Elephant in the room

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lbm1e14
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Elephant in the room

Post by lbm1e14 »

I'm a little concerned that there is a big elephant in the room which DCs and parents have very little information about the impact of. I recently posted a link to the new Equity/Spotlight criteria and now we have a new set of criteria for membership of the new Drama school Federation which aims to fill part of the gap left by the demise of Drama UK.

I read on another post that just as an example The Hammond contact hours appear to be 22 per week. That means they do not meet the Equity/Spotlight minimum of 30 weeks a year of 36 hours per week. So does that mean that Hammond students will not be eligible to join Equity or have a Spotlight listing? The latter is critical as several posts suggest that no Spotlight listing = no agent. The implications of that are serious. I'm not singling out The Hammond, I'm sure there are others.

Also interestingly the new Drama Federation which includes many illustrious establishments has as a minimum 900 hours a year. The mathematicians amongst you will have worked out that the Spotlight minimum is 30 weeks of 36 hours = 1,080 so the 900 hours is not enough for Spotlight listing.

I'm not sure where all this leads but it seems to me that there are a lot of parents and DCs who are paying a lot of money with a lack of certainty and clarity over getting a Spotlight listing. Or is it not as important as I'm led to believe?

Clearly most of the major MT colleges will fulfill the criteria.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

The Hammond contact hours are not 22 per week & Spotlight have already stated that courses heavy on singing will be treated slightly differently.
lbm1e14
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by lbm1e14 »

I stand corrected. I was only going by a post in another thread from a parent who said they spoken to The Hammond about the contact hours.

Interesting about courses "heavy on singing". Where did they say that? It wasn't mentioned in the announcement they made. Not quite sure what that means either. Have they defined what it means?

The point of my post was to say that I'm not sure I've seen a list of which courses at which establishments will permit a Spotlight listing. That said maybe Spotlight don't even know! Or maybe they'll make enough exceptions that everyone will meet the criteria which doesn't quite seem to be the point.
Last edited by lbm1e14 on Sun Jun 25, 2017 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

Im travelling at the moment but it was in one of the releases about exceptions for singers.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

It also strikes me thatSpotlights criteria of 4 speaking roles has never been very relevant for dancers anyway.
lbm1e14
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by lbm1e14 »

GDADSTAXI wrote:Hi All,
Thanks for the great feedback sorry for the slow replies.
ISLANDOFSODOR - Thanks for the feedback on Hammond, nice to get an "inside" view. The contact hours thing I find very odd, why not advertise what you do. Gloucester were similar, the first replies I had from them indicated contact of hours of 14, but with all the other bits, one - to - one singe etc it come out at 22 hours. Which is not as good as some obviously but better than many.
You asked about my GD's aspirations. It is most definitely to perform. Her skill set is mainly singing (grade 6) and dancing (most disciplines but jazz and tap are her stand out ones). Acting I would say is her weakest but is very much dependent on the role (Return to the Forbidden Planet she hated, but Be My Baby she loved).
As to why we are looking at degree courses, to be honest we just thought seemed the most obvious route but I would welcome any advice. In all honesty we have not looked at Diplomas. Do you consider these a worthwhile option?
CAROLINE A-C
Thanks for the feedback on Arts Ed. It is certainly on the audition list. Interesting you mention your DS had not really danced before. Yesterday whilst at Trinity I was talking to one of the students about to go into second year and she said that she had no dance experience at all when she started. I had assumed, obviously wrongly, that students had to very proficient in all three disciplines. I guess trainability, personality and work ethic also play a massive part.
KZGIRL thanks for the insight on Chichester, we have an open day visit lined up so it is great to hear your feedback. I understand that they share tutors with GSA as well.

Once again thanks for your help
Just to clarify, this was the post I was referring to which says there are about 22 contact hours at The Hammond.

It's hard to come up with criteria for what constitutes a baseline level of training which qualifies as satisfactory for inclusion on the Spotlight database, but nor is it helpful if every course is somehow an exception. Parents and DCs need some sort of benchmark before they part with a fortune. As I said before I'm not singling out The Hammond as I know nothing about it. I was just using it as an example based on the post above which may be inaccurate. All I'm saying is that some sort of clarity and guarantee is needed that the place where our DCs are training will give access to Spotlight. Maybe the whole announcement was a waste of time and will not impact any training establishments at all.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

That post refers to the hours at Gloucester (an institution I know nothing about but one that GDADSTAXI has obviously been in contact with.)

Hammond's degree course is four full days (the 5th bring the time the students need for academic work & individual practice). Hammond already have a diploma course which is pretty much 5 full days from what I've seen. There is a difference in the two courses (hence my questions to gdads taxi - my own daughter will be auditioning for the diploma course even though she is academic. I myself went to Wolverhampton but I never had any aspirations to perform, I wanted to teach & work in arts admin, my husband on the other hand trained at a music Conservatoire as a singer (far more practical but still a lot of times where students were expected to spend considerable time on private practice.) I think that's a big difference between dance/drama & singing training. Dancers are expected to be in class, singers & musicians can achieve more in a 1:1 situation in far less hours (the 1:1 hours at my uni would still have been woefully inadequate for an aspiring performer though.

For both courses there are times of the year when those hours far exceed those (in the run up to productions for example).

My husband has taught at several big name colleges & what concerns me (as a parent) is the fact that ex colleagues are now reporting much much bigger class sizes. At a recent meeting with Hammond where they were advising our year 10 children on where to apply in September they also said that we should ask questions not just about graduate destinations but percentages of those gaining work & agents (some dancers choose not to have agents though apparently.)
Last edited by islandofsodor on Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
lbm1e14
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by lbm1e14 »

Apologies. Sloppy reading by me :oops: but let's substitute Gloucester for The Hammond in my comments above. My point still stands. It is not clear which courses from which institutions will give Spotlight/Equity access. Clearly the main London colleges certainly meet the criteria. The issue is around other institutions who are not giving the contact hours or industry exposure and agent showcases. Most of the active contributors to this forum no doubt have DCs at institutions where it won't be problem but there are many who read this forum who need to be aware that these criteria exist and they need to be sure before committing That was really the aim of my post.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

I didn't even know Gloucester did an MT course. I think there is a place for these courses but there are clearly some institutions that are more of a Conservatoire & some that are definitely a Uni.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

lbm1e14 wrote:It is not clear which courses from which institutions will give Spotlight/Equity access. Clearly the main London colleges certainly meet the criteria. The issue is around other institutions who are not giving the contact hours or industry exposure and agent showcases. Most of the active contributors to this forum no doubt have DCs at institutions where it won't be problem but there are many who read this forum who need to be aware that these criteria exist and they need to be sure before committing That was really the aim of my post.

Back at the start of my husband's teaching career (he unfortunately found that performing as a classical singer on the whole didn't fit very well with a wife & baby based in the midlands) he used to teach secondary aged students. One girl failed to get into drama school & instead was all set to accept a place at uni. He felt that this would not get her the training she needed to get her where she wanted to be & persuaded her to take a year out. 12 months later she was accepted to Bristol Old Vic.
fatladysings
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by fatladysings »

Yikes - always a problem! I was really happy when Hammond said that they will be doing a final year showcase for their graduating BA students which agents will attend (this already exists for the Diploma students) - I didn't even give a thought to Spotlight or know much about it. It seems, as people have already noted in this threat, that if you are at one of the 'recognised' establishments eg Bird, Laine, GSA, Mountview, Arts Ed, Central etc etc you will definitely get inclusion in Spotlight at the end of it. My DD is likely to be going to Hammond in September so I am always eager to hear anything about it, good and bad alike. What with the Hammond BA course being the newest it is very difficult to really know where it is going to fit into the 'hierarchy' in the long term. I thought that Hammond BA would be likely to be a similar standard to ALRA and they are on the accredited list.

For people whose DC are going to Hammond this September I wonder if we ought to be contacting them 'again!' to ask about the Spotlight situation. Hammond is pretty well known so I would hope that in the long-term they would be striving to try and get up into the top group but I don't suppose accreditation happens over night anyway. I guess a course has to have been running a while before they are even considered.

I have just been on the Spotlight website and you either have to have 4 or more professional credits in featured speaking roles in full-length film, TV or theatre or as an alternative have graduated with a minimum of a year's training from a full-time accredited drama school or course. Most people aren't likely to have had four professional featured speaking roles before coming out of drama school so the latter option is very important.

Interesting I went to Weston-Super-Mare last Friday to watch the Weston College (Bath Spa) perform their annual showcase and I was pleasantly surprised. It featured performers from the age of 16 in BTEC Level 2 right up to the graduating BA students. Interestingly not everyone on the course was in it by a long chalk. My DD has a friend who has been on the Bath Spa MT course for a year and she had never even heard about the show!! not much good putting on something good unless everyone on the course is guaranteed some sort of inclusion unless it was a voluntary extra. I have no idea whether any agents were present - I doubt it but I was surprised by the number of really quite decent performances. Of course if they only pick the top 30% for example to appear in the end of year show it makes you wonder whether they are the 'exceptions' and the other 70% are 'the rule'. I don't think I know of any 'normal' universities which are accredited but I might be wrong. Certainly Chichester will be aiming for that I would have thought.
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

I doubt if agents were in attendance at that particular performance.

Agent showcases are done in a very particular way. Only final year students perform. They last for less than an hour (agents won't attend otherwise or will walk out if they are longer) & are usually followed by a reception where the CVs of graduating students are available.

What is also now becoming a thing (at Hammond so I guess at other colleges too) is that some agents are doing agent workshops where they come in & work with final year students. These have yielded excellent results apparently.
RosaMac
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by RosaMac »

The BA course at the Hammond is 22 contact hours a week. They do between 5-6.5 hours over 4 days. Also, the term starts at the end of September and they finish in May. The diploma students have approx 35 hours per week over 5 days and attend from early September until mid July. As far as I know the BA students will have an agents showcase but it will be separate from the diplomas and will only be in Chester. They will not travel to London. The issue we found is that a lot of the Agents consider the Hammond to be a dance school that produces dancers or dancer/singers and not MT performers. Whereas the colleges like Arts Ed, Bird etc produce triple threat performers.
2dancersmum
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by 2dancersmum »

I actually find this post quite disturbing that Hammond has been singled out and is being talked about as if it is not one of the 'recognised' colleges but some lesser institution. The BA course may be new but the school itself is celebrating 100 years currently and I am sure has many years of expertise in training its students and getting them out there in the industry and I am sure they will know full well what the requirements are for the degree students to have the same access to spotlight that the diploma students have.

It is quite right to point out the requirement of Spotlight membership - quite wrong to single out Hammond - especially just lumping all the courses into one as the original poster did. Diploma students basic hours are 8:45am to 6pm 5 days a week with optional exam classes before and after these hours and their terms are longer than many of the other colleges. The exception is MTA - but then they offer a 2 year course and their terms run rather differently as the college is run on a rather different model. Incidentally I only know about MTA because they are the only college that actively promote themselves on this forum.

As for Hammond showcases - agents are invited to all the showcases , not just the London one and they come into the college and run workshops. I also find the comments interesting that 'agents consider Hammond a dance school' as in dance circles it seems to be considered an MT school for triple threat performers. You will also find that the vast majority of agents that attend the various showcases (and other performances) are looking for the triple threat performers and clearly find them since the majority of students do get agent representation. It is often the dancer diploma students that do not get or do not accept agent offers and that is perhaps a reflection of the lack of dance agents present.

Hammond is a long established and reputable college with a good reputation. It is perhaps 'lesser known' or overlooked in favour of some of the larger institutions but I would suggest that this is due to geographical location and size (30 graduates a year on average prior to the degree course). It is not the only vocational college to have started offering degrees in recent years and I don't see why it is the only one getting the attention
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

And it's important to note that 30 graduates per year for the diploma does not mean class sizes of 30. It was explained to me at our pre applications meeting that the year group is split into smaller groups for classes.
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