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BFI Chairman Greg Dyke visits Brunel University

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Greg Dyke, former Director General of the BBC and current Chairman of the British Film Institute (BFI), visited Brunel University on Tuesday 2 November 2010 to meet with staff and students.

Greg met with Xavier Mendik, Director of the Cult Film Archive, to discuss how links with the BFI could be developed to endorse the Brunel-led Cine-Excess Film Festival, now in its fifth year, as well as incorporating the Cult Film Archive into the BFI’s catalogue.

Dyke also met with the authors and School of Arts academics, Max Kinnings and Matt Thorne, to learn about a pilot currently being developed by a the project group within the Creative Industries Collaborative Research Network. Soapopolis is an interactive internet drama which will be produced and performed by professionals, students and amateurs in the Green Screen Studio at Brunel. Online viewers will be invited to contribute to plot and character developments via the internet. The first pilot is due to air by February 2011.

Greg also met with Journalism lecturers Professor Julian Petley, Dr Sarah Niblock and Paul Lashmar to discuss the unique Journalism MA taught at Brunel. Talking with UG and PG Journalism students, Greg stated that the most important skill he had retained from his reporting days was the ability to speak and write with absolute clarity. This, he said, had been the catalyst to his evolving success as a popular leader of various businesses and institutions.

As a local lad from Hayes, Dyke covered the opening of Brunel’s Uxbridge campus when starting out in journalism for The Hillingdon Mirror some 40 years ago. Greg was astounded by the vast transformation the University had undergone since the 1960s.

Brunel looks forward to developing further links with Greg Dyke in the near future.