Barry Comprehensive School

Gerran Howell with his Award for “Best Direction”

‘A’ level Film Studies is a popular choice at Barry Comprehensive School and this year we began a brand new G.C.S.E. Film Studies, where over thirty Year 10 pupils, have begun to read and analyse film texts as confidently as Jonathan Ross!

As part of the ‘A’ level coursework, students are producing and directing short films on a regular basis and we enter their work towards local and national film festivals. Three Year 13 Film Studies students, Gerran Howell, Josh Dymond and Grant Jones were invited to screen their films “Vince”, “Balloon” and “Soap” at the Zoom International Young Peoples Film Festival last week and were notified that their films had been short listed for top awards – Best Direction and Best Performer category.

Josh Dymond and Grant Jones short listed for “Best Film” and “ Best Performer”

So, on Friday 23rd January, the three intrepid film makers rode off into the sunset and arrived in downtown Pontypridd to participate in workshops and master classes and wait with anticipation for their names to be called out during the exciting Awards Ceremony in the evening. As they watched each nominee’s film on the big screen, they realised the competition was fierce and they had come a long way, even to be short listed, however, as the envelope for Best Direction was opened we all took in a deep breath as Gerran Howell’s name was announced loud and clear. We were so thrilled for him and proud of Josh and Grant being short listed. The winning film “Vince” was screened again and the panel of judges agreed it was certainly a well deserved best directed short film. The winning was certainly a big plus after all the hard work put into the film making and Josh should feel honoured that his film “Balloon” was short listed out of hundreds of other entries. As for Grant, nominated for Best Performer, it was a worthy performance as a boy with O.C.D. Better luck nest time Grant!!

AC 2009-02-24