Ffresh Festival 2013 - 20th-22nd Februaury 2013

Glyndwr University was holding the Ffresh Festival in its 10th year, so I was able to attend. Ffresh is a festival that celebrates the moving image. It features the work of students across Wales and Welsh Universtities. At this years festival, the collective had a stall, in order to promote ourselves. As I am now a key member of the admin and 'managerial' team of the collective, a lot of my time was taken up running the stall. This meant that I did not get to many of the masterclasses and lectures or see a lot of the shortlisted films. However, having the stall was very beneficial for us.

©Sue McGrane. Me at Ffresh Festival - Collective Stall

We had some posters printed, along with some examples of our work, and pinned them up around our stall. We also had a slideshow of images being played on loop, along with some of the videos we have produced. These caught peoples eyes as they walked past and a lot of people stopped to ask questions. The first to talk to us was a couple of women who owned their own online business, Web Waterfalls (www.webwaterfalls.com). They are based in Oswestry and are extremely keen to get a meeting with us, as we are local and a collaboration would be beneficial for both parties. Another company that liaised with us were Printers Inc. They are a company that helps artists get things printed and delivered. They are also keen to set up a meeting with us. We have also been approached by GTV and the Photographic Society for collaborations. We were also approached by a number of prospective clients and had some jobs booked in. All in all, this was a very busy week for us at the collective and lots of things are coming up.

©Will Aron. Myself, Holly and Sue at work on the stall.

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Tomato Collective

The speakers name was Dylan Kendle. He is part of the Tomato Collective. I chose to attend this talk because of my work in the collective. I thought it might be beneficial and that I would get some good hints and tips to pass on to the group and use in my own professional practice. It turns out that I was right to go to this talk as it inspired me so much as an individual artist, as well as a key member of the collective.

            I learnt that there was no structure in the running of Tomato. This meant no hierarchy. This was a valuable piece of information as we have been having problems with this with in our own collective. It was great to hear Dylan’s views on this. He says that, although there is no strict hierarchy, the person who knows the client or has the most skill in the specific design area will head up the project. This is the way we have been running things and it is how we should carry on, as Tomato is proof that this works. He went on to say that this more casual attitude leads to a better atmosphere and therefore makes for a good forum for relationships. He also says that Tomato is a non-profit organization. I understand why this is the way it is but our collective needs to make money to survive.

            Tomato has been running for 22 years, since it was founded in 1991. Dylan didn’t join until 1993.It was founded by a group of men looking to collaborate together. They are constantly working on new and exciting projects. 

The Mill Talk with Sid

 www.themill.com

I was really looking forward to this talk, having visited The Mill last year on our industry trip to London. Watching the showreel and examples of work done by the mill got me sitting up and excited to listen to the talk.

It was great to see what is being done in the media and the creative sector of employability recently.

However, my mind started to wander as the talk turned to the more technical side of visual effects. I am not really interested in the visual effects side of film making so I did not really benefit from this talk.