One of the requirements of the Gold Arts award is to volunteer or train at a relevant arts organisation for five days (two if we are training). Ideally I would like to spend time helping out on a film set or production centre of some description but due to previous efforts I am all too aware of how competitive and over subscribed volunteer positions are in this sector.

Realistically, due to various other commitments, I wont have time to volunteer for a few weeks and by this time I will be likely back in Newport for my studies. I plan to approach the local theatre/ independent cinema and arts centre The Riverfront to volunteer during my free time when back at university. I would be keen to continue a relationship after my five days of volunteering and continue to contribute to the struggling arts scene of Newport.

I will also enquire into other Bristol based companies who focus in film and theatre production despite being based in Newport as for the right opportunity I will happy to commute.

As part of the Gold Arts award we are being asked to produce a piece of cross platform artwork to promote the Cinékids workshops that run monthly at the Watershed.

My primary art form is filmmaking so I’ve chosen to combine this with graphic design (which I will be learning from Zoe Horn Haywood this Thursday) to create a short promotional film approximately 30-60 seconds in length.

I am interested in interviewing Cinékids participants and their parents to collect audio to use within the film. I plan to combine interview and workshop footage with design elements, which I will create after the workshop. An idea I’m keen on developing is a continuous pan shot of an artificial wall of frames and projections, various footage elements will be viewable in each of these. At the moment this feels a tad ambitious so I will re-assess if this is a realistic option after Thursday.

Now three weeks into the project, the foundations have been laid for all the projects ahead in the Future Producer program. Next week I will be running a workshop for other Future Producers interested in learning some basic filmmaking skills as part of the FP+ session, I’m still working on the structure of this workshop and deciding what would be most beneficial for the participants. As a group we have already taken part in a filming interviews workshop and in a few weeks will have the opportunity to attend a film editing training session so I will be covering some theoretical aspects of filmmaking in the workshop to lay foundations for practical exercise with film equipment.

On Tuesday the team working on the Fresh Flix screening teamed up with Christina Hawkes-Blackburn, who is working on the Children’s Jury, which is also for Encounters. I spent some time this week watching the films selected for the 2013 Children’s Jury screening and noticed that animation was a strong presence in the category, only one of the films being definitively live action. As a newly formed group of four our task over the next few days is to come up with a theme which will govern all of the films in the selection to help Christina come up with a workshop that can accompany the screening during Encounters.

The Fresh Flix event is progressing well and we have decided on a preliminary schedule for the day of the workshops. We will be running a comedy writing masterclass and a self-portrait workshop for young filmmakers. We are still currently in the process of attaching facilitators to these workshops and hopefully will have names confirmed for each in the coming days.

Firstly I should apologise for my late arrival. Due to unfortunate circumstances (namely accidentally throwing my laptop off my kitchen table) now is the first time I’ve been able to sit and reflect on the Future Producer experience so far.

It was evident from the moment I arrived at the first of our many meetings that I was going to be spending time with some diversely talented people, it nice to be working in a group where it feels like everyone has their own experience and ideas to bring to each fresh challenge.

Within our first weekend I was already facing one of my personal challenges in a workshop aimed at improving presentation skills. For me I find it quite difficult to perform formal presentations, to me it feels like talking at people and this one-way discourse makes me anxious and stumble over my words at times. Being thrown in the deep end in this instance proved effective as I soon found my nerves weaken and getting to know the group better also put me at ease. I think I’m improving with every presentation and the skills I learnt in this workshop are really helping me fight a bugbear, which I’ve held on to for far too long.

After initially helping curate the Fresh Flix selection for Watershed’s Encounters short film festival I found a real joy from engaging with the work of filmmakers who were passionate about their craft. For the films selected for screening, new avenues are open and the filmmakers get recognition for their hard work. It was sad to discover the fickle reasons why some great films can’t be selected at times but I held onto the notion that the festival will be celebrating some great films and in a small way I helped that process. When choosing from the projects available to pursue further in the process I decided to stick with the Fresh Flix screening and in the coming weeks will be helping to arrange workshops to pair with the film screening to create and afternoon of entertainment and intrigue for the young people who come to the festival.