Drama and Film & Visual Culture

Drama and film and visual culture is a combination that examines storytelling and meaning-making across the stage, the screen, and the broader landscape of visual media. Drama developed as a written and performed art form long before cinema existed, and the history of film is deeply entangled with the history of theatre: many of the conventions of screen acting, narrative structure, and visual composition have roots in theatrical practice. Studying the two together gives you a richer critical vocabulary for both, and a more complete understanding of how performance and visual representation work.

At Liverpool Hope University in the heart of a city with an extraordinary creative and cultural heritage, this four-year programme includes a foundation year, a sandwich year in industry, a year abroad, and work placement opportunities, making it one of the most structurally rich creative arts programmes available. The foundation year gives you a strong grounding in both subjects before the main degree begins. The drama component introduces you to the origins of drama and develops your creativity and critical skills through the making of new work and the analysis of existing practice.

The film and visual culture component develops your understanding of cinema as both an art form and an industry, alongside the broader visual cultures of photography, digital media, and contemporary image-making. The sandwich year and work placement give you professional experience in the theatre, film, or creative industries, while the year abroad broadens your cultural and academic perspective.

Graduates work in performance, production, arts administration, education, journalism, broadcasting, the film and television industry, and across the wider creative sector. Postgraduate study in drama, film, or visual culture is a natural next step for those who wish to develop specialist expertise.