Bill Garrett - Storytelling

After a great closing speech at the first Symposium, a great tour of the BBC Centre on the London visit and an honorary doctorate from Staffordshire University at the 2009 Graduation Ceremony, Bill Garrett once again closed Symposium with a fascinating look at the process of storytelling. Helped with prizes for audience contribution, Bill was excellent at getting to the core of how and why we use technology to communicate. Another excellent end to Symposium... thanks Bill!

Ben Thomas on directing actors

Actor Ben Thomas came in and delivered an inspiring presentation upon directing actors. You can see the first 15 minutes here, but for the whole presentation you need to contact James Fair directly for a copy.

Ben Thomas on acting from James Fair on Vimeo.

The Be Kind Rewind Protocol

The Be Kind Rewind Protocol - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly from James Fair on Vimeo.

Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind Protocol" was designed to put the fun back into filmmaking, by making us forget all the fixations with style and procedure, and strip it back to being about rough and raw, quick fix excitement!

Rosie

Inspired by the conversation with John in the last Symposium No.1 (Things To Make & Do) James decided to shoot Rosie using completely different approaches to those which he was used to. You can read more about his experiment here.

Who's telling the truth?

Zeitgeist provided an exciting start to the Symposium, albeit with technological glitches. There wasn't too much controversy over the film when it came to a discussion, with many people arguing that we shouldn't believe all the hype. Is that educated students speaking though? Would the opinion be different in the high street?

In contrast to the style of Zeitgeist, the screening of Errol Morris's Thin Blue Line surprised a few students. Should we the audience be presented with a truth (like Zeitgeist) and decide for ourselves over its validity? Or should we be presented with various truths and decide our own (like The Thin Blue Line)?

The Symposium takes shape...

The timetable for the second Symposium should be published later today, but here's a quick peek at the sort of things that are coming up: Zeitgeist, Be Kind Rewind Protocol, Thin Blue Line, Ben Thomas, Royal Television Society, Rosie. It promises to be a great week!