The National Film and Television School’s first open day at BAFTA in London was a huge success with a full house of prospective applicants attending to find out more about the courses and the school.
NFTS tutors and students were on hand to give guests the lowdown on the postgraduate courses including some of our new MA’s and Diplomas: Production Technology; Marketing, Distribution, Sales and Exhibition; Directing Commercials and Promos; Graphics and Titles for Television and Film; and Directing and Producing Natural History and Science.
There were also interactive sessions from the digital effects, games and animation departments, including the ‘making of’ a short horror film, an armature demonstration and the chance to test the latest VR games in development.
Guests were treated to a masterclass with legendary filmmaker, Noel Clarke, whose latest film, Brotherhood has been a big box office hit. In conversation with NFTS director, Nik Powell, Noel talked about how he got into the industry and gave lots of great advice on do’s and don’ts when you’re starting out. Noel advised the aspiring filmmakers to really “know your audience as the market is so competitive; think about who’s going to sit in the cinema and say, ‘I felt that’. You need to know that people will watch your stuff if you are to have the chance to make a second film.”
Noel was joined by NFTS talent scout, Rebecca Mark-Lawson and a panel of NFTS students and grads including Meg Campbell, 2nd Year Directing Fiction; Jermaine Edwards, 2nd Year Cinematography; Sean O’Riordan, directing and Producing TV Entertainment grad and Abolfazi Talooni, Editing grad.
When asked for tips for getting into NFTS, the students agreed that the most important thing you need is ‘passion and to believe in yourself’ as well as the need to clearly communicate how much you are committed to wanting to work in the film, games or television industry. Rebecca highlighted that persistence is often required and emphasized the importance of making a film with ‘imagination and using the right actors to get the audience to feel emotion.’ She also stressed that ‘production values are not so important; it’s much more important for your film to have heart.’
