Review of the event coming soon, in the meantime, enjoy these photos taken by Shalini Thampi, LSM MA Student.
LSM Degree Show 2012: In Pictures
//Category: LSM News
//Graduates get Cottonmouth at Cannes
//
Graduates from the University of Lincoln mingled with Hollywood heavyweights after their short film, shot for a University project, was accepted for the Cannes Film Festival.
Cal Johnson and Stephen Milnes originally produced their featurette Cottonmouth last year as part of director Cal’s MA in Media Production at Lincoln’s School of Media. The duo has since formed their own production company, Doncaster-based Bodyswerve Productions, teaming up with producer Martin Bushby.
Cottonmouth, a darkly comic story about an aspiring stand-up comedian, premiered at the inaugural Doncaster Little Film Festival last November where it was praised in film and TV press before being accepted into the Court Métrage (Short Film Corner) at Cannes.
The filmmakers have just returned from the famous festival in the south of France, which this year takes place between 16th and 27th May.
Director Cal said the trio, whose company has only been in operation a matter of months, was delighted to have the opportunity to showcase their work to leading lights in the global film industry.
“Cannes is the benchmark for artistic integrity within cinema, and the opportunity to have our little film from South Yorkshire connected with such a global celebration of cinematic quality is just incredibly exciting – an amazing opportunity for us as we start our journey into the film industry,” he said.
Martin said having their film shown at Cannes – the biggest festival of its kind in the world – was the perfect opportunity for Bodyswerve to network, pitch and get their name known.
He said: “It’s one of the few times you will get most of the film industry in one place for two weeks and our aim was to build up our profile and showcase the kinds of films we have been making in Doncaster.”
In 2011 Bodyswerve helped The Little Theatre set up the first ever Doncaster Little Film Festival, which has just been confirmed for its second year in June 2012. In March this year the company shot their second short film, Vacant, which is currently in post-production and will be submitted to festivals soon.
LSM Alumni Event: 14th May 2012
//On a sunny Monday afternoon, the second of the successful LSM Alumni Events took place at the Enterprise building.
Lecturers and graduates kicked off proceedings by enjoying drinks and a buffet lunch with oodles of networking to accompany their egg sarnies. Slowly but surely the room started to fill with current students eager to listen to the graduates advice. Sarah Barrow then gave a short, but inspiring as ever, introduction and detailed how the day would be formatted. We began with each member of the graduate panel telling the audience some information about themselves and the roles they have undertaken since life at LSM. On this panel of wisdom there was Phil Stevens, Katy and Rob Dowell, Zoe Easy, Darren Scales and Dave Clancy. Between them they have experienced self employment, community projects, knowledge transfer partnerships as well as a varied and impressive range of skill specialisms. I would also like to add, at this point, that the event was documented by other, just a brilliant LSM graduates Paul Rook and Steve Young. So, back to the day, after the panels brief hello the floor was opened to questions which was managed by Darren Scales. There was a great mixture of first,second and third year students but the majority of the queries asked were topical for them all and they received some very usable, realistic advice. We broke for a tea and biscuit break after an hour or so of questions and were encouraged to carry on asking and answering questions throughout that time. There was an exciting atmosphere in the room that, in my experience, was due to the amount of creatives all in one space at the same time. The camaraderie between staff, students and graduates was obvious and there was lots of big smiles (especially about the cookies and bourbons supplied) and productive networking going on. In my opinion, it is this feeling of support, encouragement and ambitiousness that makes Lincoln School of Media stand out amongst the plethora of other media courses and events such as this only highlight that. I was party to lots of business card swapping, tweeting and reminiscing during this comfort break that led into the more formal networking slot. The current students were well equip, taking notes and showing huge confident when approaching the graduate panel individually (as well as the graduates dotted within the audience) . Another hour or so later, as the sun outside the fabulous Enterprise building started to dip, the numbers started to dwindle as some attendees had long journeys home. The graduates were huddling together waiting for the much anticipated tour of the Media building and it’s impressive improvements (Some of the graduates hadn’t seen it since 2005!).
Overall, it was such an inspiring and enjoyable day for all, that only reaffirmed (for me anyway) that LSM students, past and present are some of the most driven and passionate creative people that are sent out into the industry proud ambassadors of Lincoln.
Dr Dean Lockwood and LSM PhD student Rob Coley get their book published!
//The ‘Cloud’, hailed as a new digital commons, a utopia of collaborative expression and constant connection, actually constitutes a strategy of vitalist post-hegemonic power, which moves to dominate immanently and intensively, organizing our affective political involvements, instituting new modes of enclosure, and, crucially, colonizing the future through a new temporality of control. The virtual is often claimed as a realm of invention through which capitalism might be cracked, but it is precisely here that power now thrives. Cloud time, in service of security and profit, assumes all is knowable. We bear witness to the collapse of both past and future virtuals into a present dedicated to the exploitation of the spectres of both.
Review by Dr Jussi Parikka:
It’s not only your head that is in the Cloud, but your whole body in its desires, actions, reactions, hiccups and errors too. Coley and Lockwood show in their strong theoretical take on cloudy media cultures that the more invisible control becomes, the more we need to develop fresh theoretical tools to open it up. Cloud Time offers a much-needed analysis of contemporary capitalism as a perverse form of informationalization and quantification of life to which we happily, voluntarily contribute. Even Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has admitted to the difficulty involved in clearly defining the Cloud – and yet, Coley and Lockwood give us excellent clues. — (Jussi Parikka, Author of ‘Insect Media’ and ‘Digital Contagions’, University of Southampton:http://www.southampton.ac.uk/wsa/about/staff/jp1f10.page)
Interns Wanted for The Walt Disney Company
//LSM graduate Michael Northern has contacted the University to make us aware of some amazing internships at The Walt Disney Company,so have a read and see what you think!
The jobs are Fixed Term Educational contracts, with a salary of 16K a year. Michael will stop taking CV’s for these positions on Friday 20th May so get your skates on!
The role titles are: Production Assistant, Creative Producer and Regional Programming Intern.
Students are invited to forward their CV’s (with links to any creative works) and showreels to Micheal directly (Michael.Northern@disney.com). If you would like to look at the job spec please email me (sgrove@lincoln.ac.uk)and I will send you it.Please only apply for roles you have a genuine interest in rather than everything!
Michael’s message to you is “I am pleased to say that we have had several interns that have gone on to take full time roles at major broadcasters or have been offered full time positions here at Disney after the 12 months internship. It is a fantastic opportunity!”