Our workshop project ‘Madison – The Journey of Making the Film’ took inspiration from writer Bethan Marlow’s experiences and track record in creating community theatre projects. We wanted to build a community of young LQBTQ+ creatives and involve them in the journey of making the film, whilst providing opportunities to expand their industry knowledge and skillets during development, in preparation for employment on the film once it was taken into production. Part of this process has involved devising and producing the short film ‘Meantime’ providing a professional credit for the participants to utilise within their career progression.
A total of £20,000.00 was received from Ymddiried to run these workshops. The funding was split over 3 x Blocks of workshops between January 2021 and January 2023. Additional funding was sourced from BFI and Ffilm Cymru Wales Education
The funding was used to set up and facilitate both zoom and in person sessions and included: Creating safeguarding policies and other legal paperwork, facilitator and safeguarding representative fees, Guest Speakers fees, filming support crew and equipment, room/location hire, post production, travel and sustenance and participant access requirements.
The workshop experience has been incredibly rewarding both for facilitators and participants. We have successfully created a community of young talented creatives around the feature film ‘Madison’, who we hope will ultimately continue the journey with employment on the film when we go into production. The practical workshop participants have their short film ‘Meantime’ to use as a calling card for future industry schemes and employment opportunities.
Participant Quotes:
‘Taking part in this project has been a real confidence boost for me….I feel like my knowledge of film making and the film industry has developed massively and I feel incredibly inspired to go out and make my own films!’ (Cerian Wilshere)
“…It’s enabled me to think wider about my practice as a writer, I now feel able to explore writing for screen which is something that felt intangible to me before this process…Time to learn and explore in this way is exactly what I needed at this point in my career. I know more now about the tv and film industry than I ever thought I would, the Madison workshops demonstrated to me that my skills are transferable to tv and film.” (Yasmin Williams)
“…Being able to write and perform in a short film was a brand new experience. It has made me think about the possibilities for me as a writer in the film and TV industry. This is something I thought was out of reach for me as I hadn’t had exposure to this before…” (Hannah Lad)
“…Definitely the producing side and being behind the scenes doing the make-up was really good for me, mentoring other members of the group was something I really enjoyed and I think that my future is in something like that…” (Madison Clayton)
“ Being involved in the the Madison project was amazing, getting to work with people in the creative and film industry in the workshops really helped me realise the work that happens behind the scenes of the industry and open up new ideas for working with people in the creative industry…” (Ffion Western)
