News from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport: New figures published today reveal that the UK’s Creative Industries, which includes the film, television and music industries, are now worth £76.9 billion per year to the UK economy.
Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture and Digital Industries, said it’s ‘very good news’ and the ‘Creative Industries are now worth £8.8 million an hour to the UK economy.‘ Apparently that’s ‘£146,000 every single minute.‘ Here is the DCMS video.
Our 2010 graduate George Horne works as a Creative at LONELYLEAP – a film company with production teams in London and New York. George was the Director and Creative Lead on a film called We Engineer (2014). It was made for the Science Museum for its Engineer Your Future exhibition, which is to encourage young people into engineering and look at relevant careers in this field.
George said: “To be honest the Science Museum has always been one of my favourite places to visit in London, ever since I was a child. So having the opportunity to make a film for one of their major exhibitions was an honour. Within the project I developed and wrote the original proposal that won the tender, then directed the shoots and led the edit and post production stages. Millions of people visit the museum every year, so making a film with that sort of exposure is amazing!” The Science Museum: “the film is aimed at children aged 11 to 14, designed to shine a light on the ingenious, albeit unknown work done by British engineers. Meet the real-life engineers making faster racing yachts, safer houses and smarter prosthetics…
Our Year Two students at the University of Lincoln have you had your say via the Level 2 Student Survey? We’d love to hear your comments by 16th January 2015. There’s a £300 prize fund for the School which has the highest percentage of undergraduates completing the survey. So here’s a reminder from the Student Engagement Section at EDEU (Educational Development & Enhancement Unit):
The survey is run online. Every student who is eligible to complete the survey should have received an email to their university account with a link to the survey. Or Level two students can go directly to the link www.lincoln.ac.uk/talktous and log in with their usual university username and password.
The survey asks second year undergraduate students to reflect on the quality of teaching and support so that we can use the feedback to improve these things at course, school and university levels. Thank you.
Student Engagement Hub | Follow @UoLGetInvolved | 01522 83 7306
From Nina Schildhauer, Film Curator and Programmer at PopUp!Scotland, about the UN*DEPENDENCE Film Festival 2015 in Edinburgh. The deadline to submit your film (short, feature, documentary, animation, etc.) is by 15th January 2015:
We are a small and independent collective of artists and filmophiles in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh and we are currently looking for submissions for the UN*DEPENDENCE Film Festival 2015. We wish to reach out at communities outside Scotland to seek out film networks that are devoted to talking about and challenging the norms and we are particularly interested in films from countries where independence is an ongoing discourse.
We are looking for films and moving image works that tackle the topics of (in)dependencies and un-dependence on all levels. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, the idea for the festival was born out of the spirit of the Scottish Referendum. The referendum had an impact not just politically but more important, it triggered reactions in the people’s minds and caused a massive response within the arts. Dependencies are personal themes that individuals struggle with just as nations do. We are inviting filmmakers from Scotland and around the world to submit shorts, feature films, documentaries, animation and experimental works which deal with these questions. Continue reading
I’ve returned to Uni (Lincoln School of Film & Media) after working as Assistant Art Director for a few days on a feature film called ‘Adrift in Soho’ (2015), which was being shot in Nottingham. It’s an adaptation of a Colin Wilson novel of the same name. It follows the life of a young writer, Harry Preston, who after being discharged from the RAF, moves to London in search of adventure. He fancies himself as a writer and so moves towards Soho, an area known for its creativity and finds himself involved with the many creatives of the Beat Generation. The screenplay was adapted and written by a very interesting and eccentric Uruguayan, named Pablo Behrens – who also directed the film. A very warm and capable Dane, named Martin Koblyarz, shot the film and the films art direction and production design came from a very captivating and adept Englishman, named Steven Blundell – whom I was understudy to.
I’ll tell you how I came to find myself as an Asst. Art Director at the age of twenty on a feature.
Continue reading
Our 2011 graduate Christopher Bingham, known as Bing, is a YouTube vlogger and comedian who was commissioned by New College of the Humanities (NCH) to produce an alternative view about University lectures. He said: As anyone who’s been working with YouTube for a while knows, operating on the channel prolifically involves getting a lot of offers from brands, but in this case I was able to really get behind the product. I’m very passionate about learning, not just through higher education, but throughout every stage of life. I had a lot of fun working with NCH on producing a script that I know my audience will enjoy, but also that will help them to think about the merits of higher education.
Congrats to indie filmmaker, 2008 grad and LSFM part-time lecturer, Darren Scales at Backyard Productions. After three years in the making … with a budget of £5,000 … the support of hundreds of volunteers … the premier of The Drift (2014) science-fiction feature film was on Saturday at the University of Lincoln. Reviews are coming in from Midlands Movies to ITV News.
I was slightly late. On my first ever paid gig I was slightly late. The first Assistant Director (who also happens to be my mentor) called me to ask where I was. I arrived a couple of minutes before 8:30am when I was meant to be on set by 8:15am. I was upset at the fact I had just broken rule 1 of ‘never be late’ and slightly nervous as I hadn’t met any of the crew before apart from Jonathan Sidwell (my industry mentor) and slightly out of breath as I had basically just ran from Baker Street tube station to Marylebone. But the crew could not have been nicer. Nobody said anything about my lateness and Jonathan immediately introduced me to everyone there and got me straight to work. Making coffee. 
This is what I had expected the day to be. Running around fetching this, that and the other, maybe looking after a few divas, picking out all the green M&M’s. But apart from the first few jobs of make coffee, help this guy, help that guy, go find somewhere to get lunch from (where I had to ring my dad to Google maps of the area), I was stood around watching and learning most of the day. Which was amazing. I feel like I helped quite a bit and got to do an important job of audio playback and clapperboard. I also got to sit behind the director and watch his every move. I also feel like I impressed the crew quite a bit, I asked when I didn’t understand something. Then when I got asked to go on the set as a stand in, I asked if I should take my shoes off Continue reading
5 years after graduating, I’m running my own business (joint company director and video producer) and travelling the world filming. We say Wanderlust FP is a production company based out of a backpack! Here’s one of our latest videos produced for Audley Travel on Vietnam.
I completed my degree in 2009 with first class honours, something I worked really hard for. It didn’t come easy; I sacrificed a lot of nights out to get the grade but it was well worth it. I had planned to start my own business straight out of Uni but I ended up working on various productions large and small for other people, which was ultimately better as I learnt a lot from it. I made some great contacts through my R&D project, which meant I got to experience being on set for a big feature film Never Let Me Go (2010) with Keira Knightly. Continue reading
2010 media production graduate Kingsley Tudor shares his employment story: I left Lincoln in June 2010, not really sure of what I wanted to do. Within a few weeks I gained an interview with The Original Packshot company. I became a photographer in a new studio in Peterborough set up to photograph products for an international high street brand.
Over the next few years I worked my way through the ranks, culminating as the studio manager and head photographer. It was at this point that I realised my dreams had become diluted, I had gone from enjoying my work immensely to despising it, and lost all passion for the work. It came to pass that my other duties restricted me from shooting. I went from shooting still life and models 5 days a week to maybe once a month, if that. The call to action came when my son was born in December 2013, I quickly realised how much time I spent out of the house, often a 12/14 hour day. I didn’t want to miss anything so in January 2014 the idea of Thunder Pig was realised. Between myself and my business partner, Samuel Smith, the next 8 months were spent in preparation for launch. We spent a long time working on a business plan and funding came through in late July. Continue reading