Special interest group:
Film/Making Education

Convenors:  

• Carmen Herrero (Manchester Metropolitan)
• Robert Munro (Queen Margaret)
• Chris Nunn (Birmingham) 

Overview

The Film/making Education Special Interest Group is designed to foster dialogue and collaboration across all levels of film education, including schools, colleges and higher education institutions. The SIG aims to facilitate, produce and disseminate research into film education which can highlight good pedagogic practices and in turn, help to foster a more coherent film/making education strategy for the development of emerging UK talent. The SIG also intends to involve policy making bodies in the group (BFI, ScreenSkills etc) thus fostering a wider dialogue between academics, industry and policy that has been largely absent in previous interventions in film education. We hope to highlight some of the excellent work already being done by BAFTSS members at institutions around the country. 

The convenors of the group are all BAFTSS members who also represent the Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA), the editorial board for the Film Education Journal (FEJ) and signatories involved with the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image (NAHMEI). Further signatories include faculty from a number of UK higher education institutions across the disciplines of film studies and film and television production, as well as representatives from the BFI, A-Level Media Studies exam boards and colleagues engaged in direct work with ScreenSkills. Using these connections, we hope this SIG will engage in a discourse about the current state and future development of film/making education in the UK (and beyond). We also intend to deploy our research in support of educational development in spaces outside of higher education (schools, colleges, public workshops etc). 

At the inception of this SIG, some current issues in film/making education include, but are not limited to: 

• The relationship between theory and practice in film pedagogy. 
• Fostering an understanding in young people of the possibilities of the medium of film (which necessitates an understanding of both film appreciation and making).
• The (often fraught) relationship between industry and educators in setting the agenda for filmmaking education.
• Developing an inclusive framework for the analysis and production of films by young people, moving beyond the invocation of ‘diversity’ as a tokenistic term. 
• The implications of Government policy to the funding and continuation of film and media practice qualifications at all levels, with a focus on creating a united strategy and response from educators. 

Reports on activities

Any relevant documentation will appear here.

Founding members

• Leigh Adams (British Film Institute)
• William Brown (Independent Researcher)
• Laura Canning (Falmouth University)
• Rubia Dar (University of Portsmouth)
• Neil Fox (Falmouth University)
• Richard Hellawell (FutureWorks Manchester)​
• Leona Heimfeld (Northampton High School)​
• Searle Kochberg (University of Portsmouth)
• Gerhild Krebs (University of Warwick)
• Alex Lichtenfels (University of Salford) 
• Reina-Marie Loader (Cinéma Humain)
• Kingsley Marshall (Falmouth University)
• Eddie McCaffrey (Middlesex University)
• Xavier Mendik (Birmingham City University)
• Wayne O’Brien (OCR)
• Funke Oyebanjo (University of Greenwich)
• James Shelton (Independent Researcher)
• Muriel Tiner-Temple (Birkbeck / Roehampton)
• Jonathan Wroot (University of Greenwich)
• Francesca Zerenghi (University of Westminster)​​​​​