world, aquisition with high end digital cinematography cameras, and the role of the Digital Imaging Technician. Tools for colour grading and finally deliverables to cinema and home formats.

This module is the culmination of the engineering and technical component of the programme, and allows you to specialise in topics of use to your future career. It will give you an opportunity to learn in detail about a specialised area of engineering not normally covered in the remainder of the programme, and to present this to the rest of the year so that fellow students can learn from your findings. The Technical Project is the culmination of the technical component of the programme, and will give an opportunity to conduct in depth research in a subject of your choosing related to video engineering.

This module is a very practical application of the craft skills, production skills applied to television, film or documentary that have been taught throughout the degree course.  At the start of this module students interested in leading and directing their own scripted production, documentary or Tv programme will pitch their idea to the rest of the class.  The productions with enough student support and approval by the teaching team will be formed into a production team and location crew.  You will choose which roles you prefer to develop for this module.  Some students will form the production team  and will plan the production, organise rehearsals, filming locations, actors.  They will plan the crew, schedule and the call sheet.  Other members of the class will take on craft skills roles such as lighting, DOP, sound or some of the other minor roles on set.  Every student will take on some kind of post production role too and you can choose between sound mix, Foley, colour grade or video edit. Every attempt is made to enable you to take on the roles you are most interested in.  1st and 2nd years FPBE or other students may be asked to assist on set or in the productions but as final years you are expected to lead and advise the other students. In the first semester you will give a presentation of the work that you have completed so far and explain your role and the plans and difficulties that may arise.  As you are working in small teams as you would find in industry, you should also be able to evaluate the other crew roles.  So similarly to if you were working with a team you would know who was skilled at their role and who is not fulfilling everything that is expected of them.  By writing an evaluative judgment of several of your colleagues you are showing you know about the other roles and what is required from a person in that role.  This demonstrates your knowledge across other roles that you are not doing yourself. Throughout the production you will keep a diary so that you can share your journey on this project with the other markers.  It also means you have notes that could streamline your processes to in the future and avoid making the same mistake twice. Most students on this module will contribute to a number of productions and towards the end of the module the module leader and the student will decide how much weight is applied to each of the productions that you contribute to.  You will receive a weighting of the final productions that you contributed to and another grade from the quality of work you completed on that production.