Screen Academy Wales Students Await New York Exchange
The dream of a lifetime has come true for two film students from Skillset Screen Academy Wales who have been selected to attend the first New York University and Screen Academy Wales international exchange in June 2010.
University of Wales Newport MA Film graduate, Mike Rymer, and BA Performing Arts student Lawrence Hayes have been selected to represent the Academy at the Tisch School of the Arts and the Stone Street Studios summer school, which specialises in screen acting training.
Flying out o for three weeks, the students, who came together in April to bid for the joint experience, will spend their time attending intensive 10 hour per-day training sessions at Stone Street Studios and film workshops at Tisch School of the Arts. Lawrence and Mike will use this experience to develop ideas for future film collaboration.
“The three weeks in New York will be a fantastic opportunity to learn more about empowering the actor and delving into the driving force of the actor – something we have covered on the course but which this intensive training will allow me to learn more about”, said Lawrence. “This will be a unique chance to build on the knowledge gained on my BA degree.”
Mike and Lawrence will be attending the New York exchange as ambassadors for the Screen Academy Wales and University of Wales, Newport and are looking forward to sharing experiences with international actors and filmmakers.
“This will be an excellent chance to learn from peers from around the world and build bridges. Hopefully we will also develop a network of contacts for future collaborations”, said Mike. “The high quality of the training and the selective process by which attendees are chosen means we will be working closely with the cream of international filmmaking talent. We are very proud to be representing Wales!”
Mike and Lawrence will be travelling and working under the guidance of Dr Andy Smith and Nigel Orrillard from the University of Wales, Newport, a lead partner of the Academy.
Dr Smith, Academic Leader for Performance said:
“This exchange is the result of many years of collaboration between the Film and Performance programmes at the University of Wales, Newport. Since 2004, we have made over 200 short films through intensive workshops between actors and filmmakers, presented the results of our collaboration at international conferences and made excellent links with both Tisch School of the Arts and Stone Street Studios.”
This exchange builds upon our record in developing and nurturing the working relationship between actors and film makers. Both Mike and Lawrence’s previous experience and potential for future collaboration make them ideal candidates for this exchange and they will gain much from their exposure to Stone Street and Tisch.”
Further information on Screen Academy Wales is available here