Category Archives: Class of 2014

Sophy Taylor, Class of 2014 | Executive Videographer

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Sophy-Taylor_2014GradSophy Taylor can’t be at our Graduation Day in Lincoln (UK) tomorrow because she is working – in Ibiza. Later this month she’ll be heading off to LA to undertake a postgraduate course.  Sophy said: I hope this update isn’t mistaken as a boast but more of a recognition of the lessons LSM (now LSFM) has taught me! 

My application for the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles has been officially accepted, and all that is pending now is my visa! If all goes to plan, I will be moving to L.A. (my campus is based there) a week before my start date of 1st October. I will be there until the following September provided everything goes well!

Unfortunately however I won’t be attending Graduation (9 September) for two reasons; one is that my parents are away and I don’t want to attend without them but the main reason is that I will still be working out here in Ibiza!  I moved out here at the start of June with just my camera and have been working my socks off and networking with every Tom, Dick and Harry and am very proud to say I am the first Executive Videographer for a new company called IBZ.TV.  You can check out my work on YouTube. I am also a photographer on the Pukka Up boat parties which I do three times a week and its absolutely amazing. Continue reading →

Video As Above, So Below | International Drone Culture Colloquium

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University of Lincoln CrestA 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

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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 ]

Synoptica_crew&cast

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 →

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

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Rachel Hagreen_cuI 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

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Alex-O'Brien_APClass-of-2014My 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 →

Andrew West Reflects on Post-Uni | What are you going to do now?

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LSM’s graduating students, Class of 2014, will no doubt get asked what’s next? Soon-to-be alumnus Andrew West – a freelance camera operator, editor and award-winning photographer – shares his thoughts on that question and writes: refrain from asking what I’m going to do in the future … simply ask me what I’m doing in this moment now.

Andrew-West__2014Grad

For hire!

The last three years of University has been the greatest learning experience of my life so far and I’m due to graduate in a few months time. I feel like this requires a fresh blog, a new way of presenting what I’m doing and building on a foundation of experiences which have taught me a lot about who I am and what kind of person I want to be. It’s a really strange feeling, having had so much direction over the last 21 years of my life to suddenly be hit with the thought suspending question by many of ‘What are you going to do now?’, the answer to that, as I have realised over the last few months is that it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need to lead a life permanently set in stone, to immediately settle down in a continual routine, to become another brick in the wall. I’m lucky to be in a position in which I have liberty to wander in whatever direction draws my energy towards, so intend to do precisely that. Continue reading →