I founded the independent film school movement in South Africa: The Cape Town International Film School in 1980 – largely because I wanted to teach film and because there were no other film schools in South Africa apart from Pretoria Technikon, where I had studied. The flourishing film industry in the Western Cape is partly as a result of my endeavours in film education and training.
I pioneered the highly technical ‘negative film-to-video’ process in South Africa in the early 1980s (previously, this required a costly, low-contrast television transmission print);
Between 2003 and 2007, I developed and implemented a unique, high quality, practical group-work process for tertiary motion picture education where each student is an equal participant and is required to write, produce and direct a graduation programme and act as crew on two additional colleague graduation programmes to qualify. This process proved to be very successful: Crew focus was high throughout; all programmes (of broadcast quality) were produced with limited equipments, on very tight budgets and within very tight production schedules. (Traditional approaches to group work in tertiary education are generally characterised by participant conflict.)
The “John Hill Film Award” for Best Film of the Year: An award presented by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology to students making the best film of the year. The award was named after me in recognition for my work in developing the programme over 30 years. The ward was presented for the first time in 2012.