Film, Television & New Media: should I choose it?

What will I learn?

How will I be assessed?

Progression and companion subjects

No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.

Will I find it hard?

Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.

• Do you enjoy practising, making or performing and responding to feedback?
• Think about sustained work on a creative project and documenting how your ideas develop.

Does it scale up or down?

Film Television and New Media, 2025. Table 6 of QTAC’s 2025 report publishes separate raw and scaled subject medians for General subjects with at least 50 students. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.

Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.

Try a little of the subject

Technologies

In Film, Television and New Media, technologies are the tools, equipment, software and processes that people use to make, distribute, access and interact with moving-image media products. A camera, a microphone, editing software and a streaming platform are technologies, but so are processes such as motion capture or colour grading. The key concept asks two questions at once: what does a technology make possible for a producer, and how does it shape the experience of the audience? Cheap phone cameras helped make vertical, intimate video normal on social platforms; surround sound changed how cinema audiences feel space. Technologies are never neutral, because each choice affects cost, access, style and meaning. Technology choices happen in every one of the five phases of production. In development the idea is shaped and a format is chosen. In pre-production you write treatments, screenplays or three-column scripts, draw storyboards, list equipment and complete risk assessments. In production you capture rushes using cameras, lenses, lighting and microphones. In post-production you edit, mix sound, add effects, titles and narration, then export. In distribution you decide where and how the product is accessed, such as a festival screen, a phone or a live stream. A good plan matches tools to purpose: a gimbal suits smooth tracking shots, a tripod suits static observational framing, a lavalier microphone suits a seated interview, and a shotgun microphone on a boom suits dialogue in a moving scene. When writing about technologies, use precise terms such as focal length, depth of field, frame rate, aperture, non-linear editing, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, compositing and export settings. Pre-production documents follow conventions too: numbered shots, shot sizes abbrevia

Original practice question: An editor cuts from a character looking through binoculars to a neighbour’s window, then back to the character’s reaction. What is the main effect on the audience?

This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.

Explore the resources

Open the Film, Television & New Media subject hub and free preview (opens in a new tab)

• Film, Television & New Media — QCE Units 3 & 4 (opens in a new tab)

Core subject information and planning are free. Full study resources are optional.