Take 5 - capturing young people’s ideas about creativity through film.

Students from Robsack Wood Community Primary School

Through a joint approach to training and skills development, Creative Partnerships and Lighthouse Arts & Training encouraged young people to have a voice and capture young people’s ideas about creativity through film.

The project aimed to achieve the following:

To nurture young people’s creativity and give them a voice
To develop young people’s of filmmaking and associated communication and team working skills
To develop teacher’s confidence in using film and an understanding of its use within the context of Pupil Voice
To create a mentoring strand for emerging film makers which would have a a positive impact on the skills and economy of the local area

Having commissioned a film to capture the aspirations of the first phase of Creative Partnerships, it was always intended to let students have the final word. In a collaboration with Lighthouse – a Brighton based professional development agency for film and new media – and award-winning filmmaker Michele D’Acosta, the idea took shape in Take 5. Pupils at five schools set out to explore on film what creativity meant to them.

Five filmmakers – Fiona Adams, Liza Brown, Magali Charriere, Faye Gilbert and Kitty Wallace – were selected to work in five of the core schools. Alongside them, five apprentice filmmakers were recruited to join the team. These apprenticeships were funded through the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative, for whom the development of the film and TV sector in Hastings and Bexhill is a particular focus.

Each of the five schools learnt the practical skills of filmmaking, and the group work skills needed in this collaborative art form, while they made their own ten minute film. Each interpreted the theme in their own way and reflected on their personal passions as well as their school lives.

A small group became the producers and worked with Michele D’Acosta to bring together the key ideas from all five films into one single film. All films were screened at the Odeon Cinema, hastings at the end of the project.