Course summary

If you’re looking to break into acting, this course is an excellent launch pad. You’ll get to fine-tune and extend your acting skills, working on live briefs, networking with industry creatives and taking part in diverse projects. Are you wanting to top-up your qualification to a BA Honours degree? If you have completed a foundation-level degree, HND, or equivalent qualifications in a relevant Art and Design subject, you can choose to top-up your studies to gain a full bachelor’s degree. Why Study this subject? Through simulating a professional environment and experience, this course allows you as a student to learn the skills that you’ll need in preparation for the rigours of working in the performing arts industry or related field. You’ll cover a range of key areas on this course, including a catalogue of different acting styles, acting practice, working with others and stage work at professional venues. An area of independent research practice will enable you to develop and employ a range of critical thinking skills based on subject knowledge and garnered through individual research and performance practice. Why Study at BNU? The mix of screen and stage work is what makes this course stand out. We will give you hands-on experience with the latest technology allowing you to explore the full range of screen, audio and intermedial possibilities. Our team of experienced academic-practitioners has a wealth of industry and academic experience and will nurture your learning and professional development throughout your time with us. We place performance making at the centre of this course so you'll get a much better understanding of the practices that surround film, stage and television performances. We seek to bring your work into the wider world and to bring the world into the university. Students perform in external venues during their time at BNU, and have recently worked with a range of theatre companies and practitioners including Paper Birds on devising theatre, Out of Joint on contemporary texts, Mark McGann on acting for camera, and Station House Opera on intermedial theatre. As well as taking part in guest workshops, you’ll collaborate with students from other courses. You could work on projects with students studying film and TV production, creative advertising, audio and music, and even nursing. We’ll support you to find an approach to acting that’s uniquely yours and alongside this set you up with the real-world skills you need to secure acting work when you graduate. What facilities can I use? You’ll use our drama studios on site, some with moving lights and fully-equipped sound systems and projection. We also have sprung floors and mirrors suitable for movement and physical work. We use the professional venue at Wycombe Town Hall, which is less than two minutes from our campus. You will have access to high quality Sony camera equipment, suitable for film and TV screening, and also to lighting rigs and sound recording facilities. Check out our facilities section for more information. What will I study? This programme is designed to develop professional skills and techniques across a range of Acting forms focusing on Film, TV & Stage. We enhance students’ previous acting training by providing a blend of critical analysis of dramatic texts and screenplays, alongside skills acquisition and development and performance, both for stage and screen. The course aims to encourage critical thinking through a study of playwrights, performance skills and theatre and film practitioners. Tutors are research active and engage in research through practice, which informs all teaching with theoretical content. This dynamic top-up degree programme will also give students the opportunity to engage with practitioners in the fields of theatre and film, to stage their own independently produced work and to study an area of interest they wish to research.