Giving young people a voice

By Keith Marley, senior lecturer in Film and Media Professional Studies, The Liverpool Screen School at Liverpool John Moores University

The BT Big Voice competition has given students from around the country a chance to speak out about the issues of inclusion and diversity. Short films, communicating these ideas, are to be screened at special events throughout the UK in the build up to 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. And they are guaranteed a global audience.

That’s why this is such a prestigious project. From what I’ve seen, the students of Liverpool John Moores University have relished the fantastic opportunity handed to them.

The competition has given them the chance to work at a professional level. I’m in no doubt that this will look impressive on any CV and in their portfolios. It may even give them an edge in what is a competitive industry which can only be a good thing.

But perhaps more importantly their involvement in the project has allowed them to develop a set of professional and life skills that will really benefit them in the future. It has prepared them for work in a way that is not always possible when only following the set curriculum.

For a start, they have had to learn to work to budget with BT donating £1,000 for each film. Then they had to follow a brief and meet deadlines. These are key skills that everyone needs in the workplace and not something that can be learnt in a lecture hall.

The students also had to conduct themselves appropriately and hone their diplomatic, negotiation and people management skills- especially when dealing with outside agencies. For example, they charmed council officials in to letting them film in various locations, put calls out for actors and ran auditions.

This required a lot of teamwork, collaboration and managerial skills which are so essential in a working environment.

And of course film productions never run smoothly. So there has been ample opportunity for them to solve problems and troubleshoot to ensure they achieved their goals.

We were also the production partners for students from South Cheshire College of Further Education in Crewe. They had written a treatment idea for a film and we had to realise their vision.

This gave the younger students the perfect chance to see what we do at university. We talked to them about our course, our facilities and how we work. And hopefully this made some of them see that university could also be for them.

Plus, they had the opportunity to see their vision and ideas truly valued - which is confidence and morale boosting to say the least. 

BT Big Voice has been a truly inspiring and exciting project to work on. We now wait with anticipation for the regional and national finals later this year.