The following are some of the teaching staff for the MA course. In addition to this list and alongside the staff across all areas of study, our full-time staff, a wide range of visiting lecturers, guest speakers and panellists visit us regularly.
Tutors
Charis Coke
Course Leader MA Filmmaking - Management team
Charis is a UK-based Sound Designer and Educator. With a filmmaking career spanning over 30 years, she has worked with internationally recognised award-winning filmmakers, animators, artists, and photographers. She has also made significant contributions to film and sound education, having served in positions such as Programme Director, Senior Lecturer, Visiting Lecturer and External Examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate Film Production, Television and Journalism courses including the University for the Creative Arts, Southampton Solent University, Westminster University, University of Portsmouth and Regents University
Charis has served on various film festival judging panels, including Watersprite and the Women Over Fifty in Film Festival. Additionally, she has been an active member of the Executive Board of NAHEMI and is a member of the Audio Engineering Society Accessibility Sub-Committee. As a Sound Designer, Charis has collaborated with accomplished artists such as Daria Martin, the 2018 Jarman Award winner, and Charlotte Prodger, the 2018 Turner Prize winner. Her ongoing collaboration with artist Michael Clark resulted in a retrospective group exhibition titled Tales from the Colony Room: Art and Bohemia at Dellasposa in 2020, featuring his tribute to Muriel Belcher, With Daughter on her Mind. Charis's 2023 work with Professor Birgitta Hosea on her experimental animated installation piece Walkcycle is being exhibited at the Hunan Museum in China. Her portfolio also includes fiction and documentary films and artist's works, focusing on the representation of spaces on screen and the role of movement in sound.
Charis's work as a Sound Designer has been showcased internationally, with her films screened at prestigious events such as the London Short Film Festival, Barcelona International Short Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Tate Modern, Quadrangle, Cannes Film Festival, and Ann Arbour. She holds an MA in Sound for the Screen from Bournemouth University, a PGCert in Creative Arts Education, is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Member of the Audio Engineering Society, and of the Institute of Professional Sound.
Amit Sen
Film Music Consultant
Amit started composing at the age of 12 and his first composition was performed at the Camden Festival when he was 14. Since then, over a twenty five year career in music, Amit has composed, orchestrated and acted as music director on a broad range of projects which includes, 2 CDs with Carmel (Warner Bros), Diehard director John McTiernan, The 2nd Bakery Attack director Wolf Baschung (featured short film Sundance Festival), Greekfire (series broadcast on C4), Our Orchestra (broadcasts on WMBR Radio Boston USA), Andorra by Max Frisch directed by Michael Attenborough (Falmer Arts Centre).
Amit studied film scoring with Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and David Raksin in the USA. Amit was the Head of Jazz Composition and Arranging at the Royal Academy of Music and has published articles on film music.
Jonas Grimas
Module Leader and Term 2 Tutor
Jonas Grimås is a BAFTA winning director with over a hundred credits in high-end British and European television drama, short films and documentaries. Parallel to this, he has portrayed the process of painters, glass designers, musicians, conductors and other artists. When not teaching filmmaking at the London Film School he is making films.
Karen Warnock
Sound Instructor/Equipment Manager
Before joining the London Film School Karen was a freelance Sound Editor working on feature films, TV dramas and documentaries in South Africa and the UK. Member of the Association of Motion Picture Sound AMPS.
Lucy Kaye
Module Leader and Term 3 Tutor
Lucy Kaye is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in London. She graduated from the National Film and Television school in 2009 and since has worked for the BBC, Channel 4, Vice, The Guardian with subjects ranging from PTSD to Horse Whispering. Her First Cut film for Ch4 received critical acclaim and she was awarded the prestigious Pears Short Film Award for her film Memory Songs.
Her passion lie’s in making creative, character-driven films that can have a universal appeal. She is currently finishing a PhD in Documentary film practise, the feature film from which was selected for the UK Competition at Sheffield Doc Fest 2020.
She has worked in higher education for over 7 years and has been a Visiting Lecturer at University of London Goldsmiths, University College London, Royal Holloway and the University of Exeter.
Margaret Glover
Production Manager/Senior Lecturer (Production)
Margaret Glover holds an MFA in Dramaturgy & Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama. From work in regional theatres on the East Coast of the US, Margaret moved into UK television, where she script edited and produced a range of programming, including award-winning adaptations and children’s series. From September 2008 through April 2013, Margaret oversaw the development, production and delivery of all Term 6 films. Prior to that she was a visiting lecturer in screenwriting on both the MA Filmmaking and Screenwriting courses at LFS. She has co-written several screenplays with directors in the UK, Europe and India, including Shadows in the Sun, which won best screenplay at Houston Worldfest in 2009. Margaret looks forward to maintaining her links with LFS as she pursues her own projects.
Peter Hollywood
Head of Editing
Peter Hollywood is an award-winning editor, who has been editing for over twenty years. As well as collaborating with well-known directors, such as Ridley Scott, Mike Newell and Terry Gilliam, he has been contributing to almost every genre imaginable, ranging from no-budget shorts and independent documentaries to network television and multi-million dollar features.
Richard Kwietniowski
Module 3 Leader and Term 6+ Tutor
Writer-director, born in London to Anglo-Polish parents. After studying literature then film at University of Kent at Canterbury, became Visiting Research Scholar in Film at University of California at Berkeley before returning to the UK to work in the independent film sector and higher education. Short films including Alfalfa and Flames of Passion were distributed internationally. Work as a director for British TV received Royal Television Society and D&AD (Gold and Best of Year) awards and a Prix Italia nomination. Feature-films Love and Death on Long Island (John Hurt and Jason Priestley), and Owning Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Minnie Driver) both made Best of Year critics’ lists. Awards include prizes from Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle, US National Board of Review, and BAFTA. He teaches directing, screenwriting and acting-to-camera at a range of institutions in the UK and beyond, and has contributed to many European initiatives in feature film development. His LFS directing workshop for film students and actors has just celebrated its 300th edition. His name is easier to pronounce than it looks: Kfee-etnee- ov-skee.
Roger Hyams
Writer, Filmmaker, Script Editor
Roger started his career as an actor, working extensively for companies such as the RSC, English Touring Theatre and the Traverse. He became a script editor in BBC Television Drama, went on to be Head of Drama Development at TalkBack Productions, then left to pursue his own writing and film-making, as well as continuing to work as a freelance script editor. He has written the book and lyrics for a stage musical, co-directed two Baroque operas for the Vancouver Festival, and is developing two feature projects. His first novel The Lightman System will be published in 2022.
Roger is a visiting lecturer for the LFS MA Screenwriting and MA Filmmaking.
More information, along with Roger’s short films Sunday, Grand Union and Elsewhere, can be found at www.rogerhyams.com.
Sue Austen
Module 3 Leader and Term 6+ Tutor
Sue has worked in independent film and television production since 1982. Her career began at the now legendary Goldcrest Films, where she worked for four years on programmes produced for the new Channel 4. After Goldcrest’s collapse Sue spent a short time as a freelance script editor, before joining Granada Films as Head of Development. Whilst there she worked on a number of feature films including David Hare’s STRAPLESS and Aisling Walsh’s first feature, JOYRIDERS. Sue left Granada to co-produce the medical thriller, PAPER MASK, co-funded by Film 4 and British Screen, released in over 70 territories and selected as the closing film in Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990.
Sue then spent 5 years working at the European Script Fund, part of the MEDIA (Creative Europe) organisation and returned to production in 1997 with her first television film, VICIOUS CIRCLE, developed and produced for BBC Films and Irish Screen. This was followed by the BAFTA nominated comedy drama DONOVAN QUICK starring Colin Firth. Over the next twelve years she produced more than 50 hours of primetime television drama for BBC1, BBC2 and ITV and received a second BAFTA nomination.
She continues to develop new productions as well as tutoring and lecturing part time at the London Film School, Goldsmiths University, Serial Eyes and Regents University.
Terry Hopkins
Visiting Lecturer
Terry is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild and began shooting 16mm documentaries in New York in the late 1970s. His work appeared on America's PBS, Britain's BBC and Channel 4. The trend toward incorporating dramatic recreations into documentaries provided Terry with a means of linking his love of documentaries with lighting for drama. This led to his work as Camera Operator and 2nd unit DP on 35mm feature films.
Three programmes or series Terry has filmed have won Emmy Awards and two have been nominated for Academy Awards (Oscars). His last project before turning to full-time teaching was a documentary on The Rolling Stones directed by Michael Apted, a two-camera shoot on which he worked with Seamus McGarvey ASC, BSC.