London College of Communication blog

Team UN-MEANT, Sodie Anderssom & Mattia Bernini

London College of Communcation (LCC) BA Design for Interaction and Moving Image student Mattia Bernini will be embarking on an adventure of a lifetime this summer as he bids to complete a 10,000 mile journey from the UK to Mongolia to raise money for local charities supporting vulnerable and impoverished families.

Standing between him and his ultimate goal will be the small matter of three deserts, five mountain peaks, traversing fifteen different countries as part of the Mongol Rally event taking place over 6 weeks, starting in July.

The epic journey, which will be shared with Florence-based fashion student Sofie Andersson as part of team ‘UN-MEANT’, will not only help raise much needed financial support for Mongolian charity Lotus Child and the UK-based REF (Renewable Energy Foundation) but also give the two students an opportunity to hone their reportage skills as they look to post updates on their way to platforms such as Dased & Confused and DandyDiary.

The journey’s end will see the team donating their vehicle to The Adventurist organisation, who in turn will maintain it for the Mongolian public.

Before this can happen, Mattia and his team are looking for sponsorship to help secure them the funds necessary to make the trip possible. To find out how you can support them, visit the team ‘UN-MEANT’ facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/UnMeantMongolRally

Bagong Silang (New Born), a short documentary film produced by London College of Communication (LCC) students Giselle Santos and Zena Merton, has been nominated in the student category of the 2012 One World Media Awards.

Initially short-listed and now nominated alongside two others, the 10-minute film is about a community living in a cemetery on the outskirts of Manila, Philippines. It tells the story of this extraordinary, resilient, and resourceful community that has made the graveyard not only their home but also their place of work.

Giselle (Producer) and Zena (Director) first met at LCC whilst on the FdA Media Practice course back in 2008 and became friends and collaborators instantly, working on the very first project together.  

Zena describes how the film came about:

“I had a passion for making films about communities on the margins of society before I started the course and whilst in my first year I came across an article in The Sunday Times magazine concerning a community that lived in a cemetery in the Philippines. I was fascinated immediately.”

“As Giselle is from the Philippines, I approached her with the idea to make a film and we decided to work together on it as our final submission to the FdA Media Practice course. We quickly began our research to find a charity that could help us gain access into one of the cemetery dwelling communities and were lucky enough to find out about the Philippine Community Foundation (PCF), a UK-based charity who work with the residents of the Navotas Cemetery and Tondo landfilled sites in Manila.

“Stefan Werc, also a student at LCC, came along to be the cameraman and the three of us left for the Philippines for our first research trip in October 2010.”

Zena goes on to explain that:

“Giselle and I both knew that we needed to make two trips to the Philippines and that it was going to be very expensive to do so. With the help of Polly Nash, our documentary tutor, we heard about One World Media (OWM) and applied for funding at the beginning of 2011.  Along with the help of OWM, Giselle and I worked hard raising money from cake bakes, bag sales and auctions attended by the Filipino community. 

Zena concludes by adding:

“Thankfully in February last year we heard that we had qualified for funding from OWM and were therefore able to return in March/April 2011 to finish the film.” 

Fingers crossed this incredible story ends in the winning of the One World Media Student Award which is due to be announced later this year.

The Homeless Film Festival opens at London College of Communication (LCC) on 2 April with the screening of Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home. Following the film will be a Q&A with producer Tony Garnett and Val Stevenson chair of trustees of the Pavement, a charity who produce news for people who are homeless.

The festival provides a platform for homeless people to tell their stories through a series of high quality short films and features, raising awareness by putting the issue of homelessness firmly in the media spotlight.

The Homeless Film Festival, a registered charity set up by Donkey Stone Films, runs a series of filmmaking workshops through which homeless participants can create short films, whilst learning employable skills and engaging in a meaningful activity.

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A 30-minute documentary directed and produced by London College of Communication (LCC) MA Documentary Film graduate, Holly Cocker, was last week shown on BBC1, BBC2 and CBBC. Part of the critically-acclaimed My Life series, the film explores the lives, thoughts and feelings of five children born 10 years ago in America on 9/11.

Johnny in Montana

Throughout the film the children talk about what it’s like to have a birthday on a day that nobody feels like having a party, the impact of the events of 9/11 on their families and how being born on this unforgettable date has already affected their lives.

Cocker decided to make the film following the tragic death of Christina Taylor, a victim of the 2011 Arizona shootings who was born on 9/11 and featured in the book Faces of Hope. Cocker says: “…I wondered what the others were up to and whether their birth date had affected their lives in any way.”

After coming up with the idea, Cocker carried out extensive research and self-funded a taster tape in America. She pitched the tape to various TV channels before the BBC commissioned it.

Lexi in Kansas

The film has been chosen as ‘Pick of the Day’ in The Sunday Times, The Mirror and The Daily Record, My Birthday Shook the World is available on BBCiPlayer until 3 April.

Read an interview with Holly Cocker on our website.

At the beginning of March, London College of Communication (LCC) held its first interdisciplinary PhD exhibition entitled, Research in Progress: Pushing Boundaries and Practices. Nineteen students exhibited a variety of different works in areas of film, photography, design and sound arts, here LCC Research Administrator Dr Jennifer Tomomitsu, reviews the show.

It could be said that putting together the Research in Progress: pushing boundaries and practices exhibition was a rewarding, but sometimes, daunting task. Working with limited resources and a tight schedule meant that the students had to be innovative and constantly revise the planning of their exhibits. Such exercises may have been difficult, but some students indicated that the preparations were a useful practice to “test out a new installation project and tweak it for future exhibitions” (Magz Hall, Sound) or to “test ideas out and see how they might go together in a space that also plays to other ways of thinking” (Louis Henderson, film).  Others said that “creating practical work for the exhibition was a catalyst to try out some methods which were coming up from recent literature and practice reviews. Sometimes you just need to make things, and it was very liberating” (Chris Twigg, Design).

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For the first time four research disciplines taught within London College of Communication (LCC) are brought together in one PhD exhibition, ‘Research in progress: pushing boundaries and practises’.

The exhibition is a celebration of interdisciplinarity and the coming together of different artistic practices in one event. Nineteen students will be exhibiting a variety of different works in areas of film, photography, design and sound arts from 3rd to 16th March with a Private View on Friday 2 March.

Author: Rosalind Fowler, 3rd year full-time (Film)

Filmic installations will explore topics related to archive, space, place and belonging. Rosalind Fowler, 3^rd year Film student showcases work that comprises extracts from a feature length documentary currently in production. She says: “It is about performative folk traditions, senses of place and belonging in England, from the perspective of a fictional female character living in the city. The research is strongly informed by ideas surrounding experimental and auto-ethnography, phenomenological experience and the embodied camera.”

Author: Corinne Silva, 3rd year full-time PhD student (Photography)

In photography, images deal with issues of memory, domestic space, geo-politics and identity. Third year Photography student, Corinne Silva, tells us about her work: “The landscapes of southern Spain and northern Morocco share many geographical features including climate, flora and fauna, as well as a history of trade, migration and invasion. To consider these interconnected Mediterranean landscapes I photographed northern Morocco landscapes and then installed three of these images on billboards in Murcia, Spain. The act of placing one landscape inside another – the southern hemisphere into the northern – creates a space to contemplate not only their shared topography but also the complex web of their ongoing connections of mobility and colonisation.”

Author: Francico Laranjo, 2nd year Full-time (Design)

Design students will showcase various works related to data visualization, space and branding, screen typography, and communication design. Franciso Laranjo, a 2^nd year Design student explains his research: “The Architecture of Gambling is an unfinished project that seeks to analyse and map visual tactics used by aggressive ‘brand-led businesses’ that occupy a significant part of today’s urban landscapes. They have been contaminating public space with promiscuous and obsessive relations with sports and finance whilst operating in tax havens such as Gibraltar, Isle of Man or Malta.”

Author: Mark Jackson, 5th year part-time (Sound)

Sound arts students showcase audio compositions and sound experiments who address issues of listening, performance, radio art, and the relationship between sound and light. Fifth year student Sound, Mark Jackson, tells about his work: “Exteriorisation Exercise #2: Playback Experiment #2 is the orchestration of a William S. Buroughs ‘playback’ experiment. It consists of individuals visiting the exhibition over the course of its run to covertly record and replay the exhibition’s audial environment with different generations of audio technology. The recording devices will not be visible and the data recorded will be played back at a level potentially indistinguishable from ambient noise. The exercise is a re-imagining of paranormal acts of metaphysical sabotage and the perversion of a not-art proposition. Potentially indistinguishable from its absence, it may nonetheless incite instances of interference, distraction and delusion.”

Download the exhibition catalogue that accompanies the exhibition.

The Homeless Festival, hosted at the London College of Communication (LCC) from 2 to 26 April 2012, will provide a platform for homeless people to tell their stories through a series of high quality short films and features, raising awareness by putting the issue of homelessness firmly in the media spotlight.

Screenshot of No Fixed Abode

The festival has received submissions by homeless people from around the world and those being showcased include No Fixed Abode, a feature about a man who wakes up in a homeless shelter and tries to piece together this life, which will have its world premiere. Receiving their UK premieres are Red Card: Giving Exclusion the Boot, a documentary about the Homeless World Cup 2011, Voices of Guerrero, a documentary by the street kids of Mexico, and A Sister’s Call, a documentary about a woman who finds her missing brother, after 18 years, suffering from mental illness, and tries to bring him back.

Screenshot of Red Card: Giving Exclusion the Boot

Other highlights of the Festival include the screening of Cathy Come Home, directed by Ken Loach, followed by a Q&A with producer, Tony Garnett, and a discussion on the current housing crisis; a screening of Adam and Paul, with a Q&A with director Lenny Abrahamson, and a screening of Dark Days followed by a Q&A with director Marc Singer.

Screenshot of Voices of Guerrero

The Homeless Film Festival uses the film industry as a means for homeless people to move forward with their lives and away from poverty by running a series of filmmaking workshops through which homeless participants can create short films, whilst learning employable skills and engaging in a meaningful activity.

All films will be shown in the Podium Lecture Theatre. A donation of £5 is suggested for the screenings with Q&A’s and £3 for other films.

The Homeless Film Festival will also tour top independent cinemas in the UK and Ireland throughout April.

For information about screenings and times visit our Events blog.

Portrait of Jill Daniels

London College of Communication (LCC) MA Screenwriting alumna Jill Daniels’ new film, The Border Crossing, has just been released and is now available on DVD.

In this innovative 47 minute film set in the Basque country, award-winning filmmaker Daniels creates an evocative story of her own past through the wanderings of a young woman on both sides of the French/Spanish border while an unnamed man drives through the rain at night. Intrigued? Then watch the 5 minute clip below.

Get the DVD at www.jilldanielsfilms.com

Still from the Rahim Moledina's film 'Air'

Air, a short film directed by London College of Communication (LCC) MA Screenwriting student Rahim Moledina, is one of 27 films selected for screening at the Imperial War Museum’s (IWM) 11th Annual Film Festival, running until 24 February. The festival showcases some of the most imaginative and thought-provoking short films being made by young and aspiring filmmakers inspired by the museum’s archives.

Moledina’s film is a meditation on the spirit of London as seen through the prism of its most trying time  the World War Two blitz. You can see the film as part of a programme of shorts in the Cinema at IWM London on 22 Feb at 11.30am and 23 Feb at 4.00pm. Alternatively, if you can’t make it to the museum, watch the film on YouTube below.

Air is also one of the winning films produced as part of Mosaic Films’ 2010 project London Recut.

Find out more about the IWM Film Festival.

Promotional poster for 'The view from the window' by Alice D Cooper

A D Cooper, a 2004 graduate from London College of Communication’s MA Screenwriting course,  has just completed her second short film The View from the Window with Hurcheon Films as writer/director/executive producer. The script won the Prequel to Cannes Short Script Competition in 20009/10 whose brief asked for a well-known location in Dorset to be a key part of the narrative.

The story follows the arrival of Martin in Poole Hospital. He’s had a catastrophic car accident and gets put in a ward next to the talkative Harold who regales him with poetic words about the world outside, wind and weather.  Only after the old man has gone, does Martin realise how much Harold and nature have helped him to heal.

The 10-minute film features Alex Barclay as Martin with other cast members including Felicity Davidson and Ruth D’Silva.  Gabi Norland was Director of Photography, Avon Harpley was Line Producer, Lizzie Bardwell was Production Designer, Richard Lightman was Sound Designer and Composer, and Adam Gough was the editor.

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