Video As Above, So Below | International Drone Culture Colloquium

Posted on August 13, 2014 by RW

A 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

Posted on August 11, 2014 by RW

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 ]

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 →

Aleysha Minns, Class of 2013 | Website | Film, TV & Photography

Posted on August 6, 2014 by RW

2013 graduate and freelancer Aleysha Minns, who is one of our inspiring LSFM mentors, is now officially self-employed and said: My website is finally live! What a long and interesting journey it has been. I think the mistake I made was starting to set it up too early, I was at a point were my work was still based around my student work and I was only just beginning my freelance career. I am still in the starting stages, but at least I have some credited work. Thank you very much to my web designer/developer Sam Kelham for putting up with me all this time. I definitely recommend him if you need anything like this done and can visit his website here.

This video is a showcase of some of my most recent work including work with Channel 4 and FyreUK. It shows my skills in a range of areas such as Production Management, Camera Operator, Producer and Director over different genres.

Continue reading →

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

Posted on August 4, 2014 by RW

I 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 →

LSM changes to LSFM | The University of Lincoln College of Arts

Posted on July 30, 2014 by RW

From Friday LSM will become Lincoln School of Film & Media. LSFM will bring together Media Production, Audio Production and Film & TV with Animation and Contemporary Lens Media.

The School’s social media platforms will remain at the links you usually use like this blog, our alumni twitter and school twitter feeds. (We will be adding ‘film’ to our sites to reflect the new name, but rest assured it will still be us!)

The University of Lincoln announced ‘as of 1st August 2014 there will be an exciting new alignment of academic schools in the College of Arts. It will provide an environment which engenders interdisciplinary research and innovative teaching and will enhance the student experience.’

The College of Arts will be aligned to five schools: Lincoln School of Film & Media (all LSM BA and PG programmes, plus Animation BA (Hons) and Contemporary Lens Media BA (Hons). Continue reading →

Alex O’Brien, Class of 2014 | Audio Production Freelancer

Posted on July 28, 2014 by RW

My 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 →

Katy Atkinson, Class of 2006 | TRA Media Coverage at Glasgow 2014

Posted on July 22, 2014 by RW

2006 graduate Katy Atkinson, who is one of our inspirational media mentors, is the co-founding Director at The Reporters’ Academy. TRA is a not-for-profit media production company based at MediaCityUK, which is run by young people. TRA will be involved in the coverage of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games (23 July-3 Aug) and Katy wanted to share the good news with you on this blog.

As TRA Project Leader at the Games Katy, pictured (far left) with TRA Glasgow 2014 Team, said: The Reporters’ Academy’s proud to announce that it will be assisting a total of 12 Oceania nations during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games by providing a number of countries with an official press officer. The twist is that the press officers are all upcoming dynamic young people from across the North West. During Glasgow 2014 TRA will be providing extensive media coverage of the Pacific Island Commonwealth Teams. Such as Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Norfolk Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Solomon Islands. They shall be producing the following media content: daily written reports for website use and print press; audio files for radio broadcast; video content for TV broadcast when access allows: and photos for multiple uses. They will also be producing a daily Oceania round up of the most noteworthy activity from all Oceania teams, in an effort to share Oceania news with the world’s media.

I am looking ahead to the Commonwealth Games with excitement. Continue reading →

Richard McCormack, Class of 2009 | Red Bee Media’s BBC Four Doco

Posted on July 17, 2014 by RW

I’m a graduate of 2009 and I work as a creative for Red Bee Media. It makes content, promos and designs branding for a range of clients. However Red Bee is probably most well known in the industry as being the BBC’s creative agency. You know the swimming hippos on BBC1? Red Bee did that. However this post isn’t so much about me; rather it’s about my creative director, his co-producer and a ten year project. It turned into a documentary ‘100 seconds to beat the world: The David Rudisha Story’, which is a co-production with Hill Ten film. The doco will be on-air 22 July at 10pm on BBC Four. Here’s the trail.

A decade ago Jim and Ed set out to make a documentary about Brother Colm, an enigmatic Irish teacher who has also coached many of Kenya’s most celebrated athletics including Wilson Kipketer, Matthew Birir and Peter Rono. Jim and Ed wanted to discover why a man without any professional training or athletic experience had managed to consistently develop gold medal winning athletes. However on 9th August 2012 the subject of the documentary changed, when David Rudisha ran the fastest 800 metres in history and took gold at the London Olympics. Jim and Edward looked back at their rushes and realised they had a range of footage and stills of David as a shy teenager developing into an athlete. So the documentary was refocused on David.

I came on board over the last year or so when Jim asked me to film an interview with Lord Seb Coe for the documentary. One bleak Tuesday morning, I met Jim outside Coe’s offices in Victoria armed with a Canon 5D, a Canon XF305 and a bed sheet for a backdrop (which Jim had spent thirty minutes the night before ironing). Continue reading →

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

Posted on July 15, 2014 by RW

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.

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 →

Ashley Turner, Class of 2013 | BBC TWO Floor Runner ‘Wolf Hall’

Posted on July 10, 2014 by RW

Congrats to all Lincoln School of Media third year graduating students who will be Class of 2014! The School hope you’ll keep us posted on your job-hunting, experiences, tips and advice, like last year’s alumnus Ashley Turner.

I graduated from the University of Lincoln last year as part of the first group of students to take the Film & Television course. Just before I left Lincoln, I was accepted onto the BBC’s Production Talent Pool, which I took to be a guarantee of a kickstart as a TV runner. I moved to Bristol, where I began to pick up occasional runner jobs, working on the odd day here and there on programmes like Flog It, The One Show, Rip Off Britain and others. However, the desired long contract proved elusive. Thanks to uploading my CV to a number of websites, I worked as a runner on the open auditions for the upcoming Star Wars films, which was a very exciting opportunity, and things began to build up from there. Eventually I semi-moved to London, working on The One Show as a studio runner, as well as on a BBC Three comedy pilot, a BBC Two panel show and the recent Our Gay Wedding: The Musical.

Having built up this solid range of runner experience, I was asked to come in to interview for a long-term runner job on a high profile BBC Two drama, and succeeded! So since April, I have been a Floor Runner on the BBC’s adaptation of Dame Hilary Mantel’s best-selling period drama Wolf Hall, which I’m thrilled to be a part of.

My main piece of advice to fellow graduates of Lincoln School of Media who’re looking to get into TV? Never work for free. Continue reading →

Lincoln School of Film & Media Network

LSFM at the University of Lincoln (UK) celebrates 25 years of our students into graduates