All good things must come to an end…..

With the end of the tax year looming the Young Shoots project is now coming to an end. Here is a summary of the project and its achievements:

Schools

Our aim was to recruit 10 primary schools and 2 secondary schools and we now have 10 primary schools and 3 secondary schools regularly holding film clubs. One school launched in October with the majority fo schools launching after half term in November. Four more schools started their film clubs in January and the last school to join the project, launched in February.

Audience numbers:
The average attendance at our film clubs is 23 children per film club. Most film clubs are targeted at Key Stage 2 children, with one school showing films to Key Stage 1, three of the smaller schools, opening their clubs up to the whole school; the Secondary school clubs were held for Key Stage 3 children.

How often:
Seven film clubs meet and show films every week. At one school they watch the film one week and review it the next. Two clubs show films on a fortnightly basis, one shows a film every month and one holds a screening every term.

Film choices:
Film choices reported by primary schools at the end of the project included, ‘Fungus the Bogeyman’, ‘The Neverending Story’, ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Hoodwinked’, ‘Over the Hedge’, ‘The Jungle Book’, ‘Bugsy Malone’, ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’, ‘Ice Age 2’, ‘Bee Movie’, ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’, ‘Up’, ‘Monsters vs Aliens’, ‘The Curse of the Wererabbit’, ‘Two Brothers’, ‘Happy Feet’, ‘War Games’, ‘Totoro’ and ‘The Iron Giant’.

Secondary schools showed films such as ‘The Sting’, ‘Teenwolf’, ‘The Incredibles’, ‘Metropolis’, ‘The Terminal’ and ‘G-Force’.

Despite our efforts to encourage schools to show more adventurous films the list above is mainly made up of mainstream choices however as our clubs have been running for a maximum of 4 months it may be that once they are more established the film club leaders might start to encourage a greater diversity of film….One school that did do this with choices such as ‘Out of Africa’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ are Lord Scudamore and in March they were nominated as a FILMCLUB Star School for ‘uniting, engaging and challenging young minds through the power of film’. Scudamore will receive special Star Club posters and be invited to a celebratory Star Day in London!

Youth Clubs

We wanted to recruit two youth clubs to join the Young Shoots project to hold at least two film screenings between October and March. We did this by initially emailing all the youth clubs RMC’s youth team had worked with. Later on we sent an email to the Head of the Youth Service at Herefordshire Council, who spread the word amongst Council employed youth workers the region.

We recruited Hinton Youth Club in July 2009 and the Y Zone in Ross in September 2009. Both of these settings have worked with Rural Media on previous projects and both youth workers attended our first induction on September 24th. Young Shoots worked with Herefordshire Library to make their collection of rental DVDs accessible to our two youth clubs.

By the end of the project both youth clubs had held screenings and the Y-Zone The youth forum based at the Y Zone applied to the Youth Opportunities Fund for money to buy screening equipment enabling them to run independently when Young Shoots ends. The youth forum were successful in their application and are awaiting delivery of their equipment.

Villages

Another of Young Shoots’ aims was to set up four one off events in rural villages that run Flicks in the Sticks screenings. We hoped to facilitate two events targeting 8-12 year olds and two events for 13-19 year olds. These sessions aimed to introduce young people to the magic of film and filmmaking and to engage them with the Flicks screenings that happen in their villages all year round.

The events we held were:

Saturday 21st November, Micheaelchurch Escley : Screening of ‘Wallace and Gromit- The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ followed by a claymation workshop for 8-12 year olds.

Saturday 23rd January, Ewyas Harold: Screening of ‘Coraline’ followed by a claymation workshop for young people aged 10 and over. This screening was targeted at young teenagers to enable us to attract an audience from the local primary school and the film club based at the high school which involved Years 7 and 8.

Saturday 27th February, Ledbury Market Theatre: Screening of ‘Let the Right One In’ followed by horror filmmaking workshop for 15 -19 year olds.

Saturday 6th March, Little Dewchurch: Screening of ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ followed by a claymation workshop for 7-12 year olds.

All of the people based in the villages were extremely enthusiastic and supportive of our efforts to get young people into their venues to watch and make films; despite their best efforts however the events for under 12s were much more successful than those for teenagers. In Michaelchurch Escley the youth club leader recruited our audience and in Little Dewchurch the school secretary sent our flyer home in the children’s book bag ensuring the popularity of this event. We did have teachers and youth workers promoting our events directly to the older children but it seems that the teenagers just did not have the energy to get out of bed on a Saturday morning!

In conclusion

The Young Shoots project has been extremely successful in that it has given us the opportunity to explore how young people in a rural county can be given greater access to film, we now hope to use our findings to extend and improve this provision in the future.

We would like to thank everybody who has been involved and supported this project!

Young Shoots school invited to be a FILMCLUB Star!

With the end of the Young Shoots project looming, we were thrilled to find out on Friday that the hard work of one of our schools has been recognised by FILMCLUB.

Lord Scudamore Primary School in Hereford has been one of most enthusiastic participants and they’ve created a filmclub that is really valued by their pupils – prompting one 11 year old to nominate the school for Star school status. As a Star Club, Lord Scudamore Primary School represents all that the FILMCLUB inititiative was designed to achieve – uniting, engaging and challenging young minds through the power of film.

The film club at Lord Scudamore is exceptional because from the start the staff have done all they can to recreate a relaxed and exciting cinema experience. They have purchased bean bags for the children to sit on, found black out curtains for the windows and provide snacks for the audience to enjoy whilst they watch a diverse range of film including mainstream animations like ‘Hoodwinked’, documentaries such as ‘An Artic Tale’ and classic cinema like ‘Its a Wonderful Life’ and ‘Out of Africa’. Parents are kept informed of screening choices via weekly newsletters with a synopsis and the films BBFC rating.

If Lord Scudamore choose to become a Star Club (which we hope they will do) they’ll receive special Star Club posters and an invitation to our fantastic celebratory Star Day in London!

Young Shoots schools update

On Thursday 26th November we brought the schools involved in the Young Shoots project together to share their experiences so far. We also sought to move the project forward by exploring the opening sequence of ‘Bugsy Malone’ to help develop the film club leaders’ cineliteracy skills.

Here is an update on how our schools have been getting on setting up their after school film clubs. I don’t think any of them have done as much planning as Mr Warner but they’ve all made a great start!

Opening titles

8 out of the original 14 schools we recruited at the beginning of term have launched their film clubs with screenings of ‘The Labyrinth’, ‘Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey’, ‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest’, ‘Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the WereRabbit’ (primary) and ‘The Great Escape’, ‘The Return of the Ring’ and ‘The Incredibles’ (secondary).

Adventurous choices

As we advised, most of the clubs launched with a crowd pleaser, however one teacher involved the children in the decision making from the start by ordering a Buster Keaton collection, ‘The Secret of Moonacre’ and ‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest’. He showed a small group of children the first ten minutes of each film and after a discussion about a potentially controversial breast feeding scene, the children chose the brilliant, French animation ‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest’ for their first screening – and it was a great success!

Other leaders have also started to make more adventurous film choices, one primary school introduced the documentary ‘An Artic Tale’ and a secondary teacher challenged her audiences’ preference fantasy films by showing ‘Somers Town’ which gives an insight into the experience of an Eastern European migrant.

Recreating the cinema experience

All of the schools that have launched their clubs have worked hard to make their screenings as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. Sweets and snacks are being served, black out material is draped over windows and audiences are being seated on cushions and beanbags!

What next?

There are still 7 schools that need to get their film clubs off the ground and we hope that they will do so after Christmas. One of the 7 schools only joined the project this month and with a very enthusiastic PTA member as its leader we are eager to see how this film club will get on compared to the other clubs that are all run by teachers.

In the new year we also want to expand our schools’ experience and understanding of film even more by facilitating two practical filmmaking sessions….Watch this space for the results!

Village screening and workshop for children in Michaelchurch Escley

On Saturday 21st November we held our first Young Shoots event for children in the village of Michaelchurch Escley. Michaelchurch Escley is a hamlet approximately 12 miles from Hereford lying in the foothills of the Black Mountains in the Golden Valley. The surounding area is a mix of farmland, woodland and small village communities.

The village hall in Michaelchurch Escley regularly holds film screenings for adults but on this particular Saturday 35 children and families took their seats, the blackout curtians were drawn and the screen descended from the ceiling for a screening ’Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the WereRabbit’. Children from the local youth club and primary school chose this film from a shortlist of three and even though many had seen it before, they were excited and eager to watch it on the big screen.

Once the screening had finished, some of the children stayed behind to have their lunch and take part in an animation workshop. 15 young people had booked a workshop place and many more were motivated by the film to stay on so that in the end over 20 young people aged around between 8 and 15 had a go at making their own claymations. The children worked in groups of four to make models and animate them using Mac laptops, XM2 cameras and I Can Animate software. You can watch some of the finished animations below.

Our first village event was a great success with many of the attendees asking when their would be further screenings for families and filmmaking taster sessions. Showing the film first motivated the audience so that those taking part in the workshop were brimming with ideas and enthusiasm!

We would like to thank Angela Bennett (Flicks in the Sticks) Gareth Jones (Michaelchurch Escley Youth Club), Debbie Barker (Michaelchurch Escley Primary School), Peter Lewis and Peter Selby (Michalechurch Escley Village Hall) and Lyn Cowles for all of their in organising this event.

What makes a great children’s film?

As discussed in my previous post ‘Could you choose ONE great film’ we were and still are, finding it quite difficult to select films for our village events which will attract a younger audience but will also offer something different.

In the office everybody has their own recommendations which makes me crave a checklist defining a great children’s film which we could use to make our selections! Do we go for something mainstream, classic, independent or some world cinema?

After being disappointed by Wes Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ I am once again disillusioned by what Hollywood produces for children. In ‘The view: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T and other great lost children’s films’ Danny Leigh recommends some lost classic films that could offer an alternative to the mainstream offer - although I’m not sure I can trust his judgement after he swooned over FMF!

FMF also prompted Darren to ask Have we stopped making children’s films for children? I think we shouldn’t shy away from films with darker themes such as FMF and the upcoming ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ but we must ensure that the film is written for children. FMF was all about Wes Anderson making his verison of a favourite childhood tale. I don’t feel he gave the younger audience the film was obviously going to attract any consideration. I felt the dialogue and the pace of the film were too quick for children follow, understand or relate to. The many cries ‘I don’t get it!’ from the auditorium confirmed my opinions that this film just did not work for children.

The Alternative Films for Kids blog does what it says on the tin by recommending classic, independent and world cinema for children; this is a great resource that I’ll definitely keep an eye on. For our one off village events however I do wonder if we’ll draw an audience in with a film they haven’t heard of….

Could you choose ONE great film?

The Young Shoots project is progressing well. Our schools are all organising themselves ready to launch their film clubs after half term, we will be supporting Leominister Library to hold two film clubs in their venue and one of our youth clubs has held its first screening of ‘Camp Rock’ to a group of 19 enthusiatic teenage girls!

We have also booked in all of our four village events where we are going to show a film and hold a practical filmmaking workshop for young people. Our next challenge however is to select just one film for 8-12 year olds and one for 13-19 year olds that is going to inspire them to want to part of future screening events in their villages.

We have had some discussions about possible choices and consulted the likes of the BFI’s Watch This list of the top fifty films all children should watch by the time they are fourteen, to ensure that these events don’t become ‘one film wonders’ we are keen to get this right!

Suggestions so far have included:

For 8-12 year olds:

E.T

The Princess Bride – great film but will the title alienate boys?

Coraline

For 13-19 year olds

Juno

Let the Right One In

Persepolis

Any suggestions that fit the brief of being able to attract a crowd and expand our audiences horizons would be most gratefully accepted!

A successful induction for schools!

On Thursday we held our induction session for schools where we aimed to introduce them to the Young Shoots project and secure their membership of FILMCLUB. By the end of the session we were hoping that our 20 teachers would leave knowing how to set up and maintain an after school film club, would have some ideas for encouraging young people to explore a wider range of film and would be ready to try introducing and discussing their film selections  – I think we were successful in furnishing them with  this information!

FILMCLUB provided us with a range of promo material and the film clips we showed clearly demonstrated FILMCLUB’s commitment to providing access to a diverse range of film which was backed up by the selection available on the FILMCLUB website. Free publicity materials for the schools plus the promise of funding for things like popcorn machines and black out curtains secured the teachers enthusiasm for the FILMCLUB service, we hope that they carried that enthusaism back to their schools and we are now awaiting dates for the launches of their new after school clubs.

We were lucky to receive support from Herefordshire Council’s Children’s Services who paid supply costs so that the teachers could attend the induction. We hope to catch up with our teachers and youth club leaders again with a meeting after school in November and hope that despite the fact there will be no FILMCLUB goodies or money offered for supply that our teachers will be keen to share their experiences, get some ideas to help them do more film analysis with their audience and find out how they can utilise the filmmaking workshops we are also offering them through Young Shoots.

All in all the recruitment of schools has gone well. It has required a lot of emailing and phoning schools to get them to commit to the induction and then complete their FILMCLUB paperwork but we got their in the end! We had a couple of schools that expressed concerns about the project’s focus on  watching film which shows that some teachers do not value watching film as much as they do filmmaking – although clearly you need to do the former to be successful at the latter! One school even pulled out over this point but luckily the other one with concerns did attend the induction and was fully converted! We had two schools who couldn’t attend the induction and so I offered to visit them instead which was taken up by one of the schools, and we had one school that turned up at the induction who we weren’t expecting as I hadn’t heard from them since July!

Now it is just a case of letting them get on with it. I’m looking forward to visiting schools to attend their their first film clubs and hearing about how they have got on after a month. Watch this space for the update!