BAFTA hosts workshops for young film-makers in Birmingham
Two BAFTA-nominated film producers will be in Birmingham this week to host workshops designed to give budding young film-makers an insight into how to make movies.
Sol Papadopoulos and Roy Boulter will be at the Midlands Arts Centre (Mac) in Cannon Hill Park on Thursday (July 8) as part of a BAFTA tour targeting young film enthusiasts. It is presented by BAFTA in partnership with Screen West Midlands and Mac.
The first workshop will see Sol and Roy use their film Under The Mud as a case study to show how emerging talent and more experienced filmmakers can work together to make an acclaimed feature film.
Starting life as a community project, Under The Mud was written by a team of teenage writers from Liverpool and was described by The Guardian as the "maybe the best British film you'll never see".
The film was accepted to scores of film festivals world-wide, where the cast and crew rubbed shoulders with the likes of John Travolta and Control star Sam Riley. The producers, plus two of the young stars and writers of the film (Lenny Wood and Mick Colligan) will be in Birmingham to share their expertise and inspire emerging and established film-making talent to work together on similar projects.
A second workshop is aimed at more established filmmakers who want to master the art of using archive material. In 2008 they produced the critically-acclaimed visual poem, the film Of Time And The City, directed by one of Britain's greatest auteurs, Terence Davies.
The film, comprised entirely of archive film and video footage, was selected to play at a special 'out of competition screening' at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it received huge critical support. The film has so far been invited to over 75 film festivals winning awards and nominations including a BAFTA and a New York Film Critics Award.
It was also voted one of Time Magazine's top ten films of 2008. Sol and Roy will be joined by their Archive Producer on the project, Jim Anderson, to give a masterclass for filmmakers on the value of using archive, revealing how to source valuable material and how to coherently tell a story using footage taken from past and present.
Details:
Workshop 1
Under The Mud Filmmakers Workshop
Thursday July 8
10.30am-12.30pm
This session will be a How To workshop, focusing on getting the essential info you need to make a film. Using Under The Mud as a case study, Sol and Roy, along with Lenny and Mick, will talk you through the process, from writing the script and sourcing the cash to shooting and editing your film and getting it seen. This session will also include a brief screenwriting exercise.
Workshop 2
Of Time And The City Archive Masterclass
2.00pm-4.00pm
The producers and their archivist will talk about the value of archive, how a story can be hung around archive, how to source funding for such a project. They will also help budding archive filmmakers with any questions they have on how to source archive material itself.
Both workshops are aimed at 15-to-19-year-olds, but if anyone else is interested in attending, they should contact regions@bafta.org. The email address will be monitored up to and including the day of the workshops. To book a place at either workshop, contact regions@bafta.org.
