Into Film Clubs
Find out everything you need to know about starting an Into Film Club.
Every year at the Into Film Awards, we select three recipients for our prestigious Ones to Watch award - individuals whom we feel have the potential to achieve great things in the film industry, and who in many cases, have already begun to do so.
Nick Connor was named an Into Film One to Watch in 2017, and has wasted no time in furthering his credentials, creating his own critically acclaimed films and securing work on high budget Hollywood productions. We caught up with Nick just over a year on from his day at the Into Film Awards, and below, he explains what he's been up to since then.
A few months after the Into Film Awards last year, I - along with the two other Ones to Watch winners - went to London on a trip organised by Yen Yau, Into Film's Career Manager.
We started at Pinewood Studios, then visited EON Productions, sponsors of the Ones to Watch award. As a big Bond fan, this was a dream come true. Seeing inside their archives, the screening room and the team behind the production company was unbelievable.
The day ended at Milk VFX where we met Academy Award winner and VFX supervisor, Sara Bennett. As a director, it was incredibly helpful to see the possibilities of visual effects and to understand the hard work and complex process that goes into creating them. A brilliant end to the day was getting to hold Sara's Oscar® for Ex_Machina.
The trip was a great success and it was really helpful in developing my knowledge of higher budget productions.
Since the Into Film Awards, I have written and directed a film called Cotton Wool which tackles the story of a young boy who becomes his mother's carer after she suffers a debilitating stroke. I was interviewed on BBC News discussing the film and my Ones to Watch award. The film has received positive reviews, with UK Film Review calling the film "utterly enrapturing", and ScreenCritix gave the film 5 stars.
The film has subsequently been screened at international film festivals, including the BIFA Festival, where it won two awards; the Lift-Off Film Festival, in Charlie Chaplin's Raleigh Studios cinema outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles; and it also received the Special Jury Prize at the London Film Awards.
Cotton Wool is due to screen at BAFTA HQ in Piccadilly in January 2019, having been nominated for ‘Film of the Year' at the Gold Movie Awards.
I was also selected for the BFI Film Academy's NFTS Craft Residential in April, and was recently matched for a BAFTA Mentorship with director William McGregor (Poldark, One of Us).
Other things I am doing include continuing to work in various crew roles, most recently on the video game Hitman 2 as a Production Assistant and on the feature film Detective Pikachu (starring Ryan Reynolds), as a Location Marshall.
Know someone that you think is worthy of being named an Into Film One to Watch? Why not nominate them for the 2019 Into Film Awards! Submissions and nominations are open from now until 14 December 2018, with the ceremony to be held in London in March 2019.
