Saltburn Digital Village

With the assistance of Northern Film and Media and the UK Film Council there will be a Fringe Animex event in Saltburn featuring community produced animations. This will take place at 7.30pm on February 11^th at Saltburn Community Theatre, Albion Terrace, Saltburn, TS12 1JW.

Featured this year will be World Première of “The Force is With You” which has been produced in partnership with the Institute of Digital Innovation, the Skinningrove Community, Whitecliffe Primary School and Redcar & Cleveland Community Safety Partnership. The school children will get their own matinee screening at 1.30 on the same date.

During a recent International workshop in Vienna one of scenes in “The Force is With You” was “voiced” using the services of some of the workshop attendees. The film clip below is a sneak preview of one of the scenes and a behind the scenes look at how it was put together.

Trouper 1 is played by Markus Petz from Finland, Trouper 2 by Thomas Chepaitis the Minister of foreign affairs of Uzhupis Republic (Lithuania) Arthur Vador is played by Steve Thompson and Barry Hunt the Mayor of Loftus is camera operator.

In the background is Laura Pakalne, Senior Officer in the Public Relations Department in the Ministry of Justice, Latvia who is most interested in our working with the British police and the movie production team on more collaborative projects. Markus has delayed his return to Finland to travel to Saltburn to assist with a hook-up with Latvia during the event on the 11^th. It’s quite possible that people all over the world will be able to participate in the event. More information on this will be released closer to the event.

A "White Lightening Trouper" (Click to enlarge)

A new movie is going into production we have a tight production schedule so if you want to be involved please email stmedia@gmail.com asap to be added to the subscription list. We’re working towards a screening of February 11th 2010 so we need to get cracking. The outline scenario can be found here – we have a full set to build and costumes to design. We have the full backing of this from Cleveland Police and some of the force including Inspector Ian (Charlie) Bell who will take a leading role.

Well the first session of the Community Media Club was a blast and we had a full house.  Had a few tricky moments with Gmail signups but we got there in the end.  Some of the people that were getting along well helped those that were struggling – a really nice atmosphere. At one point we were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes. Half an hour after the session I heard one participant shout a question down the room. “I thought you had left” I replied. She told me she had left but came back with a friend to teach her all the things she herself had learned that day.

The Community Media Club starts on October 7th at Destinations.