UCL films at Lord Mayor's Show

UCL entered a float featuring films made by the UCL community in the Lord Mayor's Show on 8 November. The incoming Lord Mayor, Ian Luder, is a UCL Economics graduate.

Designed and organised by the UCL Bartlett School, the float consisted of a giant LCD screen showing a specially made video about UCL, and accompanied by 20 students from BSc Architecture Year 1.

Nic Clear (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture) worked with a former Unit 15 student, Michael Aling, to produce a short animated film that outlines the history of UCL.
The text and images that make up the narrative of the film were 'mapped' into the spaces of UCL, so that the story comes alive within the buildings of UCL itself. This effect was achieved by using post-production techniques that enabled the creation of a 'virtual' UCL from photographs of the existing building. The film makers then animated and transformed the spaces of the building.

Additional films by current Unit 15 students Richard Bevan, Nancy Ni Bhriain and Keiichi Matsuda were also shown. These demonstrated the achievements of eminent UCL alumni throughout the years, the many groundbreaking landmarks of the university's history and featured interviews with current students about why they were attracted to UCL.

Nic Clear runs Unit 15, a postgraduate architecture unit at the UCL Bartlett that specialises in using film, video and animation in the generation, development and representation of architectural ideas and spaces. Unit 15 has been using moving image for more than ten years and many student films have been shown at international film festivals and won numerous awards and prizes. A recent Unit 15 student, Nicholas Tayler, is being exhibited as part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the Liverpool Biennale.

Images: stills from the film by Nic Clear and Michael Aling outlining UCL's history