PROGRAMME SPECIFICATION
Programme title:
Final award (BSc, MA etc):
(where stopping off points exist they should be detailed here and defined later in the document)
UCAS code:
(where applicable)
Cohort(s) to which this programme specification is applicable:
(e.g. from 2015 intake onwards)
Awarding institution/body:
Teaching institution:
Faculty:
Parent Department:
(the department responsible for the administration of the programme)
Departmental web page address:
(if applicable)
Method of study:
Full-time/Part-time/Other
Criteria for admission to the programme:
MA in Ethnographic and Documentary Film
MA
2014 Onwards
University College London
University College London
SHS
Anthropology www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/
F-T and P-T (2 years) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospectivestudents/graduate/taught/degrees/ethnographic-documentary-filmpractical-ma
One Year Length of the programme:
(please note any periods spent away from UCL, such as study abroad or placements in industry)
Level on Framework for Higher
Education Qualifications (FHEQ)
(see Guidance notes
)
Relevant subject benchmark statement
(SBS)
(see Guidance notes)
Level 7
PGT subject benchmark statement for anthropology not yet published

Brief outline of the structure of the programme and its assessment methods:
(see guidance notes)
Course Description
The programme of teaching
(a) provides students with professional level skills in the production of ethnographic and documentary film; and
(b) gives them an intellectual grounding in social and historical research to use these practical skills to further research and understanding of the social world.
Sessions are designed to provide students with the skills necessary to think through and interact with issues around film practice in a concrete, practical way as well as to think about the ‘why’ of film production – what does a film do? As proven by existing practice, this approach enables students to develop their own ideas and questions in using moving image to investigate the world around them.
The MA programme is structured into three elements.

A core course provides practical training including screenings, masterclasses, and seminars on the history of documentary film.

Options allow students to do further courses in film theory and history.

Credits taken within Anthropology or in other departments within
SLASH provide training in social theory and social research.
Those seeking to work in Ethnographic mode – and without previous anthropology training - will take part of the Introduction to Social
Anthropology course (GS01a) as well as another option within Anthropology
– concentrating their training in appropriate areas.
The core course, GF01 taught over two terms, contains all the practical training with formative assessment throughout as well as for grade assessments on five pieces of work (four film exercises and one written text) produced in the course of the two terms. The course is designed to teach camera and editing skills in a context of critical enquiry about the social world. Students will be encouraged to take at least one Optional course in film theory and history either in the anthropology department or from other programs at UCL.
The course uses UCL’s camera and computer-editing equipment, the extensive collections in film and the visual anthropology laboratory. It will run in the new SLASH media lab (macs) housed within UCL’s historic South
Wing.
All students are allocated a personal senior tutor – from our bank of leading documentary film makers – who supervise the production of the final film project and are involved from the beginning of the year in overseeing preparation for that.
Optional courses
One of either ANTHGS17 or ANTHGC10 Anthropology of Photography or a
Film Studies Programme Course, but excluding the practice based courses in that programme. These include (depending on staff availability year by year) in 13-14:
GERMG048 - Weimar and Nazi Film; FRENGF01 - Theories and Practices of Film; FRENGF03 - The French New Wave; ITALGF12 - Genre in Italian
Cinema; SEESGR61 - Russian Cinema: Epochs and Genres; HISTG079 -
Hollywood Genres; HISTGF02 - Public Nightmares: Screening Cold War
Anxieties; ENGLGF09 - Film Exhibition; FILMG001 - Cinema and the British

City; SPANGF02 - New Argentine Cinemas; CLASGR03 - Ancient Rome on
Film; HISTGC06 - Chinese Film and the Body.
Students are recommended to take up to two elective courses alongside with the core course, but they may choose to take two optional courses and one elective.
We would expect the relevant courses to include:
ANTHGC09 Anthropology and Photography; ANTHGC12
Anthropology of the Built Environment; ANTHGC13 Anthropology of
Art and Design; ANTHGC14 The Anthropology of Consumption and
Media; ANTHGC15 Anthropology of Cultural Heritage and Museum
Anthropology; ANTH2001 Introduction to the Technology of a
Selected Region; ANTH3020 Social Construction of Landscapes;
Anthropology of Media and Consumption; Anthropology and
Psychiatry; Anthropology of Nationalism, Race and Ethnicity; Medical
Anthropology; Religious Symbolism and the Politics of Belief;
Gender, Language and Culture; Risk, Power and Uncertainty.
Name of Board of Examiners:
Ethnographic and Documentary Film
None
Date of next scheduled accreditation visit:
Board of Examiners:
Professional body accreditation
(if applicable):
EDUCATIONAL AIMS OF THE PROGRAMME:
This degree provides training in the use of digital media and teaches students to produce broadcast quality ethnographic and documentary films. It enables students to use film in and as a means of research (rather than simply as a means to document research). It thereby develops learners’ interest in and knowledge of a broad based approach to Anthropology, through the study of humankind in the widest sense. We recruit both students new to social science and those who have some training in general Anthropology and social science but who want to specialise in the visual field. We encourage students to explore the boundaries of documentary practice, engaging with anthropological and social science perspectives and drawing inspiration from an engagement with these fields. The course develops students’ critical skills in film analysis through work on the history of film, its connection with scholarship and the world in which it is embedded and through practical application and experience of creating a series of short films, culminating in a ‘full-length’ student film (20-35’). Students acquire full competence in manipulating and managing digital recording devices, editing and publishing.
Throughout we use anthropological perspectives based on the comparative study of societies, historically and culturally. We also have good partnerships with other parts of UCL (Slade, Film Studies, European
Studies, Computer Science and the Media Institute/Centre) whose activities impinge directly on our field of training.

PROGRAMME OUTCOMES:
The programme provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge and understanding, qualities, skills and other attributes in the following areas:
Students will acquire the technical skills needed to complete a series of video projects to broadcast standards using professional video cameras and professional editing suites.
Students will acquire practical, analytical and intellectual skills in using moving image and sound recording equipment.
Student will learn to explore the relationship between changing technology and developing methodology in exploration of the social world.
Student will obtain critical, informed insight into the representational capacity of moving image.
Students will obtain understanding of how film can be integrated into the process of social research.
The MA in Ethnographic and Documentary Film provides skills needed by those students wishing to pursue careers in:
• Mass media including broadcast, cinematic and web-based moving image
• Film and TV industry as camera operators, producers, directors, editors, researchers
• Academia – ethnographic research, visual media and culture
• Marketing and research
• Communication and other media
• Archives as well as cultural heritage organisations
A: Knowledge and understanding
Knowledge and understanding of:
-broad based anthropology focusing upon the production of factual moving image
-core topics in visual and digital anthropology, such as representation,
Teaching/learning methods and strategies:
Lectures, seminars, small group presentations and discussions, film-viewings, intensive laboratory and practical film work. Teaching includes intensive contact with and feedback from research active staff. Non-assessed formative coursework during art, media, heritage
-specialist methods in visual anthropology and documentary film including filming, interviews, editing, producing the terms helps students gain confidence in dealing with a range of complex technical, conceptual and theoretical issues.
Assessment:
A wide variety of assessments are used in different core and optional courses, including assessed formative coursework, assessed summative coursework, unseen (timed) exercise and a film with filmmaker’s diary.

Intellectual (thinking) skills:
1• reason critically;
•2 devise a visual research project
3• Apply anthropological and social science approaches to film work
4• Identify and solve problems
5• Demonstrate and exercise independence of mind and thought
6• critically view and read, analyse and interpret
7• evaluate and integrate conflicting sources, evidence, theories and interpretation
8• think critically about the relations between form and content in ethnographic/ documentary practice
B: Skills and other attributes
Teaching/learning methods and strategies:
Intellectual skills are developed through the teaching and learning programme outlined above.
Each course, whatever the format of the teaching, involves discussion of key issues, practice in applying concepts both orally and in writing, production of visual material and individual feedback session for students on work produced.
Practical skills (able to):
Practically they will be able to:
1• handle different cameras to produce broadcast quality image
2• handle different sound recording equipment to produce broadcast quality sound for film
3• Master the technical skills to use professional editing programme/s
4• Produce different sorts of films, of different lengths for varied audiences
5• Manage a film project carried out by oneself
6• Manage small scale collaborative film projects
7• Critically view and review film material and produce argued justification for an analysis of such
8• Devise collaborative film making projects
Assessment:
C: Skills and other attributes
Teaching/learning methods and strategies:
Seminars and tutorials with a combination of teacher led instruction and appraisal of student’s ongoing practical coursework, providing individual feedback on the film work and projects. Students will be expected to spend considerable amounts of time – equivalent to the reading component of a book based course – cultivating and practising the practical camera and IT skills. Students will, throughout the year, produce a series of film studies culminating in a full-length film study.
Assessment:

Transferable skills (able to):
1• make broadcast quality and more broadly screenable documentary film
2• manage the production of such
3• produce professional camerawork
4• record sound for moving image to a professional level
5• edit moving image to professional level and under pressure of time
6 • write analytically well grounded and persuasive analysis of film material
7• work on collaborative film projects in terms of conception, management and
D: Skills and other attributes
Teaching/learning methods and strategies:
Effective communication of ideas is an important criterion in assessing all areas of a student’s work, and regular feedback as well as the final mark reflect this. The product of skills, 4, 6 and 7 are assessed by both the coursework and extended essays/diaries and the films produced which, although supervised are, nevertheless the results of independent thought and work/research by the learner. Skill 5 is assessed through the assembly of necessary information for essays, films and their work on computers. Skills 2 and 3 are not formally assessed. Skill 1, in terms of writing is formally assessed with the project diary. deliver
8 • produce a budget and learn to ‘pitch’ a film to funders
9• manage a range of IT programs and their integration within a given project
Oral skills are not formally assessed. IT skills are assessed through all the film assessments.
Assessment:
The following reference points were used in designing the programme:

the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications:
( http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/qualifications-frameworks.pdf
);

the relevant Subject Benchmark Statements:
( http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code/subject-benchmark-statements );

the programme specifications for UCL degree programmes in relevant subjects (where applicable);

UCL teaching and learning policies;

staff research.
Please note: This specification provides a concise summary of the main features of the programme and the learning outcomes that a typical student might reasonably be expected to achieve and demonstrate if he/she takes full advantage of the learning opportunities that are provided. More detailed information on the learning outcomes, content and teaching, learning and assessment methods of each course unit/module can be found in the departmental course handbook. The accuracy of the information contained in this document is reviewed annually by UCL and may be checked by the Quality Assurance Agency.
Programme Organiser(s)
Name(s):
Michael Stewart
Date of Production*:
Date of Review:
Date approved by Head of
Department:
Date approved by Chair of
Departmental Teaching
Committee:
Date approved by Faculty
Teaching Committee
31 July 2015
April 2015
April 2015
April 2015
August 2015