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“ The best thing about
the NFTS is the people
you meet and the friends
you make with a view to
working together
in the future.”
ÚNA NÍ DHONGHAÍLE 3rd Year Editing Student
“I hope to change this situation. I believe that not only do we have a responsibility to respond to the industry that funds us - our stakeholders, in effect - but we should explore ways in which that relationship can work to our mutual benefit.”
Bayly’s response has been a whole series of initiatives which run the gamut of practical course work to the core funding of the School, whose whole future has been somewhat up in the air since plans were announced last year to move the operation fully to Ealing Studios in West London. That switch now appears to be on hold until 2001.
“Yes,” says Bayly, “we can train and equip people and the National is very good at doing that. Thanks to a Lottery grant for digital equipment, we’re able to step into the future. But we musn’t ignore the other side of the equation... the intellectual side, which is also what we’re all about.
“On the day I arrived here, we had a convocation of students. My speech was about change and about the ordeal of change. Most significantly we have broken the curriculum down - something Henning initiated - into units and modules.” The bot- tom line is that, from January 1999, full-time courses at the NFTS will change from three to two years.
There will be no automatic progression from the two-year Diploma Course to a new Advanced Course, which will run for the first time from January 2001. The way Bayly describes it, the Advanced is poised to be the newest jewel in the School’s crown.
“What we’ve provided for with the Advanced programme is a very interesting model which has to do with the breeding and nurturing of talent. It’s a thesis-based course which, in some respects, might be replacing the old graduation film. Students on the two-year programme may be able to graduate to the Advanced either individual- ly or in teams.
“But the salient factor is that they would have a project to propose. Students going forward will be given a tutor and also be connected to an industry ‘mentor’. For example, a music student who has acquired skills from his course, would be seconded to a practicing composer to actually compose a score in parallel on a real film or TV pro- gramme. We will be recruiting very broadly for the course and aim to pilot the scheme with a few students starting next year.”
Clearly funding is the key to everything. At present the Dept of Culture, Media & Sport pro- vides between 40 and 45 per cent of the operating budget. Fees account for about £1/2m annually and the rest comes from the Film and TV indus- tries, of which film’s continuing contribution is a rather measly £276,000.
Bayly acknowledges the ongoing generosity of the television community and is responding by insti- tuting more TV training at Beaconsfield. Next year there will be a stand-alone TV course, largely three- camera based, covering sport, news, soaps, sitcoms and drama. It has, needless to say, been devised hand in glove with representatives of the industry.
Apart from a few beacons of support, Film’s financial imput is, Bayly concedes diplomatically, “ridiculously small given the contribution of this institution to the industry. We’re trying to tailor our courses now more directly to meet the needs of industry. I find myself having actually to go out into the industry and say, ‘look, this is really what the film school costs. Do you want it or not?’”
As well as looking to that funding, Bayly more than hints that major endowments are about to fall in place. “I don’t count them as part of our operating budget but part of new teaching. There’s already a chair in music (NFTS old boy Trevor Jones), and chairs in screenwriting, production and TV are all currently under discussion. This is not cream but necessary growth for the School.”
SCHOOL IS FORGING AHEAD
All photos courtesy of The National Film and Television School
Stephen Bayly, NFTS Director
Bayly was recently in Los Angeles trying to raise funds. When he listed the School’s graduates to an attentive audience, “jaws dropped. It was eventually put to me that the National was proba- bly providing as many people working at the top end of Hollywood as are the film schools USC and UCLA. Eventually when we redevelop a site, whether at Ealing or elsewhere, there may be some building funds coming from the States.”
According to the Practitioner-Director, “no one is elite when they come to the National but coming here may give them a jump in the indus- try. It’s an open institution which as far as recruit- ment is concerned we want to go ever wider and broader.” ■ QUENTIN FALK