In August 2009 Cineclub, The Young Filmmakers Network commenced work on a pilot project on behalf of the 21st Century Literacy Strategy to look specifically at engaging youth organisations in film related activity. Our brief was to develop a cohesive and flexible approach to filmmaking and film watching activities in youth clubs through piloting different approaches.
Having worked with young people in schools, colleges and other educational establishments since 2004 we were excited to have the opportunity to devise ways to fully engage with non-formal educational settings. Cineclub’s focus is always process over product, and we are keen to ensure that every young person working with us has the opportunity to experience all aspects of the production process from script to screen. With our school based activities the students plan, shoot and edit their own short films. We guide them through each stage of the process without doing it for them, and this was something we wanted to embed in our work with youth clubs too. Our manifesto clearly promotes democracy in the filmmaking process and so we decided these guidelines would apply to this project as well.
To gain a wider understanding of the needs of youth organisations, we chose to work across 3 different London Boroughs and pilot a unique programme of activities in each so that we could compare the outcomes of different approaches. The London Boroughs of Hackney, Barnet and Tower Hamlets each decided upon an approach that they felt would suit the needs of their cohort.
Hackney focused on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for their chosen youth workers, which was followed up by a support visit by one of Cineclub’s filmmakers to help them kick start their projects. Barnet combined the CPD with a more extensive support strategy involving filmmaker input either during an intensive week in the school holidays or weekly across a 10 week period. Tower Hamlets also wanted to experience a mixture of CPD and longer term support, so Cineclub’s filmmakers co-led weekly sessions with the trained youth workers across a school term.
Cineclub spent time looking at how to update our existing CPD training to accommodate the needs of those working in youth club settings, and received very positive feedback from all attendees. We focused on the use of the low-budget equipment, that – crucially – they all had access to, and made sure we equipped them with activities that could engage a range of learners. Our training put emphasis on using low-budget equipment and provided strategies for working with large numbers of young people simultaneously. Sporadic attendance was identified early on as a potential barrier for running film projects in youth clubs, and so we helped youth workers plan their activities to accommodate this issue. We encouraged youth workers to make sure that their group’s film ideas did not rely upon everyone being present every week, just in case. By planning for this eventuality a preventative measure was in place so youth workers could continue the filmmaking process regardless of attendance issues.
Across the year-long project Cineclub worked with 15 youth clubs, trained 20 youth workers in low-budget filmmaking skills and directly engaged 92 young people from the ages of 11 to 19 years in filmmaking and film watching activities.
The young people we worked with came from a very diverse range of backgrounds and abilities. We worked with cultural education groups, young people with severe physical disabilities and students with a range of special educational needs from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to Tourettes. In one particular youth club the group displayed very challenging behaviour with several of the group possessing Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). However, by the end of the pilot this club was one of the most successful projects as all of the young people were genuinely experiencing something new. Many of this group had never picked up a camera before and were of the belief that making a film was something beyond their abilities. The chance to engage these young people in a practical activity, one where they could take complete ownership over the product, inspired a commitment and enthusiasm in the young people that the youth worker was thrilled with. The youth worker commented that the group ‘learnt new skills, gained confidence, worked together as a team and developed an interest in media’.
We were very keen to ensure that not only did the students engage in creative activity but we also ensured engagement with a range of short films from different genres and cultures to widen their experience and knowledge of cinema. We screened the completed films by each youth club at their local cinema which provided the opportunity for them to engage critically with the work of their peers and also reflect upon their own work. At these events we selected a range of short films to show the audience for inspiration. We screened short narrative films, documentary and foreign language films which we felt demonstrated new concepts, genres and styles to the groups. The screening element of the project culminated in a Youth Club Awards event at the BFI Southbank.
EMBED Bishop Challenor film??
The complexity of working with several local authorities at once is definitely something that Cineclub has learnt from taking part in this project. Although our experience working with extended schools co-ordinators at borough level gave us a good starting point, the structures in the youth services department of each borough were completely different. Each borough’s youth service approached and managed the project in a different way. Communication became difficult due to several staff changes across the year in 2 out of 3 of the boroughs which resulted in the need to re-explain the projects aims and objectives to new people who had inherited the project.
Communicating with youth workers is also something we will consider more thoroughly in future. As many of the youth workers worked on a voluntary basis with their groups it was often difficult to contact them during the day as they had other commitments. This became apparent during the CPD phase of the project. Initially we tried to accommodate all of the youth workers on the same training day, however as there were so many conflicting schedules we eventually ended up running 4 separate days to make sure that a maximum number of youth workers could attend.
The greatest strength of the project was the mixture of practical activity and exposure to a wide range of cinema, which meant that our programme of activities clearly met the strategy’s “3 Cs” agenda. By training the youth workers in each youth club we ensured that the skills remained with the groups enabling them to continue running film based activities in the future. The testimonials received back from youth workers clearly showed how much impact the workshops had had upon their groups and the individuals within them. One youth worker commented that ‘Apart from the immediate skills that the group has developed I feel by far it is the confidence in their own ability where I have seen the biggest impact. The chance for them to try a new activity and experiment, without the Cineclub project would not have been possible. It has also been nice to involve 3 year 6’s in this project working with older young people, and hopefully this is good preparation for their move to secondary school.’ It is rewarding to know that the youth workers are continuing to use the filmmaking skills they have learnt, and how this type of activity can work well within an in-formal education setting. Filmmaking is such a flexible activity, providing young people with the chance to explore challenging issues and articulate their own arguments. We hope that these youth workers will use their training in a way that works for their setting and of course their young people. Cineclub hope to continue engaging with youth clubs and have developed our training offer to accommodate their needs. We will be working with our partners at U.K Youth to promote filmmaking as an achievable and exciting activity for youth clubs.
