The Mirror Circus is the brainchild of filmmakers Des Webb and Louise Armitt and co-ordinator Sandra William’s .
This “special needs” film course originated from a short film produced for Buckinghamshire Young People's University, which highlighted their year 2000 summer school project entitled 'Aspects of Flight'.


CAMERA CARROT:

Most of the students on this summer school project had little or no previous experience in front of the camera, so Des had to develop a personal relationship with each student in order to overcome any of their inhibitions or nerves. This approach enabled the students to relax when articulating their experiences in front of the camera.
After the shock of having a camera lens staring at them, Webb observed how quickly the students came to relish the idea of being observed.
Even the more shy students, who were at first nervous and shunned the spotlight, soon warm to the attention of the lens.

The Mirror Circus defines this stage of production as the “Camera Carrot stage”. The camera is used as a catalyst to draw out the student’s communication skills through their own creativity.
The students embrace the camera as a blackboard or note book, with marks out of ten for delivery and well thought out commentary.


BREAKTHROUGH:

The Mirror Circus had discovered that the glamour and street credibility associated with the camera, and filmmaking itself, was somehow able achieve an extra educational and emotional dynamic.
It was probably at this stage that the whole concept of using The Mirror Circus, filmmaking and the camera as an educational tool, evolved. The idea for using The Mirror Circus exclusively for special needs students was a natural occurrence, as this group seemed the most likely to benefit.

Des explains “the students seemed to want to show the world how bright and clever they were, they put in lots of effort and constantly delivered well balanced and clear accounts of what they had learnt and experienced in the classroom”.

The Mirror Circus also noticed a sense or order in the behaviour of the students when the camera was rolling, as everybody knows that the camera never lies.
The feedback on this film for the Buckinghamshire Young People's University was such that, The Mirror Circus were commissioned to make more films for other educational projects.

Details of these films as well as the project “Aspects of Flight” can be seen on the web-page ‘educational documentary ‘.


SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS:

“Aspects of flight” was filmed at The Cressex Community School in Buckinghamshire, and was seen by Amanda Morby Adams, head of the special needs dept at the Cressex school, who quickly understood the potential of The Mirror Circus as an educational tool.

Webb explains “New projects require vision, the initial success of The Mirror Circus course was very much due to Amanda Morby Adams and her vision of how a film course could benefit her special needs students”.

The appeal of film and television was obvious to Morby Adams who saw that The Mirror Circus Film Course could be used as either a reward for students, who had shown improvement within the classroom or as a medium to aid others.
The course has also been a huge success in helping Students with low self-esteem or emotional difficulties.

The Mirror Circus was commissioned to pilot their film course for special needs students at The Cressex Community School. A loose blueprint was put into action which could inspire the students to express themselves creatively, whilst learning.
The idea was for the students to write and produce short films that would later be premiered to their peers, family and end-of-term assembly. The students would be given their own finished programme at the end of the course, which would serve as a constant reminder of a unique experience in their lives, as well as a unique achievement within the world of education.

2001 A CRESSEX ODISSEY:

This pioneer film was entitled 2001 a Cressex Odyssey, and portrayed the students in a surreal and fly on the wall manner.

The production involved making a film about the student’s lives, exploring their goals, dreams and aspirations as well as their day to day experiences of both school and home life. Immediately The Mirror Circus witnessed the excitement and tension generated by the camera.

“The special needs students had to work harder in front of the camera, than the students on the “Aspects of flight” production. They all shared the same willingness of expression but because of their various learning difficulties the overall tension on this project was at a higher degree “

THE SELF OBSERVATIONAL STAGE

“An essential part of The Mirror Circus productions course is recording the process of making a programme, so that students are able to watch themselves during regular edits. This gives them the opportunity to assess their behaviour with the group. The students are often not aware of the impact of their behaviour until they view their speech and actions as an onlooker, something that is made possible through film”.

After the first weeks filming session, Mirror Circus editor Viral Mistry, edited a trailer of what the students had previously filmed.
Webb closely observed the student reaction to their exposure on the big screen as they eagerly awaited their scenes.
The Mirror Circus began to use these play-back sessions as a tool to harmonise the pace of the course, and have termed this “The self observational stage”.

The Mirror Circus film course addresses how we function as children and as adults and to a great extent, the findings relate to ones desire to feed the ego.
Broadly speaking, it is human nature to want to “impress” or “look good”.

The camera has historically been used as one of the most elaborate and effective means of achieving this “look good” factor. Not to say that every participant to the lens assumes that once filmed they will resemble David Beckham or Madonna on playback, but simply the fact that they are recorded and edited using the exact same medium as the aforementioned icons, is enough for one to feel a sense of achievement and stardom.
Hence the age old phrase “ fifteen minutes of fame”.
Teenagers, in particular love the tension created by the lens and the thrill and excitement of “looking good” at the all-important self-observational stage.

“I began to edit the film at weekly stages knowing that if I brought in a well edited cut of the previous weeks activity, the student were considerably more infused to perform even better.
The weekly edits also gave me some bartering power as I often used the screenings as a reward for good behaviour, with the obvious treat of no screenings for negative behaviour.
Once the students saw themselves “looking Good” they tried even harder to make themselves look and sound even better, which is a natural tendency for all of us I guess.
They were intuitive enough to quickly realize that the film course was more about expression and that the more they gave me in terms of hard work and performance, the more materiel I had to play with in the edit suite. Basically it was a case of they “you put on a show for me ” and I’ll film and edit a show for you.

STUDIO VISITS

The course was scheduled using out of school visits to The Mirror Circus studios in west London.
For most of the students this was a first time experience, working with industry standard editing and production equipment as well as being filmed with professional camera’s and lighting.
Additionally these studio visits helped to support any out-of-school activities that the school already had in place.

These visits enabled the students to experience first hand, the digital editing machinery in use on their own projects. They were all given the opportunity to make creative decisions relating to the choice of edits used on their film.
By doing this it ensured that the students harnessed an insight into the post-production process, empowering them with basic knowledge of how their film is physically compiled.
The Mirror Circus was also able to show the students a historical perspective of the film editing process. These studio visits were billed as a reward and not an essential part of the production, this way the teachers were able to use the treat of cancellation to encourage good behaviour.


KUDOS - PROFESSIONAL FILMMAKERS

The students were able to meet the professional filmmakers at The Mirror Circus, and this gave them an element of kudos to that fact that they were being taught by people who have achieved measured success in their particular field.
One of The Mirror Circus staff Darren Francis consistently proves to be very popular due to his experiences with Janet Jackson, The Spice Girls Westlife, Steps and other pop stars.

TEACHER PARTICIPATION


Two members of staff, a teacher and a classroom assistant, attended the studio visits.
This along with The Mirror Circus staff made the project possible in terms of management.
Additionally the course seemed to also work as a morel boost for the teachers, who enjoyed the change of atmosphere, and the chance to see their students working in a completely new environment.
The teachers were asked to join in all activities, as well as to recount their experience on camera, this helped to enhanced the concept of one big team.


THE PRODUCTION - TEAM WORK

The film was produced as a video-biography depicting the individual lives of all the students.
15-year-old “Michael” was used as the presenter and each of the other students took various production roles and responsibilities. They assembled pictures of their families and friends, to be filmed under the rostrum camera and used as cutaway images within the film.

The students were paired up, and then given information about their fellow students.
They were then made to write, then read to camera, their own account of their fellow students lives.
This ensured that the whole class worked “for” and “with” each other.
The students were then taught basic, but relevant film related terminology before proceeding to voice these terms to camera, along with other useful insight into the filmmaking process.
The film concluded with a script writing session at The Mirror Circus studio where each student created a fictional drama. The fellow students and teachers scored marks out of ten for the best ideas.

“I think the reason this pioneer course proved to be a such as success, was because of the rigid discipline involved in making a programme, and that required the students to create and learn as a team, relying on each other at all times”.