Without too much argument the eShed team selected the obligatory 24 films for the ED08 calendar from over 40 that were submitted, all made by young people.

Sam and Taz made a trailer of clips from the films which you can see on You Tube or, if you hang around in Millennium Square near the PM Studio for a day you’ll catch it on the BBC Big Screen at some point! Arranging this involved eShed working with Watershed’s Communications department and they also provided feedback about the visual elements and photos for the ED08 website which has been designed by Mike Kendall of Another Vision – each time you visit ED08 you’ll see a different photo behind the calendar – some are well known Bristol landmarks with a seasonal twist. Great work!

Further selection was needed from the 24 films for an exciting new feature of ED - this year we were able (thanks to RIO ) to award travel bursaries to attend BUFF, the International Children and Young People’s Film Festival in Malmö in March 2009 for two prizewinning films – one from the SW England and one International entry. eShed steering group voted on their top SW films and a clear winner was Stand and Stare (Day 1) made by Josh Cawthorn and Simon Roberts, two undergraduates from the School of Creative Art at UWE, a beautiful stop motion animation film. This film won the award for “its outstanding animation, soundtrack, message and seasonal feel”. But selecting 2 runners up was more difficult! In the end three films got the same vote

  • In the Gateaux (Day 3) - a comedic fairytale devised, filmed and edited by Knowle West Media Centre’s ‘Digital Fish’ film club of 13-17 year olds.
  • Tacky UK (Day 5) - a skate film by Niall Kenny, James Gardiner and Ben Norberg.
  • Year 5 Go to Egypt (Day 7) - an animated crazy journey to Egypt from Suited and Booted and St Michael's Juniors, Twerton.


These filmmakers have been invited to submit their films to the National Young Filmmakers' Award competition, part of the Leeds Young People's Film Festival at Easter, 2009.

The International Jury Prize winner (selected by young people from the UK and Lithuania) was announced as Michal Mróz from Warsaw, Poland with his surreal yet compelling and humorous animation, Drzewo / The Tree (Day 4).
The three runners up for this prize were:

  • Ma Rue / My Street (Day 13) - a collective work with 150 young people from a wide range of schools in France.
  • Animated Hove, (Day 9) - a short animated film about a girl who wants to find a Spinning Top, from Carousel with children from Hillside School, Brighton
  • Cafe Loop (Day 19) - a soap based around an ever changing café scene by Chew TV and Exeter Phoenix


Organising the launch event was a major task that had to include the award presentation and once again got eShed working with Watershed staff to schedule the evening, allocate roles for presenting, welcoming guests and documenting the event, and the presenters had to write themselves some speeches and liaise with the technical team about the order of award winning films that were to be shown. The eShed team also had a discussion with Oliver, Watershed’s Executive chef, about the food we might have at the launch event on 1st December – they wanted to have a flavour from each of the countries represented in ED this year - we think he enjoyed the research! The final buffet menu was Spanish olives, Lithuanian potato cakes, German pretzels and mini wursts, Polish Pierogi, French croque monsieur, Romanian Sarmale and Dutch poffertjes – you can see some photos of the food amongst the launch pictures here and more at the eSHed flickr page.

eShed did a great job of the launch and learned a lot about what goes into making an online project happen, and as a result of Sam Woodcock’s involvement with both eShed and Electric December, was invited with me, Liz Milner to attend an event, in Paris, hosted by the people who made one of the shortlisted films, the great music video on day 13 – we had a really good time - see separate news item for info about our visit.

Electric December was supported by the European Commission, the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (EYID) 2008, the Real Ideas Organisation CIC, all the venues and partner organisations that took part in the project, the Europa Cinemas Network and Bristol City Council

Posted by Liz