A host of Leeds Beckett University staff and alumni are celebrating after winning two gongs at the 2016 annual Royal Television Society (RTS) Yorkshire awards.
Documentary series, India’s Frontier Railways, which features the work of several Leeds Beckett graduates and staff, brought home the awards for ‘Professional Excellence: Post-Production’, and for ‘Director-Factual’ for the programme, The Last Train in Nepal.
India’s Frontier Railways was produced by Gerry Troyna, who studied Film at Leeds Beckett’s predecessor institution, Leeds College of Art and then Leeds Polytechnic, graduating in 1971.
Associate Producer, Jenny Troyna, was a Leeds Polytechnic Illustration student also graduating in 1971. The series was recently broadcast as part of the BBC India season.
Gerry Troyna is an award-winning filmmaker who has been making films and documentaries for over 30 years for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and broadcasters around the world. These include two award-winning investigations for Panorama – Secrets of Seroxat and The Corruption of Racing.
Speaking about the awards, he said: “I was surprised and delighted that India’s Frontier Railways won two of the three awards we were nominated for.
“Tarun Bhartiya – who flew in from India for the ceremony – was the winner of the Best Director award; and we also won the Best Post-production award – so it was a very enjoyable evening.
“I am very proud that all of the hard work by the team has been recognised by the RTS; so a big thank you to all of them and to the RTS.”
The list of Leeds Beckett graduates working on the series is extensive: two of the three films in the series were edited by Martin John Harris, Head of Documentary at the Northern Film School; and Director and Cameraman, Rajesh Shinde, is a 2012 MA Filmmaking graduate.
The editor of the Pakistan film, Stephen Shone, graduated in 1987 with a degree in Film; and both the Producer of the Pakistan film, Shamraiz Younis, and Post-Production Supervisor, Ian Pinder, graduated with a BA (Hons) Film and Moving Image Production in 2004 and 2010 respectively.
Gerry added: £Rajesh has worked with me for over a decade on my films in India and I was delighted when he came to Leeds Becket University to do his MA.
“Ian came recommended by Martin and we subsequently travelled across the USA in a Winnebago for the award-winning documentary, American Nomads.
“On India’s Frontier Railways, Ian was in charge of post-production. Ben Perez and Ben Sayers were both looking for work experience and were also recruited through Martin.
“Working on a documentary series such as this involves a lot of editing time: with crews in four countries, there were a thousand hours of rushes.”
The RTS Yorkshire Awards celebrate excellence in production across all platforms.
From traditional television output, such as documentary and drama, through to news and current affairs, and the latest cutting edge formats, animation and multi-platform.
