2017 Michael Northen Bursary Award winners
- Details
The Michael Northen Award is supported by a further two awards: the Francis Reid Award and the ETC Lighting Award; and is awarded annually to students studying in the UK, who have demonstrated strong, imaginative and creative lighting design.
Underlining its commitment to the nurturing of new talent in lighting design, the ALD placed the organisation and management of this year’s award into the hands of those closest to its effect; the ALD Student Committee. Head of the committee, Rory Beaton explains, “We have taken some time this year to implement improvements to the structure and processes of the award. As an example, to ensure greater consistency in the marking of the award we created more judges this year, all marking separately, to a standardised set of criteria.”
The broader judging panel is comprised of ALD-member lighting designers, as well as programmers and technicians, video designers and Industry professionals from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds.
Incoming chair of the ALD, Johanna Town, presented The Michael Northen Bursary to Jack Coleman (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts) who demonstrated a collaborative approach to design using WYSIWYG to communicate his ideas well. His ‘arresting and atmospheric’ lighting design was the result of detailed research.
The Francis Reid Award went to finalist Jess Bernberg (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), while the ETC Award was received by Hector Murray (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). Murray impressed with his enormously creative approach and use of colour and strong angles, while Bernberg’s submission highlighted her eye for design and good collaboration skills.
Commenting on the talent of 2017 award entries and winners, Beaton stated, “It is a great honour to be so involved in this award which highlights the most talented of individuals and paves their career towards the main roads of lighting design. What really stood out was the breadth of interpretation to the same brief, detailing thought processes into presentation. Lighting design is such an expressive art form which benefits exponentially from effort applied to it.”
(Jim Evans)
