Screen Academy Scotland is an active filmmaking hub in the culturally vibrant city of Edinburgh. It offers great scope for collaboration, with some 350 or so students at undergraduate and postgraduate level engaged in diverse film activities. Students can also draw on support from tutors who themselves have significant experience in the industry.
The Screen Academy is a professionally-equipped facility and we expect student work to aspire to a level that is close to industry standard. As it's one of only three film academies in the UK accredited by ScreenSkills, the film industry’s skills body, it gives our graduates significant credibility in the industry.
This course will advance your knowledge of your chosen specialist area as well as giving you a rounded understanding of other film making disciplines. The emphasis on professional skills will help maximise your chance of success.
Previous graduates have had their films screened at festivals around the world, including Glasgow, London, USA, Venice, Beijing, Kolkata and Edinburgh. Many have gone on to win awards and commissions for TV and feature film projects.
Subjects include:
Trimester 1
- Creative Practice for Film and TV
- Collaborative Techniques for Film 1
Trimester 1 (optional)
- The Business of Screen Project Development
- Script Workshop 1
- Writing and Screen Project Development
- Moving Image Design (editors and cinematographers only)
Trimester 2
- Creative Practice for Cinema
- Collaborative Techniques for Film 2
- Critical Film Study
Trimester 3
Graduate film screening at an Edinburgh screening venue in late autumn.
Lead academics
MA Film is taught by a range of professionals from a number of specialisms.
Ita Jansen is an award-winning Writer & Director. She participated in development programmes such as Berlinale Talents and Torino Film Lab. Her films have screened among others at Slamdance, Zinebi, The London Short Film Festival, Washington DC shorts, and many others. Her feature drama In Times of Rain had a theatrical release in Mexico and was broadcasted multiple times by the Mexican National broadcaster Canal 22.
David Lumsden is an award-winning fiction & commercials Director based in Scotland. His work has been screened to audiences at film festivals around the world. Alongside his fiction and commercial projects he has also directed broadcast documentaries, made for TV films, and behind the scenes content for feature films. His work has received awards from Scottish BAFTA New Talent, Roses Creative Awards & The Christopher Johnson Movie Viral Award.
David Byrne has over 30 years experience in the TV and film industry in every role in the camera department; on feature films, HETV drama, commercials, documentaries and industrial / corporate projects for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and other non-UK channels. Previous teaching includes courses for Kodak and Technicolor staff.
Susan Brand is Head of Editing at Edinburgh Napier University. She works with undergraduates and postgraduates including specialist teaching in advanced editing. Susan has over 20 years of international industry experience as an Editor and Edit Consultant. She has lived and worked in the UK, US, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and Southeast Asia and was hugely inspired as a storyteller by this international experience. She has taught film editing at numerous universities and film schools around the world including as Visiting Professor at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She has been a frequent guest speaker at industry events in the UK and abroad like the Scottish Documentary Institute, The Grierson Trust, Women in Film and Television and she has run her own 2-day course entitled Storytelling in the Edit funded by Skillset, the UK’s premiere film and television production training body.
We also engage a range of professional practitioners as visiting lecturers on the programme.