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the business of education
Its distinguished alumni are everywhere, from the Home Counties to Hollywood. Directors like John Roberts, Harry Hook, Mark Herman, Simon Moore, Anthony Waller, Danny Cannon and Roberto Bangura. Cinematographers such as Roger Deakins, Andrzej Sekula, Gabriel Beristain, David Tattersall, Oliver Stapleton and Gavin Finney. Not to men- tion editors, sound men, special effects supervisors, writers, designers and even composers.
Their old college is set in a corner of
leafy Bucks, at the 76-year-old Beaconsfield Studios. First opening for
film business in 1922, its major claim to
fame before this past quarter century or
so of academe was as the production
base for 1929’s The Clue Of The New Pin, Britain’s first all-talking feature which offered a small role to a then unknown young actor called John Gielgud.
The once-busy studios had been languishing for more than seven years as a warehouse for the North Thames Gas Board when, in 1971, the newly- formed National Film School bought the lot for £225,000. Today, The National Film & Television School (as it was renamed in 1983) operates on an
annual budget of £4.1 million which, according to current NFTS director Stephen Bayly, is strictly “shoestring”, and on a site which is “absolutely bursting at the seams.”
Bayly, who arrived at Beaconsfield in February, is just the school’s third director in its admirable 27-year history following the long reign of Professors Colin Young and, latterly, Henning Camre, who returned to his native
Denmark to run the new amalgamated Danish Film Institute after nearly six years in the hot seat.
American-born Bayly, a youthful- looking 55 who graduated the school himself in the 70s, comes to his new post with a wealth of film-making expe- rience and a stack of fresh ideas to take the NFTS into the new Millennium. Director of films like Just Ask For Diamond and Coming Up Roses as well as producer of more recent successes like Richard III and Mrs Dalloway, Bayly’s now put that side of his career mostly on hold while he tackles his knotty new assignment.
As the first Practitioner-Director of the School, Bayly’s appointment can be clearly seen as a move to make it more relevant to the industry. “This is not to
suggest it wasn’t already,” he explains.
“In terms of the School’s output, our contri- bution to television and film, in terms of both con- tent creation and technical and creative skills, is incontestibly significant. Our graduates’ credits speak for themselves. But hitherto the School has not effectively reached out to the industry or looked upon the relationship with its funders as
mutually enhancing.
SETTING THE INDUSTRY STANDARDS
HOW THE NATIONAL FILM & TELEVISION S
EXPOSURE • 14 & 15