Finishing my university experience on a high

Lia Saunders is a third-year BA (Hons) Digital Television Production student and the Commercial Director for the NaSTA Awards, which takes place at Ravensbourne 14-16 April.

From working abroad in Egypt as part of the COP27 conference, to playing an integral role in organising the large-scale NaSTA event, Lia has done everything she can to make her time at university an experience to remember.

We caught up with her to discuss what being involved in the NaSTA Awards means to her.

How did you get involved in the event and what is your role?

The event is being organised by Ravensbourne's society Creative Capital. I was one of the founding members of the society and have been on the committee ever since we launched back in October 2021.

We put forward the bid to host the NaSTA Awards at Ravensbourne last summer, so I was heavily involved in putting this together.

In terms of my role during the event, I'm the Commercial Director. This means I’m responsible for coordinating the schedule for each day and the running order, and also for overseeing the general aesthetics of the event.

What’s been the biggest challenge for you to organise the event?

Organising such a big event is something that none of us have done before. It’s been a massive learning curve, especially in terms of figuring out all the moving parts. There are so many things to think about, like all the timings of everything.

How did you create the theme for the event?

One thing we put forward as an idea in our bid was for the theme to focus on the history of the NaSTAs. This year is significant, as the event is celebrating its 50-year anniversary. 

We went down the whole glitz and glamour route quite instinctively, so the branding features a lot of gold colour; this theme runs throughout the whole event.

We looked at previous award ceremonies and we felt our theme really stood out from what had been done in the past.

We designed all the assets for the event too, like the actual branding, and thankfully, the team at NaSTAs were happy with our designs.

What does it mean to you personally to be involved in the event?

It’s a huge honour. If you’d have said to us a year and a bit ago when we launched Creative Capital that we’d be hosting such a prestigious event, we never would have believed you!

The fact that we’ve been able to support and sustain ourselves as a society is an achievement in itself.

To be able to host the event and to be so involved personally gives me a great sense of pride. We’ve all worked so hard to make this possible, and so it will be a really special feeling to see it all come to fruition. Honestly, right now, it doesn’t quite feel real.

As I’m in my third year, it will be a great way to round-off my university experience too, and to finish on a high.

What aspect of the event are you most looking forward to?

I’m really looking forward to the awards ceremony, as this is very much the highlight of the event – this will be a big adrenaline rush, I’m sure.

I’m also excited about the conferences, as this is an element of the event that hasn’t really been done before.

We attended the NaSTA Awards last year, and while there were talks from professionals, these were quite specific in focus. The conferences we have organised however, are much broader in terms of the topics they will be discussing. We hope it will be a great introduction to degree subjects related to film and media.