London Film School

Best-case argument for attending: if you already have real filmmaking experience and two years you can afford to give up entirely (free from employment, free to work on your own projects) this can work for you. That's the most generous case I can make for it. Read on before you believe it.

Curriculum & Compression​

I'm currently in Term 3, taking Term 4 classes in the middle of it. The program runs six terms total, and right now it's visibly compressed: courses overlap, previously scheduled classes get pushed and repeated later, and students are expected to keep working through what should be break periods. Earlier coursework (story and script development) was genuinely strong. The current restructuring has undercut that. Each skill is taught once, and you're expected to arrive at mastery from a single pass, with no built-in debrief or skill-share to go back and correct what didn't land. Because terms are split by crew role, you may operate a given role in one term and never touch it again in a later term where you'd actually need it.

Faculty​

The professors I've worked with are genuinely good, that's not in dispute. What is in dispute is how much room they have to teach. Term leaders are currently under real pressure to justify their own courses within the restructuring, which is squeezing the time and depth they can put into teaching rather than institutional defense. Good people operating inside a system that's actively being compressed under them.

Facilities & Equipment​

Split campus, weak facilities. The sound booths are not soundproofed, and they sit on the same floor as the edit bay: sound bleeds in from the building, other classes, even the elevator, in every session, with no mitigation plan I've seen. Clean ADR or foley is effectively not achievable. The stages aren't soundproofed either, and you're shooting on film. Equipment itself is decent, but there isn't enough of it for the number of cohorts running through the program at once: three intakes a year, drawing from an inconsistent range of prior experience and preparation.

Culture & Peer Accountability​

This is the part that will matter most if you're coming in with real experience. Collaboration culture here is weak. Peers not showing up to set, showing up late, or not participating carries no real consequence. If you're experienced, you don't get pushed further by the program, you get absorbed as unpaid labor covering for peers who aren't at your level. That's not "prospering." It's your competence being used to patch gaps the school isn't addressing.

Alumni Network​

For a school with nearly 70 years of history, there's effectively no alumni network. What exists is being built now, slowly, rather than something you're plugged into on arrival.

Cost of Living (London)​

Tuition itself is affordable relative to US film school pricing. Everything around it isn't. Budget roughly £15–20 per meal if you're not cooking every night, £1,500+ for rent, and if you're not in student housing, expect to need a guarantor or a full year's rent up front. Factor this in before you factor in tuition.

Who Should Apply​

Honestly, if you already have filmmaking experience, this program will use that experience rather than build on it. You'll spend your two years functioning as de facto crew and quality control for less-prepared peers, inside a curriculum that's currently being compressed and reshuffled under real institutional strain, with facilities that can't reliably deliver clean sound. If you're coming in with little to no experience, you may get more out of the raw trial-and-error, but with no structured debrief and single-pass teaching, "mastery" is left almost entirely up to you.

I wouldn't recommend this program as it currently stands. If you go in anyway, go in knowing exactly what you're walking into.

I graduated from the MA Screenwriting program at London Film School (LFS) in August 2025. I enjoyed the program and thought it was worth tuition fee, especially because of the current director of the program - Sophia Wellington. They are quite adaptable, and quick to address student concerns. The program changes shape to accommodate diverse needs. The exposure to writers from so many countries is rare. We had 33 countries represented among 45.

I'm happy to answer more questions, you can email me on work.faizanansari@gmail.com

I attended this summer program in 2019. I wanted to try out directing in an environment where I would get feedback on my work and where I could feel safe trying out things -- ie: a school environment. But I wasn't ready to commit to an MFA, having only ever co-directed one short film once.

On the other hand, I did have quite a bit of film experience already, having worked camera on small shoots, script supervised a feature and a few shorts, and worked as a Post PA and Assistant Editor on big budget, union shows. I knew my way around a set, I just had not directed.

Most summer programs take you through the filmmaking process once through, from script to final edit, but this programs lets you do it three times: once with a group-developed, almost improvised scene/short; once with your own silent scene/short; and finally with your own dialog scene/short. That's a huge advantage, because you get to learn from your mistakes and put the new knowledge into action immediately. And you get to try different things.

The lead instructor -- Udayan Prasad -- is fantastic. He's a great working director who clearly loves teaching and has lots of experience as a teacher and on set. He doesn't condescend, he gives you honest feedback, he is never rude, he doesn't play favorites.

The class has 12 students and you all crew each others simple shoots and exercises at first, with additional help of TAs. Editors are provided for all exercises, mostly MA students -- I thought our editors were great. For your final project, professional actors, a DP, and a sound recordist come in to work on your piece. And they are indeed pros, I was delighted by the quality of the people who agreed to be in our little school projects. A real treat.

You'll have multiple classes on acting and directing actors. You'll also have a class on coverage and camera angles; classes on storytelling, on POV.

You will also have sessions with other professionals: Screenwriter, Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer, Composer/Sound Mixer. Everyone was really solid, caring, knew their stuff backwards and forwards, was seasoned. The Screenwriting, Cinematography, and Editing instructors stick around for your film projects to give insight as you work on them and feedback once you present the final. Their involvement is really great.

Our class was maybe 1/3 people working in the film industry already, many others currently or recently in film school, and a few who had not studied film or worked in it, but were interested in pivoting into film / directing. Ages from 21 to 42 I think. Many different backgrounds and experience levels and I think we all got a lot out of it. This may be the rare class that serves experienced people as well as novices.

Having said that, if you have already directed a few short films, feel comfortable working with actors, and understand the process from idea to script to casting to shoot to edit, then this may not be as useful. Are Udayan's insights about story really good? Yeah they are! But if you have made a bunch of shorts already, those insights alone may not be worth the price.

Which brings me to the one con: It is an expensive course. I had plenty of savings and I decided to dedicated a calculated chunk of them to this. When you add cost of airfare to/from London, housing, and food (none of which are included in tuition), it gets extra expensive. Tuition, airfare & local transport, lodging (with an extra week), food (extra week), and incidentals came just under US$9,000. You could take the same budget and make a short film on your own. I wanted the instruction, so I chose this, but I think finances should be taken into account before committing to an expensive 3-week course like this one.

I'm glad I took this class. I learned I do love directing, I love being on set with actors, and I have a long way to go before I'm really really good. I also learned to look at film in a different way, to question its visual and aural choices more. Finally, I learned how much I love the scripting part of it and am now applying to Screenwriting MFAs. For me, this course served its purpose and then some.