Vanland
An innovative attempt to introduce young people in rural areas to IT and media skills and at the same time allow them to express their views on rural life has been introduced in the Teignbridge area thanks to funding from the LEADER+ programme. It provides an opportunity for young people to share their views of rural life in an engaging and imaginative way with the wider community and learn about different aspects of film making, team working etc. The medium for showing the project is via converted caravan in which video monitors have been imaginatively located throughout. The caravan not only thus provides an outlet for the films to be shown but a way of raising awareness of what can be done in a short space of time and sharing the young peoples messages with the wider community.
The Vanland project (so-called because it involves the use of a converted caravan and because the area attracts such vehicles in huge numbers) has two elements:
- A series of intensive film-making workshops hosted by different youth groups in the district
- An exhibition of all the finished work which tours to events, fairs and fetes around Teignbridge and beyond. The caravan having been specially adapted to contain eight different viewing stations, screening fourteen films in different combinations – projected onto windows, hidden in overhead lockers, secreted in the shower room… The public are able to circulate around the inside and outside of the exhibition viewing mini-documentaries, 2 minute thrillers and psychological dramas all made over the last four months by young people aged 14+ from the Teignbridge District.
The project seeks to create a forum for young people’s opinions of their life in rural Teignbridge whilst developing the skills involved in creative video production.
The project involves teaching young people all aspects of film making (concept development; script writing; performance; camera skills; image and sound editing) and has the professional support of a partnership formed between Blind Ditch Performance Company, Teignbridge District Council and Coombeshead Media Arts College. Young people have been involved through after school sessions, evening youth club sessions and intensive workshops in the summer holidays at the Bungalow Youth Project, Buckfastleigh, Coombeshead College and Moretonhampstead Youth Group. The creations are then shown in a specially adapted caravan that tours events across the region.
The main aims of the project are to:
- Investigate the choices facing young people of the Teignbridge District (specifically the issues of migration to urban centres out of the rural area), and offer a way to creatively identify and express their needs and priorities for the future
- Offer skills and support to young people in rural Teignbridge in a format which is innovative, accessible and relevant
- Enable young people to express themselves creatively with clarity and resonance through workshops and performance, writing and media professionals who live and work in the region
- Widen networks of young people in the district and bringing together different community groups in the sharing of young people’s work and experiences
Page last modified:
6 December, 2006
Page created: 12 April, 2005