BSc Screen Practice – University of Paisley
What is Screen Practice?
A practical, production-led degree focused on documentary filmmaking and broadcast journalism. It covered the full factual workflow from research and access through shooting, interviewing, scripting to picture, editing, and compliance for TV and digital platforms.
Why it Matters
- Builds real-world skills for factual storytelling and public-interest journalism
- Emphasises ethical practice, accuracy, and legal awareness
- Trains collaboration under deadline pressure across camera, sound, and edit
- Produces portfolio work (packages/short documentaries) ready for industry
What Screen Practice Combines
- Documentary development — research, treatments, pitching, access & consent
- Interviewing & reporting — question design, presenter links, vox pops
- Location production — single-camera shooting, B-roll coverage, lighting on location
- Audio for factual — dialogue capture, atmos, basic mixing
- Post-production — logging/transcripts, paper edits, assembly → fine cut, captions
- Journalism practice — news values, scripting to pictures, rundowns, editorial workflows
- Law & ethics — accuracy, fairness, right of reply, privacy, defamation, compliance
- Multiplatform — versions for web/social, subtitling and accessibility
What I Did
- Produced and directed short documentaries and news packages
- Researched contributors, secured access, prepared briefings and consent forms
- Conducted on-camera interviews and gathered supporting B-roll on location
- Wrote scripts to picture for voiceover/presenter links and edited end-to-end
- Managed production paperwork (schedules, risk assessments, releases)
Skills I Gained
- Project management & production delivery — scoping, schedules, milestones; production run-downs; delivery specs and versioning
- Research & access — background research, fact-checking, contributor care
- Interviewing — building rapport, open/closed questioning, on-camera technique
- Camera & lighting — single-camera operation, natural/practical lighting on location
- Sound — clean dialogue capture (shotgun/lavs), monitoring, basic mix
- Editing — logging, paper edits, story structure, pacing, exports & captions
- Editorial judgement — news values, right of reply, balance, compliance awareness
- Documentation & safety — risk assessments, call sheets, release forms, location permissions
- Collaboration — working in small crews, time management, clear comms under deadline
Looking Back
The programme cemented my interest in factual storytelling and gave me a disciplined approach to research, editorial standards, and on-location production.
Looking Ahead
These foundations transfer directly to modern factual content for broadcast and digital—short documentaries, news features, and branded factual pieces across platforms.