Young Carers - Tonbridge

Brilliant, funny, creative, intelligent - we did two workshops with the Young Carers in Tonbridge, one filming, the other they created their storyboard, decided what they wanted cut in and out of the final film and designed their own credits which they filmed on super 8. Many thanks to Beth for organising and hosting the sessions.

Age Concern and Young Carers

It's a shame but the young carers and age concern clients just couldn't be together for their workshop. They operate at very different times of the day and with the best will in the world it just was not practical.

However I went and spoke to the clients of Age Concern in West Malling and filmed them talking about their leisure time when they were young and what time means to people, young and old. I've never met a more chatting, noisy, gregarious group of people.

I showed the young carers the footage from the clients of age concern and the final film will be taken back to Age Concern for a screening. The two groups will meet through the medium of the moving image.

Edenbridge Workshop - No. 3

A little disappointed that there weren't any young people last week and also Rose couldn't turn up, we've scheduled another workshop for half term. This time audrey has coajoled any young people hanging around the estate to turn up for the workshop and we are unindated with them. Roly and his friend turn up spurred on by the opportunity to browse through the photos from the Museum.











It's brillant, there's chat about the really important stuff, about why older people feel intimated by younger people who hang around street corners, what the young people feel about older people and what it's like to be young today. Their issues at the end of the day turn out to be similar ones to those as the older people. You'll have to see the film to find out what was discussed.

Edenbridge Visit No.2

2nd visit to Edenbridge today. Not hopeful that the young people will be there, but at least Roly and Rose will be. Pick up Laura and we head to the Eden Valley Museum to borrow their pictures of the high street at the turn of the 20th Century. This tool was put together by Jane as a way for people to see the change over the last 100 years of the types of shops that have inhabited Edenbridge.

When we get to the community centre, only Roly is there, but we film him talking through the photos and remembering incidents and memories from his life growing up here as a boy. He also plays a couple of tunes on his harmonica which is great and will make an excellent soundtrack from the Edenbridge cut of the film.

Edenbridge Workshops - No.1

Audrey Batechlor is a star. She's the stalwart of the Spittals Cross Estate, ditto for Jane Higgs who runs the Eden Valley Museum.

My first workshop at Edenbridge is with a couple of young people and Roly and Rose, two older people who live in the village, both are brillant. It's a little strained at first, two young people sitting around a table with older people who they've never met before, and coupled with the fact this person who turns up calls themselves an artist and gets them talking about what they think of each other and then asks them to interview each other film and video!

Some lovely comments when the young boy asks Roly what he used to do when he was younger, as it's boring in Edenbridge and nothing to do, he was looking for guidance! Roly talked about playing in the fields and woods pretending to be robin hood or game of cowboys and indians. But ultimately Roly gained cool points when he announced that nowadays he has a Sony WII and plays on that occasionally.

To be continued next week.....

The follow up workshop at Harmony

The footage everyone shot at the first workshop was great. The super 8 proved a hit. Holding a heavy camera that made a noise everytime you pressed the trigger, not recording any sound and having to manually zoom and focus each shot demanded concentration.

At the second workshop we concentrated on a more formal interviewing style, with the younger ones in the hot seat this time, and Di and John doing the interviewing. Being drama enthusiasts, they loved the camera and a few really enjoyed the 'performance' element.

Harmony Workshop

It was great to get started with the first workshop at Harmony Variety Arts Club on January 22nd. A great turnout with 9 younger people and 2 from the older generation.

Harmony is a fantastic variety arts club run and setup by John Kingdom with help from volunteers and co-producers from the local community.

Di and John are stalwarts of the club and they already have a good relationship with the younger people but it was interesting for them to sit down and talk about their perceptions of each other.

At the first workshop, we sat and discussed the project and had a general chat about the perceptions they held of each other and then I introduced the media to them, video and super 8. This was framed in the context of time and how they represent time. We talked about fast forward, freeze frame, rewind and slow motion, making comparisons to each might conceptualise time.

They then split into groups and set about interviewing each other about their lives, using the different technologies.

A well overdue update

It's been a while since I posted, but it's a taken a long time to get the groups organised with suitable dates for everyone. Workshops were scheduled for December in Edenbridge then cancelled and at the beginning of the year for Harmony but then the snow and a major power cut but us back a couple of weeks. Getting young people and older people together at the same time has also proved challenging, along with an ambitious project remit.

However, some good things have happened. A connection with the Hawkhurst Community Partnership and Kino Hawhurst, a working group for their annual film festival and a link with Angley School means that the films will hopefully get a showing at the Flixs and Pixs Film Festival in May at Kino Hawkhurst.