Ffilmschool 2

Ffilmschool 2 began in Summer 2007. Here, rather than just working in schools for a week (as in Ffilmschool) we worked with one group of schools in the Briton Ferry Communities First area in Neath Port Talbot over a year. This project was supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Wales; the Film Agency for Wales; and Neath Port Talbot CBC.

You can download the Ffilmschool 2 research report here.

The aim was to provide the children with sustained opportunities to build their film-making skills and to experience non-narrative and non-mainstream films. The project also included several days of in-service training, as we wanted to build the teachers' confidence and familiarity with using film in the classroom.

Each class used 6 MacBook laptops and cameras, so that children could work in groups of normally no more than 5.

After some very short introductory projects in Summer 2007, we went on to work on poetry and film in the Autumn term, working with Cardiff performance poet Lloyd Robson. In these projects, Lloyd started by looking at poetry-writing techniques and I then looked at how images could be used as metaphors, before moving on to writing poetry, practising performance, and film-making.

This is an example from the adult writers' workshop 'Voices in the Vale': here, we had shown the writers a short montage film which they used as the basis of a poem, recording their poems into iMovie HD. They then filmed and edited completely new films based on their poems.

Paula's film




In the Spring, we focused on film and music, working with tutor Neil White from Community Music Wales.

We looked at examples of how sound and film worked together, using films such as Koyaanisqatsi, Bande à Part, and Man with a Movie Camera, before giving the children a film-making task.

In this example, from Llansawel Junior School, the children had been given a selection of closeup video clips to which basic motion had been added. We discussed what the clips might mean in terms of emotions, and then played the children a variety of unfamiliar music clips ranging from Miles Davies to Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, and asked the children what emotions or feelings those clips might evoke - and which music clip would work with which image.

Next, they chose four of the seven clips and created a piece of music (using Garageband) to go with those clips. Finally, using iMovie HD, they edited the clips to the music and added their own effects.

Volcano



Finally, in the Summer term it was up to the teachers to decide what kinds of projects they would like to do. In this example from Brynhyfryd Junior School, the children's task was to depict a kind of movement through music and film.

Falling



In the example below, from Ynysmaerdy Juniors, the task was to film a place in the local area and then to devise and record a script imagining conversations which could have taken place in that location.

The station



This group from Melin Juniors worked largely independently to produce a film giving their views about the local area.

Melin Rap



This final film is from the Year 7 class at Cwrt Sart Comprehensive School. These children wrote a monologue and composed music depicting their local park using metaphors.

The Park