Fresh 6 Film Festival

Today I will be working at – and taking my children to – the Fresh 6 Film Festival, which is for young people. Includes screenings, workshops, advice surgeries and competions/commissions. The website is www.freshfilm.tv

Last years went really well. I hope it has a good turn out today. Yesterday Firstborn and Calling the Shots ran a practical session on making films for mobile phones, which I hear went reallty well. Unfortunately I had 24hour man-flu so was too ill to attend! On Tuesday Knowle West Media Centre screened a documentary about Tricky – the Trip Hop artist who is originally from that area. He was there to answer questions with the Director of the film. Films being screened in the festival are a mixture of professional film & tv work, and work made by young people and facilitated projects.

It’s good to have an outlet for this work, as there’s so much of it. It also rhymes with the context of my research as it’s called ‘Beyond Project’ – interested in what happnes when the projects are over. What happens to the work, the young people, the facilitators, the ideas generated, etc, etc? What impact did it all have?

With regards the work produced itself, there are many other ways of getting it ‘out there’. To name a few:

· Video / dvd archive
· annual dvd compilation
· showcase festivals
· agency for educational materials (have to apply to get film accepted) – to judge educational value of made work and package & distribute
· web access / data base
· teacher materials
· directory service – where to contact rather than central archive
· magazine every 6 months as catalogue
· book to be written about community videos – interviews with makers
· national community media database
· membership scheme
· effectiveness of web based projects.
· YouTube / MySpace / Blogging
· Current TV, Community Channel

Of course many of these overlap. I personally like the idea of the 6 monthly magazine, and the national community media archive/database. Am I overestimating though the readership/users for this type of material?

I’ll come back from time to time to discuss each of these in detail, and see if any of them are viable ideas.

Time to get ready for work.