BFI Film Training Goes Live
CHRIS CONNELLEY
Last week, most school and college students were on a well-earned halfterm break, but for a group of young people with an interest in a creative career, all thoughts of some blissfully chilled time out were cast aside to take part in a flagship film course running in St Leonards.
Student Arthur Jenkinson (left) with Trix Worrall, film tutor
The six-day programme, part of a national push to attract fresh talent to the industry, offers 18 young people under 19 years old the chance to gain practical experience as part of a team making an original short film from scratch.
The BFI Film Academy South East Introductory Course is delivered on our doorstep by The Bright Foundation – a local arts education charity set up by Academy Award-winning costume designer, John Bright. The practical programme is delivered by industry professionals, a number of whom, including writing mentor Trix Worrall, creator of cult Channel 4 show Desmond’s, live here in Hastings.
The broad-based course covers all the major elements of film making, taking in scriptwriting, direction, acting, production, post-production, costume and prop design – it even includes a session on choreographing combat scenes – and is structured around the making of an original short film, which will be premiered at a special screening at Hastings Odeon cinema in early December.
The course was open to young people from 16 to 19, and the successful students were selected having submitted applications describing why they would like to be part of the programme.
There was no requirement for people to have worked with film previously or to come with specific experience, which manifests itself in the diversity of programme attendees. The majority live in Hastings, with just a few, like Hayley (one of the programme’s acting team and a student at BHASVIC in Brighton), commuting in from Eastbourne.
Brody, a uniformed services student at East Sussex College (Hastings campus) is working as an assistant director. He is most excited by the realism of the programme and getting “to feel what it’s like to be on a film set” whilst Paige, a learner at Bexhill College, talks about Going Out West, the film they are making as a dystopian future thriller where AI has taken over the world with few survivors and a final twist. The script was mainly written by Arthur, a GCSE student at Rye College now thinking of a career as a director, who formed part of the camera team and describes the experience of working with the Bright Foundation as “pretty much changing my life”.
That view is echoed by Bright Foundation CEO Polly Risbridger, who commented, “What’s amazing about the introductory course is that we hand over creative control to the young people, and they literally take on every role, learning all the skills along the way. It’s all their work on the screen.”
By the time you read this, their film will be in post-production before its local showing and a major London premiere. Proving that giving up a half-term-lie-in can really pay dividends.
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