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  - School Director

Jonny Persey is the director 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.
 

Jim O'Brien - Head of Fiction

For almost thirty years, Jim has directed television series and feature films, including award-winning projects such as The Jewel in the Crown and The Dressmaker.

Between those and many others, Jim has taught directing at his Alma Mater, The National Film and Television School, returning as Course Leader, Head of Fiction Directing and Head of the Advanced Programme.

Read Jim's interview, Meet the Tutors - Jim O'Brien

(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.)

Lisa Neeley, Head of Screenwriting

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.)

David Freeman,  Editing

David Freeman has edited many features, including The Full Monty, Mickey Blue Eyes, The Borrowers, Wondrous Oblivion and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. He has also written a number of commissioned screenplays and won a BAFTA award for co-writing The Candy Show with Pete Hewitt.

Darren Paul Fisher, Screenwriting and Directing

Darren's first film Inbetweeners became not only the first fully digital film ever to play the UK multiplexes, it also became the lowest budget feature ever to be released by a major Hollywood studio when Universal Pictures acquired worldwide rights. Most recently Darren wrote and directed his second feature, the teen-romcom Popcorn.

Read Darren's interview, Meet the Tutors - Darren Paul Fisher

(Our Meet the Tutor series is designed to give you an insight into our tutors and their experience at the Met Film School.)

Emma Lindley, Acting & Directing

Emma is an experienced TV producer and director working in drama and documentary whose credits include the award-winning ITV comedy series 'My Parents are Aliens'. She has just completed a half-hour documentary for the CBBC series 'My Life.' Emma is a lead tutor on both Acting and Directing courses at the Met Film School.

Visit Emma's website - www.emmalindley.net

Read Emma's interview, Meet the Tutors - Emma Lindley

(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, Directing

Bren is an NFTS graduate and qualified teacher with 20 years experience directing primetime television drama including Brookside, Eastenders and The Bill as well as award wining film drama series, Pressgang, Children’s Ward and Starstreet. Since qualifying as a lawyer, Bren directed If Oil for BBC 2 and Lost on the Mountain for C4 as well her own independent documentary on a current legal case.

Jamie Nuttgens,  Directing

Jamie recently Co-Produced Red Riding, David Peace’s dark detective trilogy with Revolution Films for Film Four and in 2008 Smita Bhide’s first feature, the microbudget The Blue Tower, winning Best UK Feature at Raindance Film Festival. 

Jamie 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 producer in independent radio and last year edited his first feature film.

Philippe Longchamp PhD, Screenwriting

Philippe is a professional script consultant for various production and distribution companies internationally. He is also the writer of several prime-time series for French and Swiss television, and was involved in the pre-sale and distribution of many mainstream US and European productions including Thelma and Louise, Pulp Fiction and Blue Velvet.

Phillipe has written a feature film titled Baby Boy Father and has two other feature films currently in pre-production.

Carlo Dusi, Producing

A former film specialist solicitor Carlo is the founder and Managing Director of Aria Films. He has executive produced Marcus Adams's US $12m Buena Vista thriller Octane, and Peter Greenaway's trilogy The Tulse Luper Suitcases.

Carlo is currently working on his own slate of films with Aria, including the recently completed Kill Kill Faster Faster and Paul Bettany's latest film, There For Me. He also recently produced Little Ashes with Met Film Production, released in May 2009.