Our guest blogger Ryan Curtis is back with his third blog post about his somewhereto_  film project, Impact. Read on to find out about his ups and downs in trying to create his very own film festival…

Developing Impact- Making it Happen

After a good few weeks of just solid thinking we finally had a strong idea, all we had to do now was make it happen. As a somewhereto_project, Impact was going to be run as a non-profit organisation. As a non-profit I knew we would have to rely heavily on external resources and call in A LOT of favours.

It was apparent to us that there was a few things that were going to be needed if this as ever going to become an annual event. Firstly we needed a venue, this would need to be somewhere easily accessible, appealing to our target audience and just the right size; with a little help from Rebecca and our own student knowledge we knew it had to be Hyde Park Picture House, as this iconic venue ticked all the boxes. 

Next was the documentary films that were to be entered by the many talented film makers around Yorkshire, but just how do we go about getting their attention? Well, we simply had to take advantage of the connections and knowledge we already had, one by one we contacted every University in Yorkshire letting their film courses know about Impact Yorkshire; and how they could and, more importantly, why they should get involved. Although I found myself doing this a lot during this experience as my first event ,it’s safe to say waiting on submissions to come in was where I found myself bricking it the most, however we did get what we needed and more with interest from Canada and a submission from Prague!

Lastly as the event was going to be competition based we needed credible judges, this hands down required the most work in terms of countless emails and asking friends of friends of friends…of friends, but eventually this was achieved, of course not without the expected last minute madness that seems to happen so often with planning.

But there we had it, the essentials for what would make Impact Yorkshire. A fun, exciting, interesting yet extremely stressful experience that had taught me great deal and this was just the half of it.

The film embedded in this blog is a really interesting doc/drama submitted to the festival, it is based completely on real events and aims to create awareness around knife crime in youths. Enjoy.

@somewhereto

@impactyorkshire

www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk

Ryan, our new blogger is here to say how do you do, to the somewhereto_ crew! 

For my first ever blog for somewhereto_ I would like to first introduce myself, talk a little bit about how I got involved with the national project and introduce you to my project. My name is Ryan Curtis, I am originally from Manchester, but I’m currently studying Managing Performance at the University of Leeds going in to my final year. What this means is that in just a little under a year I’ll be facing the daunting task of the ‘REAL WORLD’ and as with all Universities you are constantly reminded of the need for pro activeness if you are to gain the right experience needed to become employable. It was that very necessity that lead me to somewhereto_, although I would quickly realise that it wasn’t just another trivial piece of work experience to add to my CV, but instead an experience that has offered me a huge amount of opportunities and skills along with the realisation of the career path I wish to take in the future.

My involvement with somewhereto_ began about early February and came about very unexpectedly. At the time I was undergoing a compulsory industry module where we needed to find placements relevant to our course, this lead me to Chol Theatre in Huddersfield where I met with Rebecca Legg. Rebecca is the project manager for somewhereto_ at the Chol site and would soon play pivotal role in the creation of my project. After a few weeks working on the development of the national project itself Rebecca asked me the question, would you like to run your own project? Of course the answer was yes, even though I had no idea what I wanted to do. This was until a chance meeting came about through a shared passion of film. Hearing about another student who wanted to do a film festival, but who did not yet know the what, when, where or how, had me right on board for a collaboration that would signal the beginning of the ‘Impact Yorkshire’ film festival.

Over the next few months I aim to talk in more depth about the development of my somewhereto_ project and share the experiences I have had with them right up to the present day and then go on to look at what the futures holds.

Thanks for reading.

www.choltheatre.co.uk

facebook: Chol Theatre

Twitter: @choltheatre