Course details

The features of this challenging yet rewarding GCSE are:

• A chance for students to explore a range of different types and genres of films, including popular mainstream films from Hollywood, independent films, animation, foreign language films and films outside the mainstream.

• Opportunities to create a range of film-related material like merchandise and marketing products, web pages, film scripts and storyboards, film posters and short film clips.

• Assessment is through two examinations (50% external assessment) and three main pieces of internally assessed work (50% internal assessment) – film research and analysis, film pitch and pre-production tasks and a production task such as designing a website, creating a magazine centre page spread or creating a short 2-3 minute film.

Film is perhaps the major – and most popular – art form of the last century and this GCSE specification is designed to take students’ everyday experience of film and to extend it into learning about the language and techniques that filmmakers use to give a film meaning to its audience. Sometimes clips are viewed and at other times whole films are viewed and then discussed, analysed and written about. This course is a mixture of written, design and practical tasks. The choice of films explored is designed to encourage students to watch a whole range of exciting and diverse films, some they may never even have heard of! 

The course will be delivered through a mixture of traditional classroom teaching, combined with the hands-on study of a range of films which will be viewed in the class. Students will be encouraged to bring their own experience of watching films to the course.