Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Film students meet Prince Charles at RTS Masterclass
The RTS Craft Skills Masterclass Day was open to students on media production related courses and featured three masterclasses covering camerawork, editing and sound, along with talks from David Liddiment, Director of All3Media, Danny Cohen, Director of Television for the BBC, Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO of FremantleMedia and Sophie Turner Laing, Managing Director, Content for BskyB.
Juan Diaz Santaella, a Colombian student on our MA Filmmaking (2013-2015) course said: "I applied to assist to this Masterclass because I wanted to know more about the UK TV industry.
"We were a small group of students from different universities around England. Prince Charles wanted to know more about the perception that we as students had about the TV industry in the UK. He asked each one of us about our studies, our specialisms, our future goals and about what we thought could be improved in our universities and in the industry in order to achieve our professional goals."
Student Ben Sayers, added: "Prince Charles also talked about there being a lot of crew roles available within the television and film industry, but that universities are not particularly training people for specific roles. Instead, students are generalising too much and leaving university under qualified in the film and TV industry."
Ben explained that our Northern Film School does things differently: "In the first year they let the students find their own path by generalising and mixing that with a lot of practical lessons. Then from second year up to MA level, they heavily specialise in different roles and areas. Myself I am an editor and a cinematographer, and the Royal Television Society were so impressed with our film school, they said that we were ahead of the game in terms of training."
Juan added: "At the end of the event we could meet very interesting people, including some students from different cities and people working in the industry with large experience, who gave me some advice to make the most out of my career and learn some valuable life experiences inside this industry.