ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

7 years, 5 months ago - John Lubran

For practise based film making tuition I would recommend training with an actual real world production company. Check the other conversation next to this one. What comes next after an MA; a PhD in film making? I once knew a man who had a PhD in welding, I imagine his PhD to be more useful. On the other hand being a professional student can be a valid lifestyle choice in itself, if one can afford it. I have a cousin, now semi retired in her 70's, who spent her entire life from the age of eighteen in University. Perhaps though, if you don't have UK or EU resident and employment rights then being a student here is just one of very few options. With regard to which British institution is currently held in high regard for the quality of its courses, I couldn't say, because such ratings are constantly changing. It's more about who is currently employing the best teachers.

7 years, 5 months ago - John Lubran

P.S.

The conversation next this one I've referred to is headed;

Please recommend production companies I can work for.

7 years, 5 months ago - Mark Wiggins

NFTS beyond doubt is the best place to go.

7 years, 5 months ago - Andy Sowerby

NFTS for sure.

7 years, 5 months ago - Claudette FLINT

If you don't mind leaving London, Reading has a brand new film/media department. The building is called Minghella, it has its own cinema and has a fairly good reputation but it is not London.

7 years, 5 months ago - mizgin arslan

thank you so much for the answer. I will try NFTS and Goldsmith first but it is good to know other options.

7 years, 5 months ago - mizgin arslan

Education is endless when it comes to filmmaking, as someone usually shot one, develop another I believe the school facilities can help me with budgeting while having good consultants ease your pain a little. I just granted to Home Student position recently and with this advantage I’d like to enhance my storytelling, camera language experience with new perspectives.
Another trick here to find right perspective: someone enjoy Iran cinema, documentary touch in fiction, pure storytelling otherwise it will be pain itself.
And yes thank you all.

7 years, 5 months ago - Suleiman Yusuf

Hi Mizgin,

Try the University of Westminster (Harrow Campus) they have a strong Media and Arts department.

7 years, 5 months ago - Brendan O'Neill

Birmingham University does an MA in Film and Television production which has a good record for graduates getting jobs afterwards. Would be far cheaper if you are going to take the MA route. I would say skip it and try and get a job with a production company though.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/taught/fcw/film-tv-research-prod.aspx

7 years, 5 months ago - afia nkrumah

I went to The London Film School. It's not as well connected to the Industry over here as the NFTS but the training in my opinion was better. At the NFTS you train to be a director and that's all you do. At the LFS they force you to do other disciplines in the first year. As a director, you have to light a few films, you have to operate, edit, produce and set design etc and make documentaries. I hated it at the time, but I am a better filmmaker for it and after film school, I got a paid job for a couple of years at the BBC as an AP in feature documentaries. This meant I could pay my way in the world and have money and time to make shorts, whilst I worked my way towards features and TV drama.

All the teaching modules at LFS were practical, making films, so you learned on the job as it were. If your work is a little bit different and you are not going to fit into "establishment" work, then the LFS is a better choice as they encourage students to be themselves and not necessarily fit into a mould.

One of the best things about having gone to the LFS, is their vast network of past and present students from all over the world. So for example when i was shooting a short in Hong Kong a few years ago, I crewed up easily through contacts from the LFS. Last summer, a shoot I was involved with in Hungary needed an owl, and through my contacts at LFS I found a very good owl in a matter of hours for the shoot. My bosses were very impressed!

The course is pretty hardcore and very competitive, especially for directors, as you have to persuade up to 4 people to come work with you, before they will release any funds for you to make a movie at the school. The ethos of the school is that the film industry is a harsh environment, where no-one owes you anything and if you want to be a filmmaker, you have to be tough, driven and create your own path. LFS teaches you the skills to do that better than at the NFTS.

7 years, 5 months ago - Mark Wiggins

Its not true that the NFTS only trains people to be directors. They teach all sorts of disciplines there.

7 years, 5 months ago - Michael Stewart

if you want a university: Goldsmiths, UCL for documentary, Westminster all strong. If you want a film school NFTS or LFS both strong. Very different world - film school or university but all offer strong by practice training

7 years, 5 months ago - Freya-Louise Evans

I know this might not be helpful if you're dead set on staying in London, but if you're willing to go further afield I cannot recommend Falmouth University highly enough. Industry professionals teaching the practise side and incredible researchers for the academic, they encourage both practise and academia in the first few months, then you narrow down to your specialism. I did mine there and I am now a screenwriter and an academic at the same time. It's a beautiful place for shooting films too, loads of interesting people for documentary making if you're more into that side of things. They have a great guest lecturing programme too, where industry professionals come for interviews which is open to all disciplines and students from other departments. If you want a bit of a taste, check out the Cinematologists podcast on itunes (or wherever you get your podcasts from). It's run by Dr. Neil Fox (senior lecturer at falmouth) and Dr. Dario Llinares (Former lecturer, currently at Brighton Uni).

7 years, 4 months ago - Jamie Kennerley

NFTS is probably the best, but then you're generally the best if you get in there. It's hugely competitive. It goes without saying that more than 95% of applicants don't get in. As a DoP I've worked with LFS students and was hugely impressed. They produce decent stuff. It's an expensive school but a friend of mine got a scholarship on the basis that she was already in the industry and wanted to switch to directing. To generalise massively, I've also shot with Central Film School students and Met Film School students and wasn't impressed with the training they received or there preparedness to work professionally. On the other hand I've been HUGELY impressed with Ravensbourne grads (although they tell me they just had a decent year!) and Bournemouth grads.

7 years, 4 months ago - Eduardo Cortes

Hi! I did the MA in Directing Fiction at Goldsmiths and it was very very good.
They have really good equipment, and their system is based on specialities so you have a very professional way of making things. (You have the team of directors, the team of producers, editors, cinematographers, etc.) And they team you up for each project. Give it a go, ;)

7 years, 4 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

British film schools generally aren't very good. NFTS and Met film school have some impressive alumni, so you'll probably network best at those.

I hear a lot of people saying nice stuff about LFS, but from my experience it seems to breed a certain kind of resentment rather than creativity. Failed social sciences, and failed filmmakers, teach at some British film schools, teaching students pessimism disguised as identity politics.

In fact, film graduates in the UK are among the poorest paid, poorer paid than people who have no qualifications at all. The graduates are also more likely than non-graduates to be on drugs, or depressed. It's probably from all the demotivational speaking they get. So, if I were you, I'd interview a few lecturers, and avoid the political ones.

7 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

There's a number of factors that can be concidered with regard to Vasco's suggested analysis. Apart from my not yet having seen anything commensurate with an impirica study on the compariitive well being of film and media graduates and other graduates I can nevertheless imagine that compared with many qualifications film grads are much less likely to achieve success. It's a supply and demand thing. Unlike medicine, physics and the like one does not need any formal qualifications to undertake just about any role in film and media. Consequently large numbers of people in our industry carve successful carerers without the intervention of academia. There's far too many film graduates for too few opportunities. Furthermore there's a disproportionate qualitative ratio between the formally educated in film and media and the self or informally taught that might defy some conditioned reasoning. In short, artists are more born than they are manufactured.

For the most part our industry is a business and self employment is a significant part within it. Jobs offered by the biggest employers are massively over subscribed and even here their use of independent contractors increases every year. So this means that for most of us we not only have to have viable and demonstrative skills but we also have to be our own business entrepreneurs and producers too. Without the ability to make oneself likable in a highly socialised environment we usually find success to be an uphill struggle.

These few thoughts are far from definitive and every kind of exception is available to those with right sort of magic. It's got a lot to do with smoke and mirrors after all.

7 years, 3 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

John, That's not the problem. I remember applying for "day jobs" after graduating, no bites. I deleted my subject area, just put "BA", suddenly a whole line of interviews line up.

There's an actual prejudice against film grads, or was at one time anyway, in the UK. But, personally, I think I'll hire only film grads, just in order to raise the bar a little. After all, Abraham Lincoln didn't have a law degree, you didn't need one until relatively recently.