You are here: Home » Blog » May 2010 » INTERVIEW WITH BEN GIBSON DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON FILM SCHOOL (LFS).

INTERVIEW WITH BEN GIBSON DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON FILM SCHOOL (LFS).

GENERAL BACKGROUND INF:

E-mail interview with:                         Ben Gibson

Full Title :                                        Director, The London Film School (LFS).

Length of tenure at LFS:                    Since 2001

Size of Department:                          38 staff, 24 of whom are teachers

One line 'Sales Pitch' or 'Slogan' for LFS:

 “A Tradition of Innovation; The International Graduate school, since 1956”

 INTERVIEW:

1. Briefly, if possible, how broad is the scope of the available courses for filmmakers at the LFS?

We only offer graduate courses, and the usual age on arrival for full time programmes is 22 to 30.  We are one of the only graduate schools in the world based on all-department training, ie not specialising until you make a graduate work, which means we have one core MA in Filmmaking, and not lots of parallel degrees like, for instance, NFTS. It doesn’t mean we’re any less professional or committed to the craft areas individually, only that a whole career is improved by a broad training. We have three MAs : Filmmaking (2 years), Screenwriting (1 year) and Curating (1 year)

2. How does that compare with what other specialised film schools have to offer?

Fewer degrees, more intensity, more professional level workshop training (LFS Workshops) for freelancers. We also make 150 films a year many on 35mm on built sets, and most on 16mm, all with front and end titles, properly produced and cleared. So it’s a blizzard of filmmaking.

3. How are candidate applications considered, on a purely academic basis, or will previous film work the student has done be helpful to their consideration?

Yes we’re interested in candidates’ showreels, and we sometimes take people with no first degree but some good creative experience instead. We also look at photographers, designers, people working in theatre, journalists, writers, actors, and their work, although they have no film reel....

4. Once a student has chosen the LFS how simple is it to switch between the courses on offer if a different aptitude or preference takes precedence?

Not too hard to switch but you have to start again.

5. What are the most likely identifiable career entry points and levels, for a graduate of the LFS?

The students graduate into the film and TV industries of over 80 countries (we have 150 students and about 25% are from the UK, the rest international – and that’s always been the policy). In many of those countries you would expect them to be making a feature within two or three years of graduation. Over the years something like 85% of graduates seem to be working in film and television around the world. Recent graduates with feature films on release last year: Duncan Jones (MOON), Ali Mustafa, Pedro Gonzales Rubio (ALAMAR), Paz Fabrega (AGUA FRIA DEL MAR), Babak Jalali (FRONTIER BLUES), Oliver Hermanus (SHIRLEY ADAMS).

6. In your experience is there a typical time frame after the course ends before graduate film makers can expect to get paid for their work?

The more ambitious they are the less they earn quickly. A very ambitious writer-director might earn nothing from filmmaking for five years. A good DOP should get a paycheque six months after graduation.

7. Is a Forum like MovieMogul.co.uk 'Very Useful,' 'Quite Useful' or 'Not Useful at all' in helping to get emerging film makers work recognised?         

Very.

 8. What other methods of self promotion have you come across that have resulted in advancing careers successfully?

Knowing a great deal about the industry, being a cinephile, reading weekly VARIETY carefully, targeting producers and financiers because you write their names in a notebook every time you see work you admire.

 9. If you were in charge of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) would you consider introducing an apprenticeship scheme to the film business, or something else altogether, to help create an entry point?

Apprenticeships are important, as well as more opportunities to make shorts with funding than we have, better university A-V departments harnessing the skills of people not on formal programmes, film units in secondary schools, and proper cinemas where you can see a bigger range of work around the country. That’d be a start...

 10.  If you had only one chance to impart some words of wisdom to an aspiring film maker, which would you choose to give?

Everything begins to make sense when you realise that you can’t pretend to be some other film-maker who’s richer, more populist, flashier than you, any more than you can make their films again. Your only ticket is your own voice, and you can lose everything by worrying that your personal interests will bankrupt you and some you don’t understand will make you money. All commissioning editors and financiers look at in the end is: what’s the relationship between this person and this material? Is the relationship intimate enough that we’ll find the right price and the script will just go on getting better? So forget “commercial” and “arthouse” and all that slang – just do passionate, correctly priced and well-informed work and you’re on to a winner. Also be a total perfectionist. Never say “I can live with that”. Never.

Thank you very much Ben from all of us at MM.

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