Filmmaker will help 12 to 25 year olds create their own Dumfries and Galloway nature movies as part of a brand new festival
Young people are being invited to make short movies about nature in Dumfries and Galloway as part of the new Wild Film Festival Scotland.
Simon Goodall, who runs the National Trust for Scotland nature conservation film unit, will run a series of free workshops and outdoor filming sessions across the region. These will reveal the secrets of how to capture nature’s dramatic events and fascinating, ferocious wildlife behaviours and bring them to the screen.
Simon will teach young people the importance of storytelling and how to film a documentary when working with animal “actors” that often won’t co-operate.
The Wild Young Movie Makers project is a great opportunity to be part of a festival that will bring together the very best wildlife film and photography from at home and all around the world.
Simon said: “The brilliant thing about nature movies is that anyone of any age can make them. You can use smart phones, video cameras or even try your hand at animation and create something other people will love to watch.
“The possibilities are endless, especially in somewhere like Dumfries and Galloway which has such a huge variety of plants, birds, animals and environments.
“I’m really looking forward to sharing my experience as a professional filmmaker with a new generation. There are so many young people out there with loads of imagination and bags of talent, so it’s going to be great to see the movies they make.”
The Wild Young Movie Makers project is an opportunity to be part of a festival that will bring together the very best wildlife film and photography from at home and all around the world. It’s also a rare chance to learn from a professional whose exploits for the NTS have taken him all over the country from dangling off cliffs on St Kilda to film thousands of seabirds to filming tiny underwater battling beasties in Aberdeenshire.
Wild Film Festival Scotland will take place in Dumfries from 24 to 26 March 2017 and Wild Young Movie Makers films will be shown alongside work from the world’s top wildlife filmmakers.
The project has two age categories which are 12 to 14 and 15 to 25. Films can be of any length from 30 seconds to eight minutes. Submissions are welcome in five categories:
presenter-led films
films featuring youth actors
films featuring voice overs
films featuring soundtracks only
films comprised of any combination of the above.
The film can be partly or wholly animated. Subjects can include wildlife, plants, topography, geography, habitat, climate and weather – but they have to be shot in Dumfries and Galloway.
Ed Forrest, Project Manager for the Southern Upland Partnership which which has led the partnership of local wildlife groups who set Wild Film Festival Scotland, said: “We are delighted to offer young people the chance to work with one of Scotland’s best wildlife filmmakers and to make their own short films.
“We all love the breathtaking wildlife documentaries that are shown on TV and this is a chance to start learning how it’s done and to develop your own movie-making skills to uncover the secrets of the natural world.”
The sessions with Simon will take place in November and December – places are free but must be reserved in advance. See attached poster for details.
Young people are welcome to submit a Wild Young Movie Makers film whether they take part in these sessions or not.
The festival is part-financed by the Scottish Government and the European Union – LEADER 2014-2020 programme and supported by D&G Council Major Events Fund the Holywood Trust and EON.
Full details of Wild Film Festival Scotland will be unveiled in the near future.
