We want to develop your skills, knowledge and confidence for a sustained career as a performing arts designer.
The breadth of our curriculum enables you to become a creative, ambitious, multi-skilled designer. Through working on a variety of practical projects, you feel equally at home designing the set and costume for a theatre production, working on a site-specific performance event or creating the environment or lighting for a music gig or dance performance.

The course is highly practical emphasising realised performance work each year. Our designers collaborate with all performance disciplines and a range of external companies, so you gain a huge amount and variety of experience.

Do you love acting, dancing or performing for an audience? Is singing your thing? Maybe you want to avoid the limelight but still work in performing arts. In any case, this course could be for you.

This course will provide you with practical skills, understanding, and knowledge of careers in the theatre industry. You’ll also learn to be organized and gain the confidence to perform in front of an audience.

There will be many chances to perform at venues outside of college and to gain work experience as part of your course. You will meet and work with professionals from the industry and see live professional shows and events.

During the course, you’ll:

The media play a central role in contemporary culture, society and politics. They shape our perceptions of the world through the representations, ideas and points of view they offer.

The media have real relevance and importance in our lives today, providing us with ways to communicate, with forms of cultural expression and the ability to participate in key aspects of society.

Learners will study a range of media forms in terms of a theoretical framework which consists of media language, representation, media industries and audiences.

The following forms are studied in depth through applying all areas of the framework:

Advertising and marketing, film, music video, radio and video games are studied in relation to selected areas of the framework.

We have developed a strong link with the BFI Film Academy Course, and many of our students have successfully gained a place on this additional qualification run at Broadway Cinema. Students develop industry level practical skills in filmmaking by producing a short film that is screened each year to an invited audience.

You will study this course alongside 2 or 3 other A Levels and you will be able to select your chosen subjects when you apply online.

Subjects that combine well with Media Studies include English, Sociology, Politics, Film Studies, History and Photography.

Our graphic and digital design degree takes a practical and theoretical approach to design to prepare you for careers in the creative industries.

On our graphic and digital design degree, you will study topics such as typography and graphic design, branding and advertising, fine art, photography, data visualisation and the moving image. Technical workshops and other practical elements of the course will boost your creativity and help you master various aspects of design technology.

Popular career options for our graphic and digital design graduates include roles in creative agencies, particularly those specialising in print, publishing, packaging, branding and interaction design, as well as those focused on animation and the moving image.

The MA Performance Design course explores scenography and performance-making from various perspectives informed by current research and innovative practices including immersive and participatory forms of performance design, design-led performance, audience experience and contemporary spectatorship.

On this course, you'll experiment with the creative application of design elements, including space, light, sound, costume and digital media, discovering how to shape live performance and generate meaning for contemporary audiences.

This course allows you to extend your own creative practice through developing an understanding of the theories and concepts of scenography and designing for live performance.

You’ll use our specialist facilities to explore the performance experiences that can be created with space, light, objects, costume, sound, projection and other digital technologies like virtual and mixed reality, creating original performance work that is design-led.

You’ll work collaboratively to create dynamic cutting-edge work and you’ll develop skills in documentation and reflection so that you can develop your individual creative practice. 

You’ll devise and carry out an independent research project into an aspect of performance design that interests you. You’ll also examine contemporary performance practices, from immersive and participatory experiences to site-specific work staged outside of traditional theatre spaces and locate these within their wider social and cultural contexts. 

From your first year studying with us, you’ll work through modules that have been written and delivered by subject specialists with contributions from industry experts. We’ll teach you how to create, develop, and present your designs from your early sketch ideas. You’ll also learn and use traditional drawing, craft methods and computer-aided design.

You’ll meet many of our industry friends, who are not only respected Designers but Producers, Art Directors, Event Planners, Production Buyers and Location Managers. You will also hear from successful graduates, currently employed on high profile productions. Recent graduates have gone on to work on Hollyoaks, Peaky Blinders, Stockyard North Prop Hire and Coronation Street. Whether your end goal after graduating is for employment or setting up your Film TV and Stage design business, we’ll support you.

The first year of your Film, TV and Stage Design degree will lay the foundations for the rest of your time studying with us. You’ll gain all of the skills and knowledge needed to succeed on the course.

Through practical, hands-on projects, you’ll be introduced to the many processes involved in film and TV set design and stage design, including how to interpret scripts, how to come up with and develop your ideas, as well as construction, materials and location work.

In your second year, you’ll get a closer look at what it’s like to work in the industry through modules in which you work on live briefs, as well as work placement opportunities with external organisations. Not only will you get the chance to use and develop the essential skills you’ve learned over your first year on this stage set design course, you will also gain valuable first-hand industry experience and make contact with established professionals.

You’ll begin your third year with a project designed to get you up to speed and ready for your final major design project. Your Research Methods for Film, TV & Stage Design module will teach you to develop a personal design brief which you’ll use as the basis for your final . Negotiated Major Project in which you to produce a detailed, industry-standard project that reflects your strengths, interests, and career ambitions and this will likely become a key part of your portfolio when you begin looking for work once you graduate.

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