BFI Film Academy offers opportunities for ambitious 15-25 year olds, anywhere in the UK, to get to know more about film and how to forge a career in the screen industries. The events are free to attend, but are only available to those aged between 15 – 25.
Every creative decision on a film, whether it be in performance, art direction, costume design, cinematography, editing or special effects, is ultimately in service of telling a good story. But what is ‘story’ and what do good stories have in common? What is the machinery operating underneath the surface of your favourite films and how does it work? This introduction to screenwriting will shed some light on different dramatic theories and principles and will inspire you to put pen to paper and write your own stories.
About Thomas Laurance:
Thomas Laurance is an award-winning writer and director of documentary and fiction.
Thomas studied film direction at the Northern Film School in Leeds and screenwriting at FAMU in Prague. His graduation short – an autobiographical fiction titled ‘The Bottle’ – won Best Film at the 2013 Horizon Film Festival. Thomas followed up with the deeply personal, observational documentary, ‘William Laurance & Sons Marine Engineers’, which featured at Sheffield Doc Fest 2015. Thomas’s next feature doc ‘On Our Doorstep’, chronicled the grassroots volunteer movement that rose to the aid of the Calais Jungle in 2016. The film featured at Leeds Film Festival and received the Martello Award at the Cinque Ports Documentary Festival. On Our Doorstep was released in cinemas in 2023 and the Guardian gave the film 4/5 stars calling it ‘extraordinary’. Thomas’s latest animated comedy short, ‘Tortured Artist’, is currently screening at the London Short Film Festival and has been nominated for 8 awards (including Best Writer and Best Director) at the Comedy Short Awards. Thomas has lectured on screenwriting at the AJ College of Science & Technology in Trivandrum, India and he has taught documentary filmmaking for NCS The Challenge in Hackney, London.
