This week saw a fundamental shift from the conceptual to the real as four weeks of research, exploration and ideas generation came to a head, with our group of Future Producers – Aidan, Becci, Ellie, Poppy and Zoe – presenting the fruits of their labour. It was a proud and exciting moment for us as mentors to hear what the team had come up with.

As mentors we have taken them all on a fairly conceptual and slightly risky journey that was sometimes challenging for all of us. The journey took them on roads that explored experimentation, audience research and user focus but as for the talking about what they were actually going to do – well, we left that up to them.

But with their dedication and enthusiasm they have come up with a really interesting response to the brief that we set them. It seems like they got where we were coming from and have responded with real insight and creativity! The wonder of collaboration and co-design.

So now there are six weeks until Aidan, Becci, Ellie, Poppy and Zoe will share their vision of how to connect with audiences ages 18 – 24 in the form of the awesomely titled “Water You Gonna Watch” machine – a unique hand-cranked device that will help people choose a film to see at Watershed. A recommendation machine with real potential scope, vision and – dare we say it – legacy.

But that’s not all – along side this they are planning a launch event featuring the machine. An event that gets the target audience in to the building for an evening of fun and games, which will introduce people to Watershed and prototype the machine and its hand crafted recommendation engine of cinematic joy and wonder.

We’re all looking forward to helping where we can to get the team to turn their ideas into reality. Watch this space!

After a two-week break, we jumped straight back in with a full day of the future producers pitching their project ideas to a panel. Our panellists were Pervasive Media Studio Producer Verity McIntosh, Director of Visual Arts South West Grace Davies, Co-Director of MAYK Matthew Austin, and Producer and Experience/Product Designer Tom Metcalfe. Our Future Producers were tasked with delivering a three-minute pitch of their idea for one of the following project briefs:

1. An audience development project surrounding Watershed’s 24 and under ticket offer in response to a collaborative research project with Culture24
2. LOVE Tea Dance with a Difference, as part of Bristol Family Arts Festival
3. A series of late night screenings inspired by the BFI LOVE season

We had a brilliant day brimming with ideas and enthusiasm. From ceilidhs to mad science laboratories to interactive tap dance workshops: all inspired by films. The day ended with our panellists offering some pearls of wisdom including tips on how to shape the content of your pitch, and to always be kind and generous with your peers and colleagues.

Sunday was a day of two halves. In the morning Hannah talked about key producing skills and the importance of collaborative working and project authorship. Her top tips were:

• Always aim for a clear vision, and when it gets murky work hard to get back on track.
• Communication, communication, communication – between everyone involved!
• Compromise and flexibility – it’s important to work with the team to identify the key milestones and be ready to respond to change.
• Problem solving – thinking on your feet at the most stressful moments in the project and bring the whole team with you in any decision making processes.

We welcomed back some previous Future Producers to talk about their experience on the programme: Rosie Cook, Varun Raman and James Staynings. The discussion swayed from thinking about plan B, C, and D to the importance of understanding each other’s strengths when setting out roles and responsibilities. I then ran a workshop around project planning and an introduction to gantt charts, which we will be revisiting later in the programme to apply to the live projects.

After lunch, the future producers split into their project groups and spent the afternoon with their mentors developing and interrogating their ideas and putting plans in place for the next steps. I will hand over now to the future producers themselves to blog about their producing journey and to get you excited about attending their events at Watershed this autumn.

Day one

Day one of the new Future Producers 2015 opened with a focus on play. The morning was run by the dynamic duo Jon Atkin and Sham Ahmed with the key purpose of getting to know each other. It is fundamental that over the next three months the group of 16 young producers can work as a team, build trust and cooperate. The group will be collaborating on the delivery of live briefs that will form part of the autumn season at Watershed, so good communication and listening skills are crucial. In the traditional style of Future Producers we kicked off with the marshmallow tower and chubby bunnies, I never realised that marshmallows allowed for such fun.

The afternoon continued with some more focused fun with Playable City producer Hilary O’Shaughnessy. The playable city workshop got the group responding to mini briefs that touched on some important themes that will run throughout the Future Producers programme. They were asked to consider a location and audience to drive an idea. From this quick fire workshop the group came up with some interesting ideas that saw car parks turned into playgrounds of screens, interactive bus stop fun and large projections of selfies.

Day Two

Day two opened with a talk from independent creative producer Amy Martin on the role of a producer. Her presentation style was satisfyingly relaxed and hugely informative, here are some things to consider on the role of a producer:

• A producer needs resilience
• A producer requires practical production skills
• A producer must be able to let go and trust a team
• A producer has a responsibility to their audience
• A producer must consider the aesthetics and know why an idea is good
• Whose idea is being produced – your own, others or a collaborative effort
• Collaboration is essential when producing
• Why not keep an ideas book
• Borrow from different art forms and sectors
• Always have the end in mind

And here are some inspiring quotes from Amy:

If the art form was a car the creativity would be the fuel

Creativity is by definition closely related to bravery, because it requires the creator to share a unique, personal idea, exposing themselves to potential judgement

Nothing else in the world is as powerful as an idea whose time has come

http://creative-producing.tumblr.com
www.youthleadership.com

After lunch REACT Managing Producer Jo Lansdowne ran an incredibly valuable workshops that explored public speaking. For most of us having to stand up in front of an audience fills us with fear, here are Jo’s top tips to getting up there and giving it our best:

• Hold you nerve
• Know your audience
• Tell your story
• Keep to time
• Don’t leave loose ends
• This is a beginning of a conversation
• Less is more

The weekend ended with an introduction to the three live briefs from the Watershed staff:

1. 24 and under ticket offer in response to a collaborative research project with Culture24
2. LOVE Tea Dance with a Difference, as part of Bristol Family Arts Festival
3. A series of late night screening sinspired by the BFI LOVE season

The group now have two weeks to come up with an idea to pitch to an external panel of producers. Good Luck.

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

Day two began with Clare Leczycki (Watershed’s cinema programme coordinator) presenting The British Film Institute’s latest blockbuster season – Days of Fear and Wonder. The season’s theme will run through all three of the live briefs the Future Producers are devising and delivering – Late Night Screenings, Fun Palaces and Family Arts Festival.

Days of Fear and Wonder will take audiences into the unknown through a giant leap into Sci-Fi film and television from October to December 2014. Presented in cinemas and online on BFI Player, and in partnership across the UK with the BFI’s Film Audience Network, the project will feature over one hundred film and television titles, plus spectacular events, must-see film and DVD releases, extra special guests and much more.

The Future Producers will programme a series of late-night screenings and events throughout October as part of Watershed’s Sci-Fi season. They will curate the film titles and programme the offer around the films, such music or a party, to bring a new younger crowd to Watershed.

Jess Hoare (iShed projects coordinator) then introduced the group to Fun Palaces, which will kick start the Sci-Fi season at Watershed over the weekend of Sat 4 and Sun 5 Oct.  Fun Palaces – a national event that aims to explore and celebrate arts organisations as open and fun spaces – are programmed not for audiences but by audiences. Inspired by the Pleasure Gardens, the Fun Palace was designed to link arts and sciences, entertainment and education, in a space welcoming to all – especially young people, who may find institutions daunting.

The Future Producers will  programme Watershed’s SciFi Fun Palace exploring the science behind the fiction in consultation with the audience. Everything they programme will be free and the emphasis is on engaging diverse communities in programming with them and coming along to the event.

Roseanna Dais from the Watershed communications team then presented the final live brief the Future Producers will be developing – the Family Arts Festival. The Arts Council launched the Family Arts Festival last year and over 2,000 events were hosted across the UK. The aim of the festival is to develop the range of arts events and activities available to families. This year’s event will take place from 17 Oct – 2 Nov (half term).

The Future Producers will programme a series of space inspired family friendly events in October half term to sit alongside the screening of E.T. as part of the Sci-Fi season.  They will work with members of the Pervasive Media Studio community and engage a family audience in the often-unseen part of the orgnisaton. The festival is all about enabling all family members to enjoy creative digital cross-artform activities together.

To get them immersed in the briefs the group then took part in a series of activities including Sci-Fi Charades and Pictionary, brainstorming ideas in response to the public consultation about Fun Palaces and playing the Pervasive Media Studio residents DareDevil’s app Challenge Off.

Sci-Fi Pictionary was one of my personal favourites. Can you guess these film titles?

Next week all of the Future Producers will pitch ideas against one of the strands. We will then form them into three groups to work on producing these live projects throughout the duration of the programme.

The group has been asked to include the following for their pitch:

• What project/season/festival would they be interested in working on?
• What experience would they bring to the project?
• What skills would they like to develop through producing the project?
• Outline their initial ideas in response to the challenge?

They have been asked to think about the following questions when developing their pitch:

• Are your ideas realistic in-terms of the budget?
• Have you thought about how you would engage an audience before/during/after?
• Have you considered how you would connect with communities online?
• How do your ideas sit in relation to the wider context of Bristol and beyond?
• Who might you want to collaborate with and why?
• What would success look like?
• What do you hope the legacy of your project might be?

Next week we look forward to welcoming Katherine Jewkes, Digital Associate at National Theatre Wales, Matthew Austin, Co-Director of MAYK, Victoria Tillotson, Producer at Watershed and Laura Kriefman, founder and choreographer of Guerilla Dance Project to hear their ideas and help us start to shape the work the group are going to produce.

Generate 100 programming ideas in 30 mins. Could you do it?

The morning started with an introduction to the programme and an icebreaker challenge that saw the cohort compete to build towers from marshmallows and spaghetti. With great feats of confectionary engineering accomplished, the group met their first speaker.

Sarah Ellis, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, spoke about what the role of the producer is. Her candid description of the role as one where you need to ‘be able to do everything and one specific thing in details – all at the same time’ was a great way to get the group thinking about the range of skills a producer needs to hone in order to hold a project together.  Her advice centred on self-awareness, knowing when you draw on the skills of others and when you were the best person to lead.

These reflective skills are built into the Future Producers’ programme throughout its delivery and having an inspiring speaker outline the importance of working in this way at the start of the programme sets the tone. The group will be collaborating on live briefs that will be delivered at Watershed this autumn. With this in mind understanding each other skills and weaknesses is vitally importantly to the delivery of their programme.

The session also touched on the importance of considering different audiences. Taking the RSC’s work with Google+ on Midsummer Night’s Dreaming as a case study. Sarah explained that the project aimed to explore the way in which the RSC could use technology in order to interact with their audiences more playfully. This involved creating vast amounts of online content in the form of hangouts, video, text, gifs, photos, soundcloud, maps and animation. The result of this was that the content opened up the RSC to new audiences, but it also enable the RSC’s core audience to go on a journey with them if the chose to. But doing things that your audience doesn’t expect can be difficult, and this was returned to in detail in the Q&A session after Sarah’s presentation.

Idea generation during the afternoon workshop.

The afternoon workshop, led by Tom Metcalfe, was designed to get the group generating ideas, identifying where they could collaborate and thinking iteratively. Starting with a broad range of programming theme each working group generated 100 ideas in 30 minutes and then took one of these ideas through to prototyping. If that wasn’t challenging enough once they had settled on one idea the groups had to producer a short film using the app Vine to demonstrate the idea to the rest of the group.  It was a tough exercise but one that we felt worked really well. Having to produce something tangible in a short space of time forces people to work together and clear group dynamics start to emerge. To have to negotiate an idea and its presentation to an audience of their peers is a great accomplishment to end the first end.

Whilst producing can be extremely challenging but it can be equally rewarding. Sarah described the process as one that ‘can be a bit like sculpting in jelly’.  Today has left the Watershed team convinced that whatever they sculpt, this year’s Future Producers are going to produce something pretty tasty.

Future Producers 2014 starts tomorrow and we are really excited to have Sarah Ellis a Digital Producer at the Royal Shakespeare Company to kick off this year’s programme. Sarah will be sharing with our group of aspiring young producers what she thinks the the role of a producer is in realising exciting ideas that engage audiences.

Sarah’s Midsummer Night’s Dreaming project was a collaboration with Google’s Creative Lab that explored the performance of the play in real-time live and online.  In 2012, she produced the online project for the World Shakespeare Festival,  myShakespeare which searches for  Shakespeare’s digital heartbeat through a data aggregator called Banquo. It searches for references of Shakespeare and his plays through Twitter, Flickr and Ebay. myShakespeare includes a series of think pieces submitted by people from around the world and an international commissioning programme featuring artists from a variety of art forms – Central Saint Martins, Brendan Dawes, Tim Etchells, Will Power, Kate Tempest, Tom Uglow and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa.

In 2013 Watershed’s second group of talented young people, whilst learning the skills needed to be the producers of the future, worked on a whole host of cultural projects. They divided into teams to coordinate four exciting projects: a mad hatter’s tea party at Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio as part of the nation-wide Family Arts Festival; late-night fim screenings and an immersive event around Kubrick’s The Shining as part of the BFI Gothic season; Electric December – Watershed’s advent calendar of new short films from young people around the world; and again,Fresh Flix as part of the 2013 Encounters Festival.

Alongside the core programme Watershed also ran Future Producers Plus in 2013, in association with RIO. The programme provides participants with additional mentoring so they can take on leadership roles and achieve the Gold Arts Award qualification.

Watch the film made about Plus and Gold Arts Award programme at Watershed

As part of their Gold Arts Award the Future Producers had to make a presentation about an issue in the cultural or arts sector that was important to them to the rest of the group.

J Gibbs: The Reputation of Circus in Britain – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Louise Hobson: Cardiff needs to invest in Talent Development Programmes for Young People in the Arts – Future Producers, from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Amy Draper: My Case for supporting large scale art by city and town councils – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Roseanna Dias: Diversity in the arts & creative industries – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Lily Fannon: Unused spaces Wasted places – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Florence Fitzgerald: The Suffocation of Arts Education – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Zoe Horn Haywood: Unpaid internships – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Jenny Messenger: What’s Missing from Carlisle? “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Samuel Bailey: Theatre Funding – what happens to the little man? “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 201 from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Alex Ricou: Girls on Film – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Rosie Cooke: Creativity Theft – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Luke Tucker: Dubbing in Foreign Language Visual Media – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Nicola Wood: Historical Accuracy in Film and TV – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013 from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

James Staynings: We Don’t Need No Education – “Got My Goat” presentations, Future Producers, Watershed 2013 from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Those Future Producers doing the Gold Arts Award developed new arts skills as part of Unit 1 Part A. The Future Producers established what they thought was their primary art form (e.g. illustration/writing/acting) and then worked with one of the other Future Producers to develop a skill in another art form (e.g. filmmaking/animation/music). They responded to a brief to create an art piece to promote Watershed’s Cinekids, which engages the cinema audiences of tomorrow in films from across the world and gives children aged 6 -11 the opportunity to explore the stories they see on screen and the processes behind making movies.  The art piece needed to reflect childlike characteristics such as being playful, daring, adventurous, watchful, destructive and performative.

These are the presentation’s of the Future Producers Artwork

Alexandra Ricou: Filmmaking and Drama – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Zoe Horn Haywood: Illustration & Graphic Design – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Roseanna Dias: Illustration and Animation – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

J Gibbs: Set Design and Printmaking – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

Florence Fitzgerald: Printmaking and Animation – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

James Staynings: Drama and Photography – Extend your own Arts practice, Future Producers, Watershed 2013. from Watershed Bristol on Vimeo.

This week was the final Future Producer masterclass session and we went out with a bang with presentations from three brilliant producers Matthew Austin from MAYK, Katherine Jewkes from National Theatre Wales and independent producer Sarah Warden.

Matthew shared a great blog post from Deborah Pearson, who is one of the Artistic Directors of Forest Fringe in Edinburgh. When asked what a producer does she says….

Back in December 2006 I had a meeting with the now artistic director of a theatre in the UK. I told them that I had been invited to curate a series of events at the Forest Café in August of 2007, that I was considering taking it on as my Practical Dissertation for the Master’s I was doing, but that I was terrified by the idea of producing. I had no idea what I was doing. They looked at me for a moment, leaned forward, and said, “Debbie, let me let you in on a secret. Nobody knows what they’re doing. 90% of Producing is Blagging it.” 

To do list – August 23rd, 2011 
– Speak on a panel for Fuel – try to answer the question “What does a producer do?” 
– Speak on a panel for Central about “Making the case for Innovation.” Try to make the case. 
– Pay STK Airport Invoice 
– Deposit donations 
– Update Budget and check on running totals 
– Check-in on Total Theatre bookings for Tania’s piece. 
– Move chairs. 
– Pick up rubbish and keep lounge/office tidy 
– Upload videos for “Save the Forest Campaign” and post them on youtube 
– Proof read “Save the Forest” press release and send back to Ryan Van Winkle 
– Count chairs and consider seating configuration for Daniel Kitson benefit 
– Respond to emails 
– Help Lucy with her installations 
– Chase Gary about invoicing me. 
– Check on Ira and Andy. 
– Check on myself. 

I became a producer because I wanted to see an alternative to the way that work was presented at the Edinburgh Festival, and I was given an opportunity to help create that alternative. Aside from this Artistic Director’s early advice, nobody told me how. My only perspective was the perspective of an artist. And this is where my advice comes from. Dare to imagine the best possible context and circumstances in which to present your work. Imagine the person who would facilitate this project. What traits would they have? Would they be warm and supportive, hardlined and organized, flexible but structured? Once you’ve answered these questions, go out and try to create that context, try to be that person. Here’s a guarantee – you will fuck up a bit. You won’t always succeed. You will probably put more things than you can complete on daily to-do lists. Focus on those individual tasks deliberately, one thing at a time. And then just keep going until somebody notices what you’re up to. Do this for long enough and eventually you will be asked to be on a producer’s panel. And you’ll know what a producer does. Just about.

Matthew then went on to share his own list of pointers, which I think brilliantly sums up what we have tried to shared through this summer programme of masterclasses and workshops. All that is now left to do if for our Future Producers to get on with the business of producing….watch this space!

Matthew’s top tips:

• 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

This year’s first Watershed and Future Producers co-curated content has gone live – the Watershed September Podcast researched and presented by Charlie Cooper.  The podcast focuses on developing new talent and features Encounter’s Gaia Meucci talking about programming the festival, Watershed’s Maddy Probst introducing the 90 second film competition DepicT and Future Producer Jenny Messenger sharing plans for Encounters Fresh Flix strand for young people.

Those involved in Plus are researching arts practitioners/professionals and interviewing them about their career. We used this requirement of the Gold Arts Award as an opportunity to skill up the Future Producers in filming interviews. Paddy Uglow and Grace Denton from Watershed’s online publishing team ran a practical workshop that covered all the basics from setting up the perfect shot to how to approach asking questions.

Interviewing Tips PDF

Bristol’s Festival of Ideas Zoë Steadman-Milne came to share her vast experience of organising events this week. It was interesting how she highlighted the key to success being ensuring you are meeting both the needs of the ‘performer’ and the audience.  Her checklist of essentials is a great reference for all creative producers.

The Performer:

•The Brief

•Fee

•What do they need?

•Getting there (and back again!)

•On the day

•Never assume anything!

The Audience:

•Tickets and Box Office

•On the day:

–How do you want them to feel?

–What do they need to know?

–Are they additional requirements that require more staff?

The Venue:

•What does it provide as standard?

•What can it provide?

•Pre-production

•Schedule

•Staffing and chain of command!

Admin:

•Timeline

•Budgets

•How are you keeping track?

•Pre-production

•Schedules

•Who needs what?

•Don’t assume – confirm!

•What are your responsibilities?

•Working with artists and curators

Last week we invited Lycia Harper from Glow Consulting to come and run a workshop with the Future Producers about evaluating the impact of the work they are doing with Watershed.  She introduced the group to ‘The Story of Change’. The handout from the session outlines the tool below.

Story of change approach

As the Future Producers form into teams to design a range of projects, seasons and events they are coming to a point where they need to work out their role in delivery.  What I am keen to avoid is us creating teams that essentially silo individuals into a ‘stage’ in the journey of the project. For example, someone taking on programming to then pass the baton to a marketing bod, who then deliver an audience to an event manager.  Through this programme we want the participants to be given the chance to be a creative producer – to make work happen – from design to delivery and on to documentation and dissemination.

The team involved in producing Fresh Flix for Encounters have started to identify their individual roles with a participant taking on the Children’s Jury Workshops, Luke leading on a filmmaking workshop ‘Turn the Camera on Yourself’, Matt taking on the ‘Comedy Writing Masterclass’ and Jenny leading on the ‘Fresh Flix: Shoot from the Hip screening and Q&A’ plus liaising with Charlie on digital documentation.

Sometimes it can be hard to get your head what it means to be a creative producer. I always find Clare Reddington – the Pervasive Media Studio director and queen bee of Watershed producers – writing useful on the role of a producer.  I also thought it might be good to share my job description as the Future Producers are essentially helping me to do my job better!

Engagement Projects Producer

Responsible to: Programme Producer

Responsible for: Project Freelancers, Future Producers and Volunteers

Purpose of Job

The post-holder will develop and produce projects, working across Watershed’s portfolio of engagement activity. He/she needs to be pro-active, enthusiastic and experienced in producing, facilitating and fundraising for projects designed to meet the needs of diverse participants within the agreed priorities framework.

Principal Responsibilities

• To produce Watershed’s portfolio of engagement projects, working with the Programme and Communications Departments, iShed and the Online Publishing team.

• To oversee the management and administration of project budgets in consultation with the Programme Developer and the Finance Department, including freelancers’ recruitment andcontractual arrangements.

• To work with the Programme and iShed teams, partners and participants to develop and fundraise for a project portfolio designed to meet the needs of diverse participants within the agreed priorities framework.

• To develop a productive working relationship within the organisation and externally to manage the successful delivery and development of projects.

• To document, collect and collate documentation of project activities for internal and external evaluation, advocacy and other purposes.

• To represent Watershed, by attending and hosting events.

• To attend / fulfil training requirements and personal development targets to further personal development.

• To adopt safe working practices at all times, conforming to all relevant Health and Safety legislation and attend relevant training.

Key Performance Indicators

• Produces projects effectively by communicating and co-operating well with staff and with external contacts.

• Develops productive relationships and motivates others.

• Solves problems and prioritises.

• Successfully delivers specific projects within a set budget and deadlines.

• Contributes positively to the development of projects and to Watershed strategies.

• Fundraises for projects within the agreed priorities framework.

• Demonstrates a proven interest and specialist knowledge of engagement training programmes.

• Ability to represent the department / organisation internally and externally.

• Supervises Freelancers and Volunteers effectively.

• Demonstrates growing expertise and knowledge base for the projects.

• Ability to represent Watershed and partners with enthusiasm.

Person Specification

Skills & Experience

• Highly organised and motivated.

• A friendly manner and the ability to communicate effectively at all levels.

• Shows initiative and positive approach to problem solving.

• Proven track record in delivering community based / engagement training projects.

• Proven experience of managing budgets.

• Experience in creating, facilitating, developing and evaluating creative projects.

• Good level of I.T. literacy, preferably on the Mac platform.

• Proven ability to work independently under direction as well as part of a team.

• An interest in digital media and community outreach projects.

• Cultural awareness and sensitivity to issues of equal opportunities.

• Fundraising experience is desirable but not essential.

• Experience with older learners and/or young people on arts or community projects is desirable but not essential.

• Experience of developing and producing European or intercultural projects is desirable but not essential.

The Future Producers are working with Watershed to inspire young creative talent through a diverse range of projects, festivals, events, seasons and online content creation. Our twenty aspiring creatives all had to pitch ideas for one of six challenges we set and we have now formed teams that will be working together on specific seasons or projects. The briefs they are responding to are:

1. To design, promote and deliver two fun family film inspired workshops as part of Encounters festival that will be programmed alongside the Children’s Jury Screening on Saturday 18^th September at ArnolFini. It should be a playful engaging activity that will encourage a parents and kids to come along and see the films that are featured in the Children’s Jury.

2. To programme and promote workshops designed to inspired young creative talent stimulated by the Encounters Fresh Flix: Shoot from the Hip selection. The workshops will take place on Saturday 18^th September and could be practical filmmaking (e.g. camera workshop/ crowd-funding for films/ animation etc) or focused around a theme within the films.

3. To plan a programme of activity as part of the Family Arts Festival within the October half term holidays. The activity should bring the work happening in the Pervasive Media Studio (PMS) to a family audience.  The PMS research lab brings together a network of over 100 artists, technologists and academics to explore the future of mobile and wireless media.

4. To create an Immersive Dark Arts cinema event as part of the BFI Gothic season at the end of November. Through the event we want to appeal to and engage 18 – 25 year olds who would not normally attend Watershed. You need to dream up some dark, curious and magical happenings that will give routes into watching films at Watershed for non-attenders.

5. To increase the audience for the Electric December films both on and offline. You can work with the Watershed online publishing team and explore how the films are curated both on the existing website and through other platforms.  You will also have the chance to work with the events and programming team to deliver the Electric December launch party and develop ideas around where else the Electric December films could be screened.

6.  To document the four seasons being programmed and produced by the Future Producers – Encounters, Family Arts Festival, BFI Gothic and Electric December. Working across mediums and presented on Dshed  it could include coverage of events, interviews, curated related archive content, profiles and audience responses.

One of the Future Producers involved in leading on producing Electric December  asked me to send through some documentation about last year’s Electric December launch night.  I have been a little resistant to sharing too much of what has gone before as I know from my own experience that sometimes having previous people’s plans can limit your own ability to re-imagine producing a project. Having said that sharing past reincarnations can help avoid reinventing the wheel and give you something to work with or against! What this question made me reflect upon is what type of documentation is useful to share about projects with our group of aspiring producers.

Photographs give you a feel for the experience of the night.

A news piece on the Watershed website gives you more detail about the showcase.

The functions sheets from Artifax (Watershed’s event booking programme) give you the detailed run down of the logistics.