Love stories

2016-05-17T15:15:18+00:00

Alice During from Radio 5live shared her programme-making skills with teenagers creating a short film about the online hazards of blossoming relationships. She worked with the advisory service Brook which was a successful applicant through ��̳ Outreach’s Community Doorway programme.

In the second of two different blogs from the project, Alice writes about her volunteering experience.

‘It certainly has made me rethink any hesitation I may have felt when working with this age group’

I wanted to volunteer because I wanted an opportunity to connect with harder-to-reach audiences in the community, so working with Brook was the perfect project. They wanted help to make an informative engaging, film that would be made by, and appeal to, young people aged 15 years upwards who were starting out in finding a relationship. And I wanted to try my hand at making a short-form film with this teenage audience.

At the start we scoped the idea with a group of teenagers, who were at first reluctant to open up about their love-lives, but by the end of our afternoon we had possible volunteers to star in the project.

We spent a couple of evenings drawing up an outline and story-board for a drama script and decided to have two parallel stories with different outcomes similar in concept to the film Sliding Doors.

Preparing for the film, students listed the signs of abusive relationships.

Then we fleshed out the concept and scripted the story and finally had one last meeting to finalise the shooting plan and locations. In the edit, we would be using graphics and on-screen text messages, Sherlock-style.

I was impressed with the enthusiasm and hunger of the young people to throw themselves into the task.

We had 14 teenagers to direct in two separate stories, working multi-location all in one day. The night before filming I was looking forward to it, but with some trepidation.

The day itself was challenging – in a good way. My colleague Becky Bailey and I were filming a fictional blind date on a rainy morning in Ordsall, Salford, at a school, a café and at MediaCityUK.

There was plenty of good-natured banter and the young people took direction well. They didn't complain when asked to do another take or try it a different way next time - even when I was asking them to try it again a different way on a cold rainy morning in the park.

Our teenage team was well behaved, co-operative, patient and enthusiastic - all done with good grace and humour, and I was amazed by their professional attitude – even asking if they were clear so they could go back to class.

Watch 'Relationships: meeting someone' - the fictional film highlighting positive online dating actions created by ��̳ staff and students

I am confident the project has not only produced a film that delivered all that was asked for by Brook, but was a positive and worthwhile experience for all involved.

It certainly has made me rethink any hesitation I may have initially felt when it comes to working with this age group and would gladly do another project.

I certainly learnt a lot about putting together a short-form film from blank paper to final edit. I can’t wait for my next assignment!

��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ��̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

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Love stories

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