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WOMEN IN FICTION
Since May 1997, a core group of ten women, all of whom have not made a film before, have been involved in intensive workshops designed to give a grounding in the many crafts involved in film making - screen writing, acting, location management, continuity, art design, wardrobe, make up, production and the basic tenets of cinematography, sound recording and non linear editing. Women working professionally within the film industry teach all workshops and the emphasis is on hands on experience.
The intensive workshops were designed to lay the foundations necessary to enable the ten women to participate in the making of a 30-minute film drama. The project generated such enormous interest, with over 250 individual enquiries, that further one-day workshops in various film making disciplines were made available to women who did not make it into the core group.
The initial idea for Women in Fiction came about from two factors. Firstly, the demand for training placements on productions. Currently Northern Visions receives more than 100 requests per annum from women for training placements. Such practical training is highly sought after, particularly as Northern Ireland has no film school and is further disadvantaged by having a small and patchy indigenous film production culture.
Secondly, over the past number of years, Belfast has seen a remarkable explosion of community arts activity coming from grass roots organisations; from those disadvantaged communities traditionally excluded from arts activities. It has been a tide of activity that has lifted many boats including an awareness and interest in film and video production. Since completing the course, two women have gone on to work on a major feature film, one is setting up her own production company with other women and two have gone on to further studies at university.
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