Support Our Mission

ESA needs you

Thank you for your interest in supporting our work. ESA exists to train young people from all backgrounds in the crafts, trades and technical disciplines that underpin our amazing UK creative sector. We also support the film and screen arts industries to find the skilled new talent they urgently need.

We are proud to be one of the only free, fully inclusive creative arts specialist schools. None of our students pay to come here. We train young people from all social contexts and we have higher than average numbers of creative young people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

The challenge we face is that the government funding we receive only pays for the delivery of the national curriculum and our foundational provision. All of the essential industry experience and specialist hands-on opportunities so vital to our students is provided for through donations and industry sponsorship. This gap between our state funding and the cost of what we provide to our students and trainees is around £300,000. Therefore we invite all our stakeholders, partners and wider community to support our work.

Thank you so much if you are able to give a regular financial donation, or a one off gift to support our work - we could not do what we do for our talented young people and our precious creative industries without your help.

Other ways to support ESA

As well as financial donations, there are also other ways to support the work we do:

  • Placements and Employer Engagements

Work placements and employment visits are incredibly valuable to our trainees as they facilitate credible industry experience, which is so important to creative employers. We are always seeking placements and employer partners in the following areas - art department, hair and makeup, costume, sound production, lighting design, runner, production assistant, grip, game design, virtual production, rigging, set installation, post production, warehouse and technical inventory. If you work in film, TV, theatre or the associated creative trades and crafts, and if you could provide some placements, work experience, professional mentoring or careers advice then please do get in touch with our partnerships team by emailing partnerships@esa.ac

  • In-Academy Lectures and Presentations


We call them EPICs [Elstree Presents Industry in Conversation]… These are presentations from working creative professionals. They provide students with invaluable insight into the realities of working in their chosen creative field. If you have expertise and experience from one of our specialist areas, then we would love to put you in front of some of our trainees so that they can meet and learn from a pro. So far, we have hosted talks from working art directors, script editors, screen technology innovators, producers, lighting designers and special effects supervisors. We have even had 2 Oscar winners present to our students. If you are a professional creative who might like to share your expertise in this way, please get in touch with our careers team by emailing careersadvisor@esa.ac

  • Kit and Equipment Donations (New or Used)


If you have technical kit which is either new or in reliable working order that could help us keep our training industry standard, then please consider donating it to ESA. So far, industry partners have donated cameras, lighting desks, dimmer packs, guitars, pianos, computer and monitors, staging and steel deck, scaffolding, dollies and tripods, speakers and microphones, paint, makeup, wigs, sewing machines and mannequins. If you have kit or technology that could be re-deployed to ESA, please get in touch with our partnerships team by emailing partnerships@esa.ac

  • Free Training and Workshops


Some of our specialist kit or more technical facilities require expert training. If you could offer certified or industry standard training for free then please let us know. Examples of free training provided to ESA include Black Magic camera operation and editing, black and ethnic hair and makeup, prosthetic special effects, barbery for TV, digital animation, Unreal virtual design and model making. If you think you could provide some free workshops or industry training, please get in touch with our partnerships team by emailing partnerships@esa.ac

  • Event Access, Trips, Theatre / Film Tickets


Cultural education is crucial when supporting young people to become artists and creative professionals. We take our students to music events, film premiers, gallery installations, live TV audience productions, festivals and theatre shows. We pay for a lot of these cultural experiences but we are always grateful for additional free opportunities. Examples of donated cultural experiences so far include the ‘IWillTell International Film Festival, BFI showcase, Visits to Panavision, ARRI warehouse, Sky Studios, Elstree Studios, BBC Elstree Studios, MOBO awards and a number of studio audience productions. If you can provide free tickets to cultural experiences, please get in touch with our trips team by emailing trips@esa.ac