Join our award-winning students and develop your skills in cinematography, editing, producing and directing in studio and on location. You’ll shoot on film, digital and analogue 16mm film, and gain key skills, from ideas development and pre-production planning, through to post production skills in sound design and colour grading. Learn from highly experienced filmmakers, television producers and technical officers in our specialist facilities. You’ll work closely with other students on your course, as well as your lecturers, gaining friends as well as skills like team work and collaboration.

If your career aspirations are to crew on high-end TV drama or film, set up your own company as a videographer, create innovative online content, reinvent what television is or use film to make change in the world, the skills you learn on this course will set you up to start that journey.

As a BA (Hons) Film Production student at ARU, you will be supported by award-winning, lecturers whose work has been screened on all the major UK television networks, as well as at multiple international film festivals. They have won Emmys, HUGOs and BAFTAs and continue to practice.

With their encouragement, you'll produce a rage of programmes and films which may ultimately be as prize and film festival worthy as recent student work. Our second year documentary, Tertiary Sound was officially selected for the BFI London Film Festival and in competitions like the Royal Television Society (East) Student Awards, our students have a growing tradition of success. In 2019, ARU Film Production students scooped up Best Drama, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Camera, Best Sound and Best Writing at the RTS (East) student awards, cementing the course’s reputation as a national centre of excellence.

You’ll have access to a series of guest lectures and workshops led by industry professionals where you’ll learn more about industry practices, receive invaluable advice and have an opportunity to network with visiting film and programme makers.

Past speakers have included, directors Ben Wheatly (High Rise, Free Fire), Chloe Thomas (Victoria, Harlots), Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Enduring Love), producers Laura Hasting-Smith (Macbeth , Hunger, Howards End) ,Oliver Kassman (Saint Maude and a BAFTA Breakthrough winner), cinematographers Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave, Hunger) and Robbie Ryan (Red Road, I Daniel Blake, American Honey) , sound designers Larry Sider and Adele Fletcher, Emmy Award-winning documentary director, Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, Presumed Guilty) and BBC Commissioning Editor for Storyville, Mandy Chang.

Making the most of being in Cambridge, our students collaborate closely with Cambridge University students on running the prestigious Watersprite International Student Film Festival where this year they sat on judging panels, met the team behind His Dark Materials and made friends with student filmmakers from around the world. You'll have other opportunities to collaborate with University of Cambridge students through extra curricular events at venues including student-run radio station Cam FM and the ADC Theatre (home of Cambridge Footlights).

There are plenty of other opportunities to get your work seen. The Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, screens the best films by our students at an end of year screening. We also host a selection of student work on our budding YouTube channel.

Our BA (Hons) Film Production course will prepare you for employment or self-employment in film, television and the creative industries; the ever-expanding field of screen content including music, dance, marketing and fashion promos, as well as high-end drama and documentary.

We place an emphasis on creativity and storytelling, as well as solid, transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, problem solving, resourcefulness, and risk management.

You’ll also learn highly valued specialist skills such as editing, cinematography, production management, budgeting, producing and directing – invaluable as you launch a career in this highly competitive but growing and diverse creative industry.