Phil Stevens, Class of 2010 | Screening ‘The Road to Rome’ 4 Nov

The-Road-to-Rome_Ian-McKellenandPhil-StevensLincoln School of Film & Media will be screening The ROAD to ROME (2014). It’s doco film directed by Phil Stevens, one of our industry mentors, and narrated by Sir Ian McKellenLSFM Senior Lecturer Chris Hainstock posted the story and invites you to the University of Lincoln: Tue 4 Nov | 6pm – 7.30pm | EMMTEC MT007 | Brayford Pool | FREE ADMISSION

The-Road-to-Rome_castandcrewIn the Summer of 2014 Filmmaker and LSFM Lecturer Philip Stevens directed a documentary which was as taxing for the filmmakers as it was for the participants. The Director of Photography was Stewart MacGregor who along with Philip is a graduate of the School of Film and Media from 2010 ( and in 2011 they won a regional RTS Award for Greasepaint). The Road To Rome, narrated by Sir Ian McKellen, is a feature-length documentary about three authors of historical fiction who walk from Naples to Rome dressed as Roman soldiers to raise money for charity. So far the walk has raised over £25,000 in donations for charities Médecins Sans Frontières and Combat Stress. You can see the trailer from Urban Apache Films.


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Meet the Graduates | Snapshots

Meet_the_Graduates_150wMeet the Graduates lived up to its name as our former and current students got together for the Graduate Question Time and Networking on-campus. Thanks to everyone for making it a memorable alumni event. There are more posts to come and clips from a student crew via New Media Lincs. These images are from LSFM mentee and third year media production student Rory McCarney. #MtGLincoln

Michael Henry, Class of 2009 | Screening ‘Time and Place’ 1st Nov

Michael-Henry_TimeandPlace_releaseOne of our creative media mentors is 2009 alumnus Michael Henry at Quandary Productions who’ll be at ‘Meet the Graduates’ network event this Wednesday to share advice about indie filmmaking and opportunities. Timely because he’s just completed the final cut on his latest film ‘Time and Place‘ (2014). There will be a free public screening on 1st November in Lincoln (UK) and the film will be released with ‘Pay-What-You-Want’ On Demand. The production team said ‘it’s the best thing we’ve ever made’. Mike said he’s excited in his latest posting:

Finally, the time has come! After months of hard work ‘TIME AND PLACE’ is finalised, exported, and sent off for DVD batch production. We premiere the film in one week, crowdfunders can expect their DVDs a day or two earlier next week, and we’re very excited about the ‘Pay-What-You-Want’ release on November 1st – same date as the free screening at The Collection in Lincoln. TIME AND PLACE‘ took a good nine months to write, three to shoot, seven months of editing and will no doubt be months before I consider it entirely over, once all the promotion is done and festival fates are sealed. We’re trying something a little different this time – audience members will have the choice of how much they pay to see the film. So what’s different about our On Demand release?  Continue reading

LSFM Mentoring | Industry engagement between alumni and students

LSFM_Wordpress-LOGOLincoln School of Film & Media Mentoring is a unique way for us to link industry with 20 of our undergraduates. Thanks to our mentors, they’re all our alumni from media & its related industries, AND LSFM students who applied to be mentees this year.

After a successful pilot launched at the start of 2014, our mentoring initiative will continue this academic year and is a collaboration between the School and the University of Lincoln Careers & Employability Service.  LSFM Mentoring between industry professionals and our undergraduates is part of our LSFM Network, which (as you may know) created this blog and started the School’s ‘Meet the Graduates’ alumni event (next gathering for graduates & students will be on 29 Oct) to name just a couple of things managed by the network. The LSFM has always been keen for our alumni to be part of our activities and events. LSFM Mentoring is another strand to enhance our link between industry and academia.  We’re looking forward to our media mentors and mentees sharing their experiences here! LSFM Mentoring is a developing project, so your thoughts and suggestions are welcome. You can read a student-mentee story from the pilot mentoring here.

Meet the Graduates | Wed 29 Oct

Meet_the_Graduates_150w Meet the Graduates is the School’s alumni event to bring together our graduates and students to share experiences, passions and make face-to-face contacts. It’s free, in-house on the 1st floor Minerva Building29 October 2014 from 2-5pm

MtG_POSTER_29Oct2014Between 20-30 alumni are coming along from the media and creative industries (work permitting!): acting … screenwriting … designing … music video directing … photography … TV production … local radio … presenting … promotions … working with effects … video production … indie filmmaking … managing media companies …  

2pm: Ask what you’d like to know at the Graduate Question Time, so come prepared for the Q&A. 3pm: Mingle! You can make personal contact at the informal networking with any alumni you choose. See some alumni who’re attending here!

The countdown is on! Students please let us know you’re coming to MtG, see our Facebook page for the event and share. What’s not to like?! Graduates don’t forget to email you’re attending alumni@lincoln.ac.uk & follow LSFM graduates on Twitter. For the event use #MtGLincoln.  Thanks.

Animation Luma St. | Festival Screenings in the USA and UK

Luma_St_picNice! Animation student Daniel Escobar’s Luma St. with creative team Alex Kirkwood, Alexander Stokes, Samuel Brierley, Adam Horsepool and music & sound by 2014 Audio Production Graduate Nathan James Lewis has been selected for Festimation – an International Animation & New Media Arts Festival, which is on this month in Montana, USA. Festimation is an event for screening and showcasing ‘up-and-coming independent, narrative, documentary and experimental animated films.’ Luma St. is summed up as a short that “revolves around the idea of people missing the beauty in everyday life.”  LSFM Senior Lecturer Sultan Efe: It’s great to see that the organisers used snapshots from Luma St. as part of their poster for the festival. Daniel has sent the film to several animation competitions and festivals and I am sure we will be hearing good news in the next 12 months.”

LincolnShortsLuma St. will be screened at Lincoln Shorts film festival along with a hugely diverse, eclectic and entertaining mix of locally-made short films at Lincoln Drill Hall on 18th October at 7pm. Admission’s £5 and you can book tickets online!  And from Lincoln (UK) to LA because Luma St. will also be screened at ‘The World Animation Celebration, International Short Film Animation Festival‘ on 1st November. Continue reading

International Buddy Scheme | Student Engagement at LSFM

Marcella-ForsterThe Lincoln School of Film & Media’s International Buddy Scheme is the brainchild of Senior Lecturer Marcella Forster. The scheme was picked by the Student Engagement Innovation Fund at the University of Lincoln.  It said the scheme’s “about facilitating the integration of international and home students in the LSFM through a collaborative media project and the creation of a buddy system of support for international students. It addresses the theme ‘engaging home and international students in building a sense of community and fostering integration’ and is a response to feedback from current international students.” Marcella’s update: “we recruited six student mentors for the LSFM International Buddy Scheme:  Barney Oram, Ayodele Ogunshakin, Yiran Zhou, Josh Mathews, Laura Scott and Maz Jules. They were teamed up with our new international students at a breakfast event and I’ve posted a few photos.  Continue reading

Royal Television Society Midlands | LSFM Student Nominations

RTS_logo_150wHead of Lincoln School of Film & Media (LSFM) Dr Sarah Barrow: Great news – we have 2 nominations for the Midlands Royal TV Society awards this year in the student category. Every year for the past 12 (roughly!) we’ve been nominated and most years we’ve won at least one award; one year we also clinched a national award. The team of graduates who made these 2 films are also those who went to China this summer.  

The student team were Thomas MckieAshley Wilks, Luke Winter and Alexander Whitcombe (and at the time the four were Wallbreaker Productions) who have been nominated for the 2014 Royal Television Society (Midlands) Student Awards. Their films are in the student categories: ‘Comedy & Entertainment’ for Facebook Anonymous and in ‘Drama’ for The Last Fisherman – in the latter, location sound and mixing was by visiting US student Rob Paulson.

NEWS UPDATE 30 Oct:  Facebook Anonymous did win an RTS regional award. Yay!  The satricial film will be put forward for the national RTS Award nominations (held next Spring in London). Here’s a clip of the students at the RTS regional awards:

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Steve Staff, Class of 2014 | Join a Screenwriters’ Circle

SteveStaff_ in studioIf you, like me, are an aspiring screenwriter you will know that our chosen profession comes with its fair share of challenges, probably the most prominent of which is the sheer mass of people who share our common dream of seeing the words we’ve written performed on the silver screen. In fact, I would be willing to bet that, much like Kevin Bacon, each of us alive today are never any more than six connections away from a screenwriter or their lowly cousin, the humble ‘aspiring screenwriter’(throw a tennis ball in your local Cafe Nero and you’ve probably got a 1 in 5 chance of hitting at least three of these). So I thought, why not use those numbers to our advantage? Because as I’m sure you know, another common problem for people of our ilk is getting things read,  friends and family loath having a screenwriter in their lives, because it means they’re bugged, prodded and cajoled constantly into reading and reviewing every single thought that passes through our heads, of course we know what we’re writing is fantastic, but what’s the point if other people aren’t enjoying it too?

Which brings me round to my point, if you saw my previous post (re: my recent internship at Knight Hall Agency) you may have seen mention of a University of Lincoln (UoL) grad/student ‘screenwriters’ circle’ that I am going to be setting up; Continue reading

Ayodele Ogunshakin, Year 3 Student | work experience update

Ayodele_pic1After working as a floor manager for BBC Radio Lincolnshire’s Lip Dub event, I was fortunate enough to meet the event’s producer, Rosemary Richards. It’s over a year later and after reaching out and asking whether Rosemary was working on any new projects I found myself working with Rosa Productions for this year’s Gravity Fields Festival (was 24-28 Sept 2014).

It’s a Grantham based festival combining science, arts and heritage events. As a result there were many organisations and businesses involved in the festival and within the community there was a sense of excitement as to what this year’s plans would bring.  As Rosa Productions deals with events, it has been extremely interesting to see just how much work goes into producing a community event. I spent the week working in the office, which involved completing general office tasks but also venturing into town to liaise with the venue organisers and even assisting in a large silk painting for display on one of the heritage walks. Continue reading