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Hands-On E
Hands-On
ven before the announcement that they had swept the board at this year’s Fuji Scholarship Awards, writer Kay Mellor was proclaiming that the Northern Film School was “a hotbed” of talent. “Yes, we think we have
At The NFS
been pretty successful for some time,” says Ian Macdonald, head of school, calculating that in seven years students and their films have won more than 60 awards in festivals and competitions all over the world.
At The NFS
They include top awards at the British Short Film Festival in 1996 and 1997, the Director’s Guild Best Newcomer graduate prize last year and this year’s Kodak Student Commercial Award.
“But we take as much pride in the fact that so many people have got work within six months,” he says. “For most film stu- dents the first work is likely to be down at McDonalds but we are talking here of meaningful work.
TONY KLINGER, Head of Production
“We can now claim
that during any
week on TV, there
is at least one
credit for one of
our graduates.”
IAN MACDONALD, Head of School
“We can now claim that during any week on TV, there is at least one credit for one of our graduates,” he avers. Recent examples are Jimmy Gardner, co-creator of Cops, producer-director Bharat Nalluri, writer Clive Dawson, and Catriona McGowan and Imogen Kimmel, whose film school short, Secret Society, is being developed as a feature by Mark Herman.
Herman is himself a graduate and another significant alumnus is Jeremy Dyson, non-performing member of The League of Gentlemen, who was in the first intake of the screenwriting course.
The quality of the students has much to do with the fact that the Northern Film School, based at Leeds, is one of the few film schools operating at post-graduate level.
“We offer the best new talent a chance to make their films on film in a realistic professional environment,” says head of production Tony (son of legendary film producer Michael) Klinger.
The first year of the Postgraduate Diploma Course is full-time and the second part-time, enabling students to take up opportunities in industry in between mak- ing their graduation film. Courses are spe- cialist in the disciplines of directing, pro- ducing, cinematography, sound design and production design, alongside the MA in Screenwriting (Fiction).
“The students are people who come to us as specialists and would need to have a portfolio of previous work or be able to demonstrate a commitment to their chosen field,” says Ian Macdonald.
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