CTVT has completed post production on a wonderful primary school project creating a one-act opera celebrating the centenary of the state pension. Southwark had a key role in bringing that about. Ten years campaigning by Revd. Herbert Stead of Walworth led to Parliament enacting a Bill which gave old people ‘5 bob a week’ (now 25p !).
But it was a start. CTVT was commissioned to film the performance of PENSIONS FOR ALL ! at St Peter’s Church in Walworth in April this year. Our camera crew comprised two boys from Goose Green Primary School and a media student on work experience – working alongside Chris Haydon of CTVT.
We shot both performances – one on three cameras – and the production is available, fully subtitled, on DVD from Southwark Pensioners Action Group.
Three local primary schools created the libretto and melodies, played in the orchestra and sang: Robert Browning, St John’s and St Peter’s Primary Schools.
In September 2008 media students, under the guidance of Chris Haydon, CTVT Director, launched a local media website in Hertfordshire along CTVT lines. The notion of twinning local life with a ready-made unpaid student workforce is an obvious ‘BIg Society’ gambit. No wages to find, but the trick is building the relationships that make this do-able. Here are sample comments from the second year National Diploma students who clearly responded to the idea of using the classroom to produce material that had a role in the real world outside: