Lights, Camera, Action!
The London School of Film, Media & Performance is
Regent’s College’s newest development, and is the sixth school on
its Regent’s Park campus.
The School is led by David Hanson, who came to Regent’s from
Bournemouth University where he was Director of the Bournemouth
Screen Academy and amongst other roles ran their accredited and
highly acclaimed platform of writing degrees.
“New writers learn fastest by working to
the standards at the highest levels of the screen industry itself,
nothing less, and being guided by the best writers the industry’s
produced - that’s how our students will succeed”.
David has a track record as a screenwriter in London, New York
and Hollywood. His writing career began with the BBC’s Not The Nine
O’Clock News, and during his time working in British television he
wrote for a range of comedy performers including Lenny Henry,
Jasper Carrott and David Walliams, before co-creating the TV
character Max Headroom for Channel Four and the US channel HBO. The
character became a major success in the US, Europe, the Far East
and Australia. David’s work then took him to New York where he
wrote and produced several TV series in both comedy and drama, and
then to Los Angeles where he was scriptwriter and story editor on
both comedy and drama series for America’s ABC TV network. He wrote
film projects for Universal and other companies before returning to
London to write and produce film and television in the UK and
Europe.
David says of his experience as a writer and in running
writing degrees, “new writers learn fastest by working to the
standards at the highest levels of the screen industry itself,
nothing less, and being guided by the best writers the industry’s
produced - that’s how our students will succeed.” So with his
own experiences and those of the creative industry colleagues he is
bringing in to teach on the programmes, The London School of Film,
Media & Performance is preparing to welcome its first students
this summer, starting with a MA programme in June. By September the
School will be running five new degrees, in a range of creative and
performance areas.
The five programmes are the three-year BA
Screenwriting & Producing, training the next generation of
writers and producers of television and film; the three-year
BA Creative Industries, which teaches
people to work as creators, entrepreneurs and managers across the
wide field of the creative media industries; and the three-year
BA Acting & Global Theatre, which
trains students in acting and theatre-making skills through the
study of theatre and performance from across the globe.
In addition there is the two-semester Foundation Acting course, a firststage entry into
the world of acting and the theatre, preparing students for entry
to university and drama school. The fifth programme is a new
part-time MA in Writing for Screen &
Stage. This is a two-year course taught by five intensive
week-long residentials interspersed with three-month periods of
distance tutoring by telephone and email as students develop and
refine their scripts for an international market.
This Masters degree is unique, since unlike any other in the UK
it trains writers in the two key scriptwriting traditions, screen
and theatre. Like many professional writers now learning to make
the transition from one to the other, these students will develop
the skills to adapt scripts from one tradition to another; a hugely
important factor in writing for audiences. The other key advantage
of this programme is its design; provided students can attend the
five residentials over two years, they can pursue their writing and
complete the programme whilst continuing their professional and
personal lives. This unusual design has proved hugely beneficial to
successful writers who have gained a Masters degree and a second
career in this way.
The London School of Film, Media & Performance will
introduce another degree programme in September 2011; the
three-year BA Film, TV & Digital Media Production. This is a
wide-ranging and highly-skilled programme developed by a team of
people who are working at the cutting edge of new screen and
digital media industry. For this degree the College is investing in
state-of-the-art studios and a team of tutors who are engaged
within the industry, in producing new forms of television, film and
digital media. David Hanson Head of School London School of Film,
Media and Performance.
First published in Regent's
College Inner Circle Magazine, Spring 2010
Page last updated 6/7/2010