Hey, Ma! I'm in the Movies

Two U3A Stars

In March this year, two members of our Creative Writing Class—Moyra Rocchio and Jean Perkins—participated in a week-long workshop at the Young at Heart Film Making Lab.

The workshop was conducted by The Festivalists,

Based in Sydney, The Festivalists Ltd are specialists in film festival production. This non-profit company exists since July 2005 to showcase the talents of under-represented filmmakers and to develop audiences for their products in Australia. Their mission is to facilitate the promotion of international film and video culture, to raise the profile of independent films in Australia and to present work that enriches cultural diversity and experience for all audiences.

The workshop is free and is restricted to people aged sixty and over. Moyra and Jean were selected as part of the workshop group of twenty people.

Students spent the week making a short film, To Catch a Thief, and learning the techniques necessary to do so, including script-writing, directing, camera, acting, and editing. They were given the opportunity to nominate which of these skills they preferred to learn during the actual film making.

Jean was very enthusiastic about the course. "Everybody was so supportive. It was quite different to being on stage," she said. Jean, whose achievements have included acting, found it an enjoyable experience."

During the script-writing phase the class was broken up into groups of four, and each group worked on their own version. When they were completed the whole class voted on which would be the final script. That written by Jean and Moyra's group was selected.

Set in Kings Cross, the movie started as a group of friends met for coffee. An opportunistic thief stole Jean's bag and found himself pinned to the ground by a walking frame before being pursued through an Internet cafe by vengeful seniors.

It was very clever, very entertaining, and shows just what can be done with a few minutes of video time. The video has been temporarily embedded on the U3A Nepean home page, and permanently on this page. Take a couple of minutes to watch it. Don't turn it off before the credits are finished—there's a very funny blooper from Jean right at the end.

Although I can't display it here, there's a second video from the course available on YouTube. It's a series of brief comments from the participants on the course, including Moyra and Jean. You can find it by CLICKING HERE. The actual movie they made is shown at the foot of this page. If you can't see it on your monitor as you read, be sure to scroll down to it.

If you're interested in film making, this workshop is expected to be run again next March. You'll need to get your application in early, but the organisers have promised to let us know so that we can add a promotion to our web page.

Stop Thief was given a wild card entry into the "Third Young at Heart Short Film Awards". It was one of eight finalists but didn't win a prize.

              —David Evans