The Chancellor Greorge Osborne today announced in his autumn statement that the government “will invest £5 million in the National Film and Television School's Digital Village to expand and upgrade its existing facility into a world-class training centre to provide a sustainable supply of UK talent for the digital and creative industries."
The Oscar and BAFTA winning NFTS was this year voted ‘the world’s best film and television school’ by CILECT (the international association of film and television schools) and its alumni include Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park and David Yates who directed four of the Harry Potter films – the world’s highest grossing film franchise.
This year, the NFTS's student films were nominated for an Oscar; won a student Oscar (the School's 6th); won the Grierson award for documentary; the Annie and Cartoon d’Or for its animation films. Its very recent graduates won the Camera d’Or at Cannes Film Festival; four Golden Horses (the ‘Asian Oscars’) and the Scottish BAFTA for best film. Its Alumni have now won more than 100 BAFTAs including 10 Oscar and BAFTA nominations this year.
However, lack of investment in infrastructure has left the NFTS in need of expansion and modernisation. The School’s planned £20m Digital Village will improve teaching facilities and capacity. Phase I has already been built with private investment and today’s £5m government funding announcement, together with £2.1m funding from Creative Skillset, will enable Phase II to start at the end of 2014.
Patrick McKenna, Ingenious Media CEO, who recently became chair of the NFTS’ Board of Governors, said: “This £5m funding demonstrates the confidence the government has in the NFTS and its commitment to training the next generation of film and television makers in the UK."
The funding announcement comes hot on the heels of an announcement by Sky TV that it is offering contracts to six out of nine students on a Broadcast Production diploma course that the NFTS delivers in partnership with Sky. The broadcaster was originally committed to only provide one graduate contract, but due to the quality of the students has expanded this to six.
The course, that launched in January this year, provides training for vision mixers, sound, lighting and camera specialists, some of the highly sought after craft skills that HRH Prince Charles highlighted as needed in his recent RTS Craft Skills Masterclass at the Royal Television Society. More details on the brand new Digital Content diploma course, also to be delivered in partnership with Sky, will be announced next week.
NFTS Director Nik Powell said: “This fantastic funding will enable the NFTS to train more students in the globally competitive high level skills required by the creative industries. It is a tremendous vote of confidence in the School and its ability to train Oscar and BAFTA winners as well as the craft skills needed to support the creative industries. This is shown by Sky TV’s keenness to take on so many of the students from our Broadcast Production course before they’ve even graduated.”
There are still places available on our 2014 Broadcast Production course. For more information about the Broadcast Production course click here
