Visit to UCA Farnham - 17th November 2021

On the 17th November, I went on a supervised trip to the UCA Farnham campus to have a look around at the facilities on offer and to gain an insight into what it may be like to study Film Production as a degree course there. Some of the photos our group (people who were looking specifically at Film Production, Film and Screen Studies, Design for Theatre and Screen and Visual Effects) took from the trip of the facilities are above.

The campus, I thought, was huge in comparison to our Rochester campus and even the student accommodation was rather close by. The building itself was almost like a museum when coming in with artwork on display with descriptions about the artist and what course they were on. It felt rather spacious and spread out compared to Rochester, with plenty of lovely outdoor areas as well as nature and open green areas. It was laid out rather like a secondary school with each block for a certain area or 'subject' as well as a huge library for research and learning. Personally I loved the facilities and I was sold by them, although it did sort of feel like a secondary school to me as I said because of the layout and how you need to go to different places. In Rochester you can quite often stay in the same room to do your work, eat lunch and listen to lectures but in the Farnham campus there is a designated area for everything, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

We reached the campus at around 11, and went to have our lunch that was given to us for the day, as it was a long trip on the way there. It gave us a chance to relax after sitting for about an hour and a half cramped in the coach. There were also UCA students from other campuses such as Epsom and Canterbury that were also here with us for the day to look at courses and facilities. After this we gathered into our groups for our tours as well as our workshop for the day. I was interested in looking at the facilities for Film Production as well as the course; so I was grouped with people who were interested in this course as well as Film and Screen Studies, Design for Theatre and Screen and Visual Effects. There were also some current Film Production students at UCA Farnham that talked to us and gave us a valuable insight into the course.

We gathered in the Lecture Theatre in the Film & Media Building and watched a presentation. The Film Production course is a 3 year course; with the 1st year about gaining knowledge (and challenging misconceptions), learning about basic knowledge and the software used, the 2nd year about shaping your identity as a filmmaker and the placement year in the industry; and the final year focused almost solely on your portfolio and employment prospects. We were also told about successful alumni from UCA Farnham who worked on successful films such as Star Wars: Rogue One.

Things I learned

The programme director showed us around the Film and Media Building which had some great AV facilities for making professional film. I learned quite a bit about the process of editing film as well from him as he explained it clearly.

• Filmmakers at UCA Farnham use a mixture of Adobe Premiere Pro and AVID, which is essentially are more advanced version than Premiere with a similar layout and features such as the timeline. He explained how Adobe Premiere Pro is more used for online video content rather than professional films, which is where AVID comes in.

• The difference between online and offline editing; initially when all the film footage is gathered it is taken into the offline editing process; which is where all the creative decisions were made about what footage to use etc. It is rough editing, and involves essentially gathering the footage. Online editing follows when all the footage is arranged correctly, and high spec equipment is used to effectively render the video and audio so that it is suitable for viewing with excellent quality and resolution. It is the least creative part of the process and is more to do with refining the film in my opinion.

• A big advantage is that there are also students on campus who are actors which are very eager to be part of the films you make as it counts towards their course as well and provides them with an opportunity; which is much like film production in real life too. I also learned that the only difference is the restriction on filming things like murder, gore and sex scenes (due to some of the actors being below 18).

I even managed to speak to a student who was with us in the workshop who has a similar interest in scriptwriting to me, and this is how I found out some of the information in the third bullet point. He also mentioned that it is worth trying something new in the course, as he has expanded his interests beyond solely scriptwriting and also is interested in filming too.

Workshop

For the workshop, we were tasked with creating a short video using traditonal 90mm film reel and drawing each frame. We learned how the film projector works as it shows 24 frames per second which creates the illusion of motion across many different frames; so you would have to draw a hell of a lot for a full length film! I found it rather interesting to be exposed to a different way of creating film as we are, in this day and age used to digital cameras and footage. I tried to create a story of a stick man and a stick woman on my piece of film, but unfortunately I lost my patience and decided to draw some patterns instead (my film strip is the one in red and blue ink).