Drama

This scheme is supported by Creative Skillset’s Film Skills Fund, which is funded by the BFI with National Lottery funds, through the Skills Investment Fund.

This course provides a thorough overview of how an Assistant Location Manager works on a drama production, including the principals and practises of the work involved. The intensive training course includes classroom teaching, a number of location visits, case studies and practical exercises.

Over the six day workshop, you will learn:

• The role of the Assistant Location Manager and how they work with the Location Manager
• Understanding the needs of  the schedule and budget
• Working with a Director and Production Designer and understanding the creative vision
• Location scouting & presenting the options to the team (including a practical exercise)
• Location agreements and negotiations
• How to manage a location, unit bases and the needs of the production
• Movement Orders and location signage
• How to run a technical recce (including a practical exercise)
• Filming in different locations – historic buildings, public transport, ports & waterways
• Legalities of filming in public spaces
• Road closures and traffic restrictions and working with the Police
• Working with local authorities and filming permissions
• Health & safety – the legalities and legislation of filming  including dangerous activities

An ideal course for those working as Locations Assistant or similar, looking to advance through the ranks in the locations department. The main tutor is Location Manager Johnny Ludlow - with over seventeen years of locations experience in film and TV, selected credits include The Midnight Beast, A Touch of Cloth, Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Smack The Pony, Love Island, Splash!

Two days of this course will be based at NFTS Beaconsfield, the remaining four days will be in London and surrounding areas visiting location services, set visits and meeting other film industry professionals. Subsidised transport is available.

Successful applicants will be joined by NFTS students on the Production Management diploma course. After the training course participants are invited to join NFTS students to gain valuable location management experience on NFTS Graduation films and TV productions.

This training run and administered  by the Production Management Department of the NFTS, so if you have any questions please contact Bex Hopkins directly on bhopkins@nfts.co.uk 01494 731 524

This scheme is supported by Creative Skillset’s Film Skills Fund, which is funded by the BFI with National Lottery funds, through the Skills Investment Fund.  

This two day course is for producers, script editors, writers, and people with ideas of making feature films or television drama. The course explores how best to develop drama proposals, script outlines, or un-commissioned scripts and target/pitch these to potential financiers, sales agents and distributors.

This course will make you think realistically about your ideas and give you a framework for going forward. If you’ve been struggling on your own, it will give you invaluable feedback, suggestions and ways of packaging your ideas.

• Topics to be covered include: 
• the role of the producer
• how to develop a story
• options and contracts
• how to look for finance

In order to make the course most beneficial please come armed with a couple of your own ideas that you can work on throughout the 2 days!

“Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”

Comedy is a serious business. It’s easy to get it wrong and hard to get it right. As Ricky Gervais once said about the state of comedy filmmaking in the UK: “We have a good tv comedy track record but it doesn’t usually translate to the big screen.”

This two–day seminar based workshop is for anyone who wants to direct comedy shorts or features. It aims to reveal the crucial steps to making distinctive comedy films that will connect with an audience.

If you have a script or outline for a short or a feature you are invited to bring these along to work on.

DAY ONE looks at the first things you need to do as a director: working on the script, finding the theme of your film (and subtext of your scenes), discovering who your characters are, and knowing what sort of film you are making.

DAY TWO looks at the final stages for you as a director; from casting, to rehearsing, to planning the shoot, to deciding the shots, to editing.

Below are just a few of the many subjects covered:

• Writing your logline
• What do you have to say as a director?
• The difficulty of writing a comedy script
• The difficulty of reading a comedy script
• Directing the romantic comedy
• Casting your film
• The difficulty of finding a great leading comedy actor
• To storyboard or not to storyboard?
• Finding your appropriate visual style

Comments from last course include:

“Tutor was enthusiastic & engaging”  “Really practical & inspiring!”  “Amazing course – thanks so much”  “Left full of enthusiasm” 

In order to make the course most beneficial please come armed with a couple of your own ideas that you can work on throughout the 2 days!

This course is full - but do not despair - places often become available - email us to be added to the Reserve List!

It's so easy today to just go out and make a short film however it’s rare to create a great short film that truly engages with an audience. Col Spector who has written and directed shorts and features that have all been released in the cinema (in the UK and the States) leads you through the good, the bad and the ugly of making short films with the ultimate goal of creating shorts that audiences, festivals and distributors will love.

This seminar based course will cover areas such as:

• Avoiding short film cliches
• Would you pay to watch it?
• Is it better to be funny or serious?
• Using improv in the writing
• Playing with irony
• Should a short follow the 3 act structure?
• Other screenwriting rules
• Improving your script
• The casting process
• Professional actors versus non-professionals
• Directing the actors
• Do you shoot it differently to a movie?
• Editing, music and sound design
• Launching your career

This course provides those attending with an introduction to the principles and practices of the work involved in film and television drama production management.
 
The basic thread throughout the week is that participants will learn how to break down a short script which they will schedule, and have a full understanding of all the elements which go into making up the budget.
 
In brief, areas covered are:
• Role, function and responsibilities of a drama production manager
• Breaking down and scheduling a script
• Union Agreements
• The principles of a budgeting
• Contracts
• Insurance; Completion Bonds; Health & Safety
• The Unit: on location (foreign and at home)
• Progress Reports
• Post-production
 

The course tutor is a Drama Production Manager/Line Producer with a wealth of experience of feature film and television drama productions. Specialist speakers will also be brought in throughout the 5 days.

Do you have a burning desire to make a feature film but are daunted by the sheer scale of your ambition?
 
This 4 day micro-budget filmmaking course strips away the mystique of film production and shows that anyone with drive and passion can produce and sell a feature film. It is specifically geared towards those working in the industry who no longer want to just talk about making a feature, but actually want to get down to the nitty-gritty and actually make a feature film.
 
Led by multi-award winning film producer Bruce Windwood*, the course explodes the myth that filmmaking is a ‘dark art’ and explains in a very practical nuts and bolts way, how to make and then sell your micro-budgeted film. The course will be full of invaluable industry insider tips, allowing participants a unique insight into the real, rather than perceived, world of independent filmmaking.
 
The course will cover as much ground as possible, so that participants gain a broad understanding of the whole film-making process – from story and script development right through to the key areas of marketing and distribution. There will also be on-going opportunities for Q & A, allowing participants to deal with specific queries and concerns as and when they arise.
 
*Bruce Windwood is an independent film producer, scriptwriter and director based in Oxfordshire. His micro-budgeted feature film, “12 In A Box” (co-staring Miranda Hart), has picked up international sales, won three awards and been critically acclaimed by the likes of ‘The Los Angeles Times’ and ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ along the way.

This comprehensive hands-on course will give you the tools to manage multiplatform projects by taking you through the dynamics of the multiplatform system, and the time cost and creative methods that can be utilised to make a successful project.

Course Aims & Objectives:
To appreciate how project management skills can transfer to the multiplatform arena;
To understand the responsibility and tasks demanded by multiplatform;
To recognise the value of good multiplatform management

By the end of the course, participants will be able to
Understand multiplatform opportunities and options;
Draw up realistic schedule for a multiplatform project;
Apply management skills accordingly to multiplatform projects

This is a great two day workshop investigating the complex relationship between Directors and Actors for Film and Television; understanding what they may need, the tools they use, tackling the problems that might occur and how to get their most truthful performance for your project.  

Using practical exercises as well as watching film references combined with informal group discussions, this workshop is designed to develop director's understanding of an actor's needs and how to build relationships with them both on and off set. Specifically what an actor really is, the innate pressures and challenges they face by default, their roles in the production, how to talk through and work with problems that can occur for an actor, from read-through through to the final ADR session.

We will be exploring some of the different tools and various methods good actors may use in preparation and during filming, how to cope with ‘bad’ or unchosen actors and tackle motivational issues on set. This course aims to provide the knowledge to establish an environment and dialogue that can create a trustful, collaborative working environment as well as the possibility for unexpected 'happy accidents' that the production can never foresee but that an actor can reveal in the moment.

All the course attendants will participate as a group in two and three hander exercises designed to show and explore the types of scenarios directors will face in professional life with many different types of actors.

The course is suitable for directors with little or no experience of working with actors as well as more experienced directors who wish to develop their understanding and skills at working with actors.  This is not a Directing Actors course - this is from the point of view of actors taking direction.

The tutor Neil Newbon is a professional working actor primarily on screen, with over twelve years of experience. He has worked on over fifteen feature films ranging across all kinds of budgets, as well as many television and theatre projects in predominately lead or supporting lead roles. Neil is also an established working performance capture specialist and voice over artist in numerous computer games.

Quite simply this 1-day course is for production personnel who need to breakdown scripts and schedule using Movie Magic
 
In brief, the course covers:
• Getting started on the computer
• Creating, adding and deleting elements
• Element Information Window
• Inserting element quantities and IDs
• Renaming, moving and merging elements
• Printing out strips
• Clearing, cutting, copying and pasting strips
• Sorting and selecting strips (basis)
• Setting the calendar, setting the day breaks and banners
• Re-ordering and saving schedules
• Page set-up
• Picture information
• Printing out default schedules and DOOD
• Modifying reports and strips

This course is currently full - but do not despair, places often become available!  Email us to be added to the Reserve List

This consistantly sold-out six day intensive screenwriting workshop (with the weekend off to prepare the assigned homework), is aimed at writers who would like to improve their chances of gaining commissions to write scripts for feature film and television drama.

"Excellent course... A years' knowledge in six days"

The emphasis of the course is on narrative; within this framework, issues of form, action, dialogue, characterisation, image and sound will be analysed and discussed.

The course will include, amongst other things:

• Working to a brief: treatment, synopses, adaptations
• Practical advice on layouts and presentation of scripts.
• Analysis of key sequences from a variety of films
• De-constructing script passages
• Meetings with other established writers and writers' agents on the demands and expectations of the industry, which includes how to sell yourself and market your script
• Overnight and weekend writing assignments by all participants is essential in order to gain the maximum benefit from the course.

Those who want to apply for the course should submit, along with their application, a two page treatment for an idea they intend developing, or a piece of work already completed, should also be submitted - this can be emailed direct to shortcourses@nfts.co.uk

Successful applicants should be prepared to work long hours over this period in order to gain the maximum amount they can from the course. Participants will be expected to write each evening of the course, as well as prepare for their final exercise over the weekend which separates the course days.

This is a practical course in which we help develop an idea that you have for a script. Therefore, please bring along your idea(s), no matter how crazy they are!

Have you ever wondered how they make an army of 5 into 500?
Would you like to know the difference between 2D & 3D graphics?
 
This course is based at Jellyfish Pictures, in Central London. Jellyfish are a BAFTA award winning CGI house who create graphics for TV and Film. The course will take place in their screening room, with opportunities to move around the building and experience the different stages in the production process. The course is aimed at Researchers, APs, Production Managers, Producers & Directors in documentary and drama (TV & Film), who are interested in finding out more about the world of CGI.
 
The tutors are industry professionals who have worked in documentary & drama for over 12 years; one as a CGI Producer the other as a Producer/Director of award winning CGI intensive films.
 
Using workshops and discussion groups the course will cover:
• Introduction to CGI and some examples of great shots and how they were achieved
• CGI Budgets and Schedules – how to make the most out of the money and time you have
• Pre-production – Pitching, Storyboarding & Reference finding
• Filming for CGI – backplates & assets that won’t make the CGI production house cry
• CGI Pipeline – things to consider in terms of workflow
• When things go bad in the world of CGI. Learn from other’s mistakes
 
During the afternoon, we will run a workshop with creatives from a leading CGI studio, where you'll have the opportunity to brainstorm some of your ideas - their insights will be both revealing and fun.

Today, with innovative technology embracing the way we do things – and giving us all a multitude of complicated options to follow, it is even more vital to understand all the elements that make up the post-production and completion schedules of any feature film or television drama series.  Because if you don’t, then you run the risk of severely affecting the plan, schedule, budget and contractual delivery requirements all producers must abide by.

This three-day intensive course provides a thorough overview of the different processes and practices that work successfully in post-production.  It is aimed at producers and production personnel who need to fully understand how their work and decisions can impact on what happens during the post and completion phases of a film or television drama series.

By unravelling in detail, facets of post-production; by explaining in clear, concise terms what the many different processes are, and briefly how they work; by discovering that decisions made in pre-production can affect how the production is lit and shot for completion in post, a picture will be built up which shows how post-production must be carefully considered, assessed, planned and scheduled, and - with careful monitoring – is delivered legally, administratively and technically, on time and within budget.

• AREAS COVERED INCLUDE:
• The Role of the Cutting Room                       
• Digital Post Production          
• Post Production Routes                                            
• Formats
• Picture & Sound Workflows                          
• Shooting in the Field                                                  
• Budgeting & Scheduling                                            
• Paperwork                                                                 

An absolutely essential course for anyone working in production!