We’ve been delighted to collaborate with the oldest children at Jura’s Primary School and their teacher over the last few months, on an original shortened film version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It was an entry into the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation International Film Festival 2024, and featured in their “Best of the Fest” selection. We’re keen to use our skills and facilities whenever we can to support work that can benefit the community and its reputation.
“an ambitious, accomplished and utterly joyous production, by a committed and collaborative company”
We believe in the central idea behind this festival - that film has a unique power to engage and empower young people into an active relationship with Shakespeare’s plays - some of English literature’s most iconic but difficult texts.
A still from the opening sequence of ‘Twelfth Night’
Participating in the festival meant eight young islanders became members of a diverse and inspiring online community, though they were some of the youngest children, from the smallest of schools. Submissions came from 28 schools altogether, from many different backgrounds, with different educational needs, and even with English as a non-native language.
It also feels healthy to give children a more penetrating understanding of a medium they are very used to consuming, initiating them into the film-making process in all its painstaking repetitions and magical transformations.
A still from the Closing Credits of ‘Twelfth Night’
Behind the scenes, there were some practical parameters we had to work within on the project - shooting days had to be tightly managed to fit in the hours of the school day, for example. Work on the screenplay was required as the final film had to be shorter than half an hour. We all wanted to take the opportunity to show off the island as much as possible, so we planned to be on location & outdoors most of the days, making pre-production quite intense. Diaries pointed towards a week in September as our shooting window, at the end of a dreary wet summer. In the end, Jura’s weather gods gave us a uncannily lucky break.
“every scene looked visually stunning”
We chose to use one of our small Sony Cameras with either the DJI gimble or a small tripod, for the sake of agility (technical and physical!). We captured the sound on a broadcast quality Sound Devices MixPre, Sennheiser shotgun mic, and Rode blimp and boom. The children were endlessly affectionate towards the blimp’s noise-reducing fluffy cover, known as the “dead cat”.
A Still from ‘Twelfth Night’
Shooting to a set script and editing such a long form piece is not our usual format, so back at Maker Studio, we split our resources & developed an offline / online video editing pattern; an economical approach that worked well and which we’ve already taken forward into our commercial projects.
The cast at the studio to record voiceovers
The massive value we can add with Hugh in the team during the editing phase on any project is the music. He was able to create atmospheres by writing different themes for the different characters, smooth over some cracks, and enhance the emotion behind the sometimes complicated dialogue, giving the film its heart. We had the children up to the studio to record voiceovers towards the end of the edit phase, which was good fun too!
“masterful use of voiceover”
The festival jury commented that, “every scene looked visually stunning,” and praised the “masterful use of voiceover”, describing it overall as “an ambitious, accomplished and utterly joyous production, by a committed and collaborative company.” When you think about the context we’re operating in, this is cool.
A still from the closing scene of ‘Twelfth Night’
In local government and policy terms, the Isle of Jura is classed as an Economically Fragile Area and Very Remote Rural Area. There’s a hovering shadow of declining population and its resulting reduction in services. A high proportion of our 230 residents volunteer their time to third sector committees, emergency services, or community events, just to keep the show on the road. The creative industries have been identified as a priority sector for economic opportunities here, which is why the Highlands and Islands network help to seed small businesses like ours.
We are bringing up a family here and Small Isles Primary School is a real jewel in the crown of island life. With its roll of 18 pupils aged between 5-12, they have a warm and progressive approach which celebrates the island’s youngest residents in all their individuality. Their nurturing ethos seems to breed confidence. The school have excellent leadership and encourages a healthy dialogue between students and the wider world. They are motivated by a strong social and environmental conscience, earning UK Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Awards and Eco flags, while also being ambitious about what their children can achieve, like making a film on location in Shakespearean English…
We had a fantastically well-supported community première with a red carpet for the children in the Jura Village Hall in January. Again, with Jane’s support, the cast acquitted themselves brilliantly in their debut as members of a panel responding to audience questions after the film showing.
During the Première