Conehead by Don Pan

Exposures UK Students Film Festival 2005, Best of the Festival DVD. Available from Cornerhouse Publications, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH 0161 2001503, publications@cornerhouse.org, www.cornerhouse.org/books

This DVD includes twelve short films from Exposures which vary in form and style from the relatively traditional documentary to highly contemporary animations. The films are all made by young people in the 18-20s age range, and most but not all of the films are produced as part of a formal higher education project. A favourite of mine, Thats Whats So Sad is made at home on no budget with a mushroom in the lead role.

Some are not wholly appropriate for the 14-18 age group, that is to say they are not youth films. One tells the story of The Really Terrible Orchestra who are all over 40. However the DVD as a whole would be extremely useful to A Level Media and Film teachers to demonstrate the high level of production values that are possible with a professional, well organised approach and a low budget. What stands out in each film is engagement with what the short film can achieve -- and how it is distinctive, something that is hard to teach and learn without good examples. The films also represent that stage between the first few films young people make themselves at home, school or college and the commercial film that gets released. In other words, they are on the whole and in different ways, well made, interesting, and engaging. A number stand out -- Darkie Day made by Dewi Bruse-Konuah investigates a tradition in Padstow where locals black up their faces and dress up as slaves. The documentary is powerful with Dewi himself taking up the role of investigative filmmaker with an unassuming manner which gets the local community talking. This film would stimulate debate about ethics in documentary filmmaking and about the use of the filmmaker in the film.

Every Street Dreams is a collaborative project which offers an interesting model for students to have a go at themselves -- audio record someones recollection of a dream and recreate it through animation and film. The various styles and techniques of animation here, and in other films in the collection, would also offer opportunity to focus on how style relates to content. Kenkeneb is another excellent animation which really got me thinking about the use of images with sound. It addresses the audience directly in a series of questions rather like a guessing game about sounds and would create great debate about which of the senses is primary in viewing film. The DVD is accompanied by a short piece of copy for each film which offers an insight into the production process or intentions of the filmmaker. Its well worth using the DVD for examples of young people successfully creating short films.

Becky Parry