CineWest helps boomsatsuma Filmmaking Production students prep for camera roles.

boomsatsuma industry partner CineWest, a specialist equipment hire company to Film and TV productions across the South West and Wales, have partnered with boomsatsuma’s BA (Hons) Filmmaking Production degree course, providing students with valuable work experience, training workshops and long-term loan of camera equipment.

CineWest has already welcomed more than ten students into their rental facility at The Bottle Yard Studios, in Bristol, this year, to give them invaluable one-on-one work experience working with camera equipment in a professional workplace environment. Demystifying the hire process, the team has also taught students some key skills expected of Camera Assistant / Camera Trainee roles. This includes maintenance, lens cleaning, and the essential packing and unpacking of kit, alongside the crucial experience of being an integral part of a team.

CineWest Director Tom McNally comments “It’s been great to welcome eager students, working hard to learn the skills they’d be expected to use, in these job roles. All of boomsatsuma’s students joining us have been enthusiastic, interested, and passionate about learning. This gives me lots of hope for the future workforce in film and TV will be starting with a good knowledge base and skillset.”

CineWest has also given the long-term loan of a camera, enabling students to become familiar with equipment used widely across the industry.

BA (Hons) Filmmaking Production & Post Production Programme Leader Freya Billington comments: “The support and training CineWest is offering our students is perfect to augment our classroom teaching, to provide the best possible preparation for graduating students to move into entry level employment. I have been teaching filmmaking at Degree level for several years and this is the kind of industry engagement I have dreamed of being able to offer students. As always in the industry, it is about developing positive relationships and The CineWest team are a fantastic bunch of people who are genuinely as committed, as we are, to finding and training new, diverse talent.”

boomsatsuma Filmmaking Production students have all appreciated the opportunity:

Charlie Deady: “It was an amazing experience getting to spend the week at Cine-West, which not only taught me loads about camera equipment, but made me feel much more confident about the reality of actually working in the industry when I graduate. The team are so welcoming and friendly and I am very excited to be going back for more work experience next week (as a VIP member of the team!).”

Lucy Wallis: “I really enjoyed the Prime Lens workshop we did at Uni with Nirmala (Technical Lead) and so she suggested I should take up the CineWest work experience opportunity and I can’t believe how much I learned and how encouraging the team there were.”

Finn Williams: “It’s fun being able to handle and understand different cameras as they all have different features and capabilities, knowing it’s beneficial to our future careers.”