The books chosen by the panel are those that have made a personal impact on them, and are divided into 10 categories. These include "love, sex and romance", which features titles ranging from Jilly Cooper’s Rivals to Judy Blume’s Forever; "identity", which moves from Toni Morrison’s Beloved to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth; and "adventure", which includes Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.
Equally, though, the conceit that underlay Asterix would have been nothing without Uderzo. The challenge was to portray the age of Julius Caesar in a way that was true to the history and yet an utterly joyous recalibration of it. Brutality had to be portrayed as knockabout; a world of mud and gore and fire repainted in primary colours. Uderzo, who was colour blind, much preferred the clear line to any hint of shade, and it was that that enabled his drawings to redefine antiquity so distinctively in his own terms.
Watching it all from the back of the bus was Stosh Mintek, the 37-year-old chief executive of Ghetto Film School, an immersive high school film program that sponsored the London students’ trip to Los Angeles. G. F. S. , as it is often called, has been around since 2000, when it was established as an after-school summer program in the Bronx aimed at minority students. It has developed into a 30-month curriculum with programs in New York, Los Angeles and London. Fellows receive 1,000 hours of instruction in screenwriting, film production, animation and movie history.