Industry alumni on-campus | Mondays 10 Nov-1 Dec 5-6pm | EMMTEC

Our alumni networking with students at Meet the Graduates is a main event at the Lincoln School of Film & Media. But LSFM have alumni coming on-campus all year to share their experiences with students. Senior Lecturer Dave McCaig  has organised graduates from industry on Mondays: 10, 17, 24 Nov and 1st Dec. He said: these alumni demonstrate the strength of the multi-disciplinary degrees at LSFM. With a strong background in media practices during their degrees and a combination of hard work and ambition, these guest speakers have shown that the School’s highly valued in the media industries. We are very pleased that our graduates have returned to pass on their knowledge. Monday in EMMTEC 5-6pm:

Sean StrangeMon 10th November Sean Strange, Class of 2013:  As well as doing his own freelance work Sean is currently a staff photographer at F/stop Event Photography. His previous experience includes, events photographer for The Imperial War Museum and press photographer for RAF Waddington.

Alumni guest talks coming up:

  • Mon 17th November Aleysha Minns, Class of 2013:  AV freelancer with experience at Revolver Films, C4 and C5 amongst others. Also one of LSFM inspirational industry mentors. She said: what do you want to know about the world of TV? Send me some suggestions to include (on 17th)!
  • Mon 24th November Joel Murray, Class of 2011: Digital marketing co-ordinator at Lincoln BIG and Visit Lincoln.
  • Mon 1st  Dec Darren Scales, Class of 2008: Indie Filmmaker at Backyard Productions. His latest community project on a £5000 budget was The Drift film.  It was created with the help of volunteers and LSFM media students & graduates.

ALL are welcome at the talks on Analysing and Working in the Media Industries.

Congrats to our Class of 2014

GraduationDay_UoLCongratulations Class of 2014. Today our graduation ceremony will be at Lincoln Cathedral from 2.30pm. This year’s graduands are already making their mark in the world.  Here is a small snapshot of some of them.   Rachel Hagreen is working at VideoJug; Gemma Benefer has a reporter’s job at KCFM; Natalie Dobson is a Junior Producer at Gems TVSasha Tucker has an internship at Vodafone, which he secured after being part of the student team who won the national 24-hour challenge with its e-cigarette concept; Faye Wood  had an online media internship at the College of Arts, University of Lincoln and said she has now been “hired as the web and multimedia officer” hereSteve Staff is an intern with Knight Hall Agency for a month and will update us here when he’s finished, along with an idea about a script network he’ll be setting up; Luke Werra was chosen for the BBC Talent Pool; Danielle Crooks created the soundtrack for an animation project, Lullaby, which was led by Lucy Clay and Amy Fairclough. It’s been nominated for the Student Competition section at Animasyros 7.0 International Animation Festival and will be screened there in October; Dean Dobbs will make his debut guest presenting on 15 Sept (along with 2013 grad Jack Howard as Jack and Dean) on Radio 1 with Dan and Phil – part of the show’s vloggers take-over on Mondays 9pm-10pm. [Last night’s was ‘TomSka‘, 2011 alumnus Thomas Ridgewell]; Sophy Taylor is working in Ibiza as a photographer, also an executive videographer for IBZ.TV and she’s been accepted at the New York Film Academy to do a postgraduate course; freelancers Andrew West and Emily Cowlishaw (our blogger) have decided to undertake their MA course at LSFM; a short film My conversations with Katie by Matt Dean was given an honourable mention in the Santa Monica Independent Film Festivalstudent team (at Wallbreaker ProductionsAsh Wilks, Luke Winter, Alex Whitcombe and Tom Mckie’s The Last Fisherman film has been selected to be screened next month at the well established 14th International Student Film Festival Pisek 2014.

Thomas-Mckie_2014Grad

Tom’s camera work on The Last Fisherman has been shortlisted in the top six films for the Bill Vinten GTC University AwardsHe said: things seem to be going well at the moment and along with graduating, trying to earn enough to pay and all this it’s a bit mad. But it’s great to be nominated for these awards. Continue reading

Steve Bernard, Class of 2013 | Audio Production Alumnus

Screen Shot 2014-08-18 at 11.30.54I’m Steve Bernard, a BA (Hons) Audio Production alumnus from the Class of ’13. Since I graduated, I’ve been employed at Cooz’s Recording Studio, in Oxford. My relationship with the studio actually began almost three years ago, after my first summer at the University of Lincoln, when I did a week long work experience there to enhance my CV. This led to an internship which I maintained around my degree, and I was offered a job at the studio after I finished my third year. (Photo: I’m with the director Kevin Cousineau, aka Cooz, mixing the Bad Company documentary.)

Working at the studio has been a great experience and I’ve recently found the most success as a Hip Hop producer – we were fortunate to have a break with a South African rapper called Rowan Groom, and his contacts and reputation in the emerging local Hip Hop scene has meant that business in this genre has skyrocketed. In the last 6 months, I’ve worked with a wide array of talent, producing mixtapes and EPs local rappers and singers such as Apt Ochiela, Carby, Manny O, Ellie Robbins and Rifle.

Getting business for my work relies heavily on word of mouth and networking. Continue reading

Aleysha Minns, Class of 2013 | Website | Film, TV & Photography

Aleysha-Minns_20142013 graduate and freelancer Aleysha Minns, who is one of our inspiring LSFM mentors, is now officially self-employed and said: My website is finally live! What a long and interesting journey it has been. I think the mistake I made was starting to set it up too early, I was at a point were my work was still based around my student work and I was only just beginning my freelance career. I am still in the starting stages, but at least I have some credited work. Thank you very much to my web designer/developer Sam Kelham for putting up with me all this time. I definitely recommend him if you need anything like this done and can visit his website here.

This video is a showcase of some of my most recent work including work with Channel 4 and FyreUK. It shows my skills in a range of areas such as Production Management, Camera Operator, Producer and Director over different genres.

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Ashley Turner, Class of 2013 | BBC TWO Floor Runner ‘Wolf Hall’

Congrats to all Lincoln School of Media third year graduating students who will be Class of 2014! The School hope you’ll keep us posted on your job-hunting, experiences, tips and advice, like last year’s alumnus Ashley Turner.

Super setting, a day to remember

I graduated from the University of Lincoln last year as part of the first group of students to take the Film & Television course. Just before I left Lincoln, I was accepted onto the BBC’s Production Talent Pool, which I took to be a guarantee of a kickstart as a TV runner. I moved to Bristol, where I began to pick up occasional runner jobs, working on the odd day here and there on programmes like Flog It, The One Show, Rip Off Britain and others. However, the desired long contract proved elusive. Thanks to uploading my CV to a number of websites, I worked as a runner on the open auditions for the upcoming Star Wars films, which was a very exciting opportunity, and things began to build up from there. Eventually I semi-moved to London, working on The One Show as a studio runner, as well as on a BBC Three comedy pilot, a BBC Two panel show and the recent Our Gay Wedding: The Musical.

BBCTWOHaving built up this solid range of runner experience, I was asked to come in to interview for a long-term runner job on a high profile BBC Two drama, and succeeded! So since April, I have been a Floor Runner on the BBC’s adaptation of Dame Hilary Mantel’s best-selling period drama Wolf Hall, which I’m thrilled to be a part of.  

My main piece of advice to fellow graduates of Lincoln School of Media who’re looking to get into TV? Never work for free. Continue reading

Meet the Graduates 2014 | How to Prepare for Work Post-Uni?

Meet_the_Graduates_150wHere’s the final clip in our Q&A series Meet the Graduates 2014: What’s the best preparation for the world (of work) after studying at the Lincoln School of Media? Graduates Steve Bernard (Class of 2013), Holly Smith (class of 2010), Philip Stevens (Class of 2010), Zoe Easey (Class of 2007), Adam Verity (Class of 2002) and Stuart Lutes (Class of 2001) on the Graduate Question Time panel gave their answers with many alumni in the audience sharing their experiences, too.

New Media Lincs had LSM’s creative student crew to capture the event, which was Year 2 Rory McCarney, Year 3 Kirsty Gibson and Kamil Rewers.  Rory also produced all the clips at Meet the Graduates 2014: value of work experience | where are alumni now? | media mentoring |

Alumni Weekend | 13-15 June 2014 | University of Lincoln | Free for all graduates, family and their friends. See more details here.

Meet the Graduates 2014 | What’s the Value of Work Experience?

Meet_the_Graduates_150wWhat’s the Value of Work Experience? This is the next clip in the Q&A series from Meet the Graduates 2014. The networking event between our students and graduates was part of Lincoln School of Media’s 20th anniversary at the University of Lincoln. Thanks to all alumni, students and staff who came to MtG 2014. 

Alumni Stuart Lutes (Class of 2001), Adam Verity (Class of 2002), Zoe Easey (Class of 2007), Phil Stevens (Class of 2010), Holly Smith (class of 2010) and Stephen Bernard (Class of 2013) were on ‘Graduate Question Time’. LSM’s student crew, via New Media Lincs, Year 2 Rory McCarney, Year 3 Kirsty Gibson and Kamil Rewers captured the popular Networking & Graduate Question Time.  In this piece, our former students share their experiences about where’s best to be based in the country for opportunities and the value in doing work experience.

Alumni Weekend | 13-15 June 2014 | University of Lincoln | Free for all graduates, family and their friends | See more details here |

See the MtG 2014 clip ‘Where Are Alumni Now?’ on a previous post.

Meet the Graduates 2014 | Where Are They Now?

20-years-media-graduates-logoWe’ve a series of clips this week from Meet the Graduates 2014. In the first piece you can find out where some of our alumni are now. Head of Lincoln School of Media, Sarah Barrow, officially introduced MtG 2014. It was a special occasion because it was one of the School’s event to mark 20 years of media at the University of Lincoln.  Meet the Grads was bigger than ever. Over 30 alumni attended (see who we spotted, names are below the video) the networking event between our students and graduates. Many thanks to you all for making, and marking, MtG 2014!

Alumni Stuart Lutes (Class of 2001), Adam Verity (Class of 2002), Zoe Easey (Class of 2007), Phil Stevens (Class of 2010), Holly Smith (class of 2010) and Stephen Bernard (Class of 2013) were on ‘Graduate Question Time’. LSM’s student crew, via New Media Lincs, Year 2 Rory McCarney, Year 3 Kirsty Gibson and Kamil Rewers captured the popular Networking & Graduate Question Time.

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Congrats Emily Mullender Class of 2013 at Red Bee Media / BBC TV

Emily-Mullender_2013GradI graduated in Media Production – specialising in Single Cam – from LSM last year. After 3 or so months of the hell that is job hunting and a couple of unsuccessful interviews, I finally landed an interview with Red Bee Media in London. The position advertised was Media Assistant but came with no job description so I didn’t actually find out what it was until I started! Red Bee is one of the largest playout and channel management businesses in the UK, providing services to a number of broadcasters including BBC, Channel 4, UKTV, BT Sport and Channel 5. They provide services such as playout, media management, creative services, access services (subtitling and audio description) and content discovery. It’s basically the broadcasting ‘behind the scenes’ side of television.

So I had quite an intense ‘competency test’ based interview in November and was called a few hours later with the offer of a job, to start the following week. Continue reading