As part of Welcome Week at London Film Academy, our new students had the chance to hear from LFA alumnus Will Tennant, Joint Managing Director and Head of Development at Imaginarium Productions.
Returning to LFA for a special Welcome Week masterclass and Q&A, Will shared his journey through the industry, from making short films as a teenager to working across development and production on projects including The Ritual, No One Gets Out Alive and Half Bad.
From LFA to the industry
Will first discovered his passion for filmmaking as a teenager, before coming to LFA and completing his Certificate 2 and later his Filmmaking Diploma which is now the BA (Hons) Filmmaking degree.
Reflecting on his time at LFA, Will said
After graduating, he took on a range of jobs, including editing wedding videos, working in post-production and becoming a runner on numerous film sets.
His advice to students
That approach eventually led Will into development at Icon Entertainment (now known as Icon Productions), where he spent four years reading scripts and learning about financing and what makes a film commercially viable. He later joined Imaginarium, founded by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, where he progressed from Development Executive to now Head of Development and Joint Managing Director.
Learning to see the bigger picture
Although Will originally wanted to direct, his career took him in a different direction.
Working across different areas of filmmaking helped him realise how much he enjoyed collaborating with other departments and shaping a project from the script stage.
For Will, a film is shaped at three key stages, explaining that
What makes a good script?
One of the biggest takeaways from Will’s Welcome Week Q&A was his simple test for deciding whether a script works.
For Will, being entertained doesn't necessarily mean laughing or being thrilled. It can mean being moved, feeling something or simply becoming completely absorbed in the story.
Passion and persistence
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Will’s biggest piece of advice was perhaps the simplest: keep making things.
For students starting their filmmaking journey at LFA, his message was clear: experiment, collaborate, make films and keep learning. Your first film, script or idea doesn't have to be perfect, the important thing is to keep making the next one.
Will’s Welcome Week masterclass gave our new students an honest look at the realities of working in film and TV, while reminding them that there’s no single route into the industry.
Applications are now open for our 2027 undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Find out more and apply here.