A-Level in Film Studies

Students will have the opportunity to film on location, as well as consider other industry roles such as costume, make up, lighting, script writing and directing. Students also have the skills required to take part in the school’s performances, create promotional films and work in a multi-media way to explore the possibilities of audio visual and digital art.

More info in our Arts Department options booklet: https://options.ashbyschool.org.uk/flip/leaflets/Arts.pdf

Students develop their knowledge of how filmmakers use a range of elements to construct their films, often expressing complex ideas and emotions through them. Including ideas of how cinema can be used to express comments of political, historical and social issues. The key elements of film form consist of cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, sound and performance and they provide an important starting point for learners' study of film at A level. This in turn will help students to appreciate the aesthetic of film, in essence the ‘look and feel’ of a film.

A significant aspect of narrative study is based on how narrative construction aligns spectators with characters and issues and how it positions spectators to adopt particular values, attitudes and points of view conveyed in the film. The way filmmakers select and construct visual elements will then manipulate and position the audience into a specific and focused viewpoint. In making sense of film, learners explore how films create meaning and generate response through all aspects of film form (both its key elements and its structural elements). This includes the possibility that some films give rise to several possible meanings, which in turn generate a wide variety of responses. Some of these different meanings and responses will relate to a film’s representation of, for example, gender, ethnicity, age and other aspects of culture and society and to the ideological nature of those representations.

These ideas and issues can then be explored further through the creative aspect of the course, where students develop their own short films and evaluate their success at creating a specific response in an audience.

• Component 1- Variety of Films and Film Making 35%
• Component 2 – Global Film Making Perspectives 35%
• Component 3- NEA Coursework 30%

People who study film go on to Film and Television Production, Journalism, Set/Costume/Props/Make Up/Visual effects design, Directing, Producing, Acting, Camera Operators, Lighting/Sound Technicians, Event Organisers, Short/Feature Film Makers.