The next Screen Forum, which exists to “showcase quality work in the region and to facilitate networking, collaboration and the sharing of information and resources”, takes place on April 19th at 7pm at the Light House in Wolverhampton. The subject is Actors working with Directors/Directors working with Actors
Screen forum is a regular meeting of practitioners and agencies who are involved in screen based creative industries within the region. This month’s forum will focus on acting: specifically, working with actors (good practice, do’s and don’ts, etc); how to attach yourself to a short film project (contacting agencies, filmmakers’ networks); what to expect in terms of payments (contracts, credits, deferred payment); how to find ‘talent’ (i.e. securing your A list celebrity). This event is aimed at actors, directors and producers and should provide excellent insights into the process of casting, getting the best from actors and for finding out about short film opportunities in the region.
The discussion panel will feature a number of professionals based in the region, including Derrick Knight from the Actors Centre and Paul Hardy, BBC Drama award winner and author of ‘Filming on a Microbudget’; others to be confirmed. The evening will include a short screening of films produced by panel members and featuring actors based in the region.
The event is free but pre-booking is advised. For more information about the programme and to reserve a place contact angela@light-house.co.uk
Another event on Thursday 22nd!
The Producers’ Forum will be holding our usual informal monthly meeting at the Midlands Art Centre on Thursday 22nd February. This is your chance to catch up on all of the news from the region and our members.
This month we are holding a special writers’ showcase evening – we are inviting some of the leading scriptwriters and novelists from the region to come and pitch thier latest projects to producers from the Forum. Script and Red Room Films have been working together on the ‘Big Screen Visions’ project, providing workshops and one-to-one mentoring to enable experienced writers of fiction or non-fiction; stage, radio or tv drama to write a full-length original screenplay. Writers from this programme, along with other invited guests, will be performing short pitches of their projects vith a view to collaborating with local producers in the future.
Representatives from Advantage West Midlands are also planning to attend the meeting as they are keen to find out how local filmmakers are being suppported in the region, so it would be great to have as many members as possible in attendance to represent the filmmaking community in the West Midlands.
Distunted Nations: Cinema Beyond the Nation-State is an academic conference run by the University of Birmingham on 27-28 April at the MAC.
Over the last few years a number of terms have been employed to conceptualise cinema beyond the boundaries of the nation-state, such as transnational cinema, accented cinema and transvergent cinema.
Such terms respond both to the emergence within international cinema of a considerable body of work in which questions of migration and passage are uppermost, and to the increasing internationalisation of film production itself, as co-financing across national borders becomes the norm, and film producers are ever more reliant on global companies and media conglomerates to get films funded. As these trends have developed, the entrenched national identities of cinematic tradition have begun to dissolve, giving way to alternative criteria for discerning and inscribing identity as well as more uncertain geographies.
More information here including contact details.
The line-up for the Moseley Folk Festival 2007 is starting to come together. So far confirmed are Fairport Convention, Kate Rusby, Davey Graham, Tuung, Alisdair Roberts, Swarback’s Lazarus, Martha Tilston, Broadcast, Findlay Brown, Jim Moray, John Smith, Clive Palmer and Voice of the Seven Woods.
The festival runs over the weekend of September 1st-2nd at Moseley Park and tickets go on sale March 1st. Last year’s debut festival was pretty unanimously declared a success thanks to an eclectic lineup (which looks to be repeated here – Broadcast!) and support from the local music community and it’s great to see this becoming a regular feature on the calendar.
My photos from 2006.
Podnosh lists some of the new radio dramas being broadcast on Radio 4 over the next few weeks that were produced in the BBC studios at the Mailbox.
Out Of Hours is a networking and social event for people working in the culture sector that tales place at the Light House in Wolverhampton. The next one is Monday March 5th, 5.30-7.30pm
This evening we’re overflowing with interesting things to see, watch and listen to. There will be a screening of 7 Inch Cinema‘s SloMo challenge, which ran for the first time last summer and will include clips from the original festival that inspired it. The challenge: to make a one-minute film using slow-motion in some way. The screening will be attended by a number of the filmmakers who will introduce their work.
This evening also marks the opening of the exhibition from Malooma, AKA Glen Tapper. Glen’s work is influenced by street graffiti, clean graphic design and is crammed with pop culture references. He depicts images of iconic film stars, using bold colours, text and strong lines. Finally, we are also welcoming Geraldine McCullagh and Jo Willis from BBC Big Screen who are on the look out for films and will give a short talk about the philosophy behind the Big Screen and the sort of content that they are looking for.
In addition we’ll have our resident VJs, Cinecull, a Wolverhampton based video production company, who provide an exclusive live audio-visual backdrop for Out of Hours.
Entrance is free. Contact plot@light-house.co.uk for further details.
Some recent live music reportage from West Midlands bloggers.
Russ L went to see:
The Baron went to see:
Silver Footed Thetis went to see:
- The Fake Tracies, Bootleg Poets, China Red and Blue Nation at Bar Academy
- Pretty Victim, The Carter Manoeuvre and, Richard Vinyl at the Spotted Dog
- Shy Child, Metronomy, Lo-Fi-Fnk, The A Human plus Infadels DJ at the Medicine Bar
- (All reviews in this one post)
Dead Kenny went to see:
If you’re writing gig reviews on your blog, let me know. (This will probably be a regular feature. I’m thinking Wednesdays.)
The PLOT site brings news of a short film, Expresso, which is being made in the region and has attracted some impressive talent including Norman Wisdom. Expresso is one of the films in Screen WM’s Digital Shorts scheme for 2006/7, part of the UK Film Council’s national programme “to enable filmmakers to make innovative shorts using digital technology” under the following criteria: a budget of under £10,000, no longer than 10 minutes in duration and shot digitally.
Expresso is produced by local company Last Independent.com who put the proposal together with script submissions from Shooting People, “a community of filmmakers sharing resources, skills and experience”. The film is being shot on location in Waseley Park near Halesowen.
There are, of course, other films in the Digital Shorts scheme – here’s the list – but I think Expresso is a nice snapshot of how these things get made.
Submissions for Digital Short 2007/8 will be open this summer.
Production shot for Expresso by Darren Seymour and ©
This Saturday sees a Rhubarb Rhubarb seminar entitled Don’t Mention The Money at the Custard Factory.
Over the last few years, there has been an increasing focus on the economics of working as a fine art photographer. This day concentrates on ideas, how they are formed, where they come from and how to grow them and make them visible in the public domain.
Between them, the speakers have experience of curation, publishing and exhibiting in national and international arenas. All participants are encouraged to bring their folios for sharing and discussion.
Tickets for this event are £80 (£60 conc.). Contact Lorna-Mary Webb at info@rhubarb-rhubarb.net or 0121 773 7889 for details.
Clusta is a digital creative agency based in Digbeth now in their 10th year. They’ve got a very impressive client list, from local businesses to international brands all of which is innovative and, dare I say it, cutting edge. Their animation for last year’s Plus festival is probably the best introduction to their style. Click on the image below to view it.
They also have a blog spotlighting cool stuff they’ve found. No RSS feed though. Tut tut… Here ’tis.
The 4Talent Inspiration Sessions are a series of events held in Birmingham where 15 attendees get to work with at least four top creative in their field for a day “sharing ideas, discussing working practices, and learning from the best in the business”. Here’s the current schedule. Click on the links for details.
23rd April: Film
25th April: Animation
27th April: Advertising
30th April: Magazine production
2nd May: Design and Multimedia
4th May: Documentary
As places are limited for these free events you’ll need to apply and be assessed by a judging panel. Email inspiration@ten4magazine.com to be informed of when the applications open.
The quality of speakers looks very high, including the folk from eboy, which is why their illustration is on the right there.
Submissions are open for the fourth Birmingham Words anthology to be titled Perfectly Formed with the only requirement being pieces are less that 300 words long.
We don’t want anything slapdash or hasty. When you’ve got up to an absolute maximum of 300 words (and we’re going to be strict on this) you can’t afford to waste them. So we don’t want any flash fiction that has burst forth in a feverish moment and that is sent to us unedited, bearing all the marks of its short and traumatic birth. We want stories that are beautifully crafted, poised and, well, perfectly formed. The subject matter is open.
The deadline for submissions of 17th March. Full details are here.
The anthologies are distributed as free PDF downloads with three already available.
The first annual Muslim Writers Awards take place on 28th March at the Library Theatre. The closing date for submissions is 28th Feb, which is a bit close, but the project appears to be wider than just a ceremony offering writers a whole gamut of support from creative writing courses and editing advice to professional critiques and help in getting published. So even if you it’s too late for you to enter it’s probably worth going along to the event to see what’s what.
More details here.
Hat tip to Birmingham Words
A regular selection of photos from the Birmingham Flickr community.
A knight who says Ni
sfb
nobody knows anything
Gareth Courage
All copyright as applies.
To suggest photos for inclusion in this feature add them to this thread or leave a link in the comments.
Film Birmingham, the agency that, amongst other things, acts as a go-between for film companies and locations in the city along with promoting the local film and TV industries, has launched a new Digital section on their site and are looking for digital media projects to fill it. Get in touch at digital@filmbirmingham.co.uk if that covers what you’re up to.
A major part of this is the confirmation that Birmingham will have an International Digital Film Event in 2008 which will differ quite significantly from the traditional red carpet film festival.
“Birmingham is embracing and leading the UK, if not the world, with this approach to a film festival. The digital revolution in film means that the connection between the audience and the filmmaker can and will be ever more varied and closer. Festivals have the opportunity to tap into that, to move away from the ‘red carpet’, closed approach of the old world, into a ‘film for everyone’ new world. Birmingham is showing its commitment and drive with this announcement to host the UK’s leading digital festival.†– Pete Buckingham, Head of Distribution and Exhibition at the UK Film Council.
Key to this is a series of events and debates throughout 2007 which will build up to and presumably inform the structure of the festival. These aren’t just for industry insiders – the idea is to involve all residents of the city.
Here’s the full press release which really pushes the Digital Hub angle and is positively bursting with enthusiasm, declaring that this process, with the festival as its cherry on top, will make Birmingham the digital media capital of the UK, something that’s been mooted for a while now.
I’m going to be meeting with Suzie Norton, Director of Film Birmingham, on Tuesday to find out what this all means. If you have any suggestions for questions I should ask her, please let me know either by email or in the comments below.
