Jonathan Sidwell, Class of 2007 | 1st Assistant Director

Posted on September 1, 2014 by RW

Since leaving Lincoln I have worked my way up the Assistant Director ladder and I am now working as a 1st Assistant Director predominately in Commercials and Music Videos. I’m now in Chiapas, Mexico in the jungle shooting a show for discovery channel for a month… I’ll try and send an epic picture while I’m out here too!

Top Commercial Credits include: Sony, Racing Post, Diet Coke, BBC iplayer, The Ashes Cricket and Oreo. I have also worked on music videos for many chart topping acts including One Direction, The Kaiser Chiefs, Rudimental, Twin Atlantic and The Wombats. Recently I combined my passion for Rugby and my profession to work as a Rugby Consultant and 1st Assistant Director for the worlds 1st 3D Oculus Rift Experience for 02 & The RFU with the England Rugby Team – ‘Wear the Rose’ which was available to experience at Twickenham stadium.

I would love to help out as a media mentor at LSFM. For now, my advice to students: Try and learn as much as you can about the basics and keep up-to-date with technical advances and how they affect the digital workflow. Work experience is key – try and get as much as possible in your holidays!

If you are a media professional and would like to be a Lincoln School of Film & Media mentor, for one of our students, please do get in touch. Email: rawright@lincoln.ac.uk. Our alumni can send us a tweet – thanks.

Our Alumni | Your Invitation to Meet the Graduates | 29 Oct 2014

Posted on August 20, 2014 by RW

All graduates from the Lincoln School of Film & Media (formerly LSM, Media Production Department, etc.) are invited to join us for our graduate gathering to share experiences and mingle with students. ‘Meet the Graduates’ (MtG) will be on Wednesday 29th October at the Brayford Pool campus. The popular Graduate Question Time followed by Networking are our main attractions. Both are great opportunities for our students to meet alumni from a range of media and related professions.

Our graduates should have got an e-invite to this academic year’s MtG event (if your details are correct with the University’s alumni team) and you can get in touch with our colleagues either by email: alumni@lincoln.ac.uk or you can tweet @LincolnAlumniUK [Please confirm you are coming ASAP, to help the alumni team keep a tally for us on the graduates who’ll be attending, thanks.]

Graduates have said our alumni event is also a great way to keep in contact with us and each other, as well as have a nose around to see the School’s developments.

Steve Bernard, Class of 2013 | Audio Production Alumnus

Posted on August 18, 2014 by David McSherry

I’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 →

UNTITLED Independent Film Night by Quandary Productions

Posted on August 18, 2014 by RW

2009 alumnus Michael Henry is one of our inspirational media mentors and has posted about Quandary Productions first indie film night, last week, at The Angel Coffee House in Lincoln (UK):

Hosted by Quandary’s very own Tom Bridger, the night was a chance for low-to-no budget short films to be showcased to fresh audiences. When first starting out as a filmmaker it can be hard to get your work shown. This is something we appreciated and wish to remedy within the local area. The night consisted of several short films continue reading →

Photos on FB | Submit your short for September’s indie film night. Email: quandaryproductions@googlemail.com |

Video As Above, So Below | International Drone Culture Colloquium

Posted on August 13, 2014 by RW

A video about the Drone Culture research event on 24 May at the University of Lincoln (UK) was captured by graduating student Andrew West and 2010 alumnus Steve Young. The international 1-day event was organised by the School’s Dr Rob Coley, Dr Dean Lockwood and Adam O’Meara. It was hosted by the 21st Century Research Group at the University of Lincoln (UK) where academics, writers, artists and performers from across the globe discussed the social and conceptual implications of unmanned aircraft. Andrew West, video producer: I hope this video shows to an extent the atmosphere of the international colloquium throughout the day, which was filmed by Steve Young and me (both from the Lincoln School of Film & Media). As a soon to be postgraduate student I personally took a lot from the event and whilst filming enjoyed listening to the various discussions, arguments and debates around drone culture.

Dr Rob Coley: Dean, Adam and I would like to say a huge thanks to everyone who attended or otherwise supported the colloquium on drone culture. Continue reading →

Lewis Coates, Class of 2014 | Trailer for ‘Synoptica’ Short

Posted on August 11, 2014 by RW

Synoptica marks our final project completed at university and we’re very pleased with the outcome. The final short film has been praised by many tutors and students at the degree show, put forward for an RTS award and sent to international film festivals. We’d like to thank our LSM tutors and other lecturers at the University of Lincoln who have shared their positive views on the piece and have helped us along the way. Here is the trailer for our futuristic drama.

[Crew: Lewis Coates Director, co-writer, co-producer | Mikaela Smith camera, co-writer, co-producer | Jordan Chulk camera, editor | Matt Swinn sound, editor | Wing Hangg-Chung co-writer ]

Crew & Cast on set

We were lucky with the casting. The script captivated the attention of Nathalie Cox [Exam (2009), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Double (2013)] who auditioned for the lead role. Actors Nathalie and Chris Grierson (Alice in Wonderland (2010), Holby City ‘Everything to play for’ (2011) both worked very well together on set and developed the lead characters extremely well.

We had to overcome many location and budget problems, which put major pressures on the production’s schedule and pushed shooting back over two weeks. Continue reading →

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

Posted on August 6, 2014 by RW

2013 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.

Continue reading →

Rachel Hagreen, Class of 2014 | I got the job (at VideoJug)!

Posted on August 4, 2014 by RW

I got the job! I am officially an office and production assistant at VideoJug. Meaning I’ll be leaving Lincoln and Halifax and moving to London in approximately 2 weeks time to start work on the 18th of August.

Thankfully it was my extensive CV that appealed to them and they were impressed with the amount of work I’d done alongside my degree (thank God it was worth it). I’m extremely excited to join the company, they’re getting around 50 million views on their website per month and this is constantly increasing, as is their list of clients. It seems like a really exciting place to work and I can’t wait to actually use the skills I’ve learnt whilst at university to contribute to such an established company.

The past 2/3 months have been an absolute nightmare. I have become the flakiest, most irritating person there ever was, trying to decide whether to go into employment or self-employment. Continue reading →

Alex O’Brien, Class of 2014 | Audio Production Freelancer

Posted on July 28, 2014 by RW

My name is Alex and I am going to be graduating in Audio Production in September 2014. Since finishing university in May I’ve found out I will be graduating with First Class Honours. I never thought I was capable of achieving this. It has given me so much confidence in my abilities and I cannot thank the amazing LSM staff enough.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have a job interview at Shepperton Studios for the position of trainee sound assistant and it was an amazing experience. I met some incredible people who had done the sound on some of my favourite films and saw industry standard studios in action. The whole experience has kept me inspired and has given me more drive to carry on working towards my goal to work in the creative industry.

I’ve also managed to get a job in my hometown. Continue reading →

Katy Atkinson, Class of 2006 | TRA Media Coverage at Glasgow 2014

Posted on July 22, 2014 by RW

2006 graduate Katy Atkinson, who is one of our inspirational media mentors, is the co-founding Director at The Reporters’ Academy. TRA is a not-for-profit media production company based at MediaCityUK, which is run by young people. TRA will be involved in the coverage of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games (23 July-3 Aug) and Katy wanted to share the good news with you on this blog.

As TRA Project Leader at the Games Katy, pictured (far left) with TRA Glasgow 2014 Team, said: The Reporters’ Academy’s proud to announce that it will be assisting a total of 12 Oceania nations during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games by providing a number of countries with an official press officer. The twist is that the press officers are all upcoming dynamic young people from across the North West. During Glasgow 2014 TRA will be providing extensive media coverage of the Pacific Island Commonwealth Teams. Such as Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Norfolk Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Solomon Islands. They shall be producing the following media content: daily written reports for website use and print press; audio files for radio broadcast; video content for TV broadcast when access allows: and photos for multiple uses. They will also be producing a daily Oceania round up of the most noteworthy activity from all Oceania teams, in an effort to share Oceania news with the world’s media.

I am looking ahead to the Commonwealth Games with excitement. Continue reading →

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LSFM at the University of Lincoln (UK) celebrates 25 years of our students into graduates

Category Archives: Alumni Stories