Help a London Child
Grant Application for Animation Equipment
Background
Last year’s excellent Legoland outing
was part-financed by £800 from Help
a London Child which I applied for in 2004.
After a good deal of chasing around for
information, I submitted our trip report
way past the deadline. I called and excused
us. However, we missed the opportunity to
apply for a HALC grant at Easter this year
just as we had missed opportunities the
previous year. Early in the Summer, and
funded by Friends of Cyberzone, Sally Fricker
attended a grant application workshop run
by Lewisham. She was able to talk one-to-one
with a representative from HALC about the
perfect application.
Recent Application
Deadline for the next application was last
Friday 6th Sept 2006. Rather than again
miss it through inertia, Sally and I put
in an application for some portable equipment
so I could run a series of video/animation
workshops in the large spare space in the
meeting room over the next year. The equipment
is very easy to use and my experience is
that I can pass on enough skills for users
to teach each other and be able to create
on their own.
I have talked about doing this at Cyberzone
for several years ages as my background
is broadcast television producer/writer/director/researcher/programme
originator. However it is not practical
at present. Like many media professionals,
I use Apple Macs which are ideally suited
for this sort of project. My only access
to (to me impenetrable) PC’s is at
Cyberzone. At present there is only one
Cyberzone machine that allows me to do any
sort of video work and it is a PC. This
machine is integrated into the rest of the
system. It is not portable and is almost
always the machine of choice for everyone
else so I can never access it, therefore
I never have a chance to work out how to
use the Adobe Premier Lite video editing
package (a powerful but difficult to learn
video-editing package) which I donated to
Cyberzone.
In spite of this, I ran a video introduction
session in the meeting room (as one of Angela’s
sessions) that went down well but I had
to bring in from home a tripod, a camera,
a Monitor, a computer and props. I have
also done scraps of animation with some
of the children. But nothing sustained.
Sally and I worked hard on the application.
There was the usual run around (literally
driving around in a car) looking for the
demanded financial paperwork but now that
has been collected and is up to date and
is available for other grant applications,
too.
Along with our full-to-bursting application,
we sent in a DVD I made specially of the
sort of the things that can be achieved
with the equipment we requested (the form
forbade loose sheets of paper, but did not
explicitly disallow DVD’s!) Sadhana
has a copy of everything if anyone wants
to view.
To further support the application with
some examples of video work by Cyberzone’s
own young people, last weekend I ran a surprise
workshop at Cyberzone- again with my own
kit- with some of the young people (joined
by a grandpa). What they achieved in a short
time is available here for you and HALC
to watch. We did the pictures together,
however I added the sound (the workshoppers
wanted do the sound dub themselves but there
simply was not the time); however the music
and effects were added using the kit we
have asked for.
Please click on images to view
movies
If our application is successful (our argument
was compelling) you should all have the
opportunity to be creative with the new
computers and computers are, after all,
Cyberzone’s USP! As we said in our
application, Oscar-winning animator Nick
Park (of Wallace and Gromit fame) was able
to start animating as a child because his
family had a cine camera that allowed him
that early start. The poor lad had to send
off the film to be developed, then he had
to edit it on another piece of equipment,
then add sound, which was a nightmare, then
project it on a screen. Our young people
will have much better kit than Park had
and the results will be almost immediate.
So- fingers crossed! We will hear about
the grant in February 2007.
Any comments welcome,
Andy Prendergast
|
MegaBytes@CyberZone
replaces Fun with Food and gives service
users further opportunities to prepare lunch
with and for each other. Given the success
of Skills Swaps (see above) and the enthusiasm
of service users to share their skills and
knowledges with each other, MegaBytes@CyberZone
aims to be user-lead.