Youth Film School is all about introducing the practical world of film-making to young people. We encourage them to develop skills within this creative medium and help them to improve and succeed as film-makers. We started running film courses in 2007 as the Kids Film School and have been growing since then.

This year, 2015, we have added a Visual Effects (Adobe After Effects) and a Scriptwriting course to our programme. We also offer a wide range of workshops to schools in the UK and Ireland. Each of our teachers also works in the film industry, so we all do as well as teach.

Some of our students intend to go on and have careers in the industry, others just want to experiment and be creative in this fascinating medium. That is all fine and we aim to help each of them to achieve their goals.

The YFS Team

Ewan Gorman
(Director)

Ewan founded the Youth Film School and has been running it since 2007 (as The Kids’ Film School). He is a film editor and recently wrote and directed the children’s adventure film Young Hunters: The Beast of Bevendean. Ewan also taught film editing to adults at Brighton Film School for five years. He still works as a freelance editor, and is currently writing his second feature film.

Steph De Palma
(Tutor)

Stephanie De Palma has worked as an actor, director and producer in New York, Los Angeles and the UK. Based partly in the states and the UK, Stephanie has produced several stage plays and films some of which include Freak Show (LA, 2003), Stand Alones and Others (LA 2004), Two Women and a Waitress (NY 2006). Stephanie recently won an award for ‘Best Directorial Debut’ for the documentary film Ralph: Someone to Me at the NY International Film Festival (2010). Her recent work includes the soon to be released Brighton documentary, The Boss Lady (2014).

Chris Cook 
(Tutor)

Chris Cook is a Film Director and producer who made his directorial debut in 2006 with the Penalty King. In his extensive career he has worked with a numberof experienced film professionals including triple Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis – Michael Douglas – Frank Roddam (director Quadrophenia) – Julie Walters – Nic Roeg (director Don’t Look Now) – Terry Jones (Monty Python). He is currently finishing his latest feature film, The Cave. Prior to joining the Youth Film School team Chris taught film directing at Brighton Film School.

Andrew Miles 
(Adventure Filming and Documentaries)

Andrew Miles, a specialist adventure filmmaker, who runs the Explorers Film School and has produced amongst others, over 70 expedition documentary films for the National Geographic Channels.

Simon Long 
(Animation Tutor)

Simon long has been an animator of short films for over 20 years. He started his stop motion career using his father’s Bolex 16mm camera. His recent work has included the children’s films Binky’s Back Garden, and Bluebells Yard.

Dylan Strain
(Drama Tutor)

The multi-talented Dylan Strain has worked as a stand-up comedian, and an actor on both stage and screen. Lately Dylan has presented a series of short documentaries which have been extremely popular online.

Dylan has also worked a lot in childrens’ theatre, in the U.K & in Europe and for the last 7 years has been helping school kids in many countries to put on their own shows in English.

Charlie James
(Visual FX Tutor)

Charlie has had 5 years experience in the special effects industry, and has worked on animated films, commercials and feature films. Recently he worked as Special FX Supervisor on Nightmare Hunters, the children’s adventure film.