Preston students scoop national TV awards for film work

Kath Paddison's film looked at the issue of Social Media Shaming — Kath Paddison’s film looked at the issue of Social Media Shaming

Two preston students have been honoured at a national awards celebrating the best in TV.

Heading for London both Gaius Brown and Kath Paddison won awards for their short films and documentaries made while at the University of Central Lancashire.

Brown collected an award for his camerawork in the film Lost in Loss.

The film production graduate said: “Winning a national RTS award has been the proudest moment of my life. Making Lost in Loss was such a challenging, exciting and emotional journey and one which I will never forget. It taught me so much about making short films, and the months of hard work and effort from the whole team paid off.

“My award is a result of the collective efforts of our Lost in Loss family; Director Jake River Parker was articulate with his vision of the narrative and the story he wanted to tell which helped guide my visual choices throughout, first AC Jodie Horne was very instrumental in many of the shots where we incorporated movement to effectively tell the story.”

There was also an award for postgraduate journalism student Paddison for her mini documentary on Social Media Shaming.

She said: “I was blown away when my name was announced as a winner. It was a risk to give up work and go back to University as a mature student, while at the same time juggling family life, and so much was riding on doing the course. I’m overwhelmed to have won this award, and grateful for the support of my family throughout the whole process.

“The UCLan Journalism MA has amazing industry links and gave me a lot of confidence, which has opened so many doors for me. It just shows that it’s never too late to go for it.”

The awards, part of the National Royal Television Society’s Student Television Awards, recognise the best audiovisual work across the UK.

Senior lecturer in film production at UCLan Linda Sever said: “Film Production at UCLan has been championing the RTS Student Awards since 2002 and has been winning regional awards since 2003 and, more recently, national awards. Combined with Animation, Screenwriting and now Journalism, we have more than any other University in the North West.”