The Blog for Penryn (UK) -based Kernow Youth Society for the Performing Arts. Our society is open to young people aged 9 upwards from the Falmouth and Penryn area. Our aim is to allow members to explore their interest in the performing arts through drama and film activities. KYSPA has a strong citizenship theme with activities aiming to promote self confidence, teamwork and communication skills.

Saturday 31 March 2007

The Trial of Miss Gunn & Mr Factory

On the evening of the 26th March, KYSPA staged a piece of improvised courtroom drama at Penryn Town Hall. The criminal case centered around former war hero Miss Cordelia Gunn VC, a war hero from a fictional "five year war". During the war, Miss Gunn performed outstanding acts of leadership and bravery. After the war, however, she was honourably discharged from the commandos still being owed quite a bit of money. The loss of all her close family and friends, no money and post traumatic stress led her to a life of homelessness and alcohol dependence.

On the first anniversary of the war's end, despite having made advances with her alcoholism and mental health, Miss Gunn again turned to drink. She stole a car and crashed it at speed on the wrong side of the M5 hitting a minibus full of orphan children on their day out (no-one was seriously hurt).

By chance, the driver of that bus was Mr Factory. The industrial mogul whose factories had supplied the armed forces with all their needs during the war - making him a multi billionaire in the process. What the public had never been told, until now, was that Mr Factory's products were of scandalously poor quality and faulty guns and equipment resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our forces.

Miss Gunn secured the services of a leading MOD lawyer for the case. Rather than pleaing guilty to the charge of "Driving in a manner likely to endanger life" Miss Gunn enters an "Not Guilty" plea. Her defence is that her post traumatic stress was to blame for her actions and that the cause of her illness is none other than Mr Factory himself whose charitable works with orphan children since the war's end cannot absolve him of blame for his actions during the war.

The performance was organised into two "teams" essentially defence (Miss Gunn, Lawyer & witnesses) and prosecution (Mr Factory, Lawyer & Witnesses). Each team prepared questions and statements but didn't meet until the night of the trial. Neither side knew for sure what line of questioning the other side would take. They had just three weeks (approx four hours in total) to prepare for the performance.

To add spice to the occasion, we invited a guest jury with no prior knowledge of the case to listen to arguments and present a verdict at the close of the evening.

The KYSPA actors put on an excellent performance with plenty of atmosphere. When the Jury retired the audience were kept in suspense as they seemed to have trouble reaching a verdict. Eventually, howwever, they filed in and, one at a time, announced unanimously that they felt Miss Gunn was GUILTY. Many jurors took the unusual step of appealing directly to the Judge for a lenient sentence on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The sense of victory for the prosecution team was short-lived. The Judge passed a setence of 150 hours community service and directed the police to investigate Mr Factory for corporate negligence/manslaughter! So, despite failing to prevent a guilty verdict, the defence team succeeded in putting right an injustice whilst the prosecution successfully prevented the defence from moving all of the blame away from Miss Gunn.

Pictures Blelow: Miss Gunn & her lawyer, The Defence team on the night, Mr Factory & his lawyer & the prosecution team on the night.










Friday 30 March 2007

Fresh 6 Day 2

Day two saw everyone refreshed after a good night's sleep. Well, the activity leaders anyway! Rumour has it that members engaged in intellectual discussion far into the night. Given that we were planning to be indoors for most of the day, and had a long journey at the end of it, we streached our legs with a "little walk" up Cam Peak. I have to say, some of our members were a bit wussy when confronted with this little hill but with encouragement, everyone made it to the top - and the views were worth it!

At the Watershed, members watched films made for the festival by other young people, attended a seminar where they had a group photo with some of the actors from the T4 series "Totally Frank" and played with some of the computers and toys in the Fresh Lab.



Here we can see Jo getting an advanced course on editing from Rob, one of the mentors at Firstborn Creatives.




Jo proved to have quite a knack for editing and computers in general, even lending a helping hand when other people experienced "technical issues".




Much of the Ollie Twist editing is his, though everyone had some input.


Below right is the group photo with the "Totally Frank" stars (rear left & centre with the series creator rear left).

Below left are some of the gang watching films. You can just make out some other members playing with the camera equipment in the background.


















KYSPA's members spent the last half hour or so in the "virtual disco" a blue screen room which filmed the dancers and projected the images onto a screen at the other end of the room with a club/disco backdrop added. This proved to be quite popular.


By good fortune fate kept the M5 open that evening so we arrived safely back in Cornwall in good time after a very successful trip.

Thursday 29 March 2007

Fresh 6 Day 1

On November 10th 2006, ten members (and two staff) set off very early from Falmouth for Bristol. I won't go into much detail about the journey - let's just say they closed the M5 which held us up a bit! We eventually arrived in Bristol mid-morning and after some navigational issues found Easton Community Centre where we were due to spend the day film making. After discussions with the mentors from Firstborn Creatives, members decided to condense a famous film or films into 60 seconds. My group settled on Star Wars episodes 4-6 while the other group worked on Oliver Twist.

Oliver Twist proved hardest to fit into 60 seconds and even in it's final format overruns slightly, though it has some great comic moments and oscar-winning performances from FC mentors and event organiser Jeremy. Star Wars aimed to take short, key scenes and lines from the three films to provide a lightening fast tour of the trilogy. The M5 business meant we had less time than we'd have liked but both films "Ollie Twist" and "Star Warz" can be seen on You Tube.

Just to prove some planning actually went into our films, this is the Star Warz group carefully planning every small detail of the shoot... kind of.
From left, David (Luke & Lando) Flo (Leia & Emperor) Me (director/writer/producer etc.) & Polly (Obi Wan & Han Solo) Picture by Hannah (Yoda & Darth).
We like to think that the quality of planning is evident in the film, but we're probably just kidding ourselves.

This is the "Millenium Falcon" shot. To prove that it's not just Hollywood that does SFX, we achieved the "motion" of the Falcon by getting Hannah to move her hands around whilst filming.

Simple, yet effective! We condensed the entire first third of "The Empire Strikes Back" into a single line of dialogue.

Han: "I broke my ship! Let's go see Lando!"

Regrettably, no picture exists of Yoda, complete with leaf-ears but you can just make them out in the film (before Luke bumps his head).


This is the "Ollie Twist" group filming Nancy's death scene. This group received quite a bit of help from some of the young people from Bristol who were also making films on the day.
After filming was finished for the day, we all celebrated with a slap-up meal at KFC before heading off to Slimbridge YHA for the evening.
The loan of a laptop meant that both groups did some editing work on their films during the evening. The day's activities were enjoyed by everyone.
You can visit the mentors' website using the following link: www.firstborn-creatives.co.uk












Tuesday 27 March 2007

Welcome to our Blog

Hello to our members and anyone else who stumbles upon our new blog! KYSPA is a performing arts group for young people based in Penryn, Cornwall (UK). Having just successfully completed our first public performance (details to follow later this week) we thought it was about time we launched a blog to share our thoughts and experiences.

KYSPA is about young people exploring their interest in the performing arts. Our definition of performing arts is: Creative expression using movement or sound - so we don't rule anything out in terms of what we might attempt! Generally, though, our focus is on drama and digital film making. It's not that we "don't do dance" it's more that "I can't dance" so until our members decide to choreograph something themselves (and teach me) it's not going to be a major feaure!

The KYSPA motto is "Performing as one". This reflects the idea that any successful performance or project needs good cooperation and team work. Another interpretation of our motto is the idea that young people from two local communities (Penryn & Falmouth) are united by a common interest in the performing arts.

We'll be developing the blog further over the next few days and weeks with details of our residential visit in November 2006 to the Fresh 6 Film Festival and, of course, The Trial of Miss Gunn and Mr Factory.

If you live in Penryn/Falmouth and are aged between 9 & 18 you can join KYSPA. Contact us at kyspa_enquiries@hotmail.co.uk for more information. You can see details of what we do at www.flickernow.org just follow the learning/schools & colleges link to the KYSPA section.