The Future's Bright for Futureworks

FROM the street, the Futureworks Centre of Excellence for Creative Media seems modest. A minimal reception area makes the building seem like a normal block of offices, but inside it’s a different world. Tucked away on Manchester’s Mosley Street, Futureworks takes up all six floors of the building.

The School runs innovative short and long-term courses in creative and technical media, including editing, post-production, music production, animation and games development, developed specifically to train the future generations of Northwest-based media talent. A maze of editing suites, recording studios, post-production suites and classrooms are all equipped with the latest technology.

Futureworks is currently celebrating its first year of operation, with 150 students having passed through its doors already, and to acknowledge this achievement the company also been named Facility of the Month for July by Northwest Vision and Media, which works on behalf of the TV, film, radio and digital content industries to grow a world-class media economy in England’s Northwest.

Senior Manager Paul Collins is delighted that the School is being recognised for its work. “Although Futureworks is relatively new, the idea it’s built on has been developed through years of experience. The whole team are really passionate about the School, and what it offers the industry,” he says. “We’ve grown more in our first year than we hoped for. It’s been an amazing year.”

Futureworks has certainly been busy since they first opened their doors in early 2007. Paul explains: “We run short courses for freelancers, new entrants into the industry, and for employees already in the industry who are looking to uprade their skills.

“Our first long-term courses started in September last year, and these cater more for younger students coming out of school or college, and slightly more mature or post-graduate students. As well as our own courses, we also run courses on behalf of other organisations such as Vision and Media,” he adds.

Futureworks offers six floors of purpose-built facilities. Floors one and two focus on computer-led teaching spaces and innovative project suites, while floor three houses an HD-equipped camera studio with chroma-key facility. The fourth floor is dedicated to audio and visual post-production, with four editing suites and two AV post room. On floor five, students have access to three recording studios and live rooms.

A key place where students get to mix sound with vision in a professional environment is the Dubbing Theatre. This offers an HD projector, big screen and cinema-style seating. The editing console here is Hollywood-standard, something that media students wouldn’t usually get their hands on until a much later stage in their career.

“Students at Futureworks are also given extra help on their paths into the industry,” adds Paul. “The fact that most courses are taught at night means that students can also work during the day. Most choose to work at low-level jobs in the areas they want to progress into, to get a foot in the door. Some of our current students have already managed to secure employment with production and post-production companies.

“Students also develop their own showreel, a calling card in their future careers, and as the equipment they are training on is the same as the technology used in professional companies, they have a level of familiarity far beyond anyone finishing a standard university course,” he adds.

Using their industry connections, the team at Futureworks continue to develop a wide web of support from a number of key organisations and individuals. This enables them to keep all courses up to date with progress within the industry. All course curriculums and methods of teaching are run past an advisory board made up from these major players.

“We have a good relationship with the industry,” explains Paul. “It’s essential that our students have those links with people working on the front-line of the industry. Our function is to facilitate what the industry needs, and as the industry in the Northwest grows, we need to make sure that our graduates are best placed to be a part of that.

“There’s a lot of hype around MediaCity:UK, but although the actual site is still being built, the concept is already having a knock-on effect. People who are looking to break into the industry are now seeing that they have another option than moving down to London,” he adds.

For Paul, this is good news for Futureworks’ plans. “By the time that MediaCity:UK is ready, we’ll hopefully have had a good number of graduates on courses, and we’ll have a good reputation for producing graduates with the right skills. We’re hoping to have about 500 students on programme at any one time, by 2011.

“We need to prove that our graduates can go out into the industry and be well-received. We’ve had a good response already from industry employers, and we hope that as our reputation grows, there will be a healthy competition to attract highly skilled graduates,” he says.

For anyone who’s interested in getting a closer look at Futureworks, there are a number of Open Days coming up this summer. Paul is confident that people will find the facility impressive.

”People are welcome to come and get a guided tour of all our facilities and to learn more about our different courses. We’re always growing in what we can offer,” he says. “From this September we’ll have doubled our degree courses to two, and we’ll be teaching even larger intakes on our shorter courses.”

No matter how small the School may look from the outside, Paul is certain that Futureworks has a big future, and it’s growing bigger every day.