Screenskills – LJMU Alumni – Shani Vizma

Well done to our Media Production Alumni student Shani Vizma who is forging ahead with her dream career in the film industry. Here is some of her interview from Skillset’s website. Full interview here;

https://www.screenskills.com/insight/case-studies/shani-vizma/

“Working in the screen industries was not an option in Shani Vizma’s home town. But thanks to persistence and some help from ScreenSkills she now works in visual effects in the film industry.

She watched all the DVD extras and behind the scenes footage of films when she was growing up in Corby in the East Midlands. But she says: “It’s a small town and the opportunities to work in film or TV just don’t exist.”

So she pursued her fascination with the industry by studying media production at Liverpool John Moores University, a course which has the ScreenSkills quality mark showing its relevance to a career in the industry.

Shani made a point of introducing herself to any guest speakers at university and emailing them. Eventually, a director from Hollyoaks offered her some work shadowing. “I very slowly started to build my network and made sure I met and spoke to as many industry professionals as possible. It was tough and took a few years of networking and odd jobs but eventually it paid off.”

I just knew ScreenSkills would help me on my path to my dream job…I never thought I’d get to work on such big films

Shani Vizma

 At university, she was part of a team who won a Royal Television Society drama award with their final year graduate film. And it was while she was still in Liverpool that Shani heard about ScreenSkills Trainee Finder work placement scheme. In 2017, she won a place on the scheme. That helped her move to London and to a job as a PA on the independent film, VS. Her second placement was on Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The placement was co-financed by Warner Bros. Creative Talent which, like Trainee Finder, offers masterclasses and networking opportunities. It was on Fantastic Beasts that Shani discovered the world of VFX.”