City Eye ran a successful documentary project aimed at creating two film crews who could be used to help document some of the exciting projects taking place through the support of Find Your Talent: PUSH funding.

The project was set up in two parts with seven young people aged 14-17 joining City Eye filmmakers for a week long training session where they learnt about documentary filmmakers and styles, explored cameras and their advanced features and then made a short 6 minute film on ‘How to make a documentary film’. The training sessions ended with a screening to parents and friends of the films that were made. Three members of the project went on to use this training week as the basis to completing their Bronze Arts Award.

The second part of the project took place when each film crew was given a brief to make a documentary about other Find Your Talent projects. Each group worked on their own to create the films which showed the quality of their learning and how they had developed as filmmakers. One group made a film about City Eye’s own 3-School Film Academy screening showcase which took place at the Harbour Lights cinema. The other film crew made a short documentary about the end of Find Your Talent’s 2 year journey in Portsmouth, Southampton and South Hampshire. Overall the films were very well received and have since played at various screenings including Arts Award Conferences and on the BBC’s Big Screen in Portsmouth Guild Hall Square.

Working in Corpus Christi Primary School in Portsmouth for the third year running City Eye have helped the school deliver its most exciting and ambitious project yet. The Math’s Detectives were created as classroom resources to be shared around the school and hopefully other schools in the future. Five films in total were created with children from across the age spectrum in the school all looking at problem solving in maths as the main themes to the films.

Three early year’s films were made which based themselves around songs that the young people sang to learn about numeracy. The films Noah’s Ark, Steven and Bod and Number Bonds were made with a mix of animation, drama and green screen to create lovely joyous films.

The year’s 3 and 4 film was based around Secret Spies and involved the actors going on a journey to stop the ‘Mad Scientist’ and help turn their Head Teacher back into a human after she had been turned into a guinea pig. This film was told in 5 episodes with each episode finishing with a cliffhanger that needed to be solved before the next episode could be seen. During their journey the Secret Spies visited many exciting lands which were all created using green screen.  These films will be used in class as resources to help teach numeracy to new students next year.

The final film, made by year 5 and 6 pupils, had a similar style to the Secret Spies film with 5 episodes created that all had a math’s problem as a cliffhanger. This film, Nursery Rhyme Crimes, had 4 heroes who were magically transported into the world of nursery rhymes where they had to help the popular characters achieve their goals before they could come back to the school. Subjects like 3D shapes, map reading and simple problem solving were all integrated into the films which were made with a mix of drama and green screen to help create the magical worlds.

The final screening of these films took place at the school in front of parents, teachers and pupils and included an Oscars like ceremony for the young people who took part.

Poulner Junior School in Ringwood in the New Forest invited City eye to come in and help teach the young people how to make a documentary film about a dance project running in the school. The project was set up to explore where the school house names came from.

Working with Junior Jones, from Wise Moves Dance group, the young people helped to create 5 minute dance pieces that told the stories of the Duke of Monmouth, Rufus Stone, Lady Lisle and Sir Walter Tyrell that would later be performed in front of their parents and also children from the nearby infants school. The final documentary aimed to capture the process that the young people went through in creating the dance pieces.

City Eye engaged with the young people to help them understand the value of documentary filmmaking and its ability to capture moments for prosperity. During the course of the project 18 young people formed six film crews and over the duration captured moments in the dance projects life helping to paint a picture of how the project developed over time. Interviews from project leaders, teachers and fellow students mixed in with cutaways from the project help create a truthful depiction of the overall project. This was all edited together with the young people helping and each of the sections of the film.

The young people also helped film a live ‘location’ performance outside amongst the greenery of nature which really brought to life the intensity of battle scenes and moments of drama that existed in the stories.

Working every Friday over 5 weeks City Eye helped deliver an exciting animation project, based on the story of Perseus from the Greek myths, in Highfield Primary School in Southampton.

Working with two year 4 classes (70 young people aged7 to 8 years old), one in the morning and one in the afternoon, City Eye staff helped to formulate and develop the ideas and create the animation to tell the story. In the process of learning the skills to make animated films the young people of course learnt much about Greek myths and history.

Each class was broken up into 5 groups with each group working on one small section of the story. Using various materials from paper, cardboard and glue to Lego, wooden spoons and puppets the young people built 3D sets and devised interesting storylines to tell their section of the tale of Perseus.

The films, when finished, were screened in front of a full house of parents who were eager to see what their young children had been up to on these ‘different’ Fridays. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the films.

City Eye have been working with St John’s Primary School in Gosport to help students deliver a documentary film about the schools ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ project’. The project, supported through Creative Partnerships, set out to inform and encourage the young people in the school to think more widely about the consequences of their actions on the environment. The documentaries aims were to capture the essence of the project and so create a valuable historical resource of the schools achievements. 

Working with 18 young people aged 7-10 City Eye helped create six documentary filmmaking crews teaching them to operate the cameras and sound equipment, run successful interviews and to turn the raw footage into a completed ten minute film. During the project the film crews filmed members of local councils, dance troops who taught and performed recycling related pieces and a myriad of other events including a giant jumble sale. During the editing each film crew worked on one small 1-2 minute section of the film.

The film received excellent reviews at the end of year celebration and has helped to embed the skills needed to create exciting and accessible films in the school.