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Animation magic comes to Carlisle Delegates from as far afield as Scotland and the south coast came to Carlisle this weekend to take part in a master class run by the man who helped Full story: http://www.cumbriacrack.com/2017/01/31/animation-magic-comes-carlisle/
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS - Dan Lawson, Head of LFS OPEN
It may come as a surprise to some that The London Film School offers more than just its Filmmaking, Screenwriting and International Film Business Masters. Workshops and short courses, as well as new schools and community outreach programmes, are a regular occurrence at the LFS and are the responsibility of Dan Lawson, Head of LFS OPEN. Lawson ensures that all these projects continue to offer high quality, industry-relevant professional training.
Prior to joining the London Film School, Lawson acted as Partnership Manager for Creative Skillset, helping talent and businesses across film, TV, animation, VFX and games to develop their skills and careers, access training and development support, and connect talent to industry. He also has run multimillion-pound film and TV investment funds supporting both production and development, acting as Executive Producer on a string of hit feature film and TV drama projects garnering BAFTAs, Golden Globes and many more awards.
In the second of our MEET THE PROFESSIONALS series, where we pull back the curtain on the tutors and staff who are responsible for keeping The London Film School at the top of its game, Sophie McVeigh caught up with Lawson prior to find out what the Head of LFS OPEN has on his plate and what we can expect in 2017.
Sophie McVeigh (S.M): What does your job involve?
Dan Lawson (D.L): The LFS Open department grew out of what has been for the last ten years a very successful workshops/short courses programme. It's an important part of the LFS offer, and I think we all felt that it was important to show that whilst we do these incredible MA programmes, it's not all that we do and actually we have a whole other professional training wing that draws on the same expertise and knowledge. So I very much look after and keep that workshops programme going, but with new elements added as well, particularly an outreach programme aimed at younger people, school age kids, teenagers and local community groups which was part of LFS delivering on its charitable status.
We have all this expertise, wisdom and facilities, and they can benefit other groups of people as well. The outreach programme was sort of a twinkle in everyone's eye at the point that I joined. We managed to secure some funding from Into Film to run four week-long summer schools at the main building. So when all the MA students weren’t there, we built a set on the stage and had 50 young people, mostly from East London, come and learn filmmaking in a week. They might have had some experience from shoots that they'd done with their mates on their phones but that's about it. And they went from that, to having made their own film, which they had completely written, produced, shot and edited themselves. Very busy but it was a great experience of using what the school has and does really well, just pointed in a different direction at a new audience.
I also look after our international projects. The school has done lots of international partnerships over the years, often with film schools around the world. So, an example of the programme is 'Serial Eyes' which is a high-level TV writers' programme in Berlin, which has been running for several years, and we'd partnered with them before and we'll partner with them again this year to come. They spend most of their time in Berlin, but they come here and have a two week immersive time in February. So it's a diverse broad slate of other stuff that isn't in the MA! It's lively, dynamic and constantly changing. It is great to take that LFS brand, that expertise and that premium quality and bring it to other people who aren't necessarily doing the MAs.
S.M: Is there scope for expansion in the future?
D.L: We've got big plans. The workshops programme is already as full as it's ever been. We do directing courses very well and we've got some great writing courses. I want to add in some more producing courses which is a theme across both programmes. We're looking to get some of that under way in spring. But also, with the short courses, it's a chance to be quite experimental with new forms, with new technologies. We do want to look at Virtual Reality, and if there's something we can bring to that. If there's an area emerging in the film world where we think we can add a new perspective or expertise then our programme's a great place to do that because they're short, intensive sessions. It's a way for us to pilot some ideas that might then find their way into the MA so we share what went really well.
S.M: Do you have visiting tutors coming in from all over?
D.L: All the time. People travel literally from the other side of the world to do two-day courses sometimes. It's a very prestigious, high quality programme, and that's down to our tutors. They make the programme. We can kick around ideas and say “Wouldn't it be great to have something on this, or that” , but it's the tutors that deliver it that are the real experts. We pride ourselves on only ever having industry practitioners teaching these courses. So yeah, we have a fantastic roster of tutors at any one time.
S.M: What was your background before you joined LFS?
D.L: Immediately before I had a couple of years at Creative Skillset, working across not just film but also TV, games, animation and all kinds of interesting sectors. And before that I spent about ten years in talent development. I was up at the Screen Agency in the West Midlands, which doesn't exist anymore because Creative England now runs that, but I spent a number of years there, running short film commissioning schemes, running a big production fund. It's a long game, so there were people who we were commissioning on their first few shorts, 10 years ago, who now are having fantastically successful careers, but they've had to do an awful lot of work in between. We prided ourselves on spotting that early promise and backing it. Because talent requires people to take risks on it. And also to have a space to fail. To have a commission and it might not work out but that's the point because you learn from those mistakes, and the ones who learn from them are the ones who generally go on and have great careers.
Bringing some of that to [the LFS], on the one hand we're running training programmes and leave a lot of the development work in the hands of our tutors because they're very good at it, but another area that I'm keen for us to explore more is setting up some talent labs. Some of it is a bit longer term, it's back to the conversation we started with about wanting a sense of taking people through a whole process rather than just dip in, which is great and works for some people, but is there more we can do to get more hands on with developing talent and projects? It's a direction we'd like to look more in and that might be something we do completely as a stand alone thing or as a kind of follow on for the graduates from the school. Where do you go when you graduate? Everyone goes out and has their own journey but there might be more the school can do to have a home for your next steps.
S.M: How much scope is there for students already at the LFS to attend the workshops?
D.L: Most of the workshops are available to students [for free], space permitting, and at the beginning of the year we send round a list of everything that's coming up this term. Generally speaking, if we have space, students can book with a week to go. And that's great and actually our tutors tend to like that as well because it brings a different dynamic to the group. Students are very switched on and hungry for the information and want to get involved. And for them it's a way of filling out any areas that they haven't had the chance to explore on their MA, which is intense and busy in itself. But actually being able to come in for a weekend and look at an area that they're not going to get to cover is a great extra opportunity.
S.M: What sort of a mix of people do you get on the courses?
D.L: It really varies. Some of our short courses will be pitched at quite experienced professionals, those might be more technical craft courses, but then there are many other courses which are really aimed at absolutely anyone who's thinking of exploring an area. So Screenwriting tends to be more open in that sense, because it is something that people can come from all kinds of backgrounds and do. But we do directing courses as well. You can come for a weekend or a week and try an aspect of it without committing to a much longer programme and of course, what we do get is people who'll come on short courses or maybe summer schools who then come and do an MA here because they like the experience and have had a taste of it and want to do the main programme. And it works both ways, we have graduates from the MA who come back and still do courses, and there's a discount for graduates of the school.
S.M: Do people find that it's a good opportunity to network and make contacts?
D.L: Absolutely. There's a technical drawing course running at the moment and on day one, the tutor came up to me and said, “It's a great group. They’ve gelled, they're going to work really well together.” And they're staying late in the evenings together, they're coming in at the weekend to do more. It builds this real sense of a cohort. And the summer schools, again, every summer we're running two or three 'grown up' summer school as well as the kids' summer school and we're creating these little groups and teams that hopefully then go on and work together in the future.
S.M: What's planned for 2017?
D.L: You're going to see our workshops programme as busy as it's ever been. We’ve just run a new Treatments and Outlines course for the first time and we really want to do more of that. It's one of those things that no one's doing and that was Kate Leys, one of our long standing tutors. That was us having a coffee and going “What's no one teaching that everyone wants?” And that was one of them. In a similar vein, we've got a workshop on setting up and running a production company, which again is one of those un-talked about things but actually lots of people want to know the basics. I want more producing in 2017. In a sense, absolutely any of our workshops would be of interest to producers, but there's not much that's squarely aimed at producers. I come from that background myself. The producer is sort of the engine of all of the industry, essentially. Without them, nothing is going to get made, but it's an area that lots of people still don't really understand or think they want to do, so we want to have a 'demystifying' process. And that'll be producing in the traditional sense, what do you need to be a feature film producer, finance plans and budgets and who's financing what and sales. But we'll also look at new modes of producing and new forms of distribution and new platforms – Crowdfunding and all those emerging ways of doing things.
I want to run more summer school programmes as I mentioned. We're going to stick with the directing ones because they're very successful, but I'm interested in expanding those out to other areas. So again, we're talking about a cross-platform lab which would be more of a development workshop – bring your idea and we'll workshop it into a truly cross-platform idea. And that idea of more lab-like programmes is something we really are exploring in 2017, we're going to start piloting some fun ideas. And as I say, the outreach programme we really want to expand as well, so more work with schools, more work with community groups, all of which is in anticipation of our move over to London City Island. We don't want to just parachute in and live in our own little bubble there, we want to actually feel part of that community and that area.
Visit the LFS website for more information on upcoming workshops and summer programmes.
Train2Game News Age of Algorithms
The first of a portfolio of free online courses commissioned by Creative Skillset is now open for business.
Age of Algorithms, developed by London Geometry (LG), aims to equip professionals working in the Creative Industries with the necessary maths skills to enhance and advance their careers by working more effectively in technical environments. In addition, the game is attractive to anyone…
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Train2Game News Creative Industries responds to budget
Creative Media businesses welcomed the Government’s Budget announcement today that it will continue to contribute to Creative Skillset’s Skills Investment Fund , (SIF) for another two years.
The Government will provide £4 million to co-invest with industries, matching pound for pound support for training and development in film, high- end TV, visual effects, video games and animation.
Creative…
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Event - Crowdfunding V Crowdlifting - Unlocking The Potential
Crowd-funding. It was awesome. It was the saviour of indie gaming. It was an over-hyped waste of time. It was a way for the unscrupulous to rip-off the gullible. It was only for the already successful. It was only good for very specific projects. It’s… so over.
Crowd-funding is still with us. It’s being used by an increasingly diverse collection of companies, projects and prototypes. It works…
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Radio Indies launch 800‐place training scheme
The Radio Independents Group, in association with Creative Skillset, has unveiled its new RIGtrain scheme for independent radio production companies.
Help Wanted
Help Wanted @skillsetssc Needs YOU. Work In Games? Please read AND share this...
How many games companies are there in the UK? How many programmers? Are artists getting the training they need? How are people actually getting into the industry? Is QA still a valid way into a company? How about the demographics of the people making games? Is it still a male dominated industry? Is the gender imbalance actually getting any better? And what sort of games companies now exist? Is it…
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This is not a video of vfx breakdowns but it can be inspirational and a motivator for people aiming to be work on a visual effects team. It slightly shows the work of the visual effects process so that's kind of related.
Also shows that even thought the subjects that you studied are different, you are still able to become a visual effect artist, and it might even help too. It conveys that doing visual effects, or doing something related to it can be fun and it brings you an extra-ordinary experience.
Reference:
Creative Skillset, Choosing a career in visual effects - For 15+ year olds, 12 March 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-s3aOyr4ZA
