UAL Extended Diploma in Film & TV Production student Mia Watson, who is in her last year of her diploma, has recently started to work alongside her studies developing content with the NHS. Her work supports their Growing Healthy campaign and aims to promote their services. For the project she has created a range of films on information and services to help local people.

Speaking of how she got the paid opportunity Mia explained, “I got the opportunity because my mum was talking to her boss about what I do at college and they realised they don’t have a media team for the ‘growing healthy’ services around Teeside. I offered to film some of the summer events around Darlington. These events had tents promoting growing healthy where nurses could offer advice to families and educate them.”

Following positive feedback Mia was offered further opportunities, “I was also given the opportunity to create content for the growing healthy app. I produced some cooking videos, where I made cheap and healthy meals to help parents provide nutritional and varied meals to their kids. These videos included ingredients and clear instructions (spoken and written), I was paid for this work which helped me to purchase a camera.”

She continued, “I shot an interview with two of the nurses for my social issues projects, where they spoke about growing healthy and how they offered support to families. I have filmed a ‘sleep safe’ video, raising awareness to cases of babies who have sadly passed away because of things like co-sleeping. I have also since recorded a video of four managers from different towns speaking about their team charters. They are satisfied with my work and I am now being offered another opportunity to film in the next few weeks”.

When asked about how her course has supported working on the project she said, “being on the film course has obviously helped me gain this opportunity, as they looked at my college outcomes before offering me this work. I also use some of the equipment here to produce the videos, which I’m grateful I have the chance to do. When filming I asked people for permission for them to be in my videos, I used my knowledge on ethics and environment to ensure a positive atmosphere. I am much more knowledgeable and skilful on all elements of film, e.g cinematography, editing, screenplay, than I would have been without my time here at The Northern School of Art.”

Future prospects for Mia include looking in to further freelance projects and heading to university; “In the future I would like to continue to do freelance, looking at others opportunities to film for companies and I would also like to create short films to submit to film festivals, in hopes to push out my name. I will document my journey on social media, as I also enjoy creating content for things like YouTube. My dream is to direct feature length films and to produce a tv show for a streaming service like Netflix. My next step is definitely going to university and continuing to look for work experience. I have become much more confident in not only communicating with others and directing, but also in my own work.”

See more of Mia’s work on her instagram by following @mi4.film!

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