A tragic moment in a Teesside youngster’s life inspired a film project which is now a benchmark for TV judges. Viv Hardwick goes behind the scenes at the Bright Spark project at Middlesbrough.

AN award-winning film by young Teessiders that lasts just five minutes, took five years to complete having grown out of a tragic event which badly-affected one of the youngsters.

Life for Life took a Royal Television Society Young People’s Media Festival award last month, and is now destined to become a discussiongenerating DVD about car joy-riding or TWOCing (Taking Without Owner’s Consent) for use in schools.

North-East film producers Time Out of the Box started out by working with a group of eight-yearolds taking part in a Middlesbrough Children’s Fund project called Bright Start.

Tim Gristwood, founder and managing director of Time Out of the Box, says: “These were quite young people when we first met them, but they are now teenagers working towards their exams. We brought a group of children together as a Children and Young People’s Management Board who would influence some of the decisions that adults were making.

“Everything from bereavement services to young carers was represented and there was quite a range of life experience. We used to pick them by bus and one day a young boy, who we’d considered fairly street-wise, told me about an incident that had happened which resulted in another boy being killed.

“I said I’d heard about it and he replied ‘it was my friend’s brother’ and said that he’d been unable to leave his house for two weeks. That was awful, and the group talked about it and although it was off-script in terms of what we were doing, we looked at what we could do to turn this tragic thing around in memory of that boy,” says Gristwood.

At the Middlesbrough-based company’s premises, the nine-strong group of youngsters opted to look at making a film, which gained funding from Middlesbrough Action for Children and Media Routes.

“This group never gave up on this, even though it has taken four or five years. We had help from Northern-based scriptwriter Ian Fenton and they ended up with something quite surreal,” adds Gristwood.

To earn funding, the group of Liam Keenan, Danielle Rainbow, Dani Symmonds, Jodie Woodier, Ambreen Hussain, Mehreen Hussain, Lucy Jeff and Joseph O’Donnell shot an improvised piece in a scrapyard.

“Ian saw it and came up with the suggestion of filming it in the scrapyard for the final version because it makes quite a big impact,” he says.

The intent was to present something to schools with a preventative message.

“There is a bit at the start which shocks the audience a little and the film goes on to look at the perspectives of the victim, from the driver’s point of view, from a parent view and finally that of the friends who are attending a funeral. A local vicar, the Reverend Danielle B Cooke, from St Mary’s Church, Green Lane, Middlesbrough, came along and spent a day with us in the scrapyard to do some filming,” Gristwood says.

He’s proud that Bright Start’s chair, Liam Keenan from Macmillan Academy, Middlesbrough, completed the application details for the film to be entered in the Royal Television Society (RTS) awards for 2011. The film was judged to be the best professionally- supported film in the RTS Young People’s Media Festival for the North-East and the Border Centre. The award was handed over to Bright Start by Teesside TV presenter Kirsten O’Brien at Teesside University.

“I was told it was an absolute unanimous decision when it won. There was no question about which film would win. I was told that this raises the standard of what films the RTS expectd to see in future.

The youngsters were supported by us with camerawork and lighting and what we are trying to do is create multiple copies of the DVD to get them into schools with additional educational material,” says Gristwood.

Perhaps the one sad part of the film’s success is that the young man who sparked its creation decided not to keep in contact with the rest of Bright Spark.

“The others are looking to create something called Bright Start MEDIA (motivating education and diversity in action). It was very unfortunate that this lad couldn’t stay involved, but I did get in contact with him and he and a colleague came to our offices and we sat and watched the film with him. So that was another big moment for us,” Gristwood says.

He then quotes Ian Fenton’s description of the work of Bright Start.

“Determined, determined, determined.”

• For more information on Life for Life go to timeoutofthebox.co.uk 01642-222128 or write to: Time Out of the Box, Unit 1, River Court, Brighouse Business Village, Brighouse Road, Riverside Business Park, Middlesbrough, TS2 1RT