University of Derby graduate wins award for documentary on life of tattoo artist

A University of Derby Media Production graduate has scooped an award for his film which explores the life of a tattoo artist and the way in which tattoos are being woven into society today.

Alex Bridgewood’s short documentary, ‘Inked’, earned him the winning title in the News category of the Royal Television Society Midlands Student Awards 2020.

BA Media Production students at Derby owned the entire News category with the two other nominees were Jess Eady for her short film called 'LGBT for Idiots', which explored the views some hold about the LGBT+ community, and Joe Pettit’s documentary 'Pure Minds for Dummies', about piece meditation, mindfulness and finding inner peace in our frantic modern world.

Five other University of Derby projects created by Film Production and Media Production students were also nominated for awards in the Animation, Drama, Factual, Comedy and Entertainment, Short Form, Craft Skills: Sound, Craft Skills: Editing, Craft Skills: Writing, and Craft Skills: Camera categories.

Alex’s ‘Inked’ documentary was his third Royal Television Society Student Awards nomination after last year being nominated for an award based on his documentary which tackled the difficult journey of one man's return from drug addiction.

Alex, who produced 'Inked’ as part of his degree at Derby, said: “During my time at the University of Derby I was always encouraged and motivated by the course lecturers to put my best work out there

“Now that I have been given this award it just goes to show that when you put your mind to it anything is possible.

“I had a huge amount of help throughout this project including the tattoo artist, people who had been tattooed and were willing to be featured in the film, the camera crew and my lecturer Phil Basi for being an executive producer on the project.”

Phil Basi, Lecturer in Media at the University of Derby, added: "We're so proud of all the students who were nominated and particularly Alex Bridgewood for his win.

“The fact we had all three nominations in the News category and that this is our fifth Royal Television Society Student Award win since 2016 is a clear sign of the consistent quality of our students' productions.

“We are always challenging our students to push themselves to achieve greatness through their work and we aim to be back again next year with more nominations to continue our run of success."

The winners of the RTS Student Award were announced by Sir Lenny Henry in an online ceremony. 

Watch Alex Bridgewood’s video ‘Inked’ here.

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