Focusing our lens on Newcastle Film Club

We speak to the founder and some of the members of Newcastle’s independent film revolution.

Transcript

00:00Everywhere that I'd lived before I came here to live in Newcastle,

00:03there's always been a group of people who have gone out and made films together,

00:07wanting to either make their own, work on other people's projects,

00:10or just get their creativity out in filmmaking just in general.

00:13So when I came here to Newcastle, I was like, right, where's my filmmaking group?

00:16Where are the people that are going out and just making the things they want to make?

00:19And when I couldn't necessarily find that, I was like, right, OK, there's not a group here.

00:23So I'm going to go ahead and just change that. I'll make the Newcastle Film Club,

00:27which what it eventually ended up becoming.

00:29It challenges me, which I like.

00:31I like the structure of, like the challenges that Film Club run are really interesting

00:37because loads of people are creating things to the same brief.

00:40So I like the competitive aspect of that, seeing how people interpret things differently.

00:44But it's also a really collaborative space where people share ideas

00:48and help each other out on their own projects.

00:50Alex obviously had some experience coming into Film Club,

00:53but I wondered, is the Film Club exclusively for people who have experience?

00:57I didn't have much experience at all.

00:59I did a two year course in Accords at college, which was TV and film.

01:04And I just made my own films for a while and that was it.

01:08I didn't really go on any other sets.

01:11I was interested to learn the different types of things that you could do at the Film Club.

01:14I've done a handful of the challenge films.

01:16So the short projects that they do quarterly, I've worked on two,

01:20soon to be three of the annual Film Club challenges.

01:22And I've met loads of great people there.

01:25So we partner with a lot of production companies in the area

01:28to help further the members' opportunities.

01:31Companies like MediaBorne, Caviar Studios, which we did a workshop with earlier this year.

01:35And we're actually sitting right now in Flamingo Heights Podcast Studio,

01:38who sponsored and allowed us to run several workshops this year

01:43covering sound, editing and cameras for some of the new equipment

01:47that we brought with us for the club as well.

01:49So really making connections to the Northeast with these companies

01:52and organizations who just want to see people be creative

01:56and get involved within this industry is what we're all about.