Whether it's stewarding at a festival, writing for a magazine, or producing works of art, volunteering for creative projects is bound to get those juices flowing.

All | Carl | Jessica | Catherine | Rhiannon | Mei | Gaby | Enlight Youth Group | Centrepoint

Wednesday Jun 01, 2011

The Bafta event

Hello, it's Helen - Do-it blogs editor here. I'm posting this on behalf of Centrepoint as I had the pleasure and privilege of going to the final event to watch the film that the volunteers produced. I also had the chance to hear them talk about the experience and have collected some photos from the team to give you a taste of the evening. 

The film One Step Away that you've heard about in most recent posts in the Media and Arts blog was put together by a group of volunteers as both a learning and awareness raising exercise. The volunteers had the opportunity to work with professional mentors and it really was an all-round rewarding experience.

The most impressive part of the film in my opinion was most certainly the characterization. The volunteers involved had created stories and people based in part on personal experiences and I could certainly relate to the issues that the film depicted. What happens to a young person who has experienced domestic abuse and needs to find a new home urgently? What happens to a young person who is fully independent and can no longer afford to pay their university fees and is trying to hold down two jobs? What happens to a young person who's best source of advice is from a stranger on the street? Through my work for Do-it's sister website, TheSite.org - I've heard about young people in our online community experiencing these scenarios and so it's great to see them being dramatized in this way. 

Finally, it was really great to hear the volunteers talk of the benefits in terms of working alongside BAFTA members, award winners and practitioners. This was an unexpected opportunity for many of them who gleaned experience in camera work, acting and writing and a reminder of how valuable volunteering can be for all involved.  We also had the pleasure of hearing one of the volunteers play a live acoustic version of a song from the film that he produced and has now been signed to Round House for. (pictured above) Also, if you've never been to BAFTA, it's a great venue and my colleague spotted Jonathan Ross' wife on the way out!

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Wednesday Mar 30, 2011

Getting out of homelessness

I wanted to tell people, how difficult it is to get out of being homeless. I went to university to study sports science, but I struggled with money. I had to leave my course because I couldn't afford it. The university was going to help me with my fees but the money didn't come for ages. Lot's of students get jobs while they are studying, but this makes life difficult. I had to leave university and live in a hostel.

In this part of the film, it highlights the issues of people trying to escape the "homeless trap" by going to university or college and struggling due to the other pressures they face, such as being able to afford it.

I wanted to tell people, how difficult it is to get out of being homeless. I went to university to study sports science, but I struggled with money. I had to leave my course because I couldn't afford it. The university was going to help me with my fees but the money didn't come for ages. Lot's of students get jobs while they are studying, but this makes life difficult. I had to leave university and live in a hostel.

Stephane.

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Monday Mar 21, 2011

Homeless women

We agreed that we should have a girls part, as we wanted to show that girls can become homeless too. Charmaine agreed to play a girl that had been abused by her step-father and had ran away from home. We also wanted to show that it's not always easy to get housing as there's too many homeless people.This character ended up going to stay with someone she didn't know and while she was sleeping he came into her room (although we thought the audience should guess what happened then - but it wasn't good).

We now have 3 characters and have to work with an editor to see how we can put them together. We might do some interviews to let people know why we wanted to do these characters. We haven't decided yet if we are going to do more characters.

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Wednesday Mar 09, 2011

Our character David

This Monday we had the opportunity to start exploring another Character - David, David is a posh character, who hasn't got a job or doesn't go to college. His Dad gets angry with him for smoking weed and throws him out. He hasn't got any where to go so goes to be with his mate. His mate takes him to a party - where there is going to be nice girls, drugs and lots of alcohol.

We had to make a room look like his parents house for one scene and then went outside to shoot a scene in a park.

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Meet Charlene

My name is Charlene I am volunteering for Centrepoint. I'm going to tell you about our first all day session at the Bafta filming project so far we have been discussing our first scene and how we would go about shooting that part. Trez and Stephan were rehearsing the first scene and the group was helping them find the truth to the scene.

It was funny and interesting to see how it started to take shape with ideas being thrown in by members of the group. Then we were ready to get the cameras rolling and find a suitable spot to film outside by a bus stop, with Mohamed as camera man, Billy as director and Trez and Stephan as the actors in this scene. It was very productive and turned out well.

After lunch some of us were interviewed for the Bafta mentoring video where we were asked a series of questions on how well we have done so far and how we feel we have gained experience and skills so far in this project. We then set up for the final scene "Smoky's House" and after another brief rehearsal, shot the scene.  I was going to play the part of Smoky's mother but we all decided there was no way Stephan could be my son so they pretended to speak to the mother on the phone instead. I am yet to have my starring role! But all in all the second scene went really well and we finished off by cleaning up the rooms we had used for filming.

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Developing characters - work in action

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Wednesday Feb 23, 2011

A new venue

 

With the weekend out of our systems and Monday, rolling in the bafta film project was upon us again. With a very productive session last week behind us, anticipation was high and the group was eager to crack on with their film.  With a few absentness due to various commitment there was a small group, which allowed for extreme focus during the session and a lot was achieved we also had a few new members joining our circle which really helps with creative ideas!

The session began with a very vital issue concerning the group. With it widely decided that three hours on a Monday is not long enough to fulfil the needs of the group a new venue has been found in Southwark, which will allow the group to have much longer sessions on a Monday and therefore make much more progress with their film. When this idea was put towards the group the reaction was of a unanimous one with everyone agreeing this move was a positive step and could only help the project move forward. With that out of the way and minds eased, the session really got into full swing. With character profiles sorted, we began by assigning actors to play the roles of the characters due to the many budding actors within the group this was not a problem. We then moved on to handing out vital crew roles, of course there did a lot of debate on the role of director with various people want to take the helm of this hugely anticipated film! Finally, Bafta film mentor Baz talked the group through various filming rules and procedures to aid the cast and crew when the shooting begins which culminated in a short piece being shot than played back to the group. This gave the group hands on time with the camera and its capabilities, which generated excitement in the group. Everybody is buzzing for next weeks instalment where there will be a change of scenery for the group and the filming will finally begin! See you next week.

By Phil

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Monday Feb 21, 2011

Phil's diaries

Young volunteer Phil has been keeping an account of film antics so far.

Monday 31st January

On 31st January, a group of around 13 young budding filmmakers got together at Centrepoint head office for the very exciting BAFTA film project.  The young people involved have a timeline of 10 weeks to complete their film project, which involves the whole process of filmmaking from scriptwriting to the finished edit. At this stage, we have a range of different ideas, which when we meet next week we will decide on the final idea to then go on and begin shooting on. The session began with a small icebreaker where the group made a circle and threw the ball to each other, with each person they threw the ball to they had to remember the persons name, this was a great way to bond in a relaxed way but it was also really difficult! The group then split into two teams to answer the question "Why am I here?" from this question came a variety of interesting and thought provoking answers. We then got back together to compile a team agreement, which the team must follow throughout the duration of the project. Then came the bit everybody was waiting for as everybody got together to brainstorm ideas for the film we wanted to make. With so many ideas and creative juices inside the young people mind we came up with some great ideas full to the brim with potential, now all that's left is to pick one of them in next weeks session. I'm going to leave you know on a cliff-hanger like one of my favourite directors Alfred Hitchcock,  stay tuned in anticipation for next weeks blog where the plot of our film will finally be revealed...

Monday 7th February

This Monday our budding filmmakers met up for the eagerly anticipated second meeting of the BAFTA film project. There was a great turn out yet again, two new members coming into the team showed the great level of enthusiasm, and potential this project has to offer. Continuing from last week's brilliant session the group set about on the arduous task of finalizing their film plot and developing their character profiles. After a heated debate from passionate young people, the group finally settled on having four main characters in which the film will focus on at various points. With advice from the BAFTA mentors, the team split into four groups each assigned with breaking down a character each. A flurry of ensued within the four groups followed by some furious pen scribbling and we had our characters. The characters all at various different stages of homelessness will meet at one event in a twist of fate that will change some of their lives forever. So with things starting to gel together, with the plot painstakingly decided and our characters ready to be bought to life we all wait with baited breath for next weeks session.    

Monday 14th February

Valentine's Day bought session 3 of the BAFTA film project into full swing. After last weeks, wonderful session anticipation was running high and everybody wanted to crack on with the development of the four main characters. After some passionate debate it was finally decided upon that the best way to develop the character profiles and see which person suited each character best was to run a "hot seat improve". A hot seat improve is a dramatic technique designed solely to help an actor get into their character. A chair is placed at the front of the room while the audience gets into a circle and takes it in turns to ask the actor portraying his character a question. With some very interesting questions being put forward and the information being safely written down and recorded the group collectively managed to flesh out an advanced character profile for each of the main characters (Jermaine gave a superb improve of the snobbish David T Dulwich which had the whole room in fits of laughter). Next weeks instalment looks very promising as now we have the profiles of the characters we can now pick actors from the group to play them, and even more exciting than that we can finally set the ball rolling and begin the process of writing the first draft of out script! See you next week readers for the next BAFTA blog!

 

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A new film project for young people - first the background

A team of young people from Centrepoint, are volunteering to create a film exploring issues around homelessness. This film project is part of the BAFTA and Media Trust joint Youth Mentoring Programme, which provides young people with the opportunity to work alongside BAFTA members, Award-winners and leading practitioners.

This project has been supported by, the national youth volunteering charity.

Centrepoint is a national charity working to improve the lives of socially excluded homeless young people. We provide a range of accommodation based services, including emergency night shelters and short stay hostels, specialist projects for care leavers, ex-offenders, young single parents, foyers and supported flats and floating support services. From these accommodation based services, Centrepoint helps young people to turn their lives around by gaining essential life skills; tackling physical and mental health issues and moving into education or employment. For more information visit www.centrepoint.org.uk

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