On the 8th July, the Y10 GCSE drama cohort along with the Y8 First Give
winners, went to LAMDA -one of the most renowned drama schools in the UK- to
take part in a range of creative and innovative workshops as part of their Behind
the Screen Careers Day. The exciting event aimed to give an in-depth insight into
careers Behind the Screen and introduce students to the wonderful and innovative
technology that is currently being used in Film and TV production.
The day started with a warm welcome by a professional who creates videogames
and reinforced the message that “you need to be passionate and determined to
succeed in your career”.
Students then went to the first workshop Intro to Mocap. The facilitator, a former
Game of Thrones actor, showed the students how to warm-up like a professional
actor and focused on their physicality and how that can help create plausible
videogame characters. The technology used in the studio, such as small sensory
cameras all around the studio and a massive screen showed students how that
technology helps create realistic characters, even NPCs (non-playing characters).
This physical workshop was followed by a Voiceover for Games in which students
had the opportunity to be a voice artist and bring a videogame character to life with
the aid of an actor’s voice. Tayvon, Gabriel, Lily were extraordinary dragons.
Similarly, Ali, Lylian and Eliot created a believable squirrel.
After a relaxing lunch, students took part in their third workshop Storytelling for
Screen, in which the facilitator gave the students a range of items they could use to
take 5 images to tell a story. The five groups created amazing stories: especially
Princes’ and David’s.
The last workshop was by far the most popular one amongst all the students; Intro
to Virtual Production where the students had the amazing opportunity to use
sophisticated technology to film a short scene where Gabriel had a line and acted
with a professional LAMDA actor, Princess was the audio supervisor, Ali was the
camera operator, Eliot was managing the interactive background.
The trip was a total success as all the students came back inspired to continue
being passionate, creative, and innovative in their day-to-day school life.