Award nomination for young Swindon film-makers

Question: What would happen if three young media students with little to no film-making experience were to write, shoot, edit and wrap their movie using nothing more than an i-Pad?

Answer: Not only did they prove that YES it is entirely possible to make films from scratch using just i-Pads (meaning that film-making could become massively more accessible to so many more UK young people – and potentially give the British Film Industry a huge boost of talent for the future), but ALSO the students’ creation, “The Other Girl”, was nominated for an international film award at the annual Camera Zizanio meeting in Pyrgos, Greece!

I LOVE this! What a fantastic achievement for those students – and what amazing creative and economic potential there is as a result to propel British movie-making forward.

The brains behind this exciting project is Keith Phillips, of Swindon-based educational organisation Ideal Films.

The students – Leah, Jade and Charlie – are from West Swindon’s Lydiard Park Academy, and were taking part in Keith’s Bottling Inspiration project: a specially selected, Swindon-grown element of Shoot Smart, a British Film Industry/Into Film-funded national active research initiative. The research wanted to examine the viability of i-Pad film-making – and the results so far are very encouraging.

Unfortunately for them, the students were sitting mocks during the time their movie was being screened in Greece, so were unable to attend the meeting in person. However their teacher, Cathy Urquhart, did go along to represent the school and is now thinking about ways to take a contingent of young film-makers back to next year’s meeting.

Sadly “The Other Girl” didn’t win the award – this was scooped by a group of German students with a film entitled “241 sec”- but the nomination was achievement enough to put Swindon’s young film-makers on the map.

To watch “The Other Girl” and the other Shoot Smart creations go to http://bit.ly/LPAgirl