National Film & Television School Reviews 9

The Principal Jon Waddle is a joke, he hides behind his PA, and is unable to man-up on a telephone conversation with me, regarding my offer of £5-10k to encourage FILM origination, rather than the usual Digital zombie practice. NFTS appear to encourage the over-educated with spread sheets, and chasing after MA's rather than the Craft of FILM.
However he is not alone in the Digital zombie brigade -
Look at: London Film School, Met Film School, and others - They are all the same.
My advice to potential Students would be: Forget this lot, save your money, get a runners job, work your way up, and join Observer schemes.

It is not film school anymore. Jon Wardle turned it into woke temple. Tuition fees are enormous. Especially for very poor quality of workshops, lectures, tutors. I did MA course, hoping to be at least "in the club" but I was so wrong. The school cares only about the money. Nothing more. After you pay everything and graduate, they don't care. My friend won quite prestige award with the grad film and suddenly Jon became my friend's best mate for a while. NFTS put my friend's name on every folder, flyer, fb page, etc. But when the hype was gone, he couldn't be bothered to even answer emails.

I studied the Digital Effects MA at the NFTS and it was horrendous. We recieved very little tuition and several of the modules advertised were not delivered. When I complained to the head of the course he was insultiing and dismissive.

Several of us made a formal complaint and the head of the course, John Rowe, lied, fabricated evidence and tried to character assassinate us to save his own skin. This was all tolerated by the school and the complaints panel did not investigate, even when I made alligations of bullying and fabricated evidence.

I did recieve five thousand pounds in compensation (about 1/5th of what the course costs) but I accepted this settlement under false pretences. The director of the school, Jon Wardle, agreed to do a formal review of the complaint panel's findings - as per the next stage of the complaints proceedure. I met with him and he pretended to be very concerned and led me to believe he would uphold many elements of my complaint that had been dismissed by the panel in his review. However, he then recorded the settlement as an informal resolution in order to avoid being held to any of his promises, many of which I later discovered he had not kept.

A shameful institution, run by charlatans, more concerned with protecting themselves than their students educaion and welfare.

I did a short course with Peter Ansorge and was a cracker. Took an idea to a fully fleshed out pilot in one week. It's the best thing I have written by far, his guidance along the way was excellent and the other students were all supportive and encouraging. I am about to do another longer course there and I'm hoping for more of the same.

I applied for the MA in Film Music Composition. I completed all the tasks and application criteria also paid the application fees. I waited for several months for a reply of whether they recieved my application. I contacted the school they asked for me to look into there website which when i did i found out that i was "rejected". I felt this was a poor service and after applying for several months before i didnt get notified of my rejection. Firstly the word "rejected" is quite harsh there was no positive feeback. Im very disappointed in this school as i thought it was a prestigious place for the film industry!

Unfortunately now NFTS is completely different than the one in the past. It is only money, money, money. Look at whole management and their background. Only former office clerks, accounts, etc. More and more students are accepted every year. Tuition is higher and higher. Most of the departments can't afford to bring remote tutors more often during workshops, not even twice a week (so where all tuition fee goes?).

I did MA Course. More of the workshops have very poor quality, the better one are still not really worth the money. Lot of the time is wasted, there is no workshops or lectures or anything, sort of free time that you still pay for. If you write complaint they always say "We will do something about it" and nothing is done but that particular student suddenly starts to have difficult time in the school.

Most of the students/alumni are scared to say anything bad about the school but I can tell you one story that is huge metaphor/conclusion of what NFTS is nowadays. There were sort of evaluation after 6 month of term (I don't remember) for many, many years. I think they needed to do it to send it later to ministry or something as educational report plus as kind of diary what is going on in the school, etc. Students were scared so they always wrote good things and skip bad. Put whole educational system was getting worse and worse with every year. NFTS crossed the line and students had enough. They started to write honest opinion about courses, school, teaching system. What school did? Stopped doing evaluations.

School quite nice creates illusion, sort of bubble. But you end up with memories how you had fun with other students but nothing more in terms of knowledge.

For this money, not worth at all.

I hope more and more honest reviews will finally bring out real situation in the school. I also hope more students will be brave to say the truth.

MONEY

The course is very expensive and you'll have to either move to Beaconsfield or do a hell of a commute. I hate to say it, but the school operates as a studio and you are labouring for free to promote the school.

THE GAME

NFTS is the most ruthless, cut throat environment I have ever been in. Nik Powell (head of the school) will only help certain people -his favourites. Often the people he helps are the ones that have proved themselves to be utterly ruthless - a girl comes to mind who stole another girls work who was a favourite of Nik's. Jon Wardle, the registrar, is a total bully, and you'll have to go through a couple of excruciatingly patronising and insulting interviews with him before you're allowed to graduate.

Yes--getting in is just the beginning! Once there, you can be expect to be pushed to your absolute limit by your teachers - very few of whom are actually nice people. It is common to see people having total emotional crying meltdowns during and after reviews from teachers. I encountered a couple of teachers who were downright sadistic and seemed to want to see me fail (which I didn't, and the both teachers both left whilst I was still there, thankfully).

The political tension within the school is unbelievable. Teachers having affairs with each others wives! During my tenure, a visiting tutor who had her eye on the position of head of documentary department (which was already filled by someone who had been doing it for years) tried to sabotage the entire department in her attempt to steal this guy's job from him. This had such a knock on effect that the filming of all 8 documentaries that year had to be postponed.

ATMOSPHERE

The most bitchy, fake atmosphere I've been in since my days at an elitist boarding school. Everyone is in so much fear about being criticised that they constantly bit** about everyone else and bring other people down to try to take the heat off themselves. NFTS will take the nicest, purest person into a selfish ****. I know, it happened to me.

Obviously, you're in a small town, you're under a lot of pressure and you're creatives - you're going to end up partying very hard at times and hook-ups will happen. Be prepared for everyone in the school to be salivating over the juicy details of what you did the next Monday! Yes, this is more high school than high school itself.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This place very much reflects the nature of the film industry. But you should be getting paid a hell of a lot for working so hard and under as much stress as you do at NFTS. Be very, VERY wary of the way they promote their successful graduates and imply that it will never be difficult for an NFTS grad to get work, which is not true. Once you graduate, NFTS does not have a use for you anymore, and it will be very difficult to get the school to hook you up with their connections unless they are convinced you are the next big thing.