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Content Development (BCI and FTP) - TFT00036C

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  • Department: Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2023-24

Module summary

Content Development will give you your first taste of how ideas are worked up and stories refined in the professional creative industries. This module will acquaint you with some of the procedures – and the associated critical thinking – required for turning raw ideas into film, TV, stage or interactive content, both fictional and factual. It will provide you with insights into, and an understanding of, the professional procedures in contemporary creative business practice where ideas have to be generated and delivered on a regular basis. These ideas are then researched, pitched and developed at speed, sometimes under pressure, but always with a market and an audience in mind. The module will allow you to pull together and apply all you have learned previously in your first year. It will call on you to think through stories and narrative structures, to deploy production techniques and technologies, to process business conditions and financing opportunities, and to apply theoretical concepts and history in pursuit of developing the new and innovative content that is the currency of the creative industries

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

Over the course of this module, you can expect to:

  • Explore the basic principles of story and content research (for film, TV, stage and interactive media)
  • Acquire and develop disciplines for identifying, seeking out and recording potential content ideas
  • Evaluate some of the business, technical and practical requirements to make ideas work
  • Encounter and analyse existing content, formats and story structures so as to critically gauge their applicability to new subject-matters.
  • Develop your writing and presentational skills, specifically in relation to proposal design and verbal pitching.
  • Engage in teamwork as a core principle in developing content, and in contributing constructively to ideas originated by others.
  • Experience professional conditions and procedures as they apply to the development of ideas, among others: meeting deadlines, self-directing research, exploring business and commissioning opportunities

Module learning outcomes

At the end of this module, you will be expected to:

  • Demonstrate critical thinking in both evaluating previous creative practice and in gauging the viability of new creative ideas across a variety of media
  • Apply a researched knowledge of business conditions, markets, audiences and technical resources to an understanding of how content is realised in the creative industries.
  • Demonstrate and apply the core skills for researching and developing creative content.
  • Present your ideas effectively in both written (proposal) and verbal (pitch) forms with clear audiences and / or clients in mind.
  • Be able to apply enhanced team-working and inter-personal skills to collective creative undertakings.
  • Understand the importance of professional procedures and disciplines – among them, meeting deadlines, working inside industrial parameters, and following ethical and compliance guidelines – and the ability to adhere to them in the development of creative content.
  • Be familiar with the latest content outputs - across stage screen, and interactive media – while developing procedures for keeping in touch with emerging trends, alongside the research skills for refreshing your own stock of ideas accordingly.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 75
Oral presentation/seminar/exam 25

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

The module adopts a workshop structure in which feedback and formative exercises are embedded by the nature of the module's design.

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 75
Oral presentation/seminar/exam 25

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.

  • Reports on class participation will be compiled session by session and might be reported back within a week of formal teaching ending.
  • Presentations will be marked in situ – and might be reported back within two weeks.

Indicative reading

  • Bernard, S. C. (2007). Documentary Storytelling. Amsterdam and London: Focal Press.

  • Thompson, K. (2003). Storytelling in Film and Television. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

  • Potter, C. (2001). Screen Language: From Film Writing to Film-making. London: Methuen

  • Holland, P. (2004). The Television Handbook. London; Routledge.

  • Chater, K. (2001). Research for Media Production. London; Focal Press

  • Lees, N. (2010). Greenit: Developing Factual and Reality TV ideas from Concept to Pitch. London; Methuen Drama.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.