By Polly Waterworth
So can you make a collaborative film project with 8 young people in Brixton during the lockdown?
Yes!
With creativity, resourcefulness, determination and when you know you have to give young people opportunities to have their voices heard.
This was an amazing opportunity for us to work with a really switched on and enlightened client, Clare Richards and ft’work who collaborate and campaign to create thriving communities underpinned by social principles.
The commission was to create a short film for the 2020 London Festival of Architecture on their theme of Power.
The lockdown meant we couldn’t film a round table discussion with a group of local young people but we really wanted to be able to represent those involved in some capacity at the symposium on June 30th 2020.
And we did. Here’s how.
Communicating with young people
With schools being shut and overwhelmed with their own communication needs we successfully recruited from our own mailing list of young people in lambeth rather than going through them.
Filming and production
We re-thought how to film with social distancing measures in place. We adapted our model to meet the brief but instead of a short film, we made a trailer for it.
We asked the participants to self film using Iphones and tripods in their own homes while our young director interviewed them via a separate mobile phone. We added in radio mics to get the best sound quality we could in the circumstances.
Presentation
We employed Vanessa, a young film student who has previously been on one of our work experience projects to help us direct and produce it.
She then went on to introduce the film to the LFA 2020 symposium that was held via Zoom.
We were determined to deliver something meaningful and of high quality even if we couldn’t produce it using our usual technical spec. It’s proof that solutions are out there and that young people are adaptable.
If you want to know what young people think about things then you have to ask them!
See Vanessa’s blog for more about what the young people thought about Power and empowerment.