Search is on for Big County’s Spielberg in the making

The search is on to find the best young film-makers across Perth and Kinross.

Now in its second year, Big County, Small Films is looking for savvy children of all ages from primary and secondary schools to create a short film, with the chance to have it on the big screen at Perth Playhouse.

The competition is being organised by Kevin Johnston, a teacher at Dunbarney Primary School in Bridge of Earn. He said he hopes the success of last year’s competition will see more entries this year: “It went pretty well last year - we had about 20 films from 10 different schools. Some of the films were very good, especially as most of the children were new to film-making. It was lovely to see how creative they had been.

“Film-making in the classroom is cross-curricular, it covers everything from literacy and expressive arts such as drama, to ICT. A lot of the high schools are now using film-making in their lessons, and some almost have their own media department now.

The films which get shortlisted will be shown in Perth Playhouse on Wednesday, November 15, and Mr Johnston added the children got a huge sense of achievement from seeing their work: “Even if the pupils don’t win, there’s a great sense of achievement from getting their films on the big screen.”

The short films can cover any genre, from animation to horror, and can even include non-fiction. The only requirement is the film must meet the critera for BBFC’s U-certificate rating. The pupils can work on their film in or out of school as well.

In an effort to get more schools involved in the competition, Mr Johnston is also hosting a ‘TeachMeet’ workshop at Dunbarney Primary School at 4.30pm on Tuesday, May 30 for teachers to learn how to use filmmaking in their own classrooms.

He explained: “We feel if teachers could be shown how to use the iPad and Windows Movie Maker to create films, they can go on to use it in their lessons, and kids love films. We already have 20 teachers signed up.”

The deadline for schools to submit their film entries to Big County, Short Films, is Friday, October 6. Schools can find out more and submit their entries to bigcounty_ shortfilms@fastmail.com. Pupils at Dunbarney Primary School were winners in 2016