New MDX Studios production hub will prepare creative students for the workplace 

Head of Elstree Studios says Middlesex University’s pioneering vision offers “very special opportunity” for students and creative industries

The Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries has launched MDX Studios, bringing together its creative courses with a new production hub that has already hosted filming for Netflix, HBO and BBC shows on campus.

Industry guests, graduates and the council leader and the Deputy Mayor of Barnet joined staff and students for speeches in Grove Atrium outlining the Studios’ model of integrating employers into creative courses. This enables students to gain vital workplace skills and experience and opens avenues for graduate work.

Professor Gareth Williams, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, described how MDX Studios had started with partnerships with commercial film producers to offer students real-world, hands-on professional filmmaking experience.

Via location agency FilmFixer, the campus has hosted eight productions over the past year, making shows for HBO, Netflix and the BBC – two of them with production company Merman filming scenes for the comedy Youth, and the Amandaland Christmas Special.

The concept has expanded to cover all creative courses, and partnerships beyond job placements: such as Screen London Barnet, working alongside Barnet & Southgate College, Barnet Council and Troubadour Studios to increase content production and boost jobs in the borough; and collaborations benefiting Interiors students via an industry network.

“All this has led us to think about the Faculty in terms of a creative agency or a production hub, with skills and resources we could use commercially as well as for education,” Gareth said.

“We want every student to succeed academically and creatively, build the career they love, shape the profession, and serve their community. It means they learn and behave as professionals from day one, beginning their careers at the start of their studies, not when they graduate.”

Head of Studios at Elstree Studios Rebecca Hawkes, who holds an honorary doctorate from Middlesex, talked about the mutually beneficial relationship between international film and TV productions coming to the UK – bringing £5.8 billion in annual inward investment - and independent filmmakers offering originality and risk-taking and helping develop new talent.

MDX Studios is “part of how we make sure that when the next Hollywood production lands, it finds a workforce ready for it,” Rebecca said. “You won’t be learning a simulation, you’ll be working alongside professionals on real productions to real deadlines. You’ll be learning how a set actually runs.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Shan Wareing said MDX Studios is a way to fulfil both Middlesex’s mission as an anchor institution serving the local community, and to support the increasingly difficult transition into graduate work, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Speaking of her pride in alumna Martine Rose’s appointment at Balenciaga, and the launch of the From the Boys podcast series, made by William Ellis School pupils in collaboration with Middlesex, Professor Wareing said: “The arts and creative industries want the best and brightest to succeed. There are brilliant careers to be forged, brilliant stories to be told. By working together, we can shape those careers and bring those stories into existence.”

Stands showcased creative projects by Faculty students including proposals to remodel the foyer of East Finchley’s Phoenix cinema, a fashion runway inspired by cultures of Oceania at the British Museum, and the winning design for a bus-stop poster campaign on online violence against women and girls.

Master’s User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) Design student and Student Voice Leader Kristina Hagberg, who attended the launch, said that “bringing industry to the university is really important to us.” Having just completed a BA at Middlesex, she praised the university as somewhere that "everyone wants to connect to each other so that really helps you get the opportunities you need."

First year BA Games Design student Bruno Miguel said MDX Studios was “a golden opportunity to bridge the gap between industry and the academic. I’m passionate about games design and the technical side of the creation process, and I’d really welcome the opportunity to have those conversations with developers and studios.”

Find out more about MDX Studios at Middlesex University.