Sophie received a bursary from Film Hub Midlands to attend Film Camp 2018.
I have been contracted to work with the Clifton Community Arts centre in Wellington, Telford as a project manager to work with them creating a cinema, community arts centre, and café facility in the centre of Wellington. The group are all passionate volunteers who have strived for the last 5 years to bring this facility to town, and I was invited to join them in August 2016.
At the time of attending the Film Hub Midlands Film Camp we were on the cusp of signing a lease for a disused bank building, so we were spending as much time as possible networking and gaining knowledge of the industry.
The intention of attending event was not only to network but to gain a better understanding of how other facilities operate, programme, and promote their cinemas.
Our Finance Director (Ray) and I attended separate workshops to gain as much information as we could. I attended Cine Soup and Build Your Own Marketing Campaign, Ray attended Bring Data to Life: Paths for Finding and Visualising and also Programming for Young Audiences.
The Cine Soup presentation was interesting, and could possibly work well in other areas, but at this stage I don’t believe would work for our facility. However, it was a great insight into short films, which I had never previously encountered – but safe to say I have been converted!
The Marketing presentation was extremely enlightening. Understanding how to write copy for a film – and even improve on what you are given by distributors was enlightening.
The presentation from David Glenwirght opened my eyes to Facebook algorithms – and I am now quite evangelical about them! Following this presentation, and implementing ideas and information picked up we had our most commented on and liked Facebook post – ever!
Ray enjoyed the Programming for Young Audiences - as this is an area we do need to concentrate on when we start programming/showing films. He found the Dragons Den type presentation informative and enjoyable, end enjoyed chatting to one of the younger participants Yewan. The week following this event we were invited to Yewans school to see a fantastic film they had created using archives, interviews and animation. This has now developed into a relationship between the school Film Club and the Clifton Group where we have promised to show films created in the school once our facility is open.
All in all an extremely informative productive event, and we will certainly attend any similar events if possible.
