This is the video that gave me the idea for the film festival of short, one minute videos. It’s called Girl in Limbo and I think it’s beautiful.
What I find especially captivating is that the voice over is in Japanese, the girl’s native language, with subtitles in English. We could adopt this approach for some of our learners for whom English isn’t their first language. It would be great to include short films in Urdu or Swahili or Polish.
“I need film-makers,” I said to Hwa Young at our last meeting. “No problem,” she replied. “We’re holding a Short Film Fest at Mad Lab on Friday 2 Sept, come along and you’ll meet some of the directors and producers.” Fantastic!
So, at 17:30 I logged off, locked up and skipped down Oxford Road towards the Northern Quarter. The Film Fest started at 6pm and would go on until the stars popped up in the sky and the drunks stumbled around in the gutter.
First we watched some music videos and then some fascinating short films. I was particularly struck by a black and white film shot in Manchester called Voices. The writer/producer/director, Mat Johns from Zero Facility Films, was sitting on the floor behind me and when the film finished I congratulated him and was amazed to find out that he had produced it in 24 hours from start to finish. I gave him a copy of the Peripheral Vision PDF and we exchanged contact details.
Then, by sheer good fortune, the enigmatic Michael Barnes-Wynters, of Doodlebug fame, sat down next to me. I first met Barney at the Noise Lab launch in 2009 when I was scouting around for interesting events and people for the Just the Ticket project. You can see a tiny video of me at the launch here.
By 8pm our stomachs were rumbling and we headed off to Baekdu (by Shudehill Station), a Korean restaurant. It was full to brimming and we had to wait to get a table. We love the chef there: he always takes such care over his cooking and often presents the food himself with a huge smile. It was absolutely delicious. Here’s a photo of my chicken Bibimbap with an egg on top:
Today is the ‘Get Digital’ day for Adult Learners’ Week and I have organised two fab workshops for adults at Whitworth Art Gallery: book-making and iPad iTour.
Lucy May Schofield was the tutor for the bookmaking. Lucy is a consummate professional. She always arrives in plenty of time to set up the room. She brings all the necessary equipment for up to about fifteen participants. Her teaching style is spot on with lessons pitched at the right level and pace. I have received excellent feedback about her workshops, and her personal hand-made books are beautiful.
I first met Lucy when I attended one of her two day bookmaking courses at Hot Bed Press in the summer of 2010. I loved it! I made six or seven little books using folding, cutting and sewing techniques which I then used for my Level 3 Photography Diploma.
For the more experimental iPad iTour workshop, learners filmed some footage of the gallery on new iPad 2s then edited it down to a couple of minutes, added music or a voice over then watched their short film on a big screen. It was amazing to see what the learners produced after three hours, one of which was spent on a guided tour of the gallery. I have to admit that the new iPad 2 is a gorgeous, covetous, pretty little thing and makes my iPad 1 seem rather clunky and outmoded.
Anyway, the reason I’m telling you about this day, is because these two workshops have proved inspirational for the project idea, which is still forming in and around my head like a cumulus cloud on a sunny day.
I know that somehow the new bid will include bookmaking of some kind and the use of iPads to make films.
