FINAL MASTERS PROJECT - 2026/7

Module Overview

This module spans the entirety of the MA FADA programme, representing your cumulatively developed final creative project. This project can take many different forms and formats drawn from the multitude of film, animation and digital media arts production techniques explored and developed over the stages of the course. Alternatively, you can choose to undertake a research-oriented creative practice project, informed by both theoretical and practical aspects of the programme.

Module provider

Music & Media

Module Leader

WEINBREN Jon (Music & Med)

Number of Credits: 90

ECTS Credits: 45

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

N/A

Module content

• Review sessions on applying specialist skills and techniques in film, animation and digital arts.
• Workshop sessions on creative project development and interdisciplinary working methods.
• Update sessions on recent or developing creative and practical media production tools and techniques.
• Group critiques.
• One-to-one mentoring.
• Technical support.
• Script and story development sessions.
• Production coordination and technical assistance individually tailored to your project.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

Your final project will demonstrate your ability to develop a creatively excellent and technically innovative project drawing on an array of skills and techniques learned over the previous year:

• to realise a creative project idea to its completion
• to apply an array of skills and techniques developed over the previous stages of the course
• to articulately reflect on your processes
• to engage with peers, tutors, experts and guest advisors for the betterment of your creative practice
• to experiment with and extrapolate new techniques and new approaches to film, animation and/or digital arts practice

• Creative Project Portfolio 
  This comprises several complementary and interlinked elements, including the audio-visual artefact itself in exhibition or presentational context accompanied by reflective commentaries as appropriate.

• is provided on a frequent basis during the development of these projects. In particular, depending on the form and format of each project, specific written feedback is provided on work-in-progress submitted at key ¿mile-stone¿ points in the project's schedule. The mentoring process ensures that projects are both monitored and supervised, the style and frequency of which is a matter for individual negotiation.

Module aims

• Apply methods of critical analysis in creating your thoughtfully developed creative project or research/practice project.
• Fully implement your knowledge, practical skills and contextual understanding developed over different stages of the programme.
• Facilitate partnerships with peers, collaborators and external specialists.
• Develop your expertise and confidence in project leadership and creative direction.
• Develop a range of industry-ready and research-ready transferable skills.
• Form the basis of individual and collective creative and/or research portfolios.
• Consolidate your development in readiness for your next career steps as creative practitioner and/or practice-researcher.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

Through support, the staff teach you in further depth and detail how to approach and execute the creative and technical development of your final master's project. The specifics of this support will be dependent on the nature, form(s) and format(s) of the individual project undertaken.

In the previous stages of the programme, you will have already made progress in defining the direction of your project during planning consultations with the Programme Leader. 

The teaching element will grow into a more mentored approach, calling on other tutors, specialists and experts as appropriate to help guide you towards their final output. 

Your main output, a film, will be presented at a public and exhibition in mid-September. 

Your learning element thus coalesces around experience building, when and how to solicit advice and feedback from multiple resources including tutors and experts, how to critically evaluate self-progress, and how to iterate and improve upon creative outputs.

This is delivered through a combination of:

• Group creative exercises and seminars
• Tutorials and co-development sessions
• Specialist talks and presentations
• Critiques -- group and individual

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: DMAM005

Other information

Embedded alongside the specific knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences facilitated by this module are more general attributes which the university has identified as an ambition to develop in all students across all subjects and disciplines on offer. These are:

• Employability
• Resourcefulness and Resilience
• Digital Capabilities
• Sustainability
• Global and Cultural Capabilities

The following is an account of how this module addresses these pillars.

Employability

Because this module is delivered by tutors and specialists with significant industry experience and contacts, it boosts your employability, raises the level at which you can gain positions and roles within the industry on graduation, and addresses well documented industry skills gaps. The module develops a range of proficiencies appropriate to live action film, animation, games, and other associated areas of the media industries, by providing up-to-the-minute knowledge and understanding of tools and techniques used every day in these fields at professional level. Equally important for employability within these areas (and often overlooked) is the development of personability: so that employers, collaborators, funders and commissioners want to work with you. We develop this by enabling you to work collaboratively and collegiately, in a supportive studio-like environment in which we all work together to realise creative goals. Additionally, your experience as you present your film publicly will give you new capabilities.

Resourcefulness and Resilience

As you encounter new and unfamiliar working practices along with robust, fair and helpful criticism, you will develop inventiveness and flexibility to cope with these elements of your course, including the ability to research your own solutions to given problems. We encourage you to pool knowledge and work collaboratively to come up with innovative methods to achieve a particular creative or technical goal. The studio environment and unfettered access to facilities and software facilitates this. As you cooperate with other students across this module, you will learn ways to be useful and helpful within a crew situation, and also learn better how to cope with criticism and encouragement. At all times, you will have access to experienced tutors to advise you.

Digital Capabilities

The FADA programme is built on current and recent techniques and technologies available to mainstream studios and animators. In this way, digital capabilities are an integrated part of what you learn. Contemporary media production is an inherently digital affair but we include more traditional techniques such as drawn animation, and drawing practice, as part of the offering.

Sustainability

By offering you digital equipment made to the most recent energy-saving standards throughout your research for this module, we will enable you to use best practices to minimise pollution and waste. We also work closely with the University of Surrey's Institute for Sustainability to explore and promote the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. You are shown best practices such as LED-based lighting, virtual production technologies to minimise crew and talent travel, recycling of sets and other materials, better transport choices, minimising of waste, and awareness of environmental and social effects on local communities and landscapes. These are embedded in various current industry initiatives such as BAFTA 'Albert', the 'Screen New Deal' production sustainability plan, and others. Furthermore, from a content viewpoint, many of the creative projects you develop on the programme address environment and sustainability issues as part of their subject matter. 

Global and Cultural Capabilities

Film-making is inherently an international pursuit, crossing not only national boundaries but also, very importantly, cultural boundaries. Your colleagues among students will be from many nationals and cultures, whose expertise and enthusiasms will naturally encompass broad ranges of international and intercultural influences. Your tutors will welcome your embrace of cultures outside your own, especially regarding experimental, contemporary and historical contexts. For example, you will be encouraged to explore the many cross-cultural opportunities that this university's student union societies celebrate. In this module's storytelling opportunities, your tutors will welcome narratives and subjects outside your own national and cultural experience.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2026/7 academic year.