INTERVIEW: Behind-the-scenes with award-winning Coventry filmmaker Luke Collins - The Coventry Observer

INTERVIEW: Behind-the-scenes with award-winning Coventry filmmaker Luke Collins

Coventry Editorial 20th Dec, 2020   0

AWARD-WINNING freelance filmmaker and media production lecturer Luke Collins hopes Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture will widen opportunities for local creatives.

Coventry-born writer, director and producer Luke Collins is still in shock after he won Best Breakthrough (Off Screen) at the 2020 Royal Television Society Awards for his film Swiped, a BBC New Creatives commission about a dating app set in the near future.

Luke, whose main influence for Swiped was Charlie Brooker’s Emmy award-winning Netflix series, Black Mirror, said: “I was so amazed to win and really want to thank Rural Media for supporting me with Swiped and my first film Cappuccino.”

Other major cinematic influences include film director David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network and Seven), English cinematographer Roger Deacons (1917, Blade Runner 2049 and Skyfall) and mafia screen classic The Godfather.




Luke grew up in Bedworth and attended Nicholas Chamberlaine School where he made his first film – a music video – at GCSE.

The 28-year-old, who lives in Leamington Spa, graduated in Media Production at Coventry University in 2014, and has since been invited back to work as a lecturer on the course. With Coventry the UK’s City of Culture next year Luke hopes more opportunities will arise for filmmakers and creatives in the city.


He said: “I was the first in my family to go to university and there was not a huge film scene for me to experience locally. I always try to give work-experience to graduates from the course.”

As well as continuing to work as a producer on the BBC New Creatives talent development scheme for young filmmakers aged 18 – 30, Luke is working on a couple of projects due to start in 2021. These include a fictional feature film exploring the relationship experience of twenty-somethings and a documentary into organised crime, filmed partly in Coventry.

More pressingly, what are Luke’s top festive film picks for Christmas? “It has to be Die Hard and Jingle All the Way!” he said.

Swiped is available on iPlayer here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p07fvnmq/new-creatives

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