The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television) at the Victorian College of the Arts develops your creative voice and the skills to make distinctive screen programs to a high artistic and technical standard for all stages of film and television production. Our students and graduates continue to win numerous industry awards on the national and international stages, including festivals such as Berlin International, Cannes through to the Academy Awards.

As a Film and Television student, you will acquire creative, technical and analytical skills in an open environment that will encourage you to remain innovative and experimental in your work. This program will provide you with the opportunity to write, direct and edit your own work, as well as crew on fellow students’ productions.

You will have access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources, including fully equipped production studios, animation studios, and 90 and 220-seat cinemas; analogue and digital cinema cameras and audio recording kits; and HD digital vision and audio post-production facilities.

Breadth subjects at each year level enable you to explore cross disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

You will

• Develop advanced, practical filmmaking skills including direction of actors, cinematography, sound recording and editing, production management, assistant directing and other fundamental principles of filmmaking
• Learn to research, develop, write and design a narrative short film
• Strengthen your individual creative voice, and crewing on your fellow students’ productions – which develops valuable peer networks and skills
• Acquire ability to critically and constructively critique your own and peers’ screen production work in the context of the broader history of screen culture
• Collaborate with VCA Theatre, Film and Television, and Production students throughout the course.

Future pathways

Upon completion of the course, you may choose to apply for a fourth-year Honours degree. An honours year provides an intensive mode of study allowing you to master your specialisation and create a pathway into advanced graduate study options in acting.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television) course aims to develop writer/directors with distinctive individual creative voices, and detailed practical knowledge of all stages of film and television production.

This course is a three-year full-time degree that offers study in production based, practical film making and screen-based storytelling. Theoretical knowledge and practical skills are developed through an immersive and practical curriculum in studio and production environments. You will be provided with ongoing opportunities to initiate, develop, and realise short film projects to industry standard with access to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, under the guidance of professional and academic staff with significant industry experience.

You will be given the opportunity to perform key crewing roles on other student productions and be involved in creative interdisciplinary collaborations with students across Performing Arts, Music, Visual Art, Design and Production. Studies in screen culture will allow you to deepen your knowledge of cinema and screen-based storytelling, focusing on elements essential to the practice of filmmaking.

The capstone subject Screen Practice 3B provides you with the opportunity to focus on the development and realisation of a substantial short film work at a professional level.

Breadth subjects

As part of your course at each year level, you can select breadth subjects either from the Fine Arts and Music disciplines or explore cross-disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

The breadth subjects available to BFA students include those in fine arts (acting, animation, dance, production, film and television, music theatre, screenwriting, theatre and visual art), as well as music education, Indigenous knowledges, law, languages, psychology, social sciences, humanities, science, marketing and many more.

Find out more about the University’s breadth subjects

Workload

Contact hours in your first year are approximately 30 hours per week; this includes both class-based work and tutorials with lecturers.

Sample course plan

View some sample course plans to help you select subjects that will meet the requirements for this bachelor.

300-point program

3 years full-time

Our students and graduates receive outstanding industry and audience recognition on national and international stages in positions that include:

• Cinematographer
• Director
• Editor
• Film and television producer
• Screenwriter.

Graduate pathways

Once you've completed your undergraduate degree, you can go on to gain employment or begin a graduate degree and work towards a professional qualification such as law, engineering or medicine. Or you could join our graduate research community and contribute to our world-changing research.

Your graduate degree will be internationally recognised, and set you apart from those who study a traditional Australian single or double degree.

Explore the graduate pathways available once you complete your undergraduate degree here.

Completed secondary education recently (within the past two years); Completed some or all of a higher education qualification; Completed some or all of a VET qualification; Applicants with wo

TOEFL Internet-based test: total score of at least 79 and scores of 21 for writing, 18 for speaking, 13 for reading and 13 for listening; IELTS: total score of at least 6.5 in the Academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS), with no bands less than 6.0; Pearson Test of English Academic : overall score of at least 58 and no PTE communicative skills score below 50; Cambridge English, Advanced/Certificate in Advanced English (CAE): Cambridge English Score of at least 176 with no skill below 169; C2 Proficiency (previously called Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) examination): Cambridge English Score of at least 180 with no skill below 180.