FILM student Oli Deakin says choosing a course at Wiltshire College & University Centre has helped him sharpen his focus on a career in making movies.
The 18-year-old completed a Film and Digital Media course at the college’s Chippenham campus and will be doing the same at Bournemouth University with a much clearer idea of what he wants to do in the future.
“I chose the course at Chippenham because I was impressed by the massive studio here and the equipment they have,” he says. “I came to the open event and thought ‘this is awesome’. It’s got all this equipment that you just don’t get in many places.”
Having the equipment is one thing but being given the freedom to explore the medium creatively is what has justified his choice. “Being allowed to experiment has been really good,” said Oli, who has been making films since he was 12. “You are encouraged to do whatever you’re interested in and it allows you to build your portfolio.”
Although he was no stranger to making films, he says the course has sharpened his technique and given him a more structured process. “At the start, I just started filming with no storyboard,” he says. “I just filmed and I was thinking ‘I don’t need anything, it’s in my head’. But because I’ve learned that it’s a collaborative thing, I have to make storyboards, scripts and shot lists and that has allowed me to make more complex projects.”
Finding a new direction
When he first came to the college he had his heart set on directing but through the course has become more appreciative of what can be achieved with a camera. “I definitely want to be a cinematographer now,” he says. “I plan to go along the lighting route and really go in depth with cinematography.
“There was one point where I was playing with the camera and I got a shot that looked almost like it could have come out of the cinema and I thought ‘wow, that’s amazing, you can create such amazing imagery with this, just completely from nothing’. That was probably the point I changed my thinking because you could tell most of the story from just this one frame.”
His final project was a nine-minute spy movie that he wrote, directed, shot and even made the props for. “I really enjoyed making it and I’d like to continue writing my own scripts,” he says. “I really like writing and coming up with stories.”
Aside from developing his knowledge of filmmaking, he believes the course has taught him a lot about himself. “I came to the college from a private school which was pretty small,” he says. “Coming here has slowly pushed me into being able to communicate better with more people and has got my confidence up, which is really important in the film industry. I think it’s a good thing and I like the contrast a lot.”
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