Location, location, location

A former Barking & Dagenham College (@BarkingCollege) student turned successful location manager, has spent two days with media students helping with training and sharing her experiences of the film and tv industry. 

Georgette Turner studied performing arts at the College twenty years ago. Since then, she has carved out an impressive career for herself, working on films such as Mission Impossible: Fallout, Wonder Woman, Downtown Abby and Pirates of the Caribbean: On stranger tides, to name just a few! 

The media students, who study in the new East London Institute of Technology (ELIoT) were delighted to have Georgette on hand during the ‘Unit Manager Boot Camp’ course.  The course was designed to help the students learn a broad range of skills that are used by Location Marshals, Location Assistants and Unit Managers.   

There were plenty of different sessions for the students to get involved in.  They were able to practice everything from setting up tower lights, running out cables and connecting to generators to learning about scouting and camera angles, parking tech trucks, picking a unit base and setting up an artist’s green room.   

As well as showing the students what to do, Georgette was also on hand to share her hints and tips.  Speaking about her own career journey she urged students to make the most of every opportunity they can to help them experience all aspects of the industry.  Georgette herself went from performing in front of the camera, into the location department in films and tv and she now also produces.    

She explained to the students that there were three key things to making it in the film industry as a freelancer – time keeping, flexibility and perseverance.  As she told students: “Take every opportunity and keep going.  If you want it badly enough, it will happen.” 

Georgette also got a chance to visit the new facilities at the ELIoT and she couldn’t have been more impressed!   

Georgette said: “I was blown away by the facilities. I think they are some of the best I’ve seen!  They really will give the students the edge and an understanding to work in the industry.” 

She added: “The group of students I worked with this week were a great bunch and I wish them well in the future and hope to see them out there on set soon.”