Screen Alliance Wales started off May with a bang!

We had the pleasure of touring Great Point Seren Studios with the University of South Wales Theatre and Drama Students for our first event with the newly launched, Screen Academies.

After welcoming the students to our new classroom, based at Great Point Seren, our first stop on the tour was to visit Paul at Dragon DI where we learnt about the company and the awesome work they do from their restoration work to post production. To say we were impressed with the colour grading examples he showed us was an understatement. It allowed us all to see the importance of colour grading on the final image and the how it affects the mood of the whole film - we loved it!

We then went off to tour the stages and see behind the scenes of how a studio works. We were in AWE! We showed them around and they were able to see how sets are built with cameras and production crews in mind - as they’re actors it’s always important to find your camera!

Next, we went over to Andy at Sun Belt Rentals, where he showed us some of the awesome equipment that camera departments are using in their productions. We even got to play around with a dolly and a camera rig!

Our next stop was Christian over at Aerial Craft where we saw the amazing and very large drones that are currently being used on productions. We had a demonstration of how it all works and even got to play the ‘drone simulation’ game- it was tricky but the students were up for a challenge!

Our final stop was over to the fabulous costume team, Sekina and Katie who explained the exciting yet demanding work they’re currently doing for an upcoming production.

Finally, we challenged the students to re-create a scene from their favourite film or TV show and how they would shoot it differently, especially using their newly found knowledge of all things camera rigs and drones.

We had a blast on our visit, and it definitely helped prepare the Theatre and Drama students for their big screen close ups!

Thanks to Paul at Dragon Di , Andy at Sunbelt Rentals, Christian at Aerial Craft, Sekina, Katie and all at Great Point Seren Studios – we had an amazing time and thanks to Ian and his students for coming. We loved having you!