It was a murder mystery and served to show the students involved how much harder the film-making process was at that time; especially with regard to editing the finished piece.
Over the next few summer holidays the film group compiled an impressive catalogue of feature films, “moku-mentaries” and comedy sketch shows.
Most notable among these was their first feature: Tokoloshe - a dark horror/comedy; then came: the Colin Lee Interviews - a collection of spoof TV news items with an “Alan Partridge” type of anchorman; and: Damned Kids - a Power Ranger inspired martial arts adventure movie.
In 1997 the budding film-makers were invited to show Tokoloshe at “Intervention”– a science fiction convention in Liverpool - where it received great reviews.
The group were also asked to film various comical hospital sequences in a promotional video for Glaxo entitled: Who is the Doctor?, narrated by the late Jon Pertwee.
A previous student asked the entire school to appear as “Crowd” in an end of term student film she was making for London’s Guildhall University in 1999. This movie went on to win a student Bafta award the following year. Individual students from “Dreams” have “guested” in film productions for local colleges and groups ever since.
For a couple of years the school’s own film productions had to be “mothballed” due to the rising costs of hiring video suites for editing purposes. However, in 2004, the school was fortunate enough to be approached by an independent, low-budget film-maker, Tony Cragg. He offered the use of his film-making equipment and his time in return for the opportunity of working with a varied group of actors. Tony opened the door to the wonderful world of digital video editing. Since that time the film group has not stopped making movies!
The advanced film classes have produced some incredible material in the last four years. Recent titles include: Dead to the World - an action thriller feature film; Pirate Parts - a “period” comedy series designed for TV; DUFF Info’s - a number of spoof public information films; Realm of Balance - a sci-fi adventure feature; Trouble at the Noodle Shop - a homage to 1970’s Kung-fu classic movies; and even a version of Alien versus Predator, which already has growing support from the online fans of the two Hollywood franchises.
With the new Intermediate class operating now, students can learn screen-acting techniques as well as getting hands-on experience using technical skills to create their own movies.
The film department of “Dreams” is really beginning to grow in confidence and ability.
Tim Daniel Clark
(Artistic Director Film Dept)