Films4Fones project scoops Zoom Audience Award!

A short film produced by young people in South Wales has proved so popular that it won the Zoom Audience Award at the Zoom Young Filmmakers Awards earlier this month [5 March 2010].

The quirky Films4Fones project, funded by the Arts Council of Wales, Skillset Screen Academy Wales and Zoom, brought together 14 to 17 years olds from Caernarfon, Butetown in Cardiff and Torfaen for a three-week project in August 2009.

In groups of three, the 17 young people each made a two-minute episode which they wrote, filmed and edited over just two days. The first step of the project involved auditions for the two actors who would appear in the episodes, organised by youth film experts Zoom. With over 40 applications from across Wales, the selection process was intense but a decision was finally reached with the places going to Alex Vlahos, a recent graduate of the RWCMD, and Ben Cole, a young actor for Merthyr Tydfil who has recently joined RADA.

Once each episode was completed it was loaded onto the Zoom website where viewers could download the footage to their mobile phones and ‘tweet’ story ideas for what happened next.

Director of Zoom, Lisa Davies explained: “This project was a real challenge for the young people involved. They had to learn new skills, work as a team and effectively communicate what they wanted from the actors as time was of the essence.

“The groups all worked extremely hard and the final film is testament to this. It was great giving these young people an opportunity to really push themselves and see what filmmaking within a budget and to a tight deadline is really like.”

With so much extra footage left over, Zoom decided to create an extended 10 minute version incorporating the three episodes. The beefed-up footage was premiered to a packed audience at Zoom 2010, Wales International Young People’s Film Festival, just before the special preview of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.
It then went on to win the Zoom Audience Award at the Zoom Young Filmmaker Awards, to the delight of the young participants and actors involved.