Andover College film Scrawl wins six awards at Hollywood film festival
Scrawl, the fun horror feature film made and produced by Andover College students, has scooped six prestigious awards at the Zed Fest Film Festival which took place in none other than Hollywood, USA last week.
Media Studies lecturer Peter Hearn who wrote, directed and produced Scrawl won awards for outstanding directing and outstanding producing. Former student Annabelle Le Gresley, now a runner on various BBC & independent film/TV productions including ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, ‘BBC’s Our World War’ and ‘Outlander’, also won an award for outstanding producing.
Alongside student actors, Scrawl also featured a number of professionals, most notably Daisy Ridley who is currently starring in the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, which is released in the UK on 17 December. Daisy and actors Mark Forester Evans and Nathalie Pownall all won awards for their outstanding acting.
The purpose of Peter’s ambitious project was to give all the students involved experience of working on location, on a professionally produced, directed and acted film. They all earned professional film credits giving them the advantage as they enter the film or television industry. Many of the students involved have gone onto higher education to study Film Production, TV production, Creative Writing, Public Relations and Drama.
Zed Fest Film Festival and Screenplay Competition was founded in 2010 to support and find a new breed of gifted film story tellers. Zed Fest judges search for the Filmmakers and Screenwriters that embody the spirit of passionate movie making itself. This year there were 60 entries across the four categories of ‘features’, ‘featurettes’, ‘shorts’ and ‘super shorts’ with Scrawl competing against other features.
Film and Media studies are valuable courses for anyone intending to go on to either university or employment. Most Andover College Media students progress onto university to study filmmaking, television production or journalism with some progressing direct into the industry.
Andover College’s Creative and Performing Arts Department has been rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. In 2015 A Level Media Studies achieved 100% pass rate.