Guest Seminar - Rebekah Tolley Georgiou - Documentary Film

Rebekah Tolley - joined us for a Guest Seminar, 1.30pm - Thursday 10th December 2020

This seminar focussed on Documentary Film - aimed at Year 1 FdA Film but open to all year groups.
UCW Film students can access the recording of the meeting and see links from seminar here (or via meeting in Teams Calendar).

From 2006-2010 Rebekah Tolley was an Executive Producer/Director for UK super indie TV production company, Tinopolis. Responsible for concept development, creative and production input on wide variety of video and interactive projects for clients such as the United Nations, BBC and Channel 4. As an independent producer, she has worked on a variety of projects for BAFTA LA, BAFTA UK, Five TV and Oxford University.

Rebekah’s professional photographic work has been featured in The Guardian, Observer Magazine, Radio Times, AG Photographic, The Magazine (Santa Fe’s magazine for the arts) Annual Best of World Photography edition 2005, Photography magazine, BAFTA Academy magazine and BAFTA Annual Report 2005-06.

Rebekah is a MA graduate in Design & Digital Media/Media Arts from Coventry University (one of the oldest digital arts courses in Europe) and of the EAVE European Producers programme for 2011.

Rebekah began working with the celebrated Documentary Film maker Michael Grigsby during the making of his documentary, Rehearsals, in 2005. They later went on to make 'We Went to War', which revisits the stories of David, Dennis and Lamar - veterans of Vietnam war 40 years after their return, when Michael first filmed them for the award winning film, 'I WAS A SOLDIER'

Visit: http://poool.co.uk/rebekah-tolley

Some notes and links to Films Rebekah shown/ spoke about:

Michael Grigsby - BFI Wiki IMDB.

The Stones in the Park

The Beatles - Live at The Cavern

​Enginemen (1959) - Watch Enginemen - on BFI Player. This poetic Free Cinema documentary, filmed near Manchester, reflects on the changing world of the engineman.

Rebekah spoke about Michael’s mentor Lindsay Anderson and ‘Free Cinema’. Read More about ‘Free Cinema’ on Poool

​Tomorrow's Saturday (1962)

I was a soldier (1970)

We went to War (2012) - Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley

Some notes from Michael Grigsby said in video interview- "Rightly or wrongly, I am known for making films with people with 'no voice' “.
“I learned about: 'Shutting up', 'Letting people be' , ‘No interuption’, ‘having no agenda’, ‘Silence, space in between is important’, ‘listen to their world’.

​Other Films Rebekah spoke about:

Okhwan's Mission Impossible - The story of a man on a bicycle, overcoming the borders of continents and body to reunite Korea. Bicycle road movie about a man and his epic 10 year journey around the world.

Life in a day - Kevin MacDonald / Ridley Scott

​Other notes:

Rebekah: “Always remain curious, be passionate, give people a voice”

​Also spoke about Iranian cinema including Directors Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi , speaking about his ‘This is not a Film’

Use of sound in Films, ‘Listen to their world’, ‘Don't load your films with music’.

Rebekah will be back in 2021 :)

Rebekah will be doing another session in New Year - aimed at Lens Based Media students - which will be more focussed on their Collaborative arts projects as Georgiou Tolley - https://www.artslabinternational.com/

GUEST SPEAKER - Raquel Villar-Pérez (Assistant Curator Photoworks) - Curating your own festival

11.00 am - Friday 27th November - 2020

Photography students from year 2 FdA Photography in Practice have curated the Photoworks‘ Festival in a Box’ at Loxton Campus (in Costa Café). All the works came in a small cardboard box and the studentslearnt about the photographers and decided how and where to hang the work. Have a look before the talk! Raquel will talk about references and sources of inspiration for the Festival in a Box. She will discuss traditional approaches as well as experimental approaches to hanging a show.

Photoworks champions photography for everyone. They are an international platform, global in reach, and have provided opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. Their programme brings new experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography. Photoworks is a registered charity and the only organisation with a national remit for photography in England.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84578885263?pwd=SVBEQSt4OGNJSzJjYWIrR0V5T01wdz09
Meeting ID: 845 7888 5263
Passcode: 120512

Website: photoworks.org.uk

CLAIRE CLEMENTS - WILDLIFE PRODUCER AND CAMERA OPERATOR - GUEST SEMINAR - Monday 30th November 2020

Claire is an award winning natural history Producer and Camera Operator from New Zealand, Australia and Ireland.

Claire presented a guest seminar, live from South Australia, on Monday 30th November 2020 11 am (UK time). Claire talked through the process of making a wildlife film, from idea to the pitch, writing, pre production, production, post & delivery. Drawing on her work on Wild Cities. (For a recording from seminar please message Richard Edkins on Teams).

'Over the last 9 years I've specialised in honing my skills as a story teller and shooter. I usually take my projects from development all the way through to delivery. 

I am a versatile camera operator skilled at long lens, macro and night filming. I've filmed on extended shoots around the world in often challenging conditions. I often specialise in telling urban wildlife stories. 

I'm a passionate conservationist and have a background in Zoology and a Masters in Natural History Film Making. 

For my latest documentary I have spent 5 months tracking a  never before filmed primate in Asia. This will be the first time this species has ever been seen on TV. 

I believe at the heart of every good film is good story telling and I constantly strive to find the magic, the beauty and the quirky that is so often right in front of us...and bring this to life on screen.'

For more about Claire's work visit: http://poool.co.uk/claire-clements

ANDREW DAVIES - GUEST SEMINAR - Fully Charged - AUTOMOTIVE VIDEOS // MUSIC VIDEOS // CORPORATE VIDEOS

Andrew Davies is a graduate of BA Lens Based Media and FdA Film & Media Arts Production degrees at University Centre Weston.

Currently working as Camera Operator and Production assistant with Fully Charged as well as doing freelance work as Andrew Davies Media.

Andrew will be doing a guest seminar Friday 27th November 2020 1.30pm giving his advice from University as well as how to get work outside of University.

Please email richard.edkins@weston.ac.uk if you would like to join (if you haven’t already received invite and link via teams) and think of some questions to add to the conversation.

See more about Andrew’s work here.

DISTANT DIALOGUES - UK / CHINA Project

You are encouraged to get involved with this project ‘Connecting the people of China with artists from the UK and vice versa’

Bristol based musician, Kayla Painter, is one of the UK artists involved.

The Chinese musicians/ artists are asking uk residents to respond to their music/ brief.

Take a look at the briefs below, take a listen to the music and send your response. Nice open briefs and lots of room to be creative with them. Engages you with an international project and hopefully gives you a greater understanding of opportunities for artists, musicians, film makers…

TAKE PART IN DISTANT DIALOGUES

Here's an open invitation for anyone in the UK to submit their ideas and contribute to the Distant Dialogues project. Each artist is looking to hear your responses to their brief so they can incorporate them into their new work. How will you respond?

DANCE

'I want to understand, what is dance music to British people?' says GOOOOOSE. 'Or to put it another way, what kinds of sound make them feel like moving their bodies?'

You can submit anything that makes you feel like dancing. It could be a sound, a music video, short clip or ambient sound recorded on you phone, or even some text, an image, or a video. Find out more and submit your response.

WHAT IT IS FOR STARING?

To participate in the ‘What It Is For Staring?’ project, please submit a video of a subject keeping a fixed gaze on self-chosen object for between 20-30 seconds. Participants shall try their best to avoid eye contact with audiences (including the camera or any other devices employed for recording) and maintain such avoidance for no less than 20 seconds. The object they are staring at should not be a phone, computer or television and the video should not show the object the participant is staring at, only the person staring in their environment. Find out more and submit your response.

SEEING FLOWERS

To participate in the ‘Seeing Flowers’ project, please send different photos of indoor or outdoor flowers that capture your feelings at that moment. After collecting a set of photographs, Shii will compose a song out of her visual impression, and after this, she will rework the collected pictures and cooperate with a visual artist to make a 3D animation. Find out more and submit your response.