Serious film making has been underway today with about 25 youth participating in a three-day workshop at Baycourt.

Facilitated by Jannine Bishop, the International Youth Silent Film Festival workshop will cover script writing, acting, directing, filming and editing.

Workshop tutors and assistants include Jannine Bishop who has immense experience running art departments for film and television productions, Anton Steel who leads BOP Film and is a film director and first AD, Annie Lawler, Andrew Taylor, Jaden White, Eli Robinson, Tessa Blackett, Tanya Horo and Mana Davis. Each tutor brings a wealth of knowledge and experience with stunts, acting, editing, and operating cameras.

During day one, the workshop will cover understanding the key visual storytelling tools of a director, and how to interpret music in relation to a story. Also included is script writing and understanding short film structure and character archetypes.

Day two covers practical skills such as learning to confidently and effectively operate a digital camera, compose shots, shoot and break down scenes into shots. Each participant gets to be involved in acting, directing, art department and editing.

Day three covers the technical skills around editing and how to use the software available to film makers.

The film makers developing storylines and scripts at Baycourt

Katikati youth, Phoebe Robertson, is one of many participating in it.

'I went to National Youth Drama School at the start of the year, where I studied Shakespeare as well as doing a taster in screen acting.

'I thought it would be cool to go back to what I had learnt there and look at the other processes involved too, that's when this workshop popped up.”

While she may be quietly confident in front of the camera, she says her interests lay more in the behind-the-scenes work.

'We've just written a film and we're going through the processes of working on our acting, but I'm really interested in learning more about camera angles and shooting.”

Otumoetai College student Ruben Connolly is another youth who is involved in the workshop.

He says he has a great passion for film making.

'When you think about what you want to leave behind, film making is one way of doing that. What greater a way to leave behind a legacy, than by creating your own universe.

'I came to this course to learn more about film making, expand my knowledge, hear from professionals and learn more about how I go on to create my own work.

'I love watching films and I'm at the cinema nearly every week, watching new films, thinking about the narrative and writing down notes.”

Ruben says his favourite subject at school is drama.

'I find through acting you can really embody a character and that helps with my writing. Similarly English is great because you study poetry and create stories or fables. Media studies is another great subject because there's recording equipment and we learn interviewing skills.”

The film makers will be going away with the knowledge and skills to create their own short film, and also the opportunity to enter their short film in the International Youth Silent Short Film Festival competition later in the year.

Tanya Horo, the acting tutor