2010

Film Cuts Club

A lunchtime club at Glossopdale school – making a stop motion animation.Glossopdale Film Cuts Club started meeting on Friday lunchtimes in October 2010, in the Learning Support classroom. The group is made up of around 8 core members with others dropping in to help when needed, for instance giving feedback on our ideas.The project aims to provide activities including animation techniques, creative writing, acting, technical skills in camera work, directing and editing on computer.Employing a film maker who is experienced in community workshops, they have a good understanding of the issues the young people face. They structure the sessions to build on social interaction, peer support, team working and sharing a common goal. Shooting frames, final scene

In the early sessions we developed a storyline which included ideas from every member of the group, and worked on the groups dynamics.Squeezed into a lunchtime these sessions offered barely more than 30mins of productive time, so when we were given the chance to use a MediaBox bursary in December – thanks to Kim Johnson from Derbyshire County Council – we added a new session on a Tuesday afternoon with animator, Alex Kelly, from Stockport College. These sessions ran through to early February, with activities divided between fabrication of the scenery and characters, script writing, audio recording and shooting of the animation frames. Due to time constraints Alex took the footage, audio and chosen soundtrack and put it together into the finished film.

Using iStopMotion The group continued to meet on Friday lunchtimes to carry on with their Arts Awards, with Andrew working towards Silver, and Lee and Paige working towards Bronze.

Some additional sessions with extra participants were planned for Andrew to complete his leadership project.

At times it was stressful, I felt like we weren’t really going anywhere, people were holding everything up, but um, in the end after some swift and um discipline, as you can imagine, we eventually, well we didn’t manage to finish all of the 6 scenes that we planned to do, but we did most of them, which is generally enough to say that we’ve done it! This is something that we can show and be proud of.

Andrew, on his leadership project

The Dark Devil was screened, along with a few others, at “Short Cuts” on 17th March, 7pm at The Studio Theatre, Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre.

As part of the MediaBox bursary scheme it was also included on the Derbyshire County Council DVD ‘Parachute’, and screened at the Donut Centre, Chesterfield.

[Show as slideshow]

$Shooting frames from Caxkj\'s scene$

Project of the Stars

The project began as a plan for a film project with members of the ‘Making Rainbows’ service at Grapevine Project, Buxton – a mental health support charity. It took a while to find funding and when the workshops ran over an intensive period in summer 2010, we drew young people from across Buxton.
Our project team worked in drama and creative writing, camera work, directing, animation, music, scoring and video editing – and created a 10 minute film called “What Have I Done?” – a thought provoking piece about tough choices, making mistakes and facing up to reality.
(They worked with professional artists: Actor and Theatre Worker, Tammy Foley; Film Maker, Mat Johns; Animator, Paul Devereaux; and Musician, Aidan Jolly.) Since the project, three people are now working towards their Arts Award (Silver), one has shot some short films at home and another has been offered a MediaBox Bursary to start a film group at his school – see “The Marcus Project”.

Marcus Project

The Marcus Project has been an opportunity for one member of the Project of the Stars team to use a MediaBox bursary to build a team of film makers at his school. They have written, directed, filmed and edited a short film about power and corruption. This has been good progression for Cameron, who had the support of Mat Johns again, but took on more responsibility for the direction of the film. He and the others, Matt and Dom, are now working towards their Silver Arts Award.

Hope Valley Music Making

Hope Valley Music Making

Following a successful bid to the Foundation for Youth Music, Hope Valley College worked with High Peak Community Arts on a two year programme inspired by the celebration of the school’s 50th anniversary.

Phase 1 ran from January to May 2009 and worked collaboratively with a grant given by Performing Rights Society Foundation to commission Ornette Clennon in a new composition to celebrate the school’s 50th Anniversary. He worked with the Choir and Big Band to develop a work of three movements, which uses their ideas and allows for key parts to improvise sections of their input. The piece, “Tell me wha’ gwan, blood”, was performed at the National Schools Competition, 3rd April and the school’s 50th Anniversary Concert, 22nd May 2009.

Phase 2 identified a number of pupils from across the school who were interested in learning to lead groups themselves. Initially there was a taster day in June 2009 for anyone interested to find out more about the training. This was followed by three full training days to explore the techniques for leading groups, the creative content to be used and how to address practically the issues of the Code of Practice, promoted by Youth Music. From this training there emerged two lead trainees and up to nine assistant trainees, who formed two teams going out to the Primary Schools of the feeding cluster.

Phase 3 started around Christmas 2009 when the teams ran after school sessions in three primary schools; Edale, Eyam and Great Hucklow. At first they taught songs to the groups and then use tools and activities to generate new music. The trainee teams then took the ideas generated and worked them into a final composition which they took back into the schools to teach for the big performance on 25th May 2010. It was an exciting time for those taking part, and with such a spread of age groups there is real opportunity for the programme to have a lasting legacy at the school.

In tandem with phase 3 there were 4 modules of new activity going on at Hope Valley College. These were designed as open sessions to encourage more of the college’s pupils to access extra curricula music activity at the school. The modules were: Music Production; MCing and lyric writing; West African Drumming and VJing. They joined forces with the primary schools’ teams to perform together on 25th May.

The performance showed the energy of a highly creative project, driven by the young people involved.

High Peak Community Arts

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