ARTS LEADERSHIP: PLAN
What is our project?
About Culture Works East Vision Culture Works East’s vision is to be the leading youth arts provider in the Eastern region. Its mission of inspiring children and young people to discover and reach their potential is achieved through access to high-quality arts, media and culture to encourage creativity. Using a range of approaches its provides engagement, social inclusion, education, training and support for those aged 8-25, particularly those from excluded groups.
Founded in 2009 by company artistic director Elli Chapman who has more than 20 years experience in the youth arts sector Culture Works East's vision is about deep-rooted, long - term change for participants, by finding ways to encourage progression so that they can develop a growing interest in the arts, sustain their new-found skills and use them to flourish. Its creative team, brings together inspirational professionals who deliver activities with experienced youth arts practitioners and specialists. They mentor participants to develop a range of creative and media skills as well as personal, social and transferrable skills in a safe and fun environment fully equipped with the latest industry standard equipment and resources.
Culture Works East achieve this vision through:
• inspiring interest in the arts, creative and cultural activity
• connecting the work of high quality arts, practitioners and organisations with children, young people and their families
• providing opportunities for participants to engage and participate in the arts, enjoy themselves and find out about potential progression routes
• developing participants’ creative and technical skills
• developing participants’ ability to debate, contribute to and articulate their feelings and responses to cultural activities and events
Activity/Impact
Culture Works East works across the Eastern region, mainly in Norfolk and Suffolk, with some short term work in Cambridgeshire and year round activity covering Greater Norwich and Great Yarmouth delivering BFI Film Academy. During 2015/16 it:
• worked with over 2,200 children and young people aged 8-25 years, of which 52% are from protected characteristic groups. From this, 69% progressed to additional artistic opportunities, education, training or employment.
• collaborated with 62 artists and help young people achieved 163 Arts Awards from Discover to Gold. (Arts Award is an Arts Council funded national award scheme that inspires young people to grow their arts and leadership talents).
• attracted live audiences of over 9,800 through its partnership working, reaching over 260,800 digital audiences. • successfully engaged and worked with 47% of schools across Norfolk and 54% of those in Suffolk, across Key Stages 1-5.
• delivered 17 projects, 22 career, curriculum and creative talks, 45 school group visits, 325 workshops and activities, 132 performances; and 7 public showcases and celebrations.
• collaborated with BAFTA, Youth Music, BFI Learning, BBC, Latitude Festival and Arts Councilfunded National Portfolio Organisations on outreach, learning and participation activity.
Funding
• Over the last five years Culture Works East has been awarded £118,000 by the British Film Institute (BFI) to be the Norfolk and Suffolk delivery partner for the national BFI Academy initiative. Over this period the scheme has engaged 118 young people and has seen a 95% progression rate into higher education or the film/TV industry. Young people who took part in the scheme gained work with Pinewood Studios, Channel 4, the BBC, as well as setting up as self employed film practitioners
• Over the last three years Culture Works East has attracted £44,250 in Arts Council funding through its Grants for the Arts scheme. The organisation currently has an application in for an additional £40,000 through this scheme as well as an application to become an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation which, if successful, would see it receive in the region of £80,000 a year over the next four years.
• Elli recently received a disabled bursary to take part in the Clore Leadership Short Course, the pre-eminent leadership training course for outstanding leaders in the arts, and has recently applied to become a Clore Fellow.
Testimonies:
“CWE has a strong track record of delivering high quality activity for children and young people in the region. Their work often engages the most hard to reach young people and it has real impact. CWE have excellent understanding of Arts Award and have led the way in implementing it in the BFI Film Academy projects and at the Latitude Festival.” Michael Corley, Head of Bridge, Norfolk and Norwich Festival
“Culture Works East is an organisation that has helped shape my life. I get a great deal of support and guidance through Elli, she’s been there for me every step of the way, from finding my feet in my chosen creative industry to going through set backs in my life. Having that mentor relationship really impacts my day to day life. I learn an invaluable amount from her experiences, she teaches me a wide range of knowledge to progress; from how to manage a large group of people to budgeting a short film. All of these personal industry standard techniques I wouldn’t find anywhere else.
“Since being part of Culture Works for 3 years, I’ve had more and more responsibility within the organisation, it enables young people like myself to work alongside adults in the same environment and platform as they do. This is a crucial part of Elli’s vision for the company and is especially important to gain working relationships with other people at such a pivotal moment in our careers. I’ve worked with other organisations that offer me opportunities as well, but they don’t understand the importance of having young people at the centre of it all, this is what makes CWE stand out from any other youth organisation.
“To think an organisation that I care about tremendously is at risk is heart breaking. To work with other likeminded people who you call your family is truly something I will never take for granted. The work that Culture Works does for the local community is inspiring, they always deliver workshops and events at the best quality and standard even under enormous amounts of stress, but I can guarantee they will do it with a smile on their face. This is something I always admire. The one thing I can say if CWE wasn’t able to continue, there would be such a lack of understanding and support for the next generation of younger creative people. It wont just affect my personal development, but generations to come.” Culture Works East participant (further testimonies available on request)
What is my main role in the project?
My role in the project is producer. This involves a variety of responsibilities that include:
-Call sheets
-Organisation of cast and crew
- Preparing and clearing locations
- Making sure release forms are signed
-Making sure all the appropriate documents are filled in
Project plan:
- I chose to be in documentary as I think that it would really challenge me as it is not a form of media I have created before. I also think that there are some interesting roots which we can go down and developing the story will be very interesting. I think that I will be able to learn the most from this choice due to the unfamiliarity of the format; so the whole process will be slightly different from what I am used to allowing me to really stretch myself.
-The film is going to be a 5 minute documentary on how social media may or may not isolate young people in todays society. The target audience is quite broad as it is a topic that concerns a lot of people because technology is such a large part of our lives. I would say that the people it concerns most are probably people from the age 14-25, as it is young people who we are really investigating. However, parents and members of the older generations could also be interested in it as it is concerning their children. The steps that need to be completed to make our film are the following :
- research, e.g facts, interviews, voxpops
- Cutaways
-Animations to aid with asking questions
- Film company ident
- Editing
-The team:
We have all the tutors such as Elli Chapman, Al Jeffieries, Jamie Quantrill and Andrew Todd to help us with the development and production of our film. We also have some past Bfi alumni which will be there during production week to help us .Then there is our actual team made3 up of bfi members:
-Director - Emily McKenzie
-Producer - Tazmin Lucas (me)
-Assistant Director/scriptwriter - Philippa English
- Editor - Freddie Palmer
-Director of Photography - Liv Phillips
- Cameraman - Charlie Burcham
-Sound - Luke Harris
-Animator/Scriptwriter- Amy
-Research/editing- Eleanor Roset
Everyone is responsible for specific things within their own roles, dividing up the workload. When we need support we will consult the tutors with us to they can guide us in the right direction.
-Resources:
To complete the task we will need a variety of resources:
- Cameras - to film
- Boom mic, sound equipment- to record the audio
-Editing software- so we can edit the project
- Outdoor spaces - to interview the public
- Indoor rooms to interview professionals
-Appropriate documents, like release forms- to ensure we can use all the footage and that the footage is collected in the appropriate manner.
Monitoring the project:
We will do a to do list for the beginning of everyday to help us keep on track of what we are doing and focussed enough to meet the deadline. We have set up a group chat so we can all communicate with each other even when we are not working as to make sure we maximise productivity. We will also meet in the morning of everyday to determine how we should go about the tasks and to make sure everyone knows what they are doing.
Areas of risk:
Due to the nature of documentary making there are quite a few elements of risk:
- Filming in public spaces: we need to make sure that we are careful with all the camera equipment when out in public so nothing will get stolen or damaged, also clearing public locations before filming.
-Approaching Members of the public: we need to make sure that when we approach members of the public to interview that we do it in a calm and respectful manner; and have an action plan if they do not respond kindly so as to diffuse the situation in the best way possible.
-Weather : making sure we have back up locations in case the weather is bad when we go out to film.
