Awarding Body:	Quality & Qualifications Ireland (QQI) -  formerly Higher Education & Training Awards Council (HETAC)
Award Level:	Level 8 (Honours Bachelor Degree)
Course Length:	3 years
CAO Code:	DB567

Films are now central to our experience of the world and the BA (Hons) in Film Studies at Dublin Business School offers an opportunity to embark upon an invigorating and detailed exploration of this most pervasive and compelling of mediums. Across the three years of the programme you will engage with the full range of critical, theoretical, historical and other relevant debates that have accompanied the evolution of the cinema. You will also have the opportunity to experience the practical aspect of the subject and discover the many ways in which the practical and the critical combine to further develop your understanding of how films work. Whether studying the earliest documentary footage of workers leaving factories or the watching the latest animated blockbuster the study of Film at Dublin Business School is an exciting, challenging and wholly rewarding experience.

Aims and Objectives

From the earliest experiments with the photographic image to the most recent innovations in digital storytelling the BA (Hons) in Film Studies programme has been designed to enable the learner to understand the study of film as an ongoing exploration of an extraordinarily diverse set of related practices. Moving from textual meaning to cultural identity, via the relevant theoretical, critical, historical, political, economic, technological and other allied debates, this programme will introduce the learner to a wide range of cinematic traditions and provide a framework for developing an understanding of the many ways in which this most enduring of mediums has come to be understood. The programme will comprise of three complementary and interlocking elements, the critical, the practical, and the developmental. Each of these elements informs and contributes to the others whilst also maintaining an individual integrity.

The Critical

Central to the learner’s experience of this programme will be the opportunity to develop an ongoing and deepening relationship with the critical, theoretical, historical, technological and other relevant debates that take the medium as their point of reference. As they progress learners will also be able to cultivate an awareness of the ways in which these debates have shaped and continue to shape the study of film through intersection, synthesis and counterpoint. A further cornerstone of this critical element of the programme will be the opportunity to account for the various ways in which the study of Film has developed as an interdisciplinary field through the appropriation and application of methodologies and intellectual impulses originating from other disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. All of the modules that comprise the critical strand of the programme have been designed to present learners with the broadest opportunity to engage with the study of the medium whilst also providing them with the appropriate critical and analytical tools necessary to make this engagement an enduring and life-long one. As a department, Creative Arts and Media is a wholly research-committed department and this will add significant further value to the learner’s experience of the programme.

The Practical

To further aid this desire for engagement the academic rigour of the programme is complemented by a more practically oriented strand designed to provide learners with the opportunity to develop relevant vocational skills and thereby further inform their understanding of how the medium works. Across the whole programme learners will engage in a range of practical activities intended to provide progression from the taking of a single digital photograph to the later involvement in larger and more collaborative projects like the making of a short film or the organising of installations and exhibitions. Other relevant opportunities for vocational development, like acquiring skills in digital imaging, editing and other areas of post-production, as well as developing scripts, are also included in this practical strand of the programme. All of this, combined with the fact that many of the staff involved in the department of Creative Arts have direct and relevant industrial experience further ensures that this aspect of the learner’s experience is significant and long-lasting.

The Developmental

Finally, and equally importantly, the critical and practical strands of the programme are also interwoven with a developmental strand designed to enable the learner to participate in their own ongoing development of the relevant transferable and work specific skills required for further academic study and/or making a significant contribution to the workplace. The programme will allow the learner to develop good organisational and time management skills as well as also acquiring a variety of other key skills including effective written and verbal communication, public speaking and presentations, project management and IT skills. The programme has also been designed to allow learners the opportunity to work flexibly and creatively as individuals and in group situations whilst also developing the capacity for independent thought and self-directed learning. In this way, diplomacy, dedication and determination