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

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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Lincoln Shorts | Film Festival | Submissions by 3rd October 2014

Will-King_2007Grad_LincolnShortsHi I’m Will King – a 2007 grad from this School and I’m involved in organising the Lincoln Shorts 2014 film festival. It’s a relaxed, yearly showing of short films (5mins or less) that are connected to the city in some way, whether they were produced here or made by people who live or study in Lincoln. The content ranges hugely from thought-provoking documentaries to CGI snowball fights, so everything is welcome!

Anybody in Lincolnshire with anything worth watching is encouraged to submit what they have – it doesn’t matter whether it’s amateur or professional, filmed on a phone or DSLR – if others might enjoy seeing it, send it in. This co-production was from 2013, which was the first collaboration between Ormeson Films and Short Cut Films.

A hugely diverse, eclectic and entertaining mix of locally-made short films will be on the big screen at Lincoln Drill Hall on October 18th 2014. Everyone is welcome to submit their footage NOW! Continue reading

Sophy Taylor, Class of 2014 | Executive Videographer

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

Jonathan Sidwell, Class of 2007 | 1st Assistant Director

Jonathan-Sidwell_2007GraduateSince leaving Lincoln I have worked my way up the Assistant Director ladder and I am now working as a 1st Assistant Director predominately in Commercials and Music Videos.  I’m now in Chiapas, Mexico in the jungle shooting a show for discovery channel for a month… I’ll try and send an epic picture while I’m out here too!

Top Commercial Credits include: Sony, Racing Post, Diet Coke, BBC iplayer, The Ashes Cricket and Oreo.  I have also worked on music videos for many chart topping acts including One Direction, The Kaiser Chiefs, Rudimental, Twin Atlantic and The Wombats.  Recently I combined my passion for Rugby and my profession to work as a Rugby Consultant and 1st Assistant Director for the worlds 1st 3D Oculus Rift Experience for 02 & The RFU with the England Rugby Team  – ‘Wear the Rose’ which was available to experience at Twickenham stadium.

I would love to help out as a media mentor at LSFM.  For now, my advice to students: Try and learn as much as you can about the basics and keep up-to-date with technical advances and how they affect the digital workflow. Work experience is key – try and get as much as possible in your holidays!


If you are a media professional and would like to be a Lincoln School of Film & Media mentor, for one of our students, please do get in touch. Email: rawright@lincoln.ac.uk. Our alumni can send us a tweet – thanks.  

Looking China 2014 | Filmmaking Project Review | Marcella Forster

LookingChina2014_BlueLogo Following on from the post on Looking China 2014, our Senior Lecturer Marcella Forster reports on the filmmaking project she undertook in Dalian with LSFM’s four graduating student-producers: During Looking China 2014 we were each asked to sum up our experience in one word. I chose “illuminating”. For me, the scheme shed light on Chinese culture in general and the Dalian way of life in particular. Our young translators and the Chinese filmmakers introduced us to local eateries, locations and people we would not have been able to access as tourists, and for this reason I would recommend the scheme to anyone interested in modern China.

LookingChina2014_airportscheduleWe left Heathrow airport in London with little idea of what to expect in Dalian, other than what we had read on the internet and heard from other travellers. We anticipated good seafood, we hoped the weather would be fine and we wished for a warm welcome. Our hopes were answered, and our wishes were surpassed. A sea of people in lime-green shirts, waving Looking China 2014 banners and cheering, greeted us as we exited Dalian airport over an hour behind schedule (a typhoon had been threatening the city.)  We were whisked away to our accommodation in the postgraduate dormitory of Liaoning Normal University and then taken out for a carousel of dishes at the university’s cultural centre, including some excellent kung pao chicken. We were offered forks but opted for chopsticks. The next morning, wearing our own lime-green Looking China 2014 polo shirts, we attended the launch ceremony at the west campus of the university and had a chance to look at some impressive student work in fashion, animation and art. UK students were then allocated a Chinese producer and a translator and got to work on their projects. Continue reading

Looking China 2014 | Global Filmmaking Project by Uni Students

LookingChina_2014LogoFour of our graduating students, and two students from Cardiff University, along with the University of Lincoln School of Film & Media’s Senior Lecturer Marcella Forster undertook a 16-day filmmaking project in Dalian called Looking China 2014. Its aim was to enhance cultural communication between China and the rest of the world through the art of film.  Soon-to-be Class of 2014 Ash Wilks, Tom McKie, Luke Winter and Alex Whitcombe worked as media producers with fellow student filmmakers from universities in China, America, Australia, India, Singapore, South Korea and France.  

Participating students produced 10-minute films, which were screened at an exclusive ceremony earlier this month. Now the shorts will be shown accross China and worldwide from the USA to the UK. Marcella outlined our students’ short films: Tom displayed to us the architectural heritage and splendour of the city; Alex’s study of the spiritual focus in Dalian’s physical activities introduced us to some captivating characters; Luke captured the young people of Dalian and the fascinating phenomenon of Lightning Play; and you can see Ash’s film here, which brought home to us the care that Dalian workers put into their jobs and the pleasure they derive from them. [Ash, Luke and Tom have their own production company called Wallbreaker, see the services they provide here.]

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UNTITLED Independent Film Night by Quandary Productions

2009 alumnus Michael Henry is one of our inspirational media mentors and has posted about Quandary Productions first indie film night, last week, at The Angel Coffee House in Lincoln (UK):  

Michael-Henry_untitled-film-night_QuandaryProductions

Hosted by Quandary’s very own Tom Bridger, the night was a chance for low-to-no budget short films to be showcased to fresh audiences. When first starting out as a filmmaker it can be hard to get your work shown. This is something we appreciated and wish to remedy within the local area. The night consisted of several short films continue reading →

Photos on FB  |  Submit your short for September’s indie film night. Email: quandaryproductions@googlemail.com  |

Video As Above, So Below | International Drone Culture Colloquium

University of Lincoln Crestvideo 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