All of our tutors are working industry professionals who are as passionate about teaching as they are about film. We employ a combination of regular tutors and guest lecturers to give you a comprehensive insight into all aspects of filmmaking. They are chosen for their knowledge of their discipline as well as their ability to inspire!
Jonny Persey - Chief Executive
Jonny Persey is the chief executive of Met Film School, an independent film producer and managing director of Met Film Production. His feature film credits include Deep Water, a feature documentary for Pathe, FilmFour, and the UK Film Council, released theatrically in the UK in December 2006; Wondrous Oblivion, distributed in the UK in 2004 by Momentum Pictures and by Palm Pictures in the US, with Pathé handling international sales; The Pied Piper of Hutzovina, distributed in the UK by Slingshot, the US by Arts Alliance and worldwide by The Film Company; Heavy Load, distributed in the UK by Kaleidoscope, and broadcast by IFC in the US and BBC in the UK; French Film, distributed in the UK by Revolver and internationally by The Works; and Little Ashes, distributed in the UK by Kaleidoscope and in the US and internationally by Regent.
Under his leadership, Met Film is currently in production or post-production on a roster of films. The latest Met Film releases include The Infidel written by David Baddiel and starring Omid Djalili and Richard Schiff. Award-winning documentary feature Men Who Swim (AKA Sync Or Swim), about Sweden's first male-only synchronized swimming team, also received its UK television premier on the BBC in June 2010, was awarded Critics Choice from Time Out London and was nominated for a prestigious Grierson award in 2011. And Donor Unknown – another Met Film production - was also nominated for a Grierson award for ‘Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme’.
Having studied psychology at Cambridge University and worked for several years as a youth worker and training and organisational development consultant, Jonny Persey produced his first feature film, Everyone’s Child, in Zimbabwe in 1996. He then went on to study at the National Film & Television School where he produced a series of acclaimed short films both through the school and independently. He serves on PACT’s Film Policy Group and is a member of ACE.
Lisa Neeley, Director of Student Affairs & Postgraduate Programmes
Lisa has over 12 years’ experience working in screenplay development in both Los Angeles and the UK. A UCLA film school graduate, she worked for Warner Bros and HBO before relocating to the UK, where she has taught screenwriting for several years. She is co-director of screenplay development consultancy, The Script Connection, and is currently co-producing a low-budget feature with Aria Films.
Karoline Moser, Head of Editing
Karoline has worked professionally in both film and television for thirteen years. Her credits include well-known documentary strands such as Extraordinary People and Equinox Special and several of the films she has edited have won awards. Her teaching experience includes NFTS, Four Corners and Zero-One (Westminster College). Karoline has also been working with a team of young people, helping them write, direct and produce a film based on their personal experiences.
Alan Lewis, Head of VFX & Animation
Alan is a 3D artist and compositor with over 12 years experience in the CG industry. Alan has lived in the UK for the last 5 years, teaching animation and special effects as a university tutor and professional instructor.
Originally from Canada, he spent several years working freelance as a technical artist and modeller, while also teaching animation and architecture, at several different universities in Toronto.
Read Alan's interview, Meet the Tutors - Alan Lewis
(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.)
Chris Bould, Head of Television
Chris has directed and produced numerous primetime TV shows and movies, both in Britain and America. He’s worked with a wide range of actors and comedians, including Elizabeth Taylor and Bill Hicks.
Chris’s body of work includes the landmark comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, winner of the BAFTA award for best director and the movie My Friend Joe. Recently, Chris was series director on the pioneering BBC show Take One Museum, and was producer/director on the new BBC2 prime time documentary-drama series, Nuclear Secrets.
Read Chris's interview, Meet the Tutors - Chris Bould
(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.)
Helen McGregor, Head of Screen Arts
Helen is a writer, actor and lecturer in film history and theory. She trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and worked in professional theatre in Scotland and Ireland for six years before joining Mike Alfred’s company at the National Theatre. She remained at the National for 14 months also working with Sir Richard Eyre. She gave up acting for some years to focus on an Open Univerity Degree and writing: her first novel Schrodinger’s Baby was published in the UK, US and Germany. Her short story The Confession was published in Fresh Blood III in 2000 (The Do Not Press, eds. Mike Ripley, Maxim Jacubowski). Her poetry has been published in several journals and in the anthology of Oxford poetry, East of Auden.
Helen taught on the Screen Arts Programme at the National Film and Television School for six years before going to the University of Cambridge’s Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) to do an M.Phil. Here she made two experimental documentaries. Since graduating she has been an Associate Screen Arts Tutor at the NFTS, and has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Cambridge, where she has also been an external examiner. In addition, she has taught Experimental Film and Video at Central St Martins School of Art and Design.
She is now acting again with a one woman version of Shakespeare’s Richard III called Now is the Winter, which has played to critical acclaim at Oxfringe and the Edinburgh Fringe and will be performed at Brighton May Festival and at Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh 2011. Helen has just embarked on a Ph.D.at Kingston University on the use of animals in film. She also gives talks on Film History on P&O Cruises and has twice been around the world giving passengers her potted history of World Cinema ‘All the World’s a Screen’.
Read Helen's interview, Meet the Tutors - Helen McGregor
(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.)
Bren Simson, Head of Student Film Production
Bren is an NFTS graduate with many years experience directing primetime television drama including Brookside, Eastenders and The Bill as well as award winning film drama series, Pressgang, Children's Ward and Starstreet. More recently, Bren directed 'If Oil' for BBC 2/Discovery and 'Lost on the Mountain' for C4 as well her own independent documentary on a current legal case for Al Jazeera Television.
Rachel Wood, Head of Screenwriting
Rachel Wood began teaching screenwriting, on the BA (Hons) Practical Filmmaking programme and short courses, at Met Film School in 2008. During the same year she started freelancing at the National Film and Television School (NFTS), teaching MA students about the development industry. She's also been involved in the assessment procedure of NFTS MA Screenwriting applicants for the past 5 years.
Rachel has worked in the film industry since 1990. This has included working as Head of Development at Scala productions for Stephen Woolley and Nik Powell, and Head of Production at Catch23UK with ICM sourcing material for A list talent. She's also completed the three day Robert McKee Script Course, the two day Syd Field Screenwriting Course, served on the NFTS Script Advisory Board, the Script Factory Board and on the BAFTA Short Film Jury.
Carlo Dusi, Producing
A former film specialist solicitor, Carlo was the founder and Managing Director of Aria Films until March 2012, when he joined Ridley Scott's UK production outfit Scott Free Films as Head of Business and Commercial Affairs. Previously, he executive produced Marcus Adams's US $12m Buena Vista thriller Octane, and Peter Greenaway's trilogy The Tulse Luper Suitcases amongst several other projects, and co-produced
Gareth Maxwell Roberts's debut Kill Kill Faster Faster, Peter Greenaway's Nightwatching, and Paul Bettany's Broken Lines. Carlo also produced Little Ashes with Met Film Production, released in May 2009, and having entrusted the management of Aria Films to former Met Film student Claudio Mascolo he is currently working across Scott Free Films's busy slate of film and television projects.
Read Carlo's interview, Meet the Tutors - Carlo Dusi
(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.) Jamie Nuttgens, Feature Film Production
Jamie Co-Produced Red Riding, David Peace’s dark detective trilogy with Revolution Films for Film Four and produced Smita Bhide’s first feature, the microbudget The Blue Tower, winning Best UK Feature at Raindance Film Festival 2008. He trained at NFTS and in BBC Drama, Script Editing Jimmy McGovern’s The Lakes and Casualty, before going on to produce at ITV. He has written and directed for network television, directing the first DVCAM drama to be aired in primetime, a Special for The Bill shot live at Notting Hill Carnival. He has been an actor, Stage and Lighting Designer and a Commercial Producer in Independent Radio and recently added editing to his skills roster.
Jamie has taught Direction and Screenwriting at NFTS, Westminster University, Polish National Film School Lodz, La Femis Paris, Blanquerna Barcelona and Oxford University and formatted many of the original short courses at Met Film School.
Anthony Alleyne, Senior Tutor Screenwriting and Directing
Anthony Alleyne is an award-winning writer/director who has had projects in development with the BBC, as well as having worked on feature film rewrites on projects both in the UK and America.
He is currently writing, producing and directing Borderline, a low budget thriller set in the Italian and Austrian Alps, produced by Jamie Nuttgens of Monkey In Heaven Films, and slated for a January 2013 shoot. In addition he is also developing The Removal Man, a thriller set in Colombus, Ohio, USA.
Anthony has also been a Board Member of Screen South, formerly The UK Film Council's Regional Screen Agency for the South East, for the last eight years and has been closely involved in the assessment, development, production and financing of a number of UK shorts and features during this time.
In 2009 Anthony set up Born Wild, and as well as having developed Borderline, Born Wild has also produced a short film, Boxed In, which aired on Italian national TV, as well as producing a self-funded webisode miniseries.
Anthony is a full voting member of Bafta, and speaks Italian to a good standard.
Simon Shore, Senior Tutor in Directing
Writer/Director Simon Shore studied film at the Royal College of Art, where he made severalshort films, including LA BOULE, which won a British Academy Award and was short-listed for the Student Oscar.
His work since has included documentaries, commercials, television drama and feature films. His first feature, GET REAL, won Audience Awards at the Edinburgh, Dinard and Sydney film festivals and was an official selection for Sundance.
He has been involved in film education and mentoring for 25 years - teaching writing, directing, editing and cinematography in several schools - and has a particular interest in the short film, having chaired the BAFTA short film jury several times.
He is currently shooting a documentary about happiness and a series of improvisedshort films, while preparing to direct his French language feature script, LA DEMOISELLE HONTEUSE, next year.
Giacomo Cimini, Tutor in Short Film Production
Giacomo is a London-based Italian filmmaker, represented by Anthony Mestriner at leading talent agency Casarotto Ramsay. Following his Laurea in Communications from Rome’s La Sapienza University and a filmmaking course at the New York Film Academy, Giacomo earned an MA with distinction in Filmmaking from the London Film School. His graduate sci-fi short film, La Citta’ nel Cielo (City in the Sky), premiered at the 66th Venice Film Festival and achieved online distribution on major platforms. Previous credits include a low budget horror feature and the 8-part TV series Delitti for Fox International’s Fox Crime channel on Sky Italy.
In 2010 Giacomo was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus and awarded funding for the Trailermade competition to direct a promotional trailer for his submarine monster thriller, Bleak Sea. The project was subsequently picked up for development by Working Title Films. Giacomo is currently developing a slate of film projects and is a lecturer at the Met Film School where he teaches Short Film Production.