Institutional Context
Summary
The National Film and Television School (“NFTS”) was established in 1971 by the UK Government and delivers MAs and postgraduate diplomas in film, games and television across a range of specialisms. The NFTS is Variety’s Top UK Film School 2020 and recipient of BAFTA’s Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema, 2018.
The National Film and Television School is one of the world's leading
film, games and television schools. Alumni have gone on to win 13 Oscars
and 150+ BAFTAs with graduates including: double Oscar winning
cinematographer Roger Deakins (1917) creator of global Netflix
hit Sex Education Laurie Nunn and BAFTA winning director, Lynne
Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here). The NFTS is a registered
charity (313429). For more information see nfts.co.uk
Institutional context
The National Film and Television School (“NFTS”) is one of the top postgraduate institutions of its kind in the world, and has been recognised as such this year through its inclusion in The Hollywood Reporter’s Top International Film Schools list for the tenth consecutive year. In 2018, the NFTS was awarded both the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema and the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
The School offers a transformative experience to students who go on to play a significant role in our cultural life through their work in the film, games and television industries. NFTS alumni have won 13 Oscars and over 150 BAFTAs, and been nominated dozens of times for each.
The School provides postgraduate programmes in a range of film, games and television disciplines on a not-for-profit basis, with over 800 students in 2023. The School is committed to ensuring it is open to students of genuine ability, no matter what their background or financial circumstances. As an institution that develops the next generation of creative talent, the School takes a special responsibility to ensure our creative industries reflect the full diversity of our country. Since 2015, 1 in 4 NFTS graduates have been from an ethnic minority background. The School provides a substantial amount of bursary and scholarship support (approximately 20% of total student tuition fee income1) to students on a means-tested basis.
NFTS students are given 24/7 access, 365 days a year to the largest production facilities at any UK film school. Not only do these include our studios, but also our sound and dubbing theatres, over 50 top-of-the-range cameras, the latest editing software in dedicated suites, our Dolby Atmos and Digital Surround Cinemas, and more.
The School is the UK’s biggest provider of continuing professional development to the film and industry delivering more than 200 short courses across the UK to support activity in major production centres including London, Glasgow, Leeds and most recently Cardiff.
In 2017, the School secured funding from UK Research and Innovation (“UKRI”) to establish StoryFutures Academy, the UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling. The centre is run by the NFTS and its partner Royal Holloway, University of London. Funded as part of UKRI’s Audience of the Future industrial strategy challenge fund, the Academy develops cutting-edge creative training and research programmes to ensure the UK creative workforce is the most skilled in the world in the use of Virtual Reality, Augmented and Mixed Reality technology. Storyfutures is now a major strand of the School’s knowledge exchange activities.
The School provides opportunities beyond those offered to its own students. Each year, in partnership with the British Film Institute (“BFI”), it hosts the BFI Film Academy, a residential filmmaking programme for 16 to 19-year-old aspiring filmmakers.
The School - under its AccessNFTS banner - also delivers in partnership with Universal Pictures an outreach programme designed to widen access to and understanding of the film and television industry.
For further information, please send queries to info@nfts.co.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
The National Film and Television School is the leading provider
of continuing professional development to the film and television
industry in the UK. As the National Film and Television School
we see supporting production clusters across the UK as being at the
heart of the School’s knowledge exchange activity.
The School’s focus on supporting local production hotspots through
developing bespoke provision to meet company needs, and delivering CPD
in areas that directly address industry skills gaps and shortages, have
seen the School’s CPD income and beneficiary numbers double over the
last five years. In the last 12 months, the School has collaborated with
Netflix, Prime Video, BBC, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and many other companies
to design and deliver provision.
Aspect 1: Strategy
In order to live up to our role as the UK’s national film and television school, it is vital that the National Film and Television School (“NFTS”) supports the needs of film and television production across the UK. To that end, the central pillar in our knowledge exchange strategy is continuing professional development (“CPD”).
Film and television production is a British success story, with talent and output in high demand around the world. Significant growth is forecast in the years ahead, both across the UK as a whole and in the nations and regions, as the trend for increased production outside London and the South East gathers pace. The British Film Institute’s (“BFI”) 2021 Screen Business report stated that the screen industries – including film, animation, high end television, video games and children’s television – delivered nearly £13.48bn to the UK economy and generated more than 218,790 jobs in 2019 alone1and as a sector it is growing faster than any other aspect of the economy.
As the sector grows, the need for new talent to fill a wide range of production roles is intensifying. the availability of skilled workers is acting as the main constraint (as identified by the BFI, ScreenSkills and the British Film Commission).
With its focus on practical, hands-on filmmaking and small group teaching and learning, the NFTS is the pre-eminent institution in the sector in the UK. The School is now the market leader in delivering continuing professional development for the film and television industries in the UK, working to actively address the skills shortages detailed above.
Our remit is UK wide, however, production tends to be concentrated in local clusters specifically London and the South East, Scotland, Yorkshire and Humberside and Wales. We have therefore established a physical presence in all four of these conurbations and are developing significant activity in each area. Our new Corporate Plan makes a commitment to significantly increasing our work in each of these nations and regions .
Since the NFTS joined the higher education sector in 2016-17 the School has increased this activity significantly, more than tripling our income from CPD. The increase in beneficiaries is similarly significant: in 2016-2017 the School worked with 482 professionals; by the end of 2021-22 the School engaged with almost 1,800 professionals and we plan to increase this number.
In addition, the School has established itself as a thought leader in the area of immersive storytelling through its Storyfutures Academy activity. In 2018 the School – working with Royal Holloway, University of London – secured a major UK Research and Innovation (“UKRI”) grant to establish an industry centre for excellence in immersive storytelling. In awarding the grant, the funder made clear that it was our existing strong reputation for CPD and unapparelled industry engagement that made us the obvious delivery organisation.
Since 2018 we have trained 1245 screen industry professionals through targeted CPD, developed over 90 new skills programmes, facilitated over 30 industry placements and helped to create more than 800 new jobs2.
CPD now accounts for more than 90% of our knowledge exchange income and it is where the School directs the majority of its related resources. But it is not the School’s only knowledge exchange activity. Our strategy also seeks to increase our activity and impact in two further areas, specifically i) working with industry partners to produce professional content and ii) maximising our income from IP.
Each year the School utilises the skills and expertise of its staff, students and graduates to develop professional production projects in partnership with leading partner production companies. Recently the School has produced work for the BBC, Amazon Prime Video and Disney.
In addition, the School is becoming increasingly sophisticated in exploiting its archive to generate income through licensing and distributing the School’s content. Recently the School signed distribution deals for films with companies including Shorts International, ARTE and Canal+ and Google. We believe this area of activity can be grown significantly.
Our knowledge exchange activity is a core part of the School’s mission and Corporate Plan and supports our impact and reputation more broadly. Our success in providing industry recognised CPD is built on the reputation of the School for running high quality MA and Diploma provision and winning prizes internationally.
Our key priorities for the future are: increasing our work in Scotland, Leeds and Wales; strengthening our relationship with independent production companies; increasing our R&D activity; and further exploiting our IP.
Aspect 2: Activity
In order to deliver on our strategy to support the growth of the film and television sectors in the UK by addressing key skills shortages and gaps, we have focused on three key areas:
1. Establishing delivery hubs in growth conurbations across
the UK
Key issues are geographic immobility and social mobility; with
filming opportunities concentrated in London and South East, the labour
market is mainly based in these regions. There is ample infrastructure
and demand to film outside of these regions, but production is
predicated on the labour market moving outside of London and the South
East on a temporary basis, which comes with uncertainties and higher
costs.
In 2018, the School established a
new delivery hub in Glasgow with the support of the Scottish
Government (£475k) and the BBC, who provide office and teaching space.
The hub now delivers more than 40 CPD courses annually, working with
more than 300 people and generating income of approximately £300k per
annum.
In 2020, the School established a second hub in Leeds in partnership with ITV. The Leeds hub is on track to deliver a similar volume of activity by 2024. Since it opened – despite the pandemic – it has developed a number of specialised craft courses in partnership with the BFI and Emmerdale and delivered a wide range of training activity in partnership with Channel 4 and 4 Skills.
With specific reference to investment in the Leeds hub, ONS data shows that employment in the TV and film industries in Yorkshire soared 82% between 2015 and 2018 and the number of film and TV businesses operating in the region grew by 27%. The screen industries in Yorkshire & Humber are estimated to support some 12,000 jobs (directly and indirectly through the supply chains) with a turnover of more than £1 billion3. Therefore, even without Channel 4’s move to Leeds, there is an ongoing, and growing, demand for the skills and training that the NFTS Leeds hub will deliver.
In 2021, we established a further hub in Cardiff in partnership with the BBC and with the support of Creative Wales. NFTS Cymru Wales has already delivered a wide range of activity, delivering 39 courses and training over 250 people in its first year, and developed multiple long term training partnerships with Welsh independent production companies.
2. Developing targeted bespoke course provision with employers
The School regularly works with employers to identify skills
shortages and develop targeted provision. Recent examples of this
include the development of a Post
Production Supervision course with Netflix and HBO and a Casting
course with the Casting Directors Guild. In addition, the School has
developed bespoke courses for companies including Leftbank, HTV, Wishful
Thinking and Boom Cymru.
In 2022, the School launched a first-of-its-kind new Traineeship with Prime
Video. The scheme had more than 400 applications for the 25
available places. The trainees are paid an annual salary and benefit
from support and training from the NFTS and professional placements on
Amazon productions. With Amazon we plan to grow the Academy considerably
over the next three years.
In addition, in 2012 we partnered with Disney to launch a course in Production Accounting. Not only will this introduce new skilled entrants to an area of major skills shortage, but the applicants also enjoy a placement on a major Disney production as part of the course.
3. Delivering funded national programmes
Our reputation and broader expertise in CPD means we have been well placed to win competitive tenders to deliver important national training programmes such as the BFI Film Academy Craft Skills Residential, the Creative Europe Inside Pictures programme and the UKRI funded National Centre for Immersive Storytelling in recent years. We are actively talking to other bodies about delivering new schemes nationally and internationally.
These three areas are built on the reputation of the School as a high quality provider. The School is regularly listed in the list of top international film schools and we know that this is attractive to working professionals looking to undertake further training.
The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the School’s ability to increase and enhance all of the areas detailed above through online activity. Since the Spring of 2020, the School has worked with Channel 4 to deliver a series of online training seminars to its key independent production company clients, which, in 2022, attracted around 900 attendees.
ITV has recently launched a new training academy called the ITV Academy and they have been clear that the School will play a key role in its activities and operation.
The amount of ‘repeat business’ the School secures relating to its work above is a clear sign that the provision is meeting the needs of those it is intended for.
Aspect 3: Results
The School’s very focused approach to local growth has meant that its work delivering high quality CPD has been highlighted by a number of bodies and organisations as being central to the continued growth of the film and television sectors. The Bucks and Thames Valley Local Enterprise Partnership, Screen Scotland, Creative Wales, Prime Video, Channel 4 and the BBC all cite the School’s work as being critical to their own strategies to enable growth.
The success of the strategy is also evidenced by the significant growth in income and the number of beneficiaries we engage with annually.
In early 2020, OC&C completed a review of the impact of the School’s provision on inward investment in UK film production, high end television, and independent British film between 2015 and 2019 and the report demonstrates how graduates of NFTS courses quickly take centre stage in an industry critical to the UK economy. For example:
Two thirds of all UK high end television spend is on content with at least 1 NFTS graduate in a key role
85% of UK broadcaster spend on high end television and two thirds of all Netflix productions have at least 1 NFTS graduate in a key role
Over 50% of the biggest box office successes since 2015 have had at least 1 NFTS graduate in a key role
97% of the biggest budget ‘inward investment’ films have NFTS graduate involvement
Participants from CPD courses also go on to win major prizes. For example James Friend who recently won the Oscar for All Quiet on the Western Front credits the various NFTS short courses he undertook as being key to his development. David MacPherson who created The Rig for Amazon developed the idea as part of one of our first Screenwriting courses delivered in Glasgow. Many also secure agents on the basis of work developed at the School or sign development deals.
Another demonstrable indicator of how the School’s activity impacts the industry positively and leads to important outcomes is evidenced by the number of major media companies that provide sponsorship for School activities. In 2022-23, this income will reach almost £1.5 million. This income is not recorded as part of the HE-BCI return due to the recording mechanism for income, but this money is directly given to enhance and support the School’s CPD activity.
In 2022 BOP/Technopolis completed a review of our CPD work delivered as part of the National Centre for Immersive Storytelling (NCIS) and said the following:
“SFA achieved its objective to support the development of new skills. The [participant] survey results show a significant majority of participants…have improved their knowledge of creative immersive production processes and of opportunities and challenges of creative immersive production. The programmes also developed technical skills, with over half of participants reporting increased skills in development with real time game engines (53%); creative art direction (57%) and writing for Immersive experiences (57%).”
The sustained upward trajectory is something we plan to build on to strengthen our position as the key training provider to the film and television industry.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The National Film and Television School is the centre
of excellence for film, games and television training in the UK. The
School works to support these high-growth industries by proactively
engaging with both major industry players and emerging SMEs on the key
issues relating to skills and talent and continuing professional
development.
The School works with its partners to identify training needs and then
to secure funds to meet those identified skills gaps and shortages. The
School provides important opportunities for new talent to access
established talent and for new talent to develop their creative practice
through non-credit bearing activities. Showcasing the work of new talent
is at the heart of everything the School does.
Aspect 1: Strategy
The School’s community engagement strategy is focused
on two areas:
i) interaction with the film and television industry to understand, and
help to meet, their needs around skills and talent whilst also raising
awareness of how the School can help them to plug skills shortages and
gaps and make the industry more inclusive.
ii) fostering opportunities for those interested in working in film and
television to engage in film and television practice of the highest
level and to expand their understanding of the various employment
opportunities available
These two strands of work are both key pillars of the School’s overarching strategy as set out in the Corporate Plan, (see Governance structure below) particularly: Creating Opportunity, and Working UK Wide.
The School’s interaction with the film and television industry in the UK is extensive. Each year we organise various events and screenings which gather together some of the leading figures in the industry to support, discover and develop new talent. Annually more than 800 industry professionals attend an NFTS event.
Highlights of our activity in this area include:
An annual industry fundraising gala which more than 650 senior industry figures attend;
A showcase of new talent held at a central London venue which more than 2,000 industry guests attend
The School is also committed to reaching out to those interested in working in film and television from a wide range of different cultural, socio-economic and geographic backgrounds, with the aim of widening the talent pool, giving fair access to the industry, and searching for unheard voices and untold stories. Annually we work with more than twelve thousand people through a series of pop-up events including careers fairs, workshops, masterclasses and visits to the NFTS, and visiting key cities across the UK including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, York, London, Birmingham and Leeds. We also have an extensive online offer which reaches more than 15,000 people annually.
Highlights of our activity in this area include:
A national roadshow of pop-up events (AccessNFTS) in key UK cities to connect new talent with industry experts;
A series of free online workshops and seminars and in person ‘Taster Days’ delivered in partnership with Channel 4;
The BFI Film Academy which sees the School work with 77 of the most talented young filmmakers aged between 16-19 from across the UK in an intensive filmmaking residential.
We consult on this activity annually through the School’s sector/discipline industry advisory boards and through our regular interactions with the School’s key industry funders, which include all of the major Broadcasters, Universal International Pictures, and the British Film Institute (“BFI”).
Central to our work with both existing professionals and those looking to access the industry and learn more about film and television production are the following:
identifying the training needs of the industry and early identification of new skills and specialisms;
raising funds from the industry to meet identified skills gaps and shortages;
providing opportunities for new talent to access established talent;
developing new talent to meet identified skills gaps and shortages;
working with new talent to make original work;
showcasing success.
In recent years we have sought to expand our impact on both groups by
building relationships with the film and television industry beyond
London and South East. For example, we have secured investment from the
Scottish Government to locate a hub in Glasgow, and support from major
industry partners such as Universal International Pictures to support
our Outreach programme (AccessNFTS). We have also engaged with local
bodies such as Screen Scotland, Creative Wales and Screen Yorkshire to
ensure we are fully up to speed with local issues and
opportunities.
We have found that by having a physical presence in the locality, and a
sophisticated online offer, that we can provide easily accessible entry
points for audiences to engage with us. It really helps with enquiry
handling and integration with local groups and associations, and also
enables us to organise networking events to engage the industry and
place us at the centre of existing networks. For example, in Cardiff we
have recently organised a number of ‘In Conversation…’ events with high
profile industry figures including Euros Lynn (Heartstopper)
and Russell T Davies (It’s a Sin).
We measure the impact of the School's activity via both financial measures and reach and reputation gained.
Aspect 2: Support
The School has invested its own allocated funds (e.g. HEIF) and raised additional funding (e.g. from the Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Universal International Pictures) in furthering its public and community engagement activity.
Knowledge Exchange is central to the School’s Corporate Plan and therefore the Director of the NFTS directly manages the key staff working to deliver the strategy, as summarised below. This ensures full institutional buy-in to delivering the knowledge exchange activity.
The membership of the School’s Board of Governors also reflects our focus on community engagement with a number of leading film and television practitioners on the board. These members are well placed on the School’s community engagement and help ensure the School fulfils its role as the UK’s national film and television school.
The School has been in receipt of HEIF funding since 2016 which has enabled us to further our work by buying in specialist expertise and knowledge to further the School’s strategic agenda. This has included enhancing our engagement with the film and television industry (e.g. through Business Development Managers in Glasgow, Leeds and Cardiff), and providing a point of contact for those looking to get into the industry (e.g. through the Head of AccessNFTS). Recently the Board has also approved the appointment of a new Games Partnership Manager to strengthen the School’s relationship with the Games Industry.
The School invests in the continued professional development (“CPD”) of its own staff to ensure it is well placed to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Most recently, the School invested in CPD to support our trainers’ ability to deliver more of the School’s provision online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We promote our services widely via social media, and targeted e-newsletters and we regularly engage with companies who contact us to develop bespoke training for their specific purposes. Our regular industry email goes out to more than 4,000 industry professionals.
Staff are incentivised to deliver results through performance related pay and success is recognised and celebrated internally through all staff meetings.
As the School only has 126 employees, these processes and practices are well understood and support and investment is fitting for an institution of our size.
Aspect 3: Activity
The School’s public and community engagement activity is organised around six key areas:
1 Identification of the training needs of the industry and
early identification of new skills and specialisms.
School staff engage with the industry through our formal industry
advisory board system where each discipline of the School (e.g. Sound
Design, Directing, Production Design) meets with senior industry figures
to discuss changes to industry practice and new trends in production.
Occasionally we also conduct formal research into skills trends and
shortages. For example, as part of work in Immersive Storytelling we
have published two Skills
reports which we launched to industry audiences.
2 Raising funds from the industry to meet identified skills gaps and shortages
Annually we gather the film and television industry to raise funds for the NFTS and to share with them our work in meeting their industry needs. This event is very well attended with more than 650 senior industry figures attending. The event generates more £300k per annum for the School.
3 Providing opportunities for new talent to access established talent
A key part of our work is our staff, students and graduates engaging with people keen to build a career in the film and television industry. We work to raise awareness of the different roles that they might pursue and connect them with key talent and material relating to current film and television releases as a way of bringing alive the various opportunities.
4 Working with new talent to make original work
We foster opportunities for local communities to engage in film and television practice and research of the highest level, and aim to create a welcoming and inclusive place for all those who want to learn. The most high-profile activity of this type is the annual BFI Film Academy which sees 77 young people from across the UK come to the School for two weeks to work with School staff and students to make seven films.
5 Developing new talent to meet identified skills gaps and
shortages.
We are often asked by leading media companies to partner with them to start new provision in areas of skills gaps. For example, in 2022 we worked with Warner Bros Discovery to develop a new professional training course in the area of Virtual Production.
6 Showcasing success
Annually we organise a range of screenings and events to showcase new work and graduates to the industry. The biggest of these shows is held in February annually and sees more than 2,000 industry guests attend.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
We are very focused on delivering high quality activity and therefore take great care to consider participant satisfaction alongside more quantitative measures such as income and participant engagement numbers for each project we deliver. These are things that we are often required to report on to our funding partners (e.g. Channel 4) and they determine if the programme is refunded in subsequent years.
Nevertheless, we have no dedicated resources to help capture evaluation and reflection and are often occupied with delivering large scale programmes and working with industry partners to meet their needs. This is an area requiring more focus in the future.
Aspect 5: Building on success
We are very pleased with the progress we have made in public and community engagement across our six key areas of focus. Specifically:
Identifying the training needs of the industry and early identification of new skills and specialisms;
Raising funds from the industry to meet identified skills gaps and shortages;
Providing opportunities for new talent to access established talent;
Working with new talent to make original work;
Developing new talent to meet identified skills gaps and shortages;
Showcasing success.
In each area we can point to significant success and growth in our
activity both in terms of the participants engaged, income generated,
and the increasing profile and reputation for our high-quality
work.
As a small School with intermittent HEIF funding we have found it
difficult to be more robust and nuanced in our approach to evaluation
and monitoring and sharing our progress. We understand the benefits of
doing so but struggle to dedicate resource to this work.
We know our work is well regarded and our industry partners value what we do. They commit to multi-year partnership agreements that are renewed regularly and report high levels of satisfaction. But to be more strategic in our approach to connecting learnings between projects and better understanding our impact would require additional dedicated resources.
That said, at a project level we do review our activity and check our progress. For example:
Following a year of delivering ‘Taster Day’ workshops on behalf of Channel 4 for the public, we wrote a report capturing the key deliverables and learnings. We also proposed to them a slightly different approach should they want to do similar activity going forwards. Channel 4 renewed the contract immediately and asked us to incorporate many of the ideas we had proposed to them.
Annually we produce a report for the BFI on the delivery of that year’s Film Academy programme. The programme is now in its 12th year and the BFI see it as their flagship education activity. The reports we have produced have drawn heavily from participant satisfaction data, which has led to the programme evolving and strengthening over the years.
Larger funded projects such as Storyfutures Academy have benefited from externally commissioned evaluations conducted by companies such as Technopolis and BOP and we have valued and learnt from these engagements.
The NFTS Board of Governors monitors key KPIs related to Public and Community Engagement, as set out below, and these activities form a key part of our strategic planning and activities.
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