Getting the right professional partners and getting the production on track

We knew partners would be essential. The first step in the film production was to employ a local actress, Lesley Webster, to help the children develop their drama and improvisation skills. We secured a small grant to allow us to pay Lesley at a professional level. She worked with groups of fifteen, taking each group through a variety of skills while exploring issues of citizenship, developing their confidence in story telling, and in acting in front of peers without 'the giggles' overcoming them.

The film-makers were then called in to work with the class on scripting. Garry Stewart from Baldy Bane Theatre Company and David Goodall from Soundsmove Film Facilities took this on with great goodwill (see pictures 4 and 6). First they developed a sense of film and television in the children, drawing on the children's experience in media and particularly in television genres. The children identified what they liked, what they didn't like and what worked for them on television. Children have a huge television language, through the multimedia culture in which we live. Very quickly the children were using film and television vocabulary to describe accurately what they wanted to achieve.

The pupils were then split into small groups, using the sorting basket. Each group was to decide on the issues they wanted to explore and how they were going to express these on film. Initially we had assumed that the children would come up with an idea for a drama that would explore some community issues. However, it very quickly became clear that they wanted to use a variety of genres and explore many of the issues they had learned about.

The group setting remained throughout the whole process, each group taking responsibility for their own small scene or scenes in the final film, for example, a panel discussion (see picture 7). They were supported and encouraged throughout by Garry, David, class teachers and other staff. Scripts had to be edited and re-edited (see picture 2). They needed reality checks - one group wanted to do a crowd scene at Hampden Football ground and another wanted a helicopter landing! Another group wanted to explore vandalism and how we should persuade people not to vandalise our local community. It proved impossible for any of us to come up with a scenario that did not, at some level, glamorise or inadvertently promote vandalism to some of the prospective audience so, regretfully, it had to be dropped. There were many laughs and much frustration before final satisfaction with the scripts was achieved. Parts were cast and the children moved into the pre-production phase of the process, organising the filming schedule. Our external professional partners were crucial to this. They took the children's scripts and worked them into a workable shot list, explaining each step to the children and ensuring that each child was involved in the acting and filming processes.

The week of shooting was fantastic, cold, windy, frustrating, funny and exciting. The children rose to the challenge and many of them exceeded their own expectations. They took on roles of sound engineer, production assistant, assistant director - some of them displaying the qualities, creativity and bossiness of true professionals (see pictures 3 & 5). Some had a real flair for the jobs.

When filming was over the project was essentially complete in terms of the children's direct involvement. The editing was completed by our Soundsmove partner, working day and night to finish the work in time for the planned launch.

More than a film

During the whole process some additional film was taken in class, teachers and children were interviewed, and a documentary was put together to give other teachers an insight into the project. A booklet was written, with support from the EA's Advisor in Social Subjects who had backed the project from the beginning.

It was decided that the film should be launched in style and the Glasgow Film Theatre was hired to show the film to parents, friends, family, colleagues and invited guests (see Picture 1). We decided as a whole group not to watch the film till the launch, despite the nearly unbearable suspense. As the cinema filled up there were many nervous people, not least those that had worked on and supported the project throughout.

Watching the children, as they watched themselves in the 'big pictures' was an emotional experience. The children coped really well with the launch. Hearing the applause from their guests was magical for them. They had achieved something that had seemed impossible. They had worked hard and exercised their right to express themselves through art. They had produced a film that was entertaining, informative and usable in a class setting.

Back to earth

We had sustained attendance and in many cases substantially improved achievement across the curriculum throughout the project. Were there any important lessons learned, aspects that could and should have been better or that we would do differently another time?

	We definitely feel that the national guidance on Citizenship is right - that learning about it and actually experiencing it should be right through the school - so we would want future work on it to be a whole school sustained effort rather than a single class project.
	The success of 'random grouping' of children was one of the best findings in the project - children can learn to work in any grouping if they are motivated and accept the underlying principles of acceptance, flexibility and real collaboration.
	We would like to ensure that an adequate budget was secured before committing to the next big project!

The overall success of the project was down to collaborative team effort across the school community at large and with our external partners, but it was especially due to the efforts of Primary 7 pupils in Holmlea.