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Katie Morag fans should note that Stuart Hepburn, Martin McCardie Sergio Casci and Lindy Cameron of Move On Up TV have been nominated for Best Children’s Screenplay in the British Screenwriter’s Awards as part of the London Screenwriter’s Festival . We all owe a great debt to Mairi Hedderwick for her fantastic books, and to Director Don Coutts and his Cast and Crew. If you are fans of the CBeebies and BBC Childrens series about the adventures of the wee girl from Struay, you can vote by clicking here. VOTE FOR KATIE MORAG
Over the last 4 years, the University Of The West Of Scotland has hosted regular Weds Afternoon collaboration workshops in our TV studios at UWS Ayr.
In that time over 400 participants, the majority of them International Students from countries all over the world have participated in the workshops. These student volunteers have collaborated together to record, edit and present the work of the BA(Hons) Contemporary Screen Acting Degree students .
Full details of the StudioLab process can be found here
I am pleased to announce that next Wednesdays StudioLab will be the 100th session . We will have a film crew down to record events . Look out for details of how we plan to celebrate our 100th Birthday .
Contemporary Screen Acting Students in our recent Rail Safety project
In schools and colleges all over the country, students interested in the Performing Arts are thinking about what their next step should be.
There have been lots of exciting developments in the performance subject area at University Of The West Of Scotland in the past year.
We have formed a teaching partnership with the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr.
We have brought BA (Hons)Musical Theatre in-house to our £81 million campus in Ayr.
We have a brand new Technical Theatre Degree delivered through our partnership with the Gaiety .
Most importantly, all our Performance-based degrees are now 3 year Honours with entry levels at second year (Level 8) as well as third year (level 9).
All degrees require an audition, but students can apply to the courses in second year with :
3 Advanced Highers BCC or plus English at Higher level and Maths at Standard Grade 3 or above, National 4 or Intermediate 2.
3 A levels BBC or
An HNC (120 points) or
A B Tec 4 or
Intermediate 2 or
An International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: 28 points.
All our degrees also have a level 9 entry with an HND or equivalent to our DRAMA UK recognised degrees.
With all this expansion, we want the best students to come to UWS Ayr. Every year , more and more students apply through UCAS, and the standard of work and quality of candidates is increasing.
Two of our students from Edinburgh College, Emily Barr and Jennie Walker have made a short video about life at UWS.
If you have any contacts at your old college or know of any British or Overseas students who might be interested in a 3 year honours degree, please share this post with them so that they can get an idea of what it’s like being a student at UWS Ayr.
Also, here are the links for anyone of your friends or relatives who may be specifically interested in our 3 years honours degrees.
BA(Hons) Musical Theatre
http://www.uws.ac.uk/ba-musical-theatre/
BA(Hons) Performance
http://www.uws.ac.uk/ba-performance/
BA(Hons) Contemporary Screen Acting
http://www.uws.ac.uk/ba-cont-screen-acting/
BA(Hons) Technical Theatre (subject to validation)
http://www.uws.ac.uk/sp…/technical_theatre_(3rd_year_entry)/
Please feel free to share this and spread the word to your old colleges , colleagues or friends. If you think that your old college would like a visit from UWS staff to talk to students, then please let us know too.
Any questions, email [email protected]
Celebrated Scottish actor David Hayman visited University of the West of Scotland’s Ayr Campus recently to take part in the UWS collaborative creative industries project, StudioLab.
StudioLab is an ongoing project where students from all the University’s programmes related to the Creative Industries collaborate together to create recorded work and closely replicates the work of the professional Creative Industries, where teams of different disciplines get together to create a final product.
Hayman was at the University’s state-of-the-art recording studios at its Ayr Campus on 11 March to record a live Q&A session with third year Contemporary Screen Acting and Performance students .
David Hayman, the founder of SpiritAid urged acting students to “follow their dreams” when he visited the Campus. He enthralled the audience for over an hour telling them of his humble beginnings in the business, right up to recent work with Oscar Winners Michael Fassbender and Marilyn Cotillard.
David Hayman commented: “I was completely knocked over by the talent and enthusiasm of the students and the outstanding preforming and recording facilities at UWS in Ayr. I am already planning my next visit to follow up the wonderful work being done at UWS Ayr.”
The Photo above was taken by UWS Student Oliver Karaschewski .
It was an inspirational experience for students and staff which we recorded and will publish on our School Vimeo site.
Visits like these are an invaluable part of the process of the students gaining the skills, confidence and insights to enter the professional arena and we are planning more of these for the future. Watch this space for details.
StudioLab is a unique crossover project which allows University Of The West Of Scotland students from across all programmes in the School Of Creative & Cultural Industries to collaborate together to create a live recorded TV Programme.
Over the past 7 weeks, as part of their CSA Research Project, 4th Year Contemporary Screen Acting Students have been tasked with creating a 30-45 minute piece of TV Drama. They are devising , workshopping , and will finally record this programme live on Weds 11th December.
To do this requires the support and help of students from other programmes to chronicle and record the work. We will be continuing with StudioLab next Trimester at UWS so if you are a student in the UWS School Of Creative & Cultural Industries and are interested in taking part as a Designer, Producer, Director, Runner, Camera Operator, Musician, Digital Artist, Screenwriter or whatever your chosen specialism may be, please come along to our first meeting.
Every Weds, 1.30 PM TV Studio 1, UWS Ayr.
Please email me at [email protected] to book a place.
This video was created by University Of The West Of Scotland students to publicise and market their Contemporary Screen Acting Degree.
If you have a Higher National Diploma or equivalent in a Performance -based subject, then this two year top up Degree Programme is designed for you.
Contemporary Screen Acting At UWS
Women in film and television – 3:30pm for 5:00pm Start | Saturday 27 October | Venue: Hopscotch Theatre Company, Water Row, Glasgow, G51 3UW
Following the huge success of the WFTV Writers’ Group in London, they’re delighted to announce the first Writers’ Group meeting for their members in Scotland. Join Raisah Ahmed and Lynsey Murdoch and talk with fellow-members and writers. Guest speaker Eleanor Yule.
For a limited period of time, this group is also open to non-members. Only writers though, please!
CONTACT DIRECTLY for further info Belle at – [email protected]
A new monthly Women in Film & Television Writers’ Group – first session will be held at Hopscotch Theatre in Govan on Saturday 27th October from 3.30-5pm. All the details are on Eventbrite and here is the link: http://wftvscotwriters1.eventbrite.com
This first meeting is free to all, and is women-only. It’s for anyone interested in writing professionally for the film and TV industry. Eleanor Yule is the first speaker, and we will bring in script editors, producers, actors and designers to enable the group work with indsutry professionals.
This week Contemporary Screen Acting students at the University of The West of Scotland took part in the launch of a unique new creative Screenwriting project. “Studio Lab” is based in the UWS new 80 million pound Ayr campus where students have access to two full HD state of the art TV Studios.
As part of their final year Research Project, Ba (Hons) Contemporary Screen Acting students are creating an hour long drama which will be recorded live in December at UWS studio 1 .However, what makes this cross-over project unique is that students from other UWS Programmes are being integrated from the beginning into what will be a 12 week process.
Every Wednesday afternoon, Film Making & Screenwriting students will help to develop the narrative, Broadcast Production students will be in charge of the recording and vision mixing it, Commercial Music students will supply the soundtrack and so on. The whole enterprise will come to a climax on Dec 5th when the entire team , directed by “Chewing The Fat and “Still Game” director Michael Hines, will record the drama “live” in the TV Studio.
As leader of the Programme, I am supposedly in creative charge of the whole process but if truth be told it is the students who are leading the way. The first step was taken in our main Studio 1 yesterday when the actors took started their initial improvisation .They are charged with the task of creating three dimensional characters who will eventually go on to improvise a script which will then be rehearsed and acted out in the drama.
While the Screen Acting students took part in a tense “hot seat” improv, Film Makers recorded their every move on two HD cameras. By next week we will have a digitised and edited Quicktime of the process created by the Film Makers , and it will be viewed by all participants . They will then discuss the characterisation , decide what to use and what to drop, and then move on to recording the next stage of the improvisation, and so on. A script will evolve over the first 6 weeks of this process, and by week 11, a fully fledged unique studio drama will have emerged to be recorded in the final week.
Students at the first session described the process as being “an intense experience”……”as soon as I was under the lights, all the stuff I had planned on using disappeared, and I found I was really being the character”.
The whole idea of the “Studio Lab” process is to create an exciting collaborative environment where we mimic the professional Creative Industries where teams of different disciplines get together to create the final product. If the first week is anything to go by, it will reap creative rewards. We don’t know if the final programme will be a comedy, a drama, or a mixture of the two genres, but it will certainly be a unique experience for all concerned.
Last week was the first recording run through of the TV Studios at the University Of The West Of Scotland‘s new 80 million pound campus in Ayr. Camera Acting students from the Contemporary Screen Acting Programme were recording the first ever series of screen dialogues at the new campus. Students re-enact duologue scenes from movies such “Juno”, “Bridesmaids” and “Let The Right One In” in order to gain experience of working in a multi-camera studio set up. The above photo shows 4th year honours student Alana Murray working on the production of her multi-media Creative Project with her cast.
Along with the finest radio and music studios in Scotland, UWS Ayr now boasts two state of the art HD studios with Green Screen Technology, Autocue, and top of the range sound and editing facilities. There is space for large scale productions such as dramas, orchestral performances and musical theatre, as well as room for up to 30 students to view the process from the gallery.
The feedback from the students has been very positive. Debbie Lochran commented ” This is fantastic. I’ve never seen a set up like this before anywhere else. You get the idea that you could create any programme you wanted”

Rachel Kennedy preps her Gaelic Children's programme
Zoe Silver said ” I feel like a real professional. The first job I had to do was to be a camera operator in headphone contact with the control room and it went really well”.
Jess Munro commented “I’ve never acted in a studio before, but within minutes I had forgotten about the cameras and lights and was able to concentrate on my performance”.
As we roll out the use of the studio for the fourth year honours students and post graduates, the amazing potential of this resource is going to be unleashed. Students will be able to create , record and distribute HD broadcast quality programmes , be they filmed dramas, documentaries or light entertainment shows.
It’s a genuinely exciting time for all involved.The first slate of programmes recording in the next few weeks include a Gaelic Children’s show, a modern digitised re-enactment of Tam O’Shanter, an experimental multi-media theatre piece and a Scottish take on the “Creep Show ” horror format.
I hope to post footage of the work as it is created, and release them through the UWS Skillset Media Academy

Television Presenting Workshop
This is an expanded version of a talk I gave at a Glasgow University Theatre Film and TV Student Employment Forum At Gilmorehill Church On Monday 21st March 2011
Tip 2. Change yourself from a consumer to a creator.
Tip 3. Investigate the blogosphere.
Tip 4. Think Small.
Tip 5. Think Big.
Tip 6. Be Passionate.
Tip 7. Network.
Tip 8. Hang out with creatives.
Tip 9. Be Flexible,
Tip 10.Have a backup plan.