Time Report Session Three

Yesterday, Emma and Lisa completed Session Three with our 'Time Report' film group at the Perryfields Junior School. It was one of our last pre-production sessions with the group, who have been designing how the characters, sets and props should look in their forthcoming film.

Here is a little video we made introducing you to some of the children in our group and their hard work:

This exciting project has been funded by First Light Movies. First Light works with young people from a variety of backgrounds, developing skills in media production. They identify and nurture talented young people and enable them to achieve their potential through targeted training activities. Working closely with industry partners, we are able to offer realistic progression routes for young people to find employment within the creative sector. First Light works with over 5,000 young people aged 5-25 every year providing opportunities to learn the craft of filmmaking from industry professionals (like Signals).

Going Back in Time...

Last week, Signals took ten lucky children from the Perryfields Junior School in Chelmsford on an exciting trip to Layer Marney Tower. The children have been working with Signals on a filmmaking project called 'Time Report' which has been funded by the lovely folk at First Light Movies and the Ernest Cook Trust. For the next 10 weeks, we'll be training these children up to become young filmmakers, showing them how to use a camera, record sound, edit video and act on the screen.

We have been working with the school children to come up with a film script based on the idea of creating a futuristic news report. Here's the story they've come up with so far...

The year is 2091 and humans are living on a space station that orbits a polluted earth. A journalist, the ‘Time Reporter’, is sent into time and space by a news show to find out about how the planet earth has been used over the years, and to find the cause of the current ecological problems. The Time Reporter interviews lots of different creatures and people including a dinosaur, a Tudor farmer, a present day school child and an alien trying to find out how the planet earth got in such a state. Back in the studio, there are a few technical problems, which the Director and Technician try to sort out. They decide that to save planet earth, they are going to break all the rules and make a DVD of the Time Report to send back to the present day school child, so that the people of 2011 can act now to save their planet.

So last week's trip to Layer Marney Tower was a fantastic opportunity to meet some Tudor people and learn all about Tudor life so we can include some of our newfound knowedge into the film. We learnt some amazing facts, including...

Did you know that chickens don't lay as many (if any eggs) during the winter months?

Stinging nettles were the Tudors' most precious herb? They used it for all sorts of things including making cloth, medicine and for eating!

Animal poo was collected and used for fuel!

On All Hallows Eve (or Halloween to us modern day people) the Tudors would have spent the night on their knees praying in the church. But the next day was All Saint's Day and was the biggest, most holy festival in the Tudor calendar.

We spent the day at Layer Marney, exploring all over the ground and meeting the farm animals including the horses, goats and sheep. The children all had a great time and will be recapping everything they learnt in tomorrow's third filmmaking session back in the school.