My first blog for a while but since I was on holiday last week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival I hope you will forgive me. Well that’s not strictly true as I was also doing ‘research’ into immersive and interactive theatre for the Gothic Film Festival I will be working on.
Yes I too am working on the BFI Gothic: Dark Heart of Cinema Festival at the Watershed along with the other six brilliant Future Producers who make up our team responsible now for not only an immersive pop-up cinema experience, but additional ‘fringe’ festival events.
I too am also one of the guys on the Future Producers Plus who two weeks ago found out about how we can get the Gold Arts Award and help the Watershed to develop promotional material for their Cinekids workshops. The promotional piece, which will count towards the gold Arts Award, will have to showcase not only our Cinekids promotion ideas, but also our our primary art-form combined with a new creative skill.
As my main art form is writing there are some clear challenges with how I can show those skills off using another creative form like photography or film-making.There are easy options like writing a script for a short promotional video, but I’d prefer to maybe try something different and more inventive. Something more imaginative that perhaps also helps shows the links between cinema, creativity and English. Or that could be biting off more than I can chew?
The prospect of work experience for the Gold Arts Award, having to do a few days work experience in a creative industry of my choice, may also prove challenging as September will soon be upon us. The worries also over how the Gothic team would be shaped and the roles we were assigned while I was away in Edinburgh also haunted me. As although I knew this in advance and took steps to make sure I contributed to early discussion, I was a bit worried of being left on the fringes (irony!) in terms of my place and role within the festival when I returned.
However, I did leave behind a bit to think about in terms of an immersive and interactive theatrical game and film screening event on our Gothic group’s facebook page. I outlined an idea that came to me in the night that I thought also helped show off my creative skills and the type of role I would want within the team.
the idea revolved around the idea of turning the Watershed into a laboratory that had just made major breakthroughs in the scientific community by combining elements of science and technology with the Dark Arts. A lot of what I created took into account what other producers had suggested in their pitch and I also looked in incorporate elements of the PM Studios like use of their technology and their magician in residence in the idea. The foundation for it all however, was one of the corner-stones and landmark films of Gothic cinema. James Whale’s Frankenstein.
When I got home it was relieving to read and speak to everyone and discover the wide range of focused thought that has evolved around researching the Dark Arts and Gothic films beyond the BFI’s designated film list. Given the time we have until November and array and extreme variation of ideas we had for the festival this has been the best approach in terms of helping our group to see what’s possible and what isn’t. It has also meant I’ve been able to contribute as well and feel part of the team despite my week away.
Yet as a team we still are yet to fully form. One thing that did stick out to me during our Tuesday workshop on evaluating our success was that we have different ideas of who will benefit from the festival. Combine with some of our discussion thus far on the potential films and events for the festival, it seems to show our joint experiences have yet to fit together and that we are on different lines of the hymn sheet.
This is natural though given we have yet to form a solid direction for which we will all fall behind, which will come in time and given the amount of ideas and varying experience is no surprise. Once we have the right film/s to build our ideas from then things then the more explosive magic will happen.
I’m hoping their will be magic also with our Future Producers Plus brief after this week as the workshop I took part in with Luke on film-making was very eye opening in a lot of ways. Yet I think when it comes to the eventual creation of a Cinekids promotional piece I am considering doing something involving either photography or graphic design (something I hope that will be slightly easier to accomplish that with film) to look and create a marketing idea around the idea of a ‘picture says a 1,000 words’.
I also have thought about where I would like to do my work experience placement. The connections I’ve had this year across different aspects of Bristol’s theatre scene from tech, stage management to directing leave a lot of options. However, one thing I have not yet had a chance to do is learn how a theatre company, venue or production company is run. Something that maybe a long way down the lines I would also like to do.
It’s going to be a busy week, but if you don’t mind, I got to get on and watch some more Gothic films.