Blogzene

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Do you have a passion for people, their lives and their issues? Are you interested in capturing them on camera and making it into a different kind of movie? Could you inform, entertain and surprise an audience?

Northern Film & Media in partnership with Community Channel and Sheffield Doc/Fest are launching ”Capture 2010” a factual and documentary talent development scheme and will provide you with access to industry professionals, talent spotters, broadcasters, exhibition platforms and some project funding.

NFM  are looking for energetic Film Makers who have a passion for making content that could make a difference to an issue, a cause or a community.

They want to find talent that has a desire to innovate and are willing to go the extra mile to draw attention to their projects and reach a wide audience.
Read the rest of this entry »

Final Cut Pro is the industry standard software for film and video editors

Teesside University has recently became an Apple Authorised Training Centre for Final Cut Pro. The School of Arts & Media is delivering five courses in the latest version of the industry standard video editing software between February and July 2010. Subsidies are available for eligible North East-based SME and freelance businesses.

Final Cut Pro is the first choice software package for professional TV and film editors. Version 7 provides better integration with Apple’s other Pro applications than ever before with improved codec support for editing HD, DV and SD video formats. It also boasts new presets for devices such as iPod, Apple TV, and Blu-ray discs. Over four intensive days, this course aims to develop a professional competence in both post production craft and an understanding and operation of Final Cut Pro 7 software.

All delegates attending the Teesside course will be given the opportunity to obtain an Apple accredited certificate for the latest version of the package, while also obtaining 20 University credits in ‘Post Production with Final Cut Pro’. The cost of the Apple exam and Final Cut Pro 7 handbook is included in the fee.
Cost per person: £830.00
Subsidised cost per person: Up to 90% discount (based on successful Teesside University and Business Link application)

For further information regarding eligibility and course dates contact James McDermott on: 01642 738 089 or Email: samwfd@tees.ac.uk

CLICK TO ENLARGE

A unique exhibition will run at Middlesbrough’s Python Gallery from Feb 18th to March 12th featuring the work of staff at Teesside University’s School of Computing

School of Computing staff at Teesside University work in a variety of fields, meaning they are able to teach drawing and computing skills which combine traditional 2d drawing and painting skills to create conceptual computer created imagery, mostly based on and for the computer game industry.

Staff continue their art-practice as part of their on-going research and they have produced, for this exhibition, a collection of eclectic work, including photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and animation.

Featured in the exhibition is what is believed to be the world’s first 3D print of a ‘Mandelbulb’ and also Maggie Parker’s seminal works, ‘Infinity’ and ‘Torus’.  These pieces are impossible to make in the ‘real world’ due to their complexity of shape, only being able to be manifested in the ‘real world’ by recreating them using a 3d printer.

The retiring Dean of the school, Derek Simpson says “This exhibition, to be held at the Python Gallery, Middlesbrough, is an excellent opportunity for both academic and ancillary staff to consolidate their status as artists in both the public’s and students’ eyes and disseminate this work into the larger community”.

Python Gallery, Royal Middlehaven House, Gosford Street, Middlesbrough, TS2 1BB, Telephone: 01642 247745

The community animation event (Animex Fringe) in Saltburn on Thursday 11th Feb was a tremendous successes with a full house for the matinee (in which we hooked up with children and police in Latvia) and around 80 people for the evening event. The event made it onto Latvian National TV !

You can relive the event on the blog at www.saltburn.org.uk or if you really want to re-run the event in the order it happened click here ( it builds slow but quickly gets media rich) – just read each page, scrolling down and then click “older entries” at the bottom. As well as the hook-up with Latvia, the event was followed by people in Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Finland and the UK.

The event saw the world premier of “The Force is With You” which you can enjoy below.

“The Seer Sung Husband” a new paperback of Bob Beagrie poetry is released this month by Smokestack Books,  priced at £7.95 (ISBN: 978-0-956034-14-4)

The Seer Sung Husband tells the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the sixteenth-century Northern rebellion that briefly defied the authority of Church and State. Tobias Shipton, carpenter and husband of the Yorkshire witch and soothsayer Old Mother Shipton, weaves a wyrd tale of love and loyalty, rebellion and royal retribution. The Seer Sung Husband is a book about folklore and myth, imagination and belief. It’s a portrait of England at a time of radical social, religious and political crisis. It’s a magical realist verse-epic set against the violent upheavals of 16th Century England. It’s a book about witchcraft and statecraft, religious faith and political betrayal.

Teesside University is set to deliver a series of innovative courses aimed at professional actors and film directors. The first of these is Acting for Green Screen – a course which will teach actors how to perform in the virtual environments that have become the norm in today’s Hollywood blockbuster movies.

Led by award-winning director Malachi Bogdanov ( Assoc Director English Shakespeare Company, Wales Theatre Company, directed over 70 professional theatre productions) and Special Effects Technician Mark Buschbacher (Casino Royale, Da Vinci Code & Harry Potter), the course will prepare the delegates for working in modern film industry environments and situations.

Ewan Mcgregor found acting in virtual environments daunting. North East-based actors can learn how it's done at Teesside University in March.

This University accredited three day intensive short course offers a unique opportunity for professional actors to work in Teesside University’s industry standard High-Definition sound stage – the only one of its kind available to actors in the north of England, to develop skills in Green Screen Performance, increasing their employability and enhancing their career options.

Acting with an imaginary character in an imaginary location is a daunting prospect for any actor and a technical discipline is required that is not usually supported by conventional actor training. High profile actors like Ewan McGregor and Gwyneth Paltrow have admitted to finding it ‘very, very hard’ and ‘daunting’ when working with this media. Acting for Green Screen has been designed to offer actors the opportunity to experience firsthand, the challenges and demands of this genre, and to enable them to develop the skills required to achieve convincing and accomplished performance in an environment where nothing is as it seems.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ronak Singh's 'Bride & Gloom'

Ronak Singh is screening three of his films at the Arc, Stockton early next month.

The Thornaby-based filmmaker is screening the Barnardo’s funded Innocence and the BME Network funded No Honour No Choice, alongside his self-funded film  Bride & Gloom.

While Ronak’s significantly developed his writer/director skills in the last couple of years he continues to film in the region where he matches local talent with professional actors. In Bride & Gloom east meets west as a young Indian bride finds herself in the room of a nervous, asthmatic white groom. It stars Coronation Street’s Poppy Jhakra and Mark Stobbart (55 Degrees North & Auf Wiedershen Pet) and features Middlesbrough born actor Bill Fellows.

A trailer can be seen here

The film showcase is free to attend  and takes place on Monday 1st March from 7pm. To book your place contact Wendy Shepherd of Barnardos SECOS project on: 01642 819743 or Email: wendy.shepherd@barnardos.org.uk

Teesside University has announced details of its Spring University programme and as usual there are a whole host of creative courses on offer:

Design
Introduction to Digital Photography
Introduction to Graphic Design
Introduction to Interior Design
Introduction to Product Design
Introduction to Web Design

English
Introduction to Creative Writing
Regional Writing

Fine Art
Exploring Galleries
Introduction to Drawing
Introduction to Painting
Looking at Modern Art

Read the rest of this entry »

Reader’s of the last instalment of Blogzene will no doubt have seen the Remember my Face video.

Director Tom Marshall made it for a national competition and is asking for support from readers of this blog. It’s been shortlisted from over 250 entries into the final 12 in reed.co.uk’s Short Film Competition. The brief was to make a short film of no more than three minutes long, under the heading ‘workplace’.

A bit like the X-Factor, Remember my Face needs as many votes as possible to get through to the final round of the competition which offers the winner a ten grand prize.

To place your vote, click here

…And good luck to Tom who is the subject of our regular ‘Creative Perspective’ feature next time on Blogzene.

The Poster, click to enlarge

With the assistance of Northern Film and Media and the UK Film Council there will be a Fringe Animex event in Saltburn featuring community produced animations. This will take place at 7.30pm on February 11^th at Saltburn Community Theatre, Albion Terrace, Saltburn, TS12 1JW.

Featured this year will be World Première of “The Force is With You” which has been produced in partnership with the Institute of Digital Innovation, the Skinningrove Community, Whitecliffe Primary School and Redcar & Cleveland Community Safety Partnership. The school children will get their own matinee screening at 1.30 on the same date.

During a recent International workshop in Vienna one of scenes in “The Force is With You” was “voiced” using the services of some of the workshop attendees. The film clip below is a sneak preview of one of the scenes and a behind the scenes look at how it was put together.

Trouper 1 is played by Markus Petz from Finland, Trouper 2 by Thomas Chepaitis the Minister of foreign affairs of Uzhupis Republic (Lithuania) Arthur Vador is played by Steve Thompson and Barry Hunt the Mayor of Loftus is camera operator.

In the background is Laura Pakalne, Senior Officer in the Public Relations Department in the Ministry of Justice, Latvia who is most interested in our working with the British police and the movie production team on more collaborative projects. Markus has delayed his return to Finland to travel to Saltburn to assist with a hook-up with Latvia during the event on the 11^th. It’s quite possible that people all over the world will be able to participate in the event. More information on this will be released closer to the event. The primary site for any streaming or “back channel” activity during the event is www.saltburn.org.uk

As well as the evening event there will be a matinee for schools and its during the afternoon event that the team will be aiming to hook up with children in Latvia. For more info contact s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk

The next in Teesside University’s series of One North East and Skillset funded workshops for recent entrants to the creative media industries is ‘Shoot Fashion with Keith Moss and Kate Fearnley’.

Led by former Vogue and Wella photographer Keith and internationally acclaimed fashion designer Kate, this workshop is ideal for anyone who is wishing to establish themselves as a fashion photographer.

Fashion photography may be one of the most exciting industries to work in but it’s a highly competitive one that can be extremely difficult to get into. So, how does an aspiring photographer break in to the industry? And when they get there, what is their role – and what are they expected to do? Who else will they work with and how does he/she interact with the many models, stylists and make-up artists who are all essential parts of the process? Leading to the next question: How do they go about recruiting these people in the first place?

Finally, how does the fashion photographer achieve the expectations of the fashion designer while appealing to the tastes of the designer’s audience? And how do they ensure that the image that appears on the billboard or in the magazine looks like the one that they and their client had in their heads?

All of these questions (and many more) will be answered in this practical workshop led by Keith Moss. Keith who has worked at the top of his industry for over 20 years, will be joined by renowned fashion designer Kate Fearnley who will give a unique insight in to the mind of the person who creates the clothes and buys the photography.

The myths of the industry will be dispelled through candid, ‘behind the scenes’ discussions with professional make-up artists, stylists and models who are all highly important contributors to the creation of great fashion photography.

This will be followed by a live shoot where (with their own cameras) the participants will have the rare opportunity to photograph the models wearing Kate Fearnley’s latest collection, supported by a team of stylists and make-up artists. Keith and Kate will give technical and creative feedback to the delegates as they develop the skills needed to become a successful fashion photographer throughout the shoot.

The Shoot Fashion with Keith Moss and Kate Fearnley workshop takes place at Teesside University from 9.30am – 4.30pm on Tuesday 23^rd February 2010.

The One North East funded workshop is open to recent entrants to the photography industry who have an interest in working in fashion. If you are interested in attending, please send a brief biog/CV and web link to your work to James McDermott at: j.mcdermott@tees.ac.uk with ‘Shoot Fashion Workshop’ in the Subject box by midday on Friday 12^th February. For further information call James on: 01642 738 089. Please note that as with all Skillset Sustain funded events, delegates MUST be working in the North East-based media industries to qualify for this ‘no cost’ event.

Kitch-en Gallery has recently moved from Middlesbrough to Newcastle. To celebrate the move up north, the gallery has announced details of a relaunch’event which will consist of a whole weekend of exhibitions, activities and entertainment from 4th – 6th March.

The relaunch will feature the work of both old and new Kitch-en resident artists, including the likes of Alexander James, Jess Douglas, Craww, Ben The Illustrator, Phlegm and Jam Factory.

A preview evening takes place at the Gallery – which is based on Ridley Place – from 6.00pm – 8.00pm on Thursday 4th March.

For further information visit the Kitch-en Gallery website

Institute of Digital Innovation Xmas Card from IDI on Vimeo.