The Welsh Broadcasting Trust has announced the two projects which will benefit from £20K funding towards the development of educational activities relating to television, film, radio and new media.
The two successful projects are Young Person’s Film Academy based at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre and FilmClub Wales Training run by Media Education Wales, with each receiving £10,000 from the Trust.
The Young Person’s Film Academy is an education project aimed at teaching young people the fundamentals of filmmaking at four art venues across the Wales.
Project spokesperson Elaina Grey said, “Our aim is to get young people excited about making films, getting them to explore the filmmaking process and highlight the career opportunities out there in the film world. We are here to help them capitalise on the opportunities of the digital age and train them in more specialist skills and technologies for industry.”
The Film Academy will run at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, Galeri in Caernarfon, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Riverfront Newport and will provide practical hands-on experience for young filmmaker.
“We will be giving the participants the opportunity to put into practice what they have learnt on our lectures through a variety of workshops including animation using the BAFTA award winning animation company Cinetig, who will provide imaginative and thought-provoking sessions,” added Elaina.
The second project to be granted funding is the FilmClub Wales Training project. This project will provide Welsh school teachers with training on film education teaching techniques and enable them to use film effectively in the classroom.
“FilmClub is a UK-wide charity which provides weekly after-school clubs at which children view a wide variety of films,” explains project director Tom Barrance. “The Film Agency for Wales provides FilmClubs in 350 schools in Wales’ Communities First areas and this funding will allow us to provide teachers with a grounding in the principles of film education and how it can be support literacy skills and reduce the impact of poverty on educational achievement.
“We’re very grateful to the Welsh Broadcasting Trust for this funding. It will enable us to provide film education training to Primary and Secondary teachers around Wales and potentially influence the education of thousands of children. Film has a really important role to play in schools, and this funding will help many more teachers to discover how effective it can be.”
Euryn Ogwen Williams, a trustee of the Welsh Broadcasting Trust added, “This is the second time we’ve looked at creating strategic partnerships for the benefit of the industry. We usually accept individual applicants to enable them to access professional training opportunities but it’s also important that we work with projects that have a wider constituency.
“The proposals this year were very strong and this made for some difficult choices. The two succesful projects will contribute to the future of Wales’ communications industry at a key time and we hope to continue to support partnerships and work with other agencies to improve funding of media training and education provision.”
