RTS Award Winning Film and Media Production Students

Now graduates, Phoebe Rowan and Amy Cottrell who studied Film and Media Production won a Yorkshire Student RTS Award for their film “Under Lock and Key” under the Best Factual category. The film is about experiences of lockdown, from three different anonymous individuals. They made “Under Lock and Key” for their Major Project Production module on the film and media production course, where they pitched, developed, and made the film. It consists of interviews with people with different forms of anxiety and mental health issues who enjoyed lockdowns to an extent. Making it a film that many can relate to.  The night went exceptionally well for the graduates and they gained an award for their work as well as the judges being complimentary to both Amy and Phoebe.

Phoebe is the Director and Amy is editor and Co Filmer for the film. I asked Phoebe what inspired them for their film, Phoebe and Amy’s experience with past and present mental health problems was a big inspiration for “Under Lock and Key”. Though their experiences weren’t the same as the people involved in the film, they felt it was very important to highlight different and individual experiences to get different takes. This shows awareness with the variety of mental health issues there is out in the world. Phoebe said, “The filming process was fun in that it left a lot of room to be creative.” An interesting aspect to their production is that Phoebe and Amy didn’t meet up for their entire production until their film screening, so it was a remote film which is a rare occurrence. They had a lot of fun and were very happy to be at the awards ceremony, “when we won, we were squealing, could not stop grinning, my parents had come with us so that was nice, felt very proud and unreal.”