Course Summary
Over three years of practice-led learning with leading industry professionals, you will be immersed in the techniques of acting, text, voice, movement and performance for screen with the industry always at the forefront of our minds. Our goal is to develop flexible and versatile actor-entrepreneurs who feel empowered within their craft across all mediums, spaces and platforms.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
This new and inclusive degree in Acting for Stage and Screen offers an intensive and dynamic actor training, developing acting skills for both on-camera and on-stage. From initial idea through to performance or screening we will encourage and support the building of craft and development of an understanding of the actors’ creative process. With 80% practical assessments, acting techniques are explored via workshops enabling a personal creative toolkit to be built.
Alongside your lecturers you will be mentored and taught by professional actors, directors, casting directors, film-makers and screenwriters, many of whom continue to work in the industry today. This practical and analytical training will help to develop your own artistic identity and offer you a creative performing arts community with plenty of opportunities to create your own original work.
This course focuses on a collaborative approach, building an ensemble and creating a conservatoire atmosphere for our degree students with a focus on developing the graduate actor with an extensive CV, a professional show reel and a resilience to make exciting contemporary work.
If you join in the foundation year, you will have the opportunity to transform and develop your existing experience and skills in creative practice and establish key academic skills to prepare you for undergraduate study.
The first year of undergraduate study develops core technical and creative skills in key areas of disciplinary practice and collaboration. You will participate in industry-modelled projects in collaboration with students from other related disciplines.
In the second year you will experiment further, explore different approaches to individual and collaborative practice, engaging with external practitioners and organisations, and developing employability skills as part of a Professional Life module.
In the third year of study you will become more focused on the development of your own specialist ideas, practice and research, individually and in collaboration with others, internal and external to the University.
You will graduate with a rich and dynamic digital portfolio to present to industry professionals and future employers.
HOW YOU'LL LEARN
Level four
This degree starts by developing a professional and practical skills-based training including vocal technique, approaching text, overcoming inner blocks, ensemble training, authenticity, promoting presence, playfulness and working with the camera as a maker and performer
Level five
This year features collaboration projects including Research and Development processes with writers and directors, an exploration of the creative process with public projects, writing, film making, physical theatre, acting to camera, and improvisation. The second year connects the student with industry both inhouse at UEL and with invited practitioners.
Level six
The Third year culminates in a festival of new writing, launching the student into the industry with a combination of stage and screen exposure. Our flag ship scheme PROJECT ON A BUS is also an offshoot of the Performing Arts Department and gives undergraduate and graduates a platform to make and perform original work.
You'll be taught by a range of staff, many of whom run their own practices or work in practice, which ensures that the practice-led research which is disseminated in the studios, or actually takes place there, is relevant to industry and practice. It also means that studios are well placed to take advantage of the myriad of professional networks which staff bring with them. Within each module are a practice component and coursework component with the intention that knowledge and skills are always introduced and developed in relation to projects.
Guided independent study
When not attending timetabled lectures you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking preparing coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for exams. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and Moodle.Academic support
Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas - including learning and disability support
Projects
Professional practice, innovation, enterprise and engagement will be modelled and applied in live projects and assessed through the development of an online creative portfolio. Each piece of coursework will be presented as a digital portfolio.
Practice Portfolio
Practice Portfolios include a range of creative artefacts associated with disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice, developed through performance, production, composition, devising, writing, and other creative activities. Practice portfolios are used to capture multi-dimensional evidence relating to the product of a creative process (e.g. performance, composition, installation, improvisation, workshop, site-specific activity, interactive artefact (e.g. immersive theatre production or Website), and other artefacts relating to the creation of this material, including formative assessment evidence (e.g. plans, notes, scripts, scores, evidence of collaborative development / devising).
Coursework Portfolios
Coursework Portfolios report the process of creating practical work. They will often include production reports to illustrate and evaluate the process, as well as integrating research and contextualisation, including formative assessment evidence.
Practice and Theory are integrated, so that research skills, critical reflection and evaluation, and contextual studies are embedded in you project work throughout the programme.
Dedicated personal tutor
When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of staff who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at UEL and who will show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer.Workload
Each year you will spend around 300 hours of timetabled learning and teaching activities. These may be lectures, workshops, seminars and individual and group tutorials. Contact hours may vary depending on each module.
The approximate percentages for this course are:
Year 1: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.
Year 2: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.
Year 3: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.
Your timetable
Your individualised timetable is normally available to students within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week between 9.00am and 6.00pm. For undergraduate students Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities, but there may be occasions when this is not possible. Timetables for part-time students will depend on the modules selected.Class sizes
To give you an indication of class sizes, this course normally attracts 30 students per year. You will attend lectures and seminars together, and regularly work in smaller groups and individually in workshops and practical sessions.
YOUR FUTURE CAREER
Performing Arts programmes at UEL develop an existing base of core skills in practice, research and portfolio development, and apply these to specific industrial contexts in collaborative projects that simulate professional practice, and which integrate with the Theatre, Media and Immersive Experience industries.
The BA Acting for Stage and Screen course will develop a core set of skills and will also develop transferrable skills (linked to UEL Core Competencies and the Career Passport) for the creative industries.
The integration of both staged and screen-based acting technique, dramaturgy and creative collaboration with technical and creative areas mirrors the nature of the contemporary industrial context, in which traditional career pathways have been superseded by more diverse skills sets and practice applied across disciplinary and industrial contexts.
Programme Specific skills will include: Acting for stage and screen, dramaturgy, video editing, creative writing, creative and technical production, interactive portfolio development, sound recording (environmental, Foley stage, stage), sound design.
You will be able to collaborate and participate in a range of projects, resulting in a portfolio of project work that represents a broad range of skills and experience, with depth of both disciplinary and interdisciplinary skills.
This approach anticipates a diverse world of work, building skills to create coherence and impact that is transferrable across multiple industry contexts.
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