The Eight Winds of impermanence

“A truly wise man will not be carried away by any of the eight winds, prosperity decline, disgrace and honour suffering and pleasure, praise and censor”

The Students were given the concept of the eight winds and asked to write a story around the proverb.
They chose to adapt the proverb into a comedy about a man who inherits a fortune and then subsequently experiences the eight winds of impermanence.
The students’ idea was based around a character who loses his children and then goes on a quest to find them, experiencing all the winds of change on route.
The film was designed to make the students think closely about how one’s circumstance can fluctuate from time to time, and that the strength of their character is what is most important in any given situation.
The production took the students to several locations, filming around the ‘Magna carta memorial’ and the ‘John F Kennedy’ statue as well as Windsor castle and other interesting locations. As an extra element ‘The Eight Winds’ incorporates brief documentary style, life profiles of all the students involved.





HERE COMES THE RAINBOW

CLIENT	» The Rainbow Centre
PROJECT	» A documentary film entitled here comes the Rainbow
FORMAT	» A fly on the wall documentary programme, produced by The Mirror Circus in conjunction with the Rainbow centre organisation. The film was to be used as a chronicle, as well as a tool for training purposes, as the film highlights the special relationship that the staff had developed with the children.

The film involved observing the way in which the physically and mentally handicapped, as well as the Autistic children in the group, interacted and communicated without speech. The film highlighted the fact that there is, in fact, a stream of knowledge and wisdom flowing within the children, a knowledge which is sometimes missed by the untrained eye.
Many of the children communicated via eye movement or by hand and arm gestures, some knew sign language and others relied solely on their facial expressions to communicate.
Most of the children loved the camera and followed it around keenly, touching and caressing it as a new friend. The children were able to see many edits of the previous weeks filming, and their reactions to this varied.
Some displayed great excitement, and other children seemed overwhelmed by the experience, demonstrating this by running from the room or changing channels.
The children visited The Mirror Circus studio and this enabled them to identify a home with The Mirror Circus Team.
The film was finally projected on a large screen at the rainbow centre and was ultimately a great success.



A CRESSEX ODISSEY 2001

Firstly, the students were taught the most commonly used film production roles, as well as phrases and terminology. They then recited this new information to camera in order to explain to the viewer how film production worked.
One student was used as the anchor voice-over man, and worked in conjunction with one of the producers at The Mirror Circus.
As part of the creative concept, The Mirror Circus producer never met the students.

The idea was for the students to recite to camera exactly what they were doing, and The Mirror Circus producer to comment about what he saw from the materiel the students had filmed.
The pupils brought in magazine cut-outs, video material, family photographs as well as tapes and CD’s. These items were then used as cutaway material to be edited along with the visual images of the students telling the viewer about their lives.

This documentary entitled ‘A Cressex odyssey 2001’ ended with a script-writing course as the students voted for the best ideas written by themselves individually.
A major element of this production was to insure that the students worked well as a group, all contributing to the overall success of the final product.



WELCOME HOME DAD

Probably the most audacious Mirror Circus production to date, as the students enacted a film portraying a bad parent, and how his negative influences resulted in the break up of the family home. The students decided that they wanted a dark comedy with a happy ending,
“Welcome home dad” is told from a retrospective viewpoint, as the children and mother tell us the story from the family home. As they wait for their father to return from his four-year stretch in prison we see what factors put him inside in the first place.
The Chesham Park students who enacted the film were probably the most difficult to deal with in terms of behaviour and concentration, but they were brave enough to see the project through to fruition. Despite one or two hairy moments in the production, this film has proven to be the strongest of all The Mirror Circus productions and a great end to 2002.
The regular viewings of what they had previously filmed proved to be a significant motivation, as it seemed to inspire the boys to give their all.



POP STARS

Surprisingly, this is the only production of its type to be chosen by The Mirror Circus students.
Girl power shined through as one of the female students took it upon herself to choreograph the whole dance routine, putting the boys trough their paces.
As the main objective on this particular film was expression and teamwork, this film is particularly useful to see how brave and daring some of the students were in front of camera.
This is not to say that it did not take time for some of them to eventually lose all inhibitions and strive to succeed.
One student had previously suffered from stage fright and another thought that he could never dance.

The film highlights these great individual successes. Ironically, probably the most talented student on the film decided that she did not want to complete it due to lack of confidence but, fortunately, her efforts before she quit had already contributed to the success of the overall project.




BOND 008

A well versed band of students tackled this project with lots of humour and action, as post production sound effects enhanced their gun and fight scenes.
One of the most amazing aspects of the film was the out-takes which were included in the final video. These out-takes showed the students performing great improvisations, acting out relevant character scenes to warm up for the actual shoot.

The students were humorous, clever and professional, showing no inhibitions and they worked well as a team. They are very entertaining to watch, film and observe.
The project again took the students to various interesting and different locations.
The students were democratically “voted in” to play their parts from bond to the antagonist.
At the end of the course, and in a closely fought contest, an Oscar was given to the outstanding for ability, teamwork and behaviour.




Mc MACBETH

The students decided to rework Macbeth and began to contrive characters such as ‘Fly guy Mcbeth’ and ‘Puff Macduff’. They wrote and performed a rap and choreographed various dramatizations which were filmed in different woodlands around Buckinghamshire.
This group of students spent many sessions in the post-production suite at The Mirror Circus studio, where they proved to be very creative and inventive in their selection of special effects and edits.
This project again highlighted the fact that some of the most talented students in terms of ability were not always the ones to make it through the course.
The project Mc Macbeth was dropped as two of the students were removed from the course and an alternative idea was quickly put in place. Fortunately the remaining students appreciated the new idea and quickly adapted to the change in structure.
They soon learnt and adlibbed sections of a play entitled the Jazzbo. They were made up in costumes and wigs, to enact a hilarious portrayal of a wild man, who would save the souls of the deceased if you paid his price.
Despite the initial problems, the students and teachers bonded well, turning a potential failure into a success.

VIRGIL’S BARBERSHOP

CLIENT	» The Westminster City School.
PROJECT	» A Drug awareness flick entitled Virgil’s Barbershop.
FORMAT	» A short drama.
START DATE	» January 2003.

This film is a drug awareness film shot in the style of is a rip-roaring children’s comedy that fuses humour with a very real and very serious anti-drugs message: think Benny Hill meets The Simpson’s enacted against a background of anecdotes about the dangers of drugs.

Produced over the 2003 spring term by a professional film crew from The Mirror Circus Trust, and with the help of seven 12-year-old boys from the City of Westminster School in London’s Victoria, Virgil’s Barbershop takes a frank look at drugs and their potentially lethal effects on those who take them.

Drama and comedy are interwoven into a series of sketches, incorporating humour and surrealism, music and non-prohibitive fun-with the aim of educating through entertainment.

Several drug-related facts and statistics feature within the dialogue satisfying both the audience’s need for entertainment and the school’s need to work within a clear legal and moral framework, thus offering a contemporary and well balanced approach to drug awareness.

THE CHILDREN OF THE OVERWORLD

CLIENT	» Oldfield House exclusion unit.
PROJECT	» Children of the Over-world
FORMAT	»Children’s Drama.

Malik Basso directed his first film for The Mirror Circus shooting Children of the Over-world, staring children from the Oldfield House exclusion unit in Richmond.
Basso has been commissioned to help The Mirror Circus productions increase their creative and dramatic potential for 2003 with his principal aim being the artistic quality of the films.

The Ten worlds is a bizarre remake of the ugly Duckling as the children of the over-world struggles to find the buffalo boy before he reaps havoc on our earth. Buffalo Boy eventually stops creating turmoil when he is shown a mirror and realizes that he is beautiful. Due to the sensitive background of our students this film was not broadcast.

CRESSEX REVISITED

CLIENT	» Slough Borough Council.
PROJECT	» CRESSEX REVISITED
FORMAT	»Documentary.

This documentary focuses on the Cressex School, High Wycombe, a school that has a predominantly Muslim population of children.
The documentary presented by six children from the special needs department shows how life at Cressex has changed over the years.
The youth presenters speak to the teachers as well as the local people about life at Cressex as they gain an insight to the history of the school and the local area. The children take us around to the local mosk as we meet the local muller who discusses the influence the mosk as on the school and the local area. This film is due to be screened on the community channel in early 2005.