Media students from Mid Cheshire College have now finished their film-making project exploring the wide scope of Saltscape’s projects across the Weaver valley
Sean O’Hare from MakoEducation who delivered the project with the students and their lecturer said, “The aim of the project was to inform local young people about the difference that the Saltscape project is making.”
At the outset, it was a real challenge for the students to understand the complexities of a Landscape Partnership Scheme. But as each group got to grips with their individual brief, they began to understand more about the contribution made by different agencies. The interviewees were Nicola Lewis Smith from Canal and River Trust, Dave James a ranger from Cheshire West and Chester and Nicole Morris from Animate! our performance project delivered with Manchester Metropolitan University.
The students also undertook an in-depth interview with Ruby Merriman, our former trainee with Cheshire Wildlife Trust. Her first interview was conducted outdoors on one of the local wildlife sites where the Trust are carrying out their habitat improvement work. But the elements were against them and proved to make filming conditions unfavourable. It was for this reason that Ruby then later found herself in a studio in front of a green-screen doing it all again!
Once filming was complete Hannah Petrie, Saltscape’s Communications Officer, supported the students with content and key messages. She said, ” It was fantastic working with the students across the term, seeing their enthusiasm grow as the weeks went by and they learned more and more about their unique local landscape and the people working to conserve it. Finally, they themselves have become great ambassadors for Saltscape and have made some great films in the process.”
“This project was definitely not just about the finished films. As well as the technical challenges (of which there were very many!), these first year students had to learn about client liaison, understanding a complex brief and the challenges involved in creating meaningful communications which avoid ‘jargon’ or prior knowledge of a subject. It fulfils important criteria for Saltscape as defined by our funder, the National Lottery’s Heritage Lottery Fund. Namely that ; ‘heritage will be identified and recorded, people will have developed skills, learnt about heritage, volunteered time and, in particular, that more people, and a wider range of people will have engaged with heritage’ .”
There will be more from our digital media project later in the year with exciting photographic and audio projects planned.
