Previous Winners
Here are a few of yesteryears winners. A lot of them have enjoyed worldwide success after winning a Royal Television Society award, and the awards are often the stepping stone to bigger and better things.
If you are a previous winner and want to get in touch and let us know about how you are doing, feel free to contact Robin Small at this email address: r.small1@yorksj.ac.uk
Emma Lazenby
Emma’s degree film ‘Something missing’ won the regional Royal Television society and was nominated for the national award. Emma Lazenby has gone on to work on animations such as Charlie and Lola. She recently won a BAFTA for her short animation ‘Mother of Many’
Edward Foster
Edward Foster won the 1997 Royal Television Society Student award animation with his production ‘Pensioner Penny’ while studying at Hull School of Art and Design. He was recently shortlisted for a BAFTA in Children’s Awards for his Pre-school Animation ‘Little Princess’.
Richard Whiteley
The late Richard Whiteley host of C4 Countdown was a proud Yorkshireman who gave up his time every year to host the RTS Yorkshire Centre Student TV Awards Event. Richard helped turn the early awards into a major event. Student Audiences loved his humour and bright ties and he gave a great sense of fun to the awards which we try to continue today.
Ryan Braund
Because the Royal Television Society is such a well-known and respected company, winning the student award for best fiction is and will always remain a high-point in our filmmaking careers. Not only that but it has given us the confidence and the enthusiasm to pursue much larger and more ambitious projects including a feature film which is to be released next year. Thank you, RTS for a great night and for encouraging us to go further!
Ryan was a winner of the Royal Television Society Yorkshire’s fiction award at the 2009 awards ceremony with his fictional production ‘Four Thieves and the Not-So Sweet Shop’. He currently has a film in post production; a sci-fi action movie about a gang of petty thugs who are chased and penned into their hideout by the police after a job gone wrong. However, instead of being arrested they soon find themselves becoming live test subjects for a deadly, new, high-tech police ‘weapon’. So keep your eyes peeled.
Lewis Firth Bolton
Occasionally there is a piece of work that takes the judges and the Royal Television Society by surprise.
Lewis’s ‘The Great Hat Heist’ was one of those pieces, and was awarded a Special Jury Award in the Yorkshire awards due to it’s originality and quality.
You can find The Great Hat Heist Here
Jason Budge
Jason won the regional award at the Yorkshire Student awards in 2001 for his production called ‘Chance’ in the Factual category. He then went on to win the Royal Television Society’s National Student Awards.
Russell Hollis & James Robinson
Russel and James won the 2003 Regional award for their non-factual production called ‘Rocket Boy Roger’. Then continued with their success and went on to win the Royal Television Society national award in the same category. This short film has been featured multiple times on the BBC and has been reviewed by Mark Thompson.
You can see Rocket Boy Here
Daniel Elliott www.danielelliott.com
As a writer and director, I think the most important aspect of winning the Royal Television Awards was the strong profile it immediately gave me within the North-east, and more specifically with my local screen agency, Northern Film & Media (NFM). This relationship has grown as NFM continue to support me at all stages, from project financing and marketing through to film festival access. This has been essential in my development as a filmmaker.
You can visit his website here
Emily Liu
My name is Yuan Liu, Emily is not my official name, and I am Chinese. The film On My Way is written and directed by myself and was nominated for an Award at the 2007 Royal Television Society Student Television Awards. ‘On My Way’ is the story of a young girl from China having to confront the realities of her decision to move away from her family to England. But instead of finding happiness in her new freedom, she can only find loneliness and a dislocation from her environment…a fish out of water. All she can think about is the river back at her village where she used to swim as a child, floating along like a leaf on a stream, remembering that feeling of weightlessness and freedom, like being swept away in a dream. The feeling of home. Locked in a state of emptiness, she tries to carry on with her everyday life, but the feeling continues to grow, until the rain is crying for her. She must find a way to purge these feelings and cleanse her thoughts; only the river can heed her call. I believe that after my RTS success, if I work hard I will get the results.
Nicola Grant
I went to Huddersfield University 99-02 and studied Media and Television Production. I won a Royal Television Society Student Award for best factual programme in 2002 for “Dinner Ladies”. The film documented the struggle of the female workers of the mining industry to gain compensation. I met some fantastic people who agreed to be involved in the film including Arthur Scargill, Brian Wilson (MP not Beach Boys) and Peter Hain. Out contributors were great too, we had great access but we also became good friends and the production team was even invited around for tea a few times! TV is all about networking! And, if you do win the award you get to show off about it for the rest of your days.