Christopher Bevan (Talbot 2002 – 2007)

After finishing at Ellesmere in 2007, I found that I had discovered what I really wanted to do with my life and began to pursue a career in film. In my final year of 6th Form I’d made a feature film called ‘CJ Simmons: Elite Mercenary’ in my spare time and found that directing was my main interest. After a false start on an English Literature course at the University of Birmingham, I withdrew and spent the next two years working in employment and continuing to develop my love of filmmaking before starting a degree in Film & Video Production BA at the University of Derby in 2009.

Here I was fortunate enough to meet likeminded filmmakers and began to set up my own fledging production company YSP Media, short for Yellow Shoe Productions which I had carried over from my time at Ellesmere. Over the next 3 years I began to experiment working in short films, music videos, documentaries and corporate videos resulting in being invited to take part in a Q&A and hold a workshop at the National Student Film Festival. I also started to expand my networking and through seeking out competitions and events I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of Inception and the BAFTA Film Awards in 2011.

More recently I was selected as a director by the National Youth Film Academy as 1 of 4 directors in the north of the country on a 60 person Easter course which took place in Manchester with the another 60 studying in London. Overall there were 3,000 total applicants across the country for varying film production and acting roles and out of those 120 16-25 year olds were accepted following interviews to go on to study on the course. The NYFA is supported by BFI ‘Future In Film’ with the objective of locating, supporting and developing the talents of young filmmakers in the UK. The NYFA acceptance letter for the course mentioned that I had exhibited “huge potential” as a filmmaker.

In the last few years my films have been screened at festivals in the UK and abroad and I’ve nearly worked on nearly 50 films since I was 16. My latest projects as a director include a short film set during the UK riots in August 2011 called ‘Home Invasion’ as well as a drama about a down and out taxi driver who decides to make a change on one particularly catastrophic night. The film is called ‘Caught in the Headlights’ and was shot on a £2000 budget with half of this coming from contributions from fellow filmmakers and members of the public. Looking towards the future, I'll be hoping to work as an assistant on several feature films whilst starting plans to develop my own as well continuing my work in short films & music videos.

5th October 2012  Back to Where are they now?