Our task was to create a 10 minute film that would be projected behind a dance performance, based on students response to the play.

10 students were split into 3 teams; a video production crew, a photography team and a graphic design team to create a logo and poster. We started by watching rehearsals of the dance troop, called Acting Up and brainstormed our ideas to fuse still portrait photography with video shot in a way that resembled early cinema.

Students were trained how to use our camera equipment before we spent 2 days shooting on the College’s grounds. The video crew compiled a rough cut for review by their tutors before refining and testing with the dance troop in situ. ‘Naissance’ is agreed as the title of the film and after last minute colour grading, the movie was exported for projection on the opening night.

The performances ran twice each night during Travelling Light’s run at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre. The film blended well with the live peice; vivid fast-paced action to complement the high energy moves and a subtle backdrop during moments of poignancy. The audience in the theatre’s Second Space (which seats 100) loved it – it was received with rapturous applause and left the students elated!

As proud hosts of Buckinghamshire’s very own short film festival, we are delighted to announce this year’s festival programme. The festival takes place on Saturday 12th May 2012 from 10am to 11pm.

The Short Cuts Film Festival is Buckinghamshire’s very own celebration of new short films and great filmmaking from every corner of the British Isles.

The festival is a day long event held at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield and features 5 screenings chock-full of homegrown cinematic goodness. And since the films are from every genre imaginable, there’ll be something in the mix to satisfy a whole world of tastes!

The event wraps with a Competition Screening of shorts made by local filmmakers.

See the full programme and book your tickets on the Short Cuts webpage here.

It provides general information on our Respecting Diversity: Sexual Orientation training DVD and E-Learning resources and details of a very special offer available to members of Stonewall’s Diversity Champion’s Programme.

Respecting Diversity: Sexual Orientation is a comprehensive training programme about Sexuality Orientation helping managers, staff and HR policy-makers to recognise and address inappropriate and unlawful behaviour including Discrimination, Harassment and Victimisation. Read more about this valuable diversity management training here.

Download a flyer about the Sexual Orientation Training DVD and E-Learning programme to share with your corporate diversity training colleagues.

The first in our proposed series is called Respecting Diversity: Sexual Orientation and consists of 4 powerful training films that are based on real-life situations. Each scenario explores the differences between direct and in-direct discrimination and is made in a distinct style which is rarely seen in training videos. The videos run for a total of 40 minutes and are broken into sections to encourage course participants to discuss the situations in depth and identify solutions to the issues raised.

The comprehensive programme provides organisations with all the tools needed to deliver high quality diversity training in-house. The trainer and instructor’s guide was developed by leaders in the field of equality and diversity training and includes preparation notes, participant worksheets, handouts, glossary and details of relevant legislation such as the Equality Act 2010. For full information and to see sample training materials, click here to visit the Respecting Diversity website.

Over 160 residents turned out to celebrate the 7th annual Community Spirit Awards at the Park Inn Palace Hotel in Southend-on-Sea. Olympic Swimmer Mark Foster was the special guest who gave an inspiring speech before awards were handed to residents who made a big difference.

South Anglia chose our Events and Conferences package that included filming the event on 2 cameras and editing into a 5 minute highlights sequence for their website.

Thank you so much for the fantastic video, we are so pleased with the result and our residents will be too! Your crew did a fantastic job at our Awards Ceremony, and you did an amazing job of putting it all together for us so quickly and at short notice. The result is outstanding, it’s so clear and is better than we could of hoped for. We look forward to working with you again soon!

Nicola Simpson, Resident Involvement Officer

See the video here.

If you have a special conference or event that you want expertly captured, condensed and formatted to share with your team, customers or the world – ask about our cost effective conference and event packages.

Read their article here in the Bucks Free Press.

If this sparks some interest for you, please call us to find out how our filmmaking projects can have a positive impact in your community. We mentor people through the entire filmmaking process – whether it’s a drama, documentary or animation.

We lead  workshops to cover script development, storyboarding, camera and sound techniques, filming, video editing, music, graphic design and DVD authoring.

Everyone involved were taught on all aspects of filmmaking, including scriptwriting, interviewing skills, technical camera and sound recording workshops and video editing.

The young filmmakers now call themselves CANDO Productions (an abbreviation of Castlefield AND Oakridge) and presented their film to a large audience that included residents, community groups, police and local council representatives. It was a fantastic event and the film was very well received – especially when most media coverage of the area is negative. Although the film explored all aspects of community life – the filmmakers decided to focus on the postive aspects by showcasing the hard work of local people to improve life for everybody.

Copies of the film are available on DVD by contacting the Residents Action Group – contact details are within the film or you can contact Cliff Productions on 0845 094 9014.

Youth Animation Workshops

Cliff Productions and Community Impact Bucks are working in partnership to deliver a unique opportunity for disadvantaged young people in Buckinghamshire.

ANIM8 will provide up 40 young people the chance to create a short animation based on the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Through a series of fun, interactive workshops; participants will learn how to storyboard their ideas, create characters, build sets and capture their animation using stop motion techniques.  

Workshops will be held in November 2011 and offered to targeted groups of young people for who opportunities like this are rare; such as children in care, young carers, young people living in areas of deprivation and young people with disabilities.  The i-Van will be used as a production studio in conjunction with local schools and this will enable us to host them in all four districts of the county. Workshops will be free of charge to participants.

The initiative is a new strand of the county-wide Short Cuts Film Festival, to encourage, support and showcase films made by Children & Young People in Buckinghamshire. The animations will have a special screening at the festival in May 2012; where the audience will vote for one film to win a prize and trophy for the winning team.

ANIM8 has been made possible by the support of our sponsors at Screen South, Wycombe District Council, Buckinghamshire Business First and Aylesbury Vale Arts Council.

I was so impressed with the standard. They were confident, professional and handled a streeful situation really well. It was a breath of fresh air and made me appreciate how useful this course is to the future generations of wealth creators. I wish I had their courage and determination at such a young age!

As a company we offer short-term work placements to students from schools and colleges throughout Buckinghamshire. For more information on the academy visit their website.