Our 2016 Pledge: Momentous Steps for Youth Arts

2015 was an exciting year of growth for Young Filmmakers Glasgow. As a creative collective meeting every week, last year was about laying foundations. We can look back on twelve amazing months of creativity, opportunity and collaboration. From receiving Creative Scotland funding, to sending our first short film to the Fife, Somerset and Marbella film festivals, we found our feet amongst the youth arts scene in Glasgow. This year, we want to focus on impact. The youth arts scene across Scotland is one we think needs to take momentous steps in 2016. We’re approaching 2018, the Year of Youth, which seems to promise a myriad of benefits to young people of all interests and backgrounds. As a seventeen-year-old filmmaker from Glasgow, I believe 2016 is the time for young artists to come together and take opportunity into our own hands; the time to establish the incredible potential and explosive talent within every young person in Scotland. So, what’s our 2016 plan of action? Firstly, what's clear is that a film is made to be watched. Our first step is providing young filmmakers an audience. So we are absolutely ecstatic to announce the first ever First Act Film Festival, which will take place at the CCA in late March, opening the 2016 Glasgow Youth Arts Festival. The purpose of this film festival is to provide an audience, and a platform for discussion to young filmmakers across Scotland. This is a free event, open to all. We’re delighted to include an awards ceremony, a discussion panel of both young and established filmmakers, and an opportunity to network with young artists from around Scotland. This event, supported by the Glasgow Youth Arts Hub, is something we’d love to bring back bigger and better every year. The First Act Film Festival is about providing that meaningful first opportunity for a young filmmaker to share their work with the world. As a collective of skint students and part-time passionates, we’re well acquainted with the never-ending battle against budget. Years can be spent studying the fine art of shoestring-ing it, but when it comes to facing a career in the arts, funding is what forms the quality and confidence needed to make an impactful first short. What’d we like to officially propose at the Festival is our biggest project of 2016: the First Act Film Fund. This is a fund that aims to give experience and film education to young people across Scotland, and create professional short films to kickstart a career in the film and television industry. What makes this fund unique is that young people are at its heart. While maintaining a professional process, I feel it’s important to put the power in the hands of those creating work. The funding committee should be composed primarily of young filmmakers so that the process is as warm, friendly and supportive as possible. It’s putting creative freedom before box-ticking. Dedication before deadlines. In 2016 we’ll be raising the first fund ourselves, and calling for two exciting new scripts to put into production. Surrounding the production of these films, we'll bring in professional filmmakers to run public workshops and masterclasses in the filmmaking process. From then on, we’ll seek official backing - and put the fund into action. So in 2016, I pledge the devotion of Young Filmmakers Glasgow to another year of creativity, opportunity and collaboration. But more so to a year of impact. Providing both an audience and financial support to young filmmakers across Scotland is a responsibility we’ve taken on as a youth arts collective. But there are no closed doors to this responsibility: every young person can be a part of shaping, sculpting and - in our case - shooting Scotland’s youth arts scene into the stratosphere. The root of all creativity is communication. So our third step this year is to approach every other youth arts collective across Scotland. We will start work on a network, uniting the voices of all young artists with ambitions, demands, and barriers that should only be broken down. In running the festival, we'll be uniting the ten youth arts hubs across Scotland and looking to build relationships with scores of other organisations and youth groups. As a network, we can support each other, create a more vivid sense of 'industry', and therefore speak louder and stronger. Every Young Filmmakers Glasgow project is a labour of young love and not of money, so I invite you (yes you!) to get involved and help us along the way. All you have to do is hit Sign Up below. We’re all learning, because we all have so much to learn. So come and take this journey with us - be part of Scotland’s only short film fund for young people, and it’s most exciting new film festival! And in doing so, be part of a new start for youth arts. I cannot wait. At the end of a good year and the beginning of a great one, what’s wonderfully clear to me is that talent - the fuel of creativity - flows all over this country, and all that’s needed to kindle the fires of opportunity is the spark of hard work. Let's start with the first act. - Sean Sign up: meetup.com/YoungFilmmakersGlasgow/ Contact us: youngfilmmakersglasgow.com/contact/ Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/YoungFilmmakersGlasgow/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/YF_glasgow

Our 2016 Pledge: Momentous Steps for Youth Arts

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