In February this year Bournemouth Skillset Screen and Media Academy, in co-production with Ealing Films, announced the launch of Academy Pictures* with a call for proposals.

 

By 8^th March, the closing date by which students and alumni were invited to submit proposals, 81 treatments were received.  This was an outstanding response (see Press Release).  From the initial submissions, 20 were long-listed and presented to a panel of judges. Finally 4 projects were short-listed and the applicant teams invited to interviews which took place at the offices of Film London on 29th April. Following the interviews, each team was invited to develop their project to first draft screenplay, for further consideration by the selection panel.

 

The selection panel includes:

Gary Kurtz – Academy Award-nominated producer of STAR WARS, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and many other movies in a 40-year career to date.

 

Rupert Preston - Head of Distribution at Vertigo Films. Rupert founded Metrodome Distribution, where he acquired and released a diverse range of quality movies including HUMAN TRAFFIC, BRIDE OF CHUCKY, TOGETHER (Lukas Moodyson), CHOPPER, CHASING AMY, BUFFALO 66 and LAST ORDERS. For Vertigo he has executive produced THE FOOTBALL FACTORY, IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG, THE BUSINESS, OUTLAW, W ? Z and DOGGING - A LOVE STORY. Rupert also produced DIRTY SANCHEZ, FAINTHEART (MySpace Movie) and BRONSON.

Ann Phillips – Acquisitions Manager at West End Films, which came on board to handle British indie film THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED, along with Stephen Frears’ latest film TAMARA DREWE

 

As a result of the outstanding response to this first call, the planned timetable for short-listing has been extended.  All who made a submission to the scheme will receive some analysis and feedback on their proposals in summer 2010.

It is intended that, later this yea, and assuming the initiative receives expected support, a second call for proposals will be issued.

 

*Academy Pictures is a new initiative to enable Bournemouth film students and alumni to develop, produce and release feature films.  Harnessing the industry-recognised excellence of the talent and teaching in Bournemouth, the project will invest in the ideas of Bournemouth students and alumni with a view to producing a feature film with a £100,000 cash budget.  It will be supervised by the Academy and Ealing Films, external industry professionals, and academic leaders at Bournemouth University and the Arts University College at Bournemouth.