Award winning BBC director gives lecture to Multimedia students

Simon Gilchrist, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and series director of BBC’s Great Ormond Street will deliver a guest lecture to students at the University of Kent on Tuesday 15th November.
Simon will discuss and show his films to the second year students who are studying the Digital Filmmaking module on the Multimedia Technology and Design course at the School of Engineering and Digital Arts. His lecture will concentrate on the importance of ‘research’ and striking the right relationship between the filmmaker and their contributors.
Simon began his career in the BBC’s documentary department, where he worked across many productions before becoming a freelance filmmaker. Last year, he directed, shot and produced the sixty minute documentary for Panorama called ‘Kids in Care’ on BBC 1. The film focused on the work of Coventry Social Services and highlighted the growing number of children that have been taken into care since the Baby P scandal. He’s currently finishing the critically acclaimed BBC 1 series, ‘Great Ormond Street’ which will return to our screens next April.
The second year multimedia students undertake a ‘digital filmmaking’ course, which teaches them the skills and theory to make a short six minute documentary. Across two terms, the students will hear from a variety of industry practitioners who can give them an insight into the competitive world of documentary filmmaking. Honorary lecturer Jane Milton is delighted that Simon will be able to join the students. She added, “it’s important for them to hear from filmmakers who work on sensitive topics and manage to treat their contributors with respect and dignity. It’s a very important aspect of filmmaking”.
The BSc in Multimedia Technology and Design gives students the opportunity to develop in-depth knowledge in areas such as web-design, interactive applications and e-commerce, as well as a broad grounding in filmmaking, 3D modelling, special effects and compositing.