Page 15 - Fujifilm Exposure_24 Stephen Fry_ok

“It’s a cultural institution,
with a particular history and a particular style, there’s a curriculum and a point to it.”
ethos of filmmaking is getting a bunch of estate cars, fit as many people in as you can and drive somewhere. That’s who makes the film. This is the kind of spirit that infects the school.”
The results are visible in the grad- uation films. This past year saw a group of students band together to make a film called The Senses, featur- ing five 20-minute episodes filmed in Chile, New York, Paris, London – and Wales. “It is ridiculously ambitious,” says Gibson with obvious pride, “we are just putting it out on to the festival circuit now.”
“It costs £15,000 a year to come here, so I am deliberately going in the direction that it’s not just a pile of facilities you can buy into. It’s a cultur- al institution, with a particular history and a particular style, there’s a cur- riculum and a point to it.
“There’s twenty five full-time staff and so the amount of face-time you get with them is massive. We don’t go in for pre-specialisation, which means you get to learn everything. And you make a minimum of six films in the time you are here. We sustain a high reputation around the festivals and amongst the graduates really by the intensity and the pressure of the work itself. That’s the hallmark of the school.”
Where the school really wins out is thanks to its ethnically and culturally diverse intake. Instead of a parade of navel-gazers intent on ripping off Tarantino and Ritchie, the students bring the unique filmmaking attitude of their individual countries.
“There are places where the London Film School is the local film school, no matter how far away it is. If you throw a stone where the Mexican film industry hang out, you’ll hit some- one who came here.
“Most of our students won’t con- tinue to work in the EU after they graduate because they won’t have work permits,” he explains, “so they return home. Say they’re from a small Latin American country, there the
As he lists his plans for the next few years, like the setting-up of a Screenwriting Course, as well as a Producer’s Course – and the creation of a conservatoire in the top half of the building, Gibson stops himself.
“You know what, I just remem- bered I haven’t mentioned Fuji stock. It’s very good, by the way.” ■ BEN FALK
Photos: The Covent Garden based London Film School students at work; inset: Ben Gibson, Director
(Photos courtesy The London Film School)
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 13
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