Performing Arts
Part of Regent's College's Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the London School of Film, Media & Performance (LSFMP) is preparing to welcome its first students this summer, launching with a part-time MA programme in Writing for Stage and Screen earlier this month. By September the School will be running five new degrees, in a range of creative and performance areas.
Led by Head of School, David Hanson, the BAFTA, Ace and Golden Rose of Montreux award winning screeenwriter, the school takes the Regent's ethos of applying internationalism with the highest quality learning.
“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,” he says. “That’s how our students will succeed.”
Students will be able to draw on Hanson’s own experiences and those of the creative industry colleagues he is bringing in to teach on the programme. This 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: 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 five programmes currently on offer at LSFMP also include 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 first stage entry into the world of acting and the theatre, preparing students for entry to university and drama school. Dr Valerie Kaneka Lucas, Head of Performing Arts at LSFMP, emphasises the global perspective of these courses.
“The student body will be very international,” she explains. “While once television stations and theatres in the Middle East, for example, imported Western talent, they are now looking for a home grown talent – but the training and learning in the Middle East doesn’t really exist. Thus students come to us to gain the skills they intend to use to land great jobs in the media when they return home.”
This internationalism is also reflected in the School’s residency programme which hopes to attract guest artists from all over the world.
“There’s also the opportunity to spend a semester in the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Australia or the United States as part of your course,” adds Dr Lucas.
LSFMP 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.
The next Open Day for LSFMP will be held on Tuesday 6 July 2010. For the opportunity to meet and chat with both students and academic staff, who will be happy to answer any questions you have about the courses or life at Regent's College, contact the External Relations Department on (020) 7487 7505 or e-mail LSFMP@regents.ac.uk
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