Film & Media

Things have been continued to evolve within the school’s Film and Media department over the last few years. The growing interest in this co-curricular area of school life since the department was launched in 2017 has led to the introduction of A Level Film Studies in September 2022.This new development has, in turn, given a new focus to all of the co-curricular film and media activities here at Emanuel.

Media Club

There are currently three media clubs that run each week for Years 6 to 7. As part of this, pupils enjoy learning how to use the school’s film studio. It is here that they film Emanuel News, and all these episodes are available on the school’s YouTube channel. All Media Club members have the opportunity to present the news and/ or to take on a role behind the camera. During the lockdown of Spring 2020, Media Club pupils made two episodes of Emanuel News remotely, recording themselves presenting the new stories from their own homes.

Another significant aspect of Media Club is learning the basics of filmmaking, and each the year pupils have had fun experimenting with different techniques as well as working in teams to make short films for the House Film competition.

Pupils were even able to do some remote filmmaking during periods of remote learning. In the lockdown of Spring 2020, they worked together on a short film entitled Bananas about Mr Reg, who learns the hard way about the challenges of teaching online.

Filmmaking Club

With the advent of A Level Film Studies, the school’s Media Clubs for Year 8 upwards have all become filmmaking clubs with a special focus on giving pupils the chance to experiment with making short films for internal and external competitions. There are currently three filmmaking clubs that meet each week (Year 8,Year 9 and 10 and Year 11+).

J Skinner (Film and Media Coordinator and Teacher of Film Studies)

Kindness Detectives Documentary Project

In the Spring term of 2022, pupils from the school’s Media and Filmmaking clubs participated in ‘Kindness Detectives’, a documentary project run by the Be Kind Movement. Nico (7HAB) interviewed his mother for the project. Here he explains more:

“We were invited to a documentary-making workshop, where we learned some techniques for filming interviews. We were tasked with interviewing someone about an experience from their life involving acts of kindness. I really enjoyed learning a new aspect of filmmaking and being able to share a personal family story about my very kind and inspirational Great-Grandmother.”

Film in Week Projects

Apart from a forced break in Spring 2020, there have been two ‘Film in a Week’ projects per year during the school holidays. These intensive courses have been an exciting opportunity for pupils to learn the basics of filmmaking. With each project, pupils started from scratch, writing, shooting and editing their films in less than a week, with some final post-production being completed afterwards.

With each of these projects, it has been fantastic to see the pupils working together so well as a crew and cast to make their films. They should be really proud of what they have produced.

Film in a Week: October 2020 (Year 10)

In October 2020, seventeen Year 10s participated in this project, working in two separate filmmaking teams. It was excellent to see the different ways in which the theme of ‘Independence’ was interpreted. The Feathered Dress was a quirky and fun comedy, whilst Recasted made for a tense thriller.

Film in a Week: October 2021 (Year 9)

During the 2021 Easter holidays, twenty Year 9s worked in three separate groups to make films on the theme of ‘kindness’ in association with Wandsworth-based charity Be Kind Movement.

Film in a Week: October 2021 (Year 11)

A small group of Year 11 pupils worked together to make Focus, a short film about how a girl with ADHD copes with her condition when faced with the daunting challenge of presenting in front of her class. His project was run in collaboration with The Grey Coat Hospital school (one of our foundation schools).

Film in a Week: Easter 2022 (Years 9 and 10)

This project saw 16 pupils from Years 9 and 10 working in small teams to make fun speculative adverts. They were given a brief to devise an advert for a hypothetical product using a piece of music they chose from a set playlist. For this project,Year 10 pupils were joined by some pupils from Ernest Bevin College (one of our local partner schools).