Movie lovers form first ever GCU Film Society

Film fanatics have come together to form the first ever Film Society at GCU.

Movie lovers and budding film makers have decided to create the GCU Film Society, which invites people to come together to appreciate the film industry.

The society is currently looking to recruit members, with plans to host industry workshops and talks in the new year.

Society member and Media & Communications student Lauren Gillies, spoke of the future plans for the society and the aim to help bring students together after being affected by the pandemic. She said: “It’s open to anyone to join! We have a mixture of members at the moment, including Social Sciences students, as well as all those from Media and Communications. We have some mature students as well, so it’s a good mix of ages.

It’s just really nice to have the chance to meet people that you wouldn’t have met otherwise. It’s a great way to catch up after all the time that the pandemic took away from us and especially with having the opportunity to meet people outside of your course that all have the same interest.”

After speaking to other students on her programme, Lauren saw a great opportunity to start a new cinema-focused society. She said :”I volunteer with the Glasgow Media Access Centre (GMAC) and I’ve been completing courses with them throughout my degree. Over the summer, I’ve been helping out with their Cashback Scheme which is aimed at younger people between the age of 13 to 18.

It was a week-long scheme where they were tasked with making a short film using the equipment that they have at GMAC and a week or so after it, I thought that it was really interesting and that I’d love to do something like that again. The more I thought about it, the more I thought about joining a society but realised that there weren’t any film societies at GCU.”

She added: “I asked other students in my course if this was something that they would be interested in and a lot of people said yes. We even decided to go further and ask other courses within the university to see if there was any interest. We have some members who are interested in film production and also people that are just movie fans. That’s perhaps been the biggest struggle, trying to figure out exactly what we want to do with the society – whether it involves watching movies or making them.”

With the society being in it’s early stages, members want to focus activity around the social side of the society, as well as doing research on other university film societies.

“This term, we have been focusing on making sure that members of the societies are socializing and getting to know each other, so at the moment we have been mainly watching movies during our meet-ups,” explained Lauren.

“We’re also in contact with some people from the film industry who have spoke about coming in to do workshops. We’ve been following other film societies in Scotland and getting some inspiration with what they’re doing as part of their societies; some make films for example, so we’re looking at doing that next term as well.”

As well as film industry engagement, Lauren wants to highlight the multiple benefits that joining the society can have. She said: “Joining a society or practicing a hobby while at university gives you the chance to make friends with people from different courses.

You get to meet people from all walks of life, which is especially important when it comes to the production side of filming – networking is such a huge thing in the film industry and being in the society gives you that experience.

When you study a course like Media and Communications, you’re told about networking as soon as you start. I’m not saying that meeting someone in the society could end up being a really useful network connection, but you never know!”