The Sound/Image Cinema Lab, Long Way Back (dir. Brett Harvey): developing working principles for crewing feature film production with higher education students

Since 2009, students, graduates and staff from the School of Film and Television at Falmouth University in the UK have collaborated with professional partners in the development and production of over 20 short and feature-length narrative and documentary films, within the Sound/Image Cinema Lab research centre. This article makes use of a Sound/Image Cinema Lab co-production with Cornwall-based production company o-region – Long Way Back, directed by Brett Harvey, released in 2022 – as a case study to demonstrate both the successes of, and the challenges faced by, the Lab within a higher education environment. Interviews with staff, students and professional crew participants are used to contextualise the principles of work-integrated learning, and the processes that have sustained institutional support for professionally led film production framed by pedagogic practice.