For more than a decade the Media and Film Studies Department at the Sixth Form Centre has been holding its annual Golden Gregsons awards ceremony where more than 200 students and their guests are present.
Taking place at the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts, A-level and IB students were able to see their products shown on the big screen. A red carpet reception preceded the evening with paparazzi adding to the buzz of the evening with the ceremony starting with some parody AI music videos made by the teachers, to illustrate how much the industry is changing.
Are the creative industries under threat or will human creativity still be essential for individualism and innovation? Hopes are pinned on the latter but creatives will have to learn to manage the technology very quickly.
The Year 12 students had to research, plan, photograph, produce and write four pages of a music magazine of a genre of music of their choice. They photographed models, chose relevant locations, designed and collated costumes and make-up, learned desk-top publishing and photo manipulation skills and also wrote articles for their target audiences. A huge variety of genres were chosen from punk and jazz to hip-hop and pop.
The Year 13s had to produce a music video and design a CD cover and a social media campaign for the stars of their music video. Once again, skills ranging from research to post production were practised and honed and resulted in a huge variety of brilliantly produced music videos, wonderfully innovative social media pages and imaginative CD covers. The genres included a variety of music styles from indie to rock and from pop to electro.
Meanwhile the IB Film Studies required its students to produce a variety of projects and these included short horror films and also short documentaries on relevant topics of island life ranging from fishing to dancing.
The event has continued to be supported by creative industry professionals from Specsavers’ creative department who have been hugely proactive. Not only are they now providing Creative Roots workshops with the London School of Communication for post-16 students in an effort to encourage local creative talent, but they continue to support students in class and mentor in print and video design.
Also, this year the Sixth Form Centre has joined forces with local creative agencies Buzz and Rock & Small, both of which have given up time to mentor students in the art of social media marketing and album design. You can see all this year’s video productions by logging on to youtube.com – guernseymedia
