Teesside’s triumphant return from prestigious awards

Talented Teesside students are celebrating a trio of regional successes at the prestigious Royal Television Society Awards.

Teesside University won three awards at this year’s RTS North East and The Border awards which recognise achievements in broadcast journalism, production, writing and technical skills, with award categories ranging from professional to student.

Teesside’s award haul included the Student Short Form title for Things We Wish We Could Say; Student Animation award for Magnum O’Pup and Student Craft Sound for Beebop. BA (Hons) Film and Television students Jake Wiper and Abeera Mubarik created short film Things We Wish We Could Say, which is a study of regret. The film provides people with an opportunity to speak directly to those who are no longer around to receive the message in person.

Damien Chicken, course leader in Film and Television Production and Broadcast Media Production in the University’s School of Computing, Engineering & Digital Technologies, said: 'The film initially started life as a supplementary project to their final year film project, but eventually became their main submission.

'The subjects in the film address the camera as if it were their confidante and a portal to lost loved ones.'

The team behind Magnum O’Pup are Benjamin Lee Smith, Jake Spencer, Joe Collins May, Sam Mares, Jedd Goodchild and Tom Paterson.

The Student Craft Sound winners who worked on Beedop are Andrea Rosu, Alise Goldwater, Asya Alkooheji, Daniel Lucas and Dan Glass.

Justin Greetham, Senior Lecturer in Visualisation in the School of Computing, Engineering & Digital Technologies, collected the awards on behalf of the animation students behind Magnum O’Pup and Beebop.

He said: 'These latest RTS wins build on the previous success by our staff and graduates in achieving in these awards, with many of our students going on to achieve great things in their careers.

'Three of the students who were acknowledged in this year’s RTS awards are now working at the Bafta and Oscar-awarding winning creative studio Framestore.'

Alongside the student awards were a range of accolades for professional work, with producers, presenters and script writers among media guests invited to attend the awards ceremony in Newcastle.

A documentary featuring the animation expertise of Teesside University graduates was also honoured at the RTS awards. Irene's Ghost won the Non-Broadcast Factual award. Read more about graduates' involvement in the film.

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