Cine-K.I.D.S (Keeping it Dead Simple) (Unit A Part 1, 2 and 3)

Of all the tasks set as part of the Future Producers Plus scheme the Cinekids promotional material challenge has been the most difficult brief to work on. It’s challenged me to outside my comfort zone with new (and expensive) equipment, to confront an audience (kids) that partly terrify me and made me consider how I can adapt my writing skills into unfamiliar genres and environments. Along with issues related to producing my mock promotional material due to circumstances that had not planned for also meant my plans like the best-laid plans.

But from the start I knew and have mentioned before this brief would be a challenge, to combine my primary art-form of writing with a more visual art-form like film . Especially given my first concept for the promotional material being ‘a picture worth a 1,000 words’,(as discussed in a previous blog, (Never Work with Animals or Children: Cinekids Challenge (Unit 1 A Part 2)) using my promo material to showcase how other mediums present story-telling in a way that captures imagination and brings to mind the words and emotional that we feel through stories and dialogue that we experience, whether through watching, listening or reading.

But due to time constraints, lack of technical skill (and confidence) and a desire to make my promotional material effective and the best it could be by keeping the concept and material itself dead simple, I changed my secondary art-form from film to another visual medium, photography. An art-form I have been interested in since A Level, which I never had the confidence or patience to take up before. An art-form I also felt would allow me to me to use still images, snap shots in of a single moment, to explore how children’s films, like books encourage kids to learn and gain skills, knowledge and ideas that are used throughout life.

With still images and information and my writing attached I also retained the flexibility to make my promotional material available for use both online and in creating posters, leaflets or flyers that would promote the Watershed’s Cinekids program. I also felt that with single snap-shots I would be able to better use my directional skills to help build layers of ideas and meaning into ‘a picture worth a 1,000 words’ concept.

Something I had explored before as a director at university I did have a hand in creating the concept for a photograph that was used for the publicity posters and flyers for my first feature length play, Stand Up and Jump, which consisted of me stood on a ledge looking down at the road below…with a little help from photoshop and a photographer who knew what he was doing. The finished product, (the picture below), blew me away and I instantly fell in love with as the image captured multiple feelings and layers that I wanted the play’s poster to portray and that featured within the performance itself from a sense of fear and anxiety to the main characters sense of un-reality of their situation. I had created the concept, but the director in me wanted to know how to create and ‘direct’ that kind of image all by myself.

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This is one of the few snaps that I took at the photography workshop that I felt happy with as I was able to keep the camera steady, get the right amount of focus for the shot and most importantly I did not stick my finger near the lens! Overall I created and perfectly shot the picture that I wanted to shot!
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The workshop Louise ran was extremely useful in learning the basics of how a camera works and how you can create different lighting and visual effects. The different factors that affect a photograph from the focus, the ISO of the film, shutter speed and the aperture, along with my questions to Louise about different lens and shot types made me want to learn more, but for my project I decided to I would have to experiment with more complicated ideas at another time.

Here’s me stood with a camera during the practical part of Louise’s photography workshop… I am possibly looking at a seagull and considering whether to take a snap of it.
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Here is a photograph of the technical basics that you need to know about working a camera with some of my notes scribbled on it.
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After the workshop I consulted Claire, our Gold Arts Award leader and other Future Producers about how I could potentially streamline and effectively present my idea of how writing and images as mediums look at engaging audiences in stories, generating emotional responses and discussion and help kids of all ages understand the world they live in, thereby helping them to form their own thoughts and opinions. I decided to present both these art forms side-by-side rather than trying to find a way to present the two together in a still image.

I.e. the idea I had conceived before trying to simplify my idea had been to students that I work with pose for a picture recreating a famous scenes from children’s movies, like the famous scene from the Lion King (picture below). Behind these figures who would not be wearing costume or have props and with a black background, would be super-imposed words either added in the editing phrase or stuck on the black background, adjectives, phrases and ideas that came to them when they re-watched the original scene.

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An early version of my notes for the refined version of my promotional material with a picture on one side with the story on another.
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I felt this idea would allow me to use the basic photography skills I had used, as well as employing some editorial tricks that I had learn through discussing photography with Louise and through some of my friends who do photography. I also felt that the promotional material in part a game, as the scenes, to some degree not instantly recognizable with words surrounding the scene could allow parents and children to try and guess which film it was from. I also felt the idea also provided scope for expanding the draft promotional material into a series of pieces which could form and be a kind of game for parents and their kids both online and in the paper copies of the material.
Yet this they, like I, felt that there would be too much going on within the images and would not effectively promote the message I wanted parents to see.

So instead I decided that I would continue using the idea of students from my school, (who might look like the children of Cinekids potential audience), posing from dramatic scenes out of famous children’s film with a short story accompanying the images that would give clues to the reader about what film it was from and the situation shown. Both the image and the short story would also be inspired and would central around a profound piece of almost philosophical or adult like dialogue from the selected film.

This would also still keep another element of the concept for the pictures in that the way the subjects are represented, the audience may be surprised to know that the scene portrayed and the quote used from something more mature and perhaps more theatrical than a children’s film. Again the idea of this to show parents how like other art forms like theatre, film can move and educate people of all ages in a way that encourages free thinking.

For my draft promotional material piece I choose to write a story story and shoot a famous scene from one of the most successful children’s films of the recent century…Finding Nemo, using in particular these lines as inspiration:

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However, there was a snag in my plan…

As although on the day that I intended to do the photo-shoot as part of the Drama Club warm-up game, there were last minute complications. The parental permission forms I had used were not valid due to an unexpected oversight. With a week to go before I had to present my promotional material to the Watershed team and the other Future Producers this caused me a big set-back and unfortunately I was not able to get the revised parental consent forms to parents in time. Instead I had to do a last minute photo-shoot creating the above scene with two of my co-workers…during our morning coffee break and with both students and staff looking on curiously.

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Given the limited amount of time we had, the weird looks we received from onlookers and the pressure to get these pictures sorted in 15 minutes… I kind of like these shots. Although there are definitely not the best technical shots, I was happy with the way my subjects responded to my direction and do feel that to some degree, the photos all show in some form or another the ambiguous themes of a relationship between the two characters and a sense of love and potential loss that does generate an emotional response.

Similarly, despite some issues with making sure the short story I was able to draw on my experience of writing monologues to explore and outline the character of Dory’s feelings, both good and bad in the scene. Perhaps not in a way that is completely kid friendly but parent friendly at the least.

a copy of my proto-type promotional leaflet:
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When it came to presenting the prototype to the rest of the Watershed team and Future Producers, I was a mix of exhausted and nervous given my lateness from arriving late from my school’s parents evening. Overall the feedback I received from both the Watershed team and my other Future Producers was that the concept did work and that the ideas for how to further market the material both on and offline as a series of pieces and a guessing game did interest them. Yet there were other pieces of promo material the other Future Producers created that I believed were much simpler and in terms of production, easier to market and produce on a more cost-effective basis.

On reflection, I do feel that with more time and with the right resources I would have been able to more properly shot the shots I wanted, but given that I have been able to try this new art form and experiment with basic technical aspects of photography and gained more confidence using a photography camera while be stared at, something that I would have previously struggled with. I would like to continue to learn more about photography and take advantage of the camera equipment I posses on my mobile and other devices to take more artistic photos and to experiment with different camera angles, light and editing effects.

When I write short plays and come up with concepts for different types of work I generally also find myself with ideas for posters and book covers in my head and through photography I might find another creative outlet to indulge in. As for writing for kids In terms of writing for kids in the future I am open to the possibility and I have had ideas in the past about creating a fantasy-eque fairy-tell story that could easily work as a piece of interactive theatre, but for the moment I think I will be sticking to what I know best with my writing. A more grown-up and uniquely damaged yet beautiful view of the world.
The most difficult part of this brief was coming up with the concept that was simple enough and effective, rather than actual production of the work that did not on either account take long.

I think from my stand-point when it comes to my primary art form of writing, the thing that interests me the most is how I can best explore a concept, message, theme or idea using words and was something that I felt throughout this process that I wanted to explore in a different way. For this project did conflict at times with the reason for creating this promotional material, to advertise and sell Cinekids workshops to parents. Instead I was focused more on exploring and combining the two art-forms by combining them.

In the future I may look to explore the possibility of overlapping words within the visual mediums of film and photography again, but in a different way. For the moment I think I will stick to exploring the world through writing and photography as separate art forms or art forms that co-exist next to each other.

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