Silver Arts Award Unit 1 Part A: Identify and plan an arts challenge
What art forms are you interested in/do you like?
I am in interested in both literature and the dramatic arts. I enjoy reading poetry, such as that of Wordsworth and Ovid. At an Oxford lecture, I was told that Wordsworth’s The Prelude can be regarded as antechamber and the rest of the work like a church. That amazed me, as I did not know beforehand that a poem could be as well structured as a play (e.g. Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author).
What arts/creative skills do you already have or feel confident in?
I studied English literature at A-level and used to take acting classes at YATI. Thus, I feel most confident in acting and writing, rather than painting or sculpting. I have looked into pursuing an English Literature degree at a Russell Group university and the future and so something involved with writing or acting out a script might interest me best.
What arts/creative skills would you like to develop or try out?
I would like to work on directing. While at YATI, I attended a film-making course, which I very much enjoyed. However, the course was only temporary and I was disappointed when it ended. I feel it would be beneficial for me to boost my leadership and teamwork qualities, so perhaps another acting or film-making course which involved me taking more of an active role now that I am older would be good.
Do you have any ideas for possible challenges you could set yourself? You could discuss this with your adviser and record notes here.
I am very enthusiastic but I am not used to leadership experiences. I think it would be good for me have a go at giving whichever group I am working in some good ideas. It would also be useful for me to learn how to better deal with criticism. I feel I respond appropriately to criticism, but there is always room for improvement.
I will be extending an arts skill I already have (film-making).
Describe your arts challenge here:
It is a film-making project with the Holborn Community Association (HCA) and it involves a group of young people making a film about transportation in London. The project is done in association with the London Transport Museum and will get the opportunity to visit their depot in Acton, which is normally open to the public only three times a year. Once complete, we will have the opportunity to screen our film at a local festival.
Why have you chosen this as your arts challenge?
I am already familiar with the HCA, as my mother works there and I know one of the people who is running this course (Chloe). As well as developing my film-making further, I also want to make new friends, who may have similar interests to me, as they will likely also have ‘creative’ personalities.
What will the outcome of your challenge be? (E.g. an end product, a performance, a demonstration?)
The outcome of my challenge will be a finished product which has been edited and made ready to present to an audience. Our on-screen performances will be shown to an audience. A previous film this group did in 2019 was a protest piece in support of Black Lives Matter. Perhaps our piece will incorporate similar themes but explore them in relation to public transport.
What steps will you have to take to achieve your challenge?
I am planning to document my progress using an online blog and I am planning to do extensive related to transport in London. I also plan to visit other relevant locations and to try and include some form of transport memorabilia in our film. I will also research other things that will help our group, such as relevant music and how transport relates to the lives of Cockneys or other old-fashioned Londoners, something I take interest in.
Who or what will you need to help you? (E.g. other people, materials, resources)
I will need a film camera, editing software, a large sheet of A4 on which to plan with my group and a Google Docs document with which we can keep a diary of all our ideas and chart our progress for our Arts Award. I will need the help of the transport museum organiser who is helping us, as well as Jack (a filmmaker) and Chloe (HCA) who are involved in our project. In terms of resources, I will need to look up relevant online information. I will also need to take accounts given to be me by older members of my community in the Clerkenwell area, as well as those in adjacent working-class areas like Shoreditch, Southwark and King’s Cross.
How will you arrange this?
I will write an action plan which has mini-goals for my own personal research for the project, as well as goals relevant to the overall group project and also an overall target. I will also include a schedule for each day, although that will be subject to change based on the wishes of the group. I will write a schedule for myself in my own time to make sure I meet all the requirements of my Arts Award and keep track of my development as it progresses.
What targets will you set to achieve throughout your challenge and how will you show you are working towards them?
Firstly, I will aim to have a movie idea which is ready to put into action and which our whole group likes and agrees upon. I will write a brief summary of this idea in this Silver Arts Award Booklet. Then I will aim with my group to put this idea into practise immediately. I will document the early stages of our filmmaking process to show this and I will write a list of the various film techniques (whether related to camerawork, plot, structuring, style, script or acting) and provide links or footnotes to the websites or books in which we found them. I will continue to chart the filmmaking process in my booklet and how our ideas changed along the way. I also aim to have a finished film, which I will show in my booklet and I aim to show this cohesive, well-structured film to an audience and will document this by writing a brief summary/memo/’manifesto’ of what the film will entail and why (and if there is a political message behind or not, and if not, the reasons why). Essentially I will detail the reasons for everything in the book and I will collect audience feedback to put on the blog I have created. The blog will be updated weekly, as well as at the end. I will make important signposts in the blog (at the beginning, halfway through and end of the project) so that a clear structure can be seen and my progress can be noted. I will use relevant images, as well as reels/clips from the film which show my developing film knowledge and teamwork.
How will you collect feedback about your arts challenge?
I will collect feedback by asking the mentors and those associated with TFL what they think of our project and if it relates directly to the theme of transport. This is necessary to ensure I do not go on a tangent, as before starting this project, I was unfamiliar with the ins-and-outs of the London transport service. I will also talk to people who work for TFL to see what they think of the direction I am going in and see if they think I am being faithful to the work they do and their daily lives. Also, I am going to collect audience feedback after the screening of the film. I hope to have the opportunity to screen the early drafts of the film prior to the private screening we do for our parents, as I want to see what people and think and how I can improve. I will take notes and then write a new plan using these notes of what to do to improve my film in all aspects (e.g. camerawork, acting, dialogue, editing, scenery, colours). I will ask for specific subject-related/arts-related feedback (e.g. symbolism).
Silver Arts Award Unit 1 Part B: deliver your arts challenge
Write your arts challenge here:
My arts challenge is to make a well-edited, finalised and polished film related to the theme of Transport to be screened in front of an audience of people. I need to make this film with a group of other young people and respect their ideas. I am doing it for the Holborn Community Association (HCA) in conjunction with TFL.
SIlver Arts Award Unit 1 Part C: review arts events
Where did you go?
I went to two places. The first place I went to was the London transport museum in Covent Garden. Here I went on a tour of the museum in which I learnt about its history. I also went to the London Transport Museum’s Depot in Acton, which expanded on what we learnt in the Covent Garden Museum in terms of the different vehicles and designs present in its history and the characters who drove these buses, but also gave us new insight into what goes on with the Museum behind the scenes.
What did you see/do?
At both events I saw old London buses, as well as trains, trams and even carriages (horse-drawn and electric) from times gone by. I asked questions about interesting people such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and collated information on him from the LTN. In Acton, we learnt about the first black female bus driver and how groundbreaking this was. We also learnt that women could not drive underground trains until 1973, which shocked female members of our group.
When did you/go?
I went in late June to both places and am continuing to visit them for filming work throughout early July. I went on a Saturday several times and will continue to do so until shooting stage in Holborn House later in July, which will be during the week.
What happened at the arts event?
We made films using the vehicles. We filmed in train carriages and made use of the sliding door of the carriage, as that created a spooky transition between shots which looked villainous and ominous in the dark carriage and was inspired by the short horror films Jack and Chloe showed us. We also planned our films around transport and we came up with a movie based on a time-travelling train.
Describe which art forms were involved
Film-making was involved and we were artistically inspired by the way museum was laid out, as it felt like the interesting objects were each leading on to the next one, thus pulling us through the chronologically ordered museum. We used film-making and saw the design art form used in curating the museum, as well as the Moquette of TFL (textile design). We also saw the graphic design on old TFL maps, which inspired us in making our movie poster.
Have you seen or done something like this before? What was similar to things you’ve seen or done in the past?
I have previously been on a filmmaking course and this was similar, as we took inspiration from short films and learnt about plot and different types of shot. We also went on a tour of the museum of london transport, which is like the museum of london (which I have been to) in the sense that it uses the ordinary people of London to evoke a strong, living sense of London history.
Was there anything unexpected about what you saw/experienced?
Yes, I was surprised by how beautiful the designs of the various TFL signs (and map booklets) were and how much thought, creativity and love went into making them. I was also surprised by the various types of seats used in the trains, as not only would they be aesthetically pleasing for a film shot, but they were also designed to look beautiful and to provide comfort for passengers, perfected over decades (their design changed very music).
What did you think was good and why?
I think the tour by TFL was good, as it let me understand the design aspects better and how they related to the history of London and TFL, which I would not have been able to work out on my own, as previously I had no idea about design or how something could connect so deeply to the people of London and they transport they used. The tour of both places was interesting and brought the old vehicles to life and made me imagine the sort of people who went on them.
Is there anything about the arts event you didn’t like ? Why?
I did not like that we did not get to link the design of the TFL logo, seats etc. more to how our films looked, as the design of these logos and vehicles was and is so beautiful that it would be a shame not to include these obvious sources of inspiration in our film-making process.
What have you learnt from this arts event?
I have learnt that one must not forget the role of transport in making a city work. Transport functions beneath the surface (sometimes quite literally) and so those who use it can take it and maybe even its staff for granted, when in fact it has played a vital role in expanding London and creating the modern culture of our city.
What thoughts or ideas will you take away with you?
I will take away with me the thought that transport can serve my local area and various modes of transport in all forms are highly beneficial to London. I will think of how hard the TFL staff work, as well those creative figures who worked on making the logos which are almost equally important in the transport service.
How will you share your review with other people, and how will you evidence this?
I will include photos of the transport which I have taken and I will get feedback from other members of my group, as well as our advisors and the museum staff and I will upload all I have written, filmed and photographed etc. online on a blog run by the HCA and used by our group.
SIlver Arts Award Unit 2 Part A: your project & leadership role
What qualities do you think a good leader needs to have?
A good leader needs to be able to direct the group they are working in. Such a leader needs to able to be confident and bold at decision-making, but also should not speak over others constantly, as other members of the group may have valuable ideas. A good leader should make all members feel included and everyone should feel listened, but a leader must also make sure that all members of a group know what their roles are and that they are doing what is required (and that they know what the task is).
What leadership skills would you like to develop in your arts leadership project?
I would like to be more confident in interacting with others. I want to focus on making my group work as a cohesive team. I want the team members to have a supportive relationship and for us to benefit each other with the work we do. I want to ensure my group has an overall aim for the film once the conceptualisation stage is over, rather than us all having vastly different interests, which could lead to conflict. I want our group to function as one entity and I want to have a hands-on approach in ensuring this.
Describe your arts leadership project. What are you going to do? What will the overall aims and outcome be?
My leadership project is social media and marketing. That category has been essentially split in two and another group member will focus more on the technical side of this category, whereas I will focus on the marketing aspect, although this still bears relevance to social media. We have set up our own film company for making this film and I will aim to promote our social media account. I have some past experience in marketing, as I previously had an Instagram, Twitter and Facebook account which I used to promote my rap music. In this, I paid attention to viewer analytics and made sure to target a specific demographic (18-25 year olds from the UK who were fans of Grime music) and I will use these skills in the future to try and get the right target audience. I will talk to people on the street (thus developing my people skills) and target a specifically young demographic, as they will not be that much older than us. My aim will be to get as wide an audience as possible when our film is screened at a festival and I hope the outcome will be that we receive the response that our film really connects with this audience and that they feel they can relate well to it.
What resources will you need? Are there any health & safety considerations?
I will need access to social media and a large sheet of paper to do a mind map on marketing on. I will also need an Excel spreadsheet and Microsoft Word. I will need sufficient time, but not much else.
Health and safety considerations are that audience members must be covid-tested and also we must make space for wheelchair users. We must also accomodate people who require dogs, such as blind people or people who have anxiety dogs, as the animals would need enough space to sit down and have somewhere where they would not bark and interrupt our film.
What will your leadership role be? What will you be responsible for doing?
My role will be to market our film. I will be responsible for ensuring our film is as popular as possible and that it appears professional, but not overproduced: I want to present our film in a way that will appeal to the audience (as emotional appeals are successful in marketing) and that it will appeal to as wide a range of people as possible.
How will this develop my leadership skills?
It will give me a deeper level of understanding in a field where I would like to develop my skills further. Thus, I will be able to deal with potentially stressful situations and long working hours and I will be able to direct other members of my group and be able to contact them in a businesslike fashion about their ideas and how I can market them.
Will you be working with other people? What will they be doing? How does your role relate to the roles of others?
I will be working with my teammates, who will be more focused on the actual concept of the film. I will get their feedback on how effective my marketing is and I will try and also get them to make their ideas as marketable as possible to an audience. I will also be working with someone on the social media aspect of the project and I will make sure my marketing of our film and company will be relevant to his social media account and what it reflects about our film.
