ANOTHER exciting and innovative project from Rural Media is well underway, with shooting completed on its latest community film project.

The film, which has the working title Still Life saw Bromyard overrun with actors and extras one weekend in the middle of March.

It is the fourth such project, the most recent of which was Crafta Webb, released last year.

People keen to take part arrived for the day’s filming on March 14 from Birmingham, Redditch and Worcester, as well as from closer to home.

“Everyone had a great day and learned a lot,” says Vey Straker, project administrator. “And what almost all of them revealed that they’d learned on our post-shooting questionnaire was patience.

“Everyone was very good-humoured and gained an appreciation of the craft of film-making as they saw first-hand just what’s involved.”

Like Crafta Webb and the earlier films, The Vawn (2000) and Shroves (2001), the new project aims to bring communities together through a programme of participatory media activities Crafta Webb developed the community film practice into a multi-faceted production process, with many ambitious and diverse outputs.

The aim of the project was not only to provide the community with a unique way of exploring its heritage, but also to explore the role that film-making can play within a community.

The Bromyard project differs from the Crafta Webb film, which concentrated on the mysteries of one long-lost community, by encompassing a larger catchment area.

The Bromyard screenplay has been devised collaboratively by local Bromyard people and professionals from The Rural Media Company and tells the story of an imaginative young girl who has been picked to play ‘the bride’ in the school’s re-enactment of a hop picker’s wedding, just when her own family is in turmoil.

Work on the film began last summer, with four ‘stories to film’ workshops with screenwriter Peter Cox and filmmaker Rachel Lambert, giving groups an introduction to film-making, with ideas representing a diverse collection of stories, ideas and lives in Bromyard from the workshops filmed as short scenes in July.

The second phase focused on developing a 30-40 minute screenplay using the material created in the summer’s workshops, then from January this year, final planning was underway for the filming.

Filming now complete, the project has moved to its final, post-production and launch phase, with the film’s premiere scheduled for Friday, May 22, at The Hay Festival.

“We’ll be giving cast and crew the full red-carpet treatment for the premiere,” says Vey.