As the subject celebrates its twentieth year of being part of the Bradfield curriculum, Film Studies pupils continue to achieve national recognition for their academic work with three more Bradfieldians either winning or being nominated for awards.
2022 leaver Max (G 17-22) was awarded the Best College Production for his film Syncopation at the Aldridge UTC Film Festival. The short film festival, which champions the work of student filmmakers, was held for the second year running in Media City UK and Max made the trip to Salford to collect his award in July.
Max created a narrative which established and developed a single character for his A Level short film and took inspiration from films such as La Jetée (Marker, France, 1962) and Night Fishing (Park, South Korea, 2011) as well as Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Reflecting on creating his film Max commented: “My aim for ‘Syncopation’ was to create a world ruled by an industrial beat, where one person disrupts the repetitive routine finding freedom in disorder.” While developing the film’s narrative Max established the rules of symmetry and the importance of order and control which would go on to be broken or disrupted during the climax.
“The simplest rule is that drawing must begin at 12:00. To emphasise this, I intercut images of a clock regularly to punctuate the narrative, indicating when the protagonist starts and re-starts his tedious activity.” The experimental nature of the film enabled audiences to take away different messages and create their own meanings, something which was a somewhat happy accident for Max who recalled one viewer saying they thought the time depicted the industrial processes in some countries where people are ruled by the clock.
Two of our 2023 cohort received nominations for national film awards. Lola (I 18-23) was shortlisted in the Shorts and Extracts category of the MediaMagazine Production Competition for her film Do You Feel Guilty Yet, Rosie?
Having received three times as many entries as the previous year, competition judges had their work cut out to whittle down all the entries to the various shortlists. The judges stated the competition’s final showreel “reflects the variety, skill and imagination of the productions, with many films which represent caring and thoughtful responses to living in a difficult world.”
Lola’s short follows a non-linear narrative structure depicting the theme of revenge. Her protagonist shares an unsolicited image of her friend and is forced to relive past moments in the film’s conclusion. One of her aims was to explore the use of colour in order to reflect the emotions of the characters. Explaining her techniques Lola said: “The use of colour gave the film a very experimental look and feel. I used three-point lighting, with translucent red gels on the key light and the back light as red is a colour synonymous with anger and resentment. This accentuated the message of retaliation which I wanted to signify in certain scenes.”
Fellow classmate Charlie (F 18-23) has seen his academic film shortlisted for a Cinemagic Young Filmmaker Award. His film Always Connection is an innovative exploration of relationships and connection and was screened at the film festival in Belfast in late October.
Charlie’s film follows the online relationship between two friends which ends with a sad and unexpected twist. He created a sense of sadness and nostalgia using film techniques such as handheld cameras, medium shots and close-ups.
Heavily inspired by Benjamin Cleary’s approach to character building in Stutterer (2015, UK), Charlie wrote one of his protagonists, who struggles to cope with the absence of his friend causing him to isolate himself from other people, to have contrasting online and offline personas. Breaking down his narrative and filming choices Charlie commented: “The character’s internet persona as he interacts with his friend, in his memories, starkly contrasts with his mannerisms and mood in the present day. I intended to use a different aspect ratio and colour palette in the present-day scenes to portray the resulting lack of energy and flat mood, without his friend there.”
Congratulations to the three Bradfieldians for the well-deserved recognition of their academic work.
