Hybrid Bespoke Video Training

Posted on March 19, 2024 by Training

In our continuous effort to transfer our Participatory Video expertise as a tool to improve research, engagement, impact and social change, Spectacle over the years has trained hundreds of researchers and has always tailored its training courses to the needs of our trainees. We believe that video is a tool that researchers should not feel afraid to use as a support for their documentation, data analysis and dissemination of results.

In recent years we have developed our methods in a range of projects, using remote work environments to reach out to participants in different parts of the world and adapt to circumstances when travelling is not possible or too costly.

We have evolved a hybrid model to merge the best of what we learned about in-person and remote training. In-person camera production workshops is the best setting for hands-on practical experience and to have access to professional equipment. Remote training is an efficient and cost effective way to learn and collaborate on video editing projects, allowing participants to acquire new skills from home.

We have recently been asked to design a hybrid bespoke training programme for the Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, where we have delivered a 2 day in-person Participatory Video workshop to a group of 11 researchers. Social researchers from the institute, all planning to include video in their ongoing and future projects, have learned how to use video to document and support investigations and explored the use of participatory video tools for research.

Building on our 30+ years experience in community based video and thanks to our successful experience in pioneering the use of remote participatory video we have designed a hybrid bespoke training programme in two phases.

During the first phase we have delivered a 2 day workshop: Spectacle brought to the Hutton Institute in Aberdeen our equipment, including a range of professional camera types, mics, lights, and tripods etc., to run an intensive introduction to the use of video tools.

In two days, along with demystifying the technology and learning how cameras work, we have shared tricks to work as a team, giving the opportunity to acquire hands-on experience on how to film interviews, document events and locations and approach visual storytelling in the context of research.

All attendees have really valued the way Spectacle delivered a great quantity of technical knowledge in a relatively short time, with practical exercises that are fun and illustrative of all the challenges involved in video making. The learning experience is designed so that it can be applied in any research field: assuming no prior knowledge, using transferable skills to establish a creative environment where everyone can develop new skills and feel confident that their ideas matter.

The training programme will continue on Zoom with remote video editing sessions, a tool we have successfully included in our participatory practice as well as in our training activity. We will deliver a series of short modules exploring editing softwares, workflows, tools for editing and methods to enhance editorial collaboration and participation.

All participants will be able to attend from their own computer and review in their own time the recordings of the training sessions in case they miss one. Our online participatory video editing, successfully applied in a range of projects, allows editorial control to be shared either among researchers engaged in the same project or with research participants.

If you want to learn more about our training courses and our offer, please visit our website or contact us at training@spectacle.co.uk. If you are a member of a research group and want to bring our training to your institution, we are happy to illustrate our bespoke training offer and discuss the content that best suits your needs. All our training can be entirely in person, remote or hybrid, and can include follow up tutorials, troubleshooting and project support as well as video editing support for participatory video projects and short documentary productions.

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Silwood Video Archive Project Update

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Spectacle Media CIC

Participatory Archive Video Project exploring the regeneration of Silwood Estate, Lewisham

Summary

In March we have wrapped up the final stages of our Digitally Democratising Archives project, funded by the National Lottery and The Audience Agency.

The aim of the project was to open the Silwood archive, for the first time since filming began, and to invite the Silwood community to watch, comment on, and hopefully begin a participatory editing process which will draw out the story(ies) of Silwood.

Our project has gone largely as planned. All the aspects of workshops that we envisioned have happened. Participants have enjoyed watching and discussing the archive. Rather than stopping after 6 workshops we decided to maximise momentum by running a workshop every week for the duration of the project.

Online archive based participatory video workshops

Outcomes

Exploring the Archive

From the Silwood Archive – Residents shooting on Silwood Estate during a workshop with Spectacle

As part of this project we digitised and uploaded 392 clips from the Silwood archive. These clips covered a variety of themes including: the destruction of the estate, location shots of buildings which no longer exist, planning meetings which showcased spaces and buildings which were never built, promises made and not fulfilled, the desire for a youth centre and community centre, fly tipping, poems, and interviews with former residents.

Archive based participatory video, missing sculpture on Silwood Estate in Lewisham and Southwark

As part of the project Spectacle published a short edited video on the theme of the missing statue Neighbourly Encounters. This statue was made by the artist Uli Nimptsch and specially commissioned for the estate.This short film brings together interviews of the model for the statue, bringing a historian on to the estate to discuss the missing statue, and the community’s memories of the statue itself. It continues to be unclear when and why the statue was removed, and where it is now.

Community Engagement

This project had three levels of potential engagement. The most shallow level was through likes, views, clicks, engagement on social media, or blog posts. We regularly shared public updates about the project, and occasionally posted public edited clips or videos from the archive. At this level Spectacle’s posts on Facebook about the DDA project reached 1660 individuals and had a total of 456 engagements. This is an average of 138 reached, and 38 engagements per post. Public videos received a total of 427 views on Youtube.

Youtube playlist of videos concerning Lewisham and Southwark Silwood Estate residents

The second level of engagement was through subscription. Each blog post offered the opportunity to subscribe to a mailing list to access the archive. 26 unique participants subscribed and were given access to the 392 never before seen clips from the Silwood Archive that were uploaded during the project. Between them these 26 participants generated 1,354 views of private vimeo videos from the Silwood archive.

The third and deepest level of engagement was through participation in workshops to view, discuss, and make selections from the archive. A total of 10 participants participated in 17 workshops over the course of 4 months.

A view of a visit to the Silwood Video Archive page

We received very positive feedback from participants. Participants remarked that they felt this archive was “vital to the history of their community.” There was great enthusiasm to share the archive with new or younger community members who would not be aware of the history of the estate.

Spectacle Skills

This project has been a useful opportunity to test and develop our cataloguing, digitising workflows and our archive-based participatory workshop model.

We developed our archive-based participatory model to run online archive-based workshops using a variety of platforms, and found ways to teach participants to use these platforms effectively. Through this process we have developed our workflows and explored the best use of accessible digital tools.

Through this process we have developed workflows to transfer archive footage from tape and other legacy formats (MiniDV, DVCam, DVDs) to digital, to be uploaded to online platforms.

Image from the archive – residents edit footage shot in participatory video workshops

We have developed practices for platform sharing of video archives. We have learned how to organise clips so that the archive is easier to share with participants, and explored how to balance file-naming systems for archiving versus user-friendly labelling.

Expanding the Archive

Spectacle visited the Silwood estate on Monday the 29th of December and filmed locations and activities including ongoing construction, fly-tipping, the location where the youth club bus arrives, the new community garden, and general location shots around the streets of the estate.

Adding to the archive – going back to shoot location views with Silwood Estate residents

This footage will be added to the archive as part of the ongoing documentation of the Silwood estate for the past 20 years during the regeneration of the area.

Plans to Continue the Programme

We plan to continue working with the Silwood community on the archive. We have been involved with the Silwood community for over 20 years, and that relationship is one we are eager to continue.

Further, this experience has given us confidence to push forward and expand the model. We are eager to use this archive-based participatory model to explore some of our other archives, and the skills gained in this project are easily transferable. We are keen to continue running archive-based participatory workshops with various communities drawing on our numerous other video archives.

The Silwood Archive project is supported by The Audience Agency’s Digitally Democratising Archives project thanks to funding from DCMS and the National Lottery, as part of The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s, Digital Skills for Heritage initiative.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Except where noted and excluding company and organisation logos this work is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) Licence
Please attribute as: “Silwood Archive Project (2022) by Spectacle Media CIC supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, licensed under CC BY 40

New In-person Workshops!

Posted on February 24, 2022 by Training

We are pleased to announce a new in-person 2-Day Video Production workshop. Designed as a stand alone intensive hands-on training course, it is also an option to replace sessions 1-4 of our existing programme of online video training courses.

It has been great spending the last 2 intense years developing remote online workshops, training courses and Participatory Video projects, sharing our expertise in video making and collaborative work with dozens of passionate anthropologists, researchers, journalists, academics and aspiring filmmakers from all over the world.

We learned a lot and developed a very effective online training programme including 7 courses, all structured in a sequence of modular live 3-hour zoom sessions scheduled to work across a variety of time zones (15:00-18:30 London time, including breaks). Our online programme will continue, allowing people living on most of the planet to attend our courses. We are also excited to meet in person with our trainees, as we have been used to do for over 10 years, offering again the option to share video tools in a practical face-to-face learning experience.

The new 2-Day Video Production Workshop

The in-person 2-Day Video Production Workshop is an intensive course covering in two days all the content of the first 4 sessions of our online courses. Participants will learn how to use various types of cameras and professional sound equipment, how to film high quality video interviews and collect engaging visual stories and impactful video documentation.

The workshop will run at our London Studio in Battersea (SW11), giving participants the opportunity to learn using a range of professional and semi-professional film equipment – DSLRs, camcorders, grip equipment, professional sound recorders and microphones – during the practical shooting exercises. The In-person Video Production Workshop is also a perfect opportunity for those who attended our online programmes to refresh their skills in a fun, practical and intensive 2-day stand alone course.

Integrated with our online Video Training programme

The in-person workshops integrate flawlessly with all the online courses we already have. All our courses will be scheduled so that participants can choose their favourite mode of attendance: entirely online or a mix of in-person and online. Participants can learn the camera techniques face-to-face in our 2-day Video Production workshop (replacing the first 4 online sessions at no cost) and then attend all the specialist webinars and the video editing part (online sessions 5-8) remotely. If travelling to our studio is not practical, you can still attend the whole course entirely online.

In order to give every participant a real hands-on experience and plenty of time for shooting exercises, our in-person 2-Day Video Production workshops will have a limited number of attendees.

Book now in order to guarantee your place.

Video training for anthropology and social research

Visit our courses pages to explore their content and choose the one that suits you best. All courses below can be attended in combination with our new in-person 2-day Video Production workshop:

Participatory Video Workshop

Video Production for Anthropologists & Social Researchers

Filmmaking

Video Marketing

Video Production

The following courses can only be attended online:

Smartphone Video

Video Editing

Check the dates for our courses on our Calendar page.

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Spectacle’s Recent Work

Posted on November 8, 2021 by Spectacle Media CIC

For 40 years, Spectacle has pioneered community led video projects and collaborative filmmaking, aiming to give groups and communities the tools and the skills to document what matters through collaborative video projects. Spectacle has led, co-led, and facilitated participatory film groups and workshops of all shapes and sizes.

We have delivered our affordable and enjoyable courses in participatory filmmaking to hundreds of researchers, journalists, and community groups.

Over the last year Spectacle has successfully developed ways to facilitate participatory video workshops remotely, working with researchers from UCL, Oxford, and LSE, and community groups ranging from Colombia to London to Malawi.

Workshops and Projects

Reinventadas – London School of Economics, LSE

This remote Participatory Video project, called Reinventada, was based in Medellin, Colombia. The research project was funded by the London School of Economics (LSE) Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund (KEI). Through weekly workshops, displaced and migrant women learned the skills of filming and editing and documented their lives as mothers and heads of household, living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Medellin, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The film that came from this research premiered in October 2021 at The International Documentary Film Festival of Bogotá.

OVERDUE – University College London, UCL

Kingtom landfill, Freetown, source: Sulaiman Kamara, SLURC, 2020 — *Photo by: Sulaiman Kamara, 2020*
Image from https://overdue-justsanitation.net/

Spectacle is running a series of training workshops for researchers at UCL working on the OVERDUE project, which is tackling sanitation inequality in three fast-growing African cities: Beira (Mozambique), Freetown (Sierra Leone), and Mwanza (Tanzania).

Our training in participatory video method offers an excellent resource for disrupting dominant narratives and cliches, or for understanding the impact of a project such as OVERDUE, by asking the beneficiaries to document the impact in their daily lives.

GemDev – University College London, UCL

Tracing the story of where we get our energy is one very important way to understand a society. For researchers from UCL’s Grounded Energy Modelling for equitable urban development in the global South (GEMDev) project – tracing community’s energy use using oral histories and visual storytelling is key to understanding what energy means in impromptu communities.

EcoVisions

In June 2021, Spectacle had the opportunity to work with Dr. Michelle Nicholson-Sanz and provide video training for the participants in her innovative Young Ecovisions project.

The Silwood Video Archive Project

The Silwood Video Archive Project marries participatory methods with video archive material in a series of narrative building workshops supported by The Audience Agency’s Digitally Democratising Archives project thanks to funding from DCMS and the National Lottery, as part of The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Digital Skills for Heritage initiative.

Greenwich Community Video Skills Workshops – Greenwich Council

In June, Spectacle began an online participatory video workshop series for a group of residents and community leaders in Greenwich. This programme of 8 half day workshops was designed to build the skills and capacity of the diverse Greenwich communities to co-produce media.

Spectacle Master Class on Participatory Video

In February, Spectacle was invited to give a Master Class at the Italian National School of Participatory Video and Documentary Cinema.

Oxford COMPAS Researchers

In January, Spectacle ran a bespoke training course for The Oxford Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS). Spectacle’s training will give these researchers the skills to film with a more professional production quality and edit with an eye for narrative flow. Going forward, this will enable them to make short videos to effectively communicate their research to a larger audience.

Book your Training Workshop

Spectacle offers bespoke training either one-on-one or to groups. These can be arranged to fulfil your specific needs. Bespoke training can be built around your project so you can book sessions at your convenience and get the advice you need.

Spectacle Media bespoke training courses

We work in any time zone globally. Browse our courses, or email training@spectacle.co.uk for information on bespoke workshops.

Check out our courses: Participatory Video, Anthropology and Social Research, Filmmaking, Video Production, Marketing, Editing, and Smartphone Video.

Spectacle Launches New Half-Day Training Course

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Training

Spectacle is launching a new online video training course! The Day/Night School will run half-day training courses designed for academics, researchers, journalists from all over the world!

Works in Any Time Zone

Responding to demand ranging from Idaho to New Delhi, Spectacle has designed a video training course at times that work in almost any time zone, and so available to pretty much anyone around the globe – live!

This course offers half-day training on Tuesdays and Fridays for 4 weeks – that’s 8 half-days total. The initial courses will run from 15:00-18:30 London Time, which means you can enjoy it as an early morning class in Los Angeles, or an evening class in Bangalore. Subsequent courses will shift in time for availability including Australia and Japan.

Designed for PhDs, Academics and Researchers

When it comes to making videos, the just ‘point and shoot’ method only works if you are extremely lucky. From inaudible audio, to interviewees that clam up as soon as they see a camera, to takes ruined by continuous autofocusing – the pitfalls are innumerable.

This course is specifically designed for academics interested in incorporating video into their research. Whether you want to integrate visual methods into your research or produce videos to disseminate your outcomes, you will learn all you need to know to turn your research into a short film.

If you don’t have the budget for expensive filming equipment, won’t have a film crew, and need a surefire way to make a final project where the mistakes don’t distract from the message – you need our training course. Spectacle has been working with and training academics in filmmaking for decades so we know the unique needs of research filmmaking. From video techniques to editing and visual storytelling, this course will provide all the skills you’ll need.

Skills You’ll Learn

The first 4 sessions are on videography, and the last 4 focus on visual storytelling and editing. You can do all 8, or just choose to do the first or second half.

How to operate a camera
How to get best results from smartphones
Storyboarding and visual storytelling
Talking heads and interviewing
Strategies from filming to editing
The basics of editing using Adobe Premiere Pro
Learn about editing as a data analysis method
How to produce engaging videos based on your findings

Learn professional standard editing in Adobe Premier Pro

In the Classroom

All courses are taught live on Zoom. The course content is split into manageable 45-90 min modules. Each module builds on the last and will cover key concepts and offer practical exercises to develop your skills and confidence in technical and creative aspects of video making.

CONTENT

The first 4 sessions will cover all aspects of filming, including sound recording and camera techniques. The last 4 sessions will focus on visual storytelling and editing in Adobe Premiere Pro.

FLEXIBILITY

If you have to miss a session, you can access the recordings for 30 days through private links. You can choose to attend only the filming half or the editing half of the course, or buy the whole package and take a gap between the two halves.

PRICE

£480 for 8 sessions

£280 for 4 sessions

Previous Clients

Spectacle has delivered successful training workshops for numerous educational organisations, NGOs, and private companies including: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Anthropology Department, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Edinburgh University, Birkbeck College, UCL, LSE, Oxford COMPAS, University of Zurich, as well as hundreds of social researchers, journalists, scholars, and video marketers who have found our methods engaging and inspiring.

Read our Testimonials

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Learn Video Online

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Training

PROJECT RESEARCH, PROMOTION, DOCUMENTATION, DISSEMINATION, OUTREACH

Are you a researcher or activist wanting to learn about filmmaking?
Do you need video to document your project or as an outreach tool?
Do you want to use video-making to engage your stakeholders online?
Does your organisation want to offer online video training to your network?

Spectacle is an award-winning independent media company that specialises in documentary, community-led investigative journalism, and participatory media.

We have been leaders in Participatory Video (PV) practice and community engagement for more than thirty years, and offer training and workshops in every aspect of digital filmmaking.

We are offering affordable, accessible, and enjoyable film, media, and video training. No prior knowledge needed! Learn what you really need to know to make quality videos.

Previous Clients
Spectacle’s clients include The Council of Europe, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Frantz Fanon Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Arts Council of England, and the Howard League.

Spectacle has delivered successful training workshops for numerous educational organisations, NGOs, and private companies including Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Anthropology Department, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Edinburgh University, Birkbeck College, UCL, LSE, as well as dozens of social researchers, journalists, scholars, and video marketers who have found our methods engaging and inspiring.

Over the last 9 months we have run online training courses and workshops for a wide range of clients, including the UK’s Social Research Association, University of Zurich, and the Lichtenhagen Rostock Archive.

Working with researchers at LSE we have developed a groundbreaking remote Participatory Video (PV) online method to produce a collaborative documentary with a group of migrant women in Medellin, Colombia.

MEET OUR TEAM
VIEW OUR ONLINE COURSES AND BESPOKE TRAINING

Spectacle’s Video Services

Posted on April 24, 2017 by clockword

Are you looking to have your conference, seminar, event professionally filmed? Are you looking for an experienced, reliable and affordable company to deliver a high production value short film? Spectacle’s highly skilled crews provide high quality single or multi-camera videography at competitive prices to suit all your needs and budgets.

Spectacle is an award winning independent television production company specialising in documentary, community-led investigative journalism and participatory media. Over the last 25 plus years, Spectacle delivered a variety of media products that have ranged from conference documentation, to short educational or promotional videos, from series of mini clips to longitudinal documentation of large social projects. Our list of clients range from broadcast channels and media companies to international NGOs, Charities, Universities and private companies and we have always received great feedback.

Filmmaking and video production can be a long and arduous process; Spectacle’s processes are transparent and ensure consistent contact and input with clients. This means that projects can be constantly monitored and evolved with the client. Our multi-skilled freelancers are familiar with a range of production equipment and post-production software, allowing a wealth of options for final outcomes and diversity of expertise in project management.

Equipment and Crews

Spectacle offers professional full HD video and photographic production and documentation services for online, print or DVD distribution. Our crews have experience of a variety of broadcast and non-broadcast productions, and are used to working in sensitive and difficult situations. We also have experience in working with educational and academic institutions.

Our editors are familiar with academic work environments, especially in the fields of anthropology, urbanism and humanities, enhancing our ability to deliver a reliable service for your conference or educational videos. Our team of freelancers also cover a variety of languages enabling Spectacle to be the perfect partner for non-English speakers.

Service standards

We can tailor our videography services to your needs. Single camera or multi-cam shooting, sound and light setting, interviews and vox pop, locations shots for higher production value: we are happy to discuss the best and most cost effective option to suit your needs. Whatever your choice in terms of crew and film typology, we value quality and do our best to deliver the best standard of service. For this reason all our services provide a full HD video recording and a sound operator to provide the best audio recording to your film. We also provide, when necessary, a basic extra light kit for all our video shooting.

Affordable and transparent costing

Spectacle offers a sliding scale, depending on funding and size of production. Our range of production options starts from £450 to cover videography for your seminar with full HD camera, sound operator and lights.

Get in touch by email: production@spectacle.co.uk

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Spectacle’s new Participatory Video Workshops

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Michele de Laurentiis

Spectacle has a long history of establishing and supporting participatory community media workshops and a large number of our productions have adopted participatory video (PV) techniques and ethos, resulting in an excellent track record of high quality, award-winning TV documentaries, short films and powerful campaigning videos. We are happy to inform everyone interested in applying a participatory media approach into their community based projects, that it is now possible to share Spectacle’s experience taking part in our Participatory Video Workshop (PVW).
Spectacle has made extensive use of Participatory Video as a successful strategy to involve communities in production processes, allowing people to produce knowledge about themselves rather than being represented – and often misrepresented – by outsiders.

Recently one of the films that Spectacle produced through participatory techniques has been re-screened on the Pepys Estate: “Poverty and the Media: the tower”. The film shows the way in which local residents have felt misrepresented by the BBC ’s program The Tower: A Tale of Two Cities. The BBC’s program intended to document the transformation of the Lewisham council estate into a chic development and the alleged clash between rich newcomers and poor long term residents. Spectacle, was commissioned by the Rowntree Foundation to develop a participatory video project in the Pepys and other estates in the area: “Poverty and participation in the Media“. At the time the BBC project begun, Spectacle was already organizing video workshops that focused specifically on the way mainstream media (mis)represent poverty. In our film Pepys residents have filmed each other while commenting on the effects the BBC’s program had on their lives. Spectacle’s “Poverty and the media: the Tower” illustrates the advantages of a participatory approach, highlighting the local dynamics in a way that is factually accurate and respectful of people’s feelings, intentions and views on the world they experience.

Following the very positive feedbacks from residents and in order to meet the growing demand from community based researchers to be trained to lead participatory projects, we are happy to inform you that we are now offering a Participatory Video Workshop (PVW). Our PVW is addressed to social workers, NGOs’ and charity organization’s staff that are engaged in community development and empowerment, artists and, in general, anyone who wants to integrate participatory methods in their own projects. Based on our long experience, the PVW will provide you with practical and transferrable knowledge on video techniques, and train you on how to engage your stakeholders in participatory productions.

The PVW is designed as 3 day immersive experience that will allow you to use participatory methods in documentation, evaluation and research. If you and your staff are particularly interested in specific topics, we are happy to bring our workshop to you and tailor it to your specific needs.

Please, find here our workshop description or get in touch for further information.

7 (More) Reasons Why Video is Important for Business

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Alice Wilson

Using video on your website can help to boost business, here are 7 reasons why.

1. A study by Aim clear shows that search results with video have a ‘41% higher click through rate than plain text’.

2. Video marketing is 53 more times likely than plain text to rank on the first page of googles search results.

3. Video can transform your website by being visually appealing. When visitors to your site are given the choice of whether to watch a video or read a piece of text, the majority will choose to watch a video.

5. Marketing Sherpa discovered individuals spent 100% more time on pages with videos on them.

6. “A video is worth 1.8 million words” – (James Mcquivey – Forrester)
The average web attention span is 5 minutes, meaning video is an effective way of getting information across to the audience quickly.

7. Visuals are transmitted to the brain 60, 000 times faster than text.

There is a growing demand for websites to include video . Our courses are short and affordable compared to others around, and it is cheaper to train employees to use video than hiring a film crew. Recently, Spectacle have provided training courses in video production for Cambridge University Press and several Borough Councils.

If you are interested in booking the course visit the How to Book page.

For information on other Spectacle training courses

Or contact training@spectacle.co.uk

If you would like more information on future training opportunities at Spectacle sign up for the Training Newsletter – tick the box if you would also like Spectacle’s general newsletter.

JOURNALISTS, learn film

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Charlotte England

Many postgraduate journalism courses now include modules in documentary filmmaking as part of the syllabus. Students often have the option of producing a short film as a final piece. This is indicative of the increasing demand for and relevance of multimedia skills in a competitive and necessarily evolving media industry – publications like the Guardian and the Telegraph now produce video content for their websites, following the example of innovative, comparatively new media outlets such as VICE.

However MA Journalism courses aren’t something everyone can afford to do, costing up to £14,000 and requiring a year of full time work. Spectacle offers a short, sharp, affordable (starting at £240/£120 concessions) alternative with our two and four day courses in digital video production and editing.

We aren’t rubbishing postgraduate degrees or suggesting that we offer the equivalent of a terms hard work; we can’t teach you what to make a film about (although we can help you get started) or how to structure your ideas, but if you are a self-starter with some experience of journalism or a natural talent for it you are probably full of ideas about stories and how to structure them anyway. Our concise courses can equip you with the practical knowledge necessary to unlock this.

In four days we aim to give participants a complete introductory set of practical skills that they can build on in their own time. We do this by taking them through a ‘real life’ project (don’t worry, everyone involved knows it’s a training exercise, so you’re allowed to mess up!) – from brief to production to post production to uploading a finished clip online or burning it on to DVD.

In our weekend courses we teach comprehensive video production skills and we offer the option of progressing on to further post production training at a 15% discount.

Mark’s decades of experience means we receive impeccable feedback from almost all participants and have never had anyone leave unsatisfied or without promises to recommend us to their friends.

Train with us and take advantage of a new career space that has opened up between journalism and filmmaking. For dates and prices go to www.spectacle.co.uk/training or email training@spectacle.co.uk