Today everyone in the group had a chance to pitch ideas around the strand they are interested in working on, share the experience that they will bring to producing team and highlight what they hoped to get out of the project.  The ideas were brilliantly articulated (the pitching workshop last week seemed to have done the trick) and I finished the session feeling very inspired about the work the group will create.  Some of the things I had scribbled down – in no particular order – were:

‘I want to work on the Sci-Fi strand because I know nothing about the genre’

‘Why don’t we film famous movie scenes on people’s mobile phones so people have something to take away”

‘I am interested in collective identifies and Afro-futurism‘

‘Children are just like us – only smaller‘

‘I want people to be immersed in the storyline’

‘Let’s set up a fictional travel agency‘

‘One of my skills is having a vast imagination‘

‘Fun Palaces are a celebration of people’s curiosity‘

‘We could engage people through the Good Gym‘

‘The Rocky Horror show kept going round me head‘

‘I have loads of experience of audience led projects‘

Our panel included Matthew Austin, Co-Director of MAYK. I was reminded of a great list of tips for producers he put together for last year’s programme. I sometimes re-read them myself when a start a project so thought it would be good to share them as we embark on the live projects. 

• Be an enthusiast – see as much as you can, get involved in things, don’t just restrict yourself to the artform in which you work
• Always admit when you don’t know the answer to something – it’s much better than trying to fudge your way through something
• Don’t panic about money. It’s only numbers on a spreadsheet.
• Make sure you have time to think
• Say yes to everything for a few months
• If you smell a rat, stay away. If a project or a job doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t
• Ask the big people – you’d be surprised who agrees to meet you for a coffee
• Never think you can do everything
• Surround yourself with friends and collaborators who can do the things you can’t do
• Don’t ever get seduced by the comfort of administrating or organising the thing you’re supposed to be doing.
• Try and compartmentalise. If one aspect of a project is going wrong, don’t let it take over. Acknowledge there’s a problem and find a way to solve it, but don’t let it drag the rest of the project into a vortex of panic
• Know your audience
• Always try and think of a different way of doing something
• Always ask why
• Be brave
• Be open to ideas
• Be a good listener
• Be a good collaborator
• Get good at spotting an opportunity and taking advantage of it
• Be willing to play the long game
• Be willing to muck in
• Be nice
• Have a sense of humour