ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

3 years, 5 months ago - Jim Read

Hi James,

I only really have experience in Norwich - I didn't actually go to NUA, I went to UEA which is another university in Norwich (I studied Media Studies) - my personal take on UEA was that I didn't learn much actually from the course, as well, all the production modules are available for the entirety of AMA (American Studies, Media Studies and Arts) so you quite often get put into groups with people who have no interest and won't pull their weight, which is fine in some cases, but at points struggling to get people on board with shooting, putting the effort in on the day past "we'll do the bare minimum" was incredibly frustrating. For your penultimate project as well, you get the option to do a creative practice, but this has to coincide with a full written dissertation, I still opted to do it, but really I wound up pressed for time, energy, etc and I wasn't happy with the full project.

What I will say is though, Norwich as an area has a really interesting scene for someone to break into. What I did enjoy about UEA, was that I only had 6 hours of lesson time a week, meaning that I could work part-time as a videographer for the SU, jump on any opportunities I could get - which there is a suprisingly lot of.

In Norwich, there's a couple small film production companies, and it has a "big city vibe" in a relatively small community - what this meant for me was that unlike London, there was a fair amount of opportunities, but you also had a better chance in the running of scoring them, compared to bigger cities where you're up against masses of competition with more experience. There's also a BBC hub which takes on trainees annually and I think NUA has direct contacts with.

On NUA - I had a lot of friends go there - they really do let you specialise down after your first year, I had friends who really niched it down to DOP, colourist, director etc - one thing to note here is that my friends who went for the more "in-demand/jump straight in" roles - like colourist, DOP, have managed to all get long-term work, whereas my friends who focused a lot more so on directing are still really struggling to break into the industry on the by-and-large (but this is expected).

They have a lot of really great kit, some really great connections and their support post-uni as far as I know has been really strong - the lecturers there all really put their heart in it and if you form a relationship with them, they'll stick by you post-leaving to give advice etc.

My one big piece of advice for going to uni for film production really would be to jump on opportunities outside of the course - student film productions unfortunately do have less reputability when being considered for jobs post-university even if they are functionally great films a lot of the time. That and - there is a lack of funding, and saying "I want to apply to this funding for this project" often won't work as there's deadlines etc in place.

Wishing your son the best of luck - I'm sure he'll have a great time wherever he chooses to go.

3 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

>>student film productions unfortunately do have less reputability when being considered for jobs post-university even if they are functionally great films a lot of the time.<<

That said, any experience beats no experience. So so many media/film students seem to leave a 3 year course with basically one short film. For a vocational industry, that's ridiculous. Use all the facilities, make stuff on the side, volunteer to help with anything and everything, just make films! Experience is pretty much all that counts in industry, so build experience. Even if that experience leads to discovering you don't enjoy life on set/brutal hours/basic catering, it's better to find out early to switch direction. A lot of the industry entrants we hire as runners on feature films only then find out how unglamorous and brutal the industry is, and they then decide they don't actually want to work in the reality of film after all.

3 years, 5 months ago - Marlom Tander

I can't speak to those two, but if someone wants to learn how to make films, they should look for one that offers the most practical, and, ideally, allows you to check out kit for personal projects.

Its the time and work the student puts into their personal projects that allows them to build the hours of work that really matter.

I'd also tell students to find, or start, a local media youtube channel covering local gigs, events, vox pop, little Tom Scott type docs re local buildings and sights, and give yourself tight deadlines. Learning how to get good footage when you're very much not in control, often with only one take, and turning it round fast, is a very good skill set to build. And no one can teach it to you, you learn by doing.