Breaking the mould

The Blackbird Leys college campus, in Cuddesdon Way, might seem about as far as you could get from Hollywood or Pinewood Studios - at least on a miserable November evening in poor visibility.

Yet the Leys is now not only home to a new film-making course, but it is taking the lead in opening up many aspects of the film world to women.

The course was created in recognition of the fact that less than ten per cent of the workforce in camera, lighting and sound television departments are women, compared to 97 per cent in make-up and hairdressing.

Wandering around in search of the studios, several locals looked distinctly wary as I innocently inquired about about where to find Women in Digital Entertainment. Before I could assure any of them that WIDE is in fact a most worthy new project, supported by the University for the Creative Arts, they had all hurried off without reply.

The University College for the Creative Arts is in fact based at Canterbury, with bases in Epsom and Maidstone.

But it selected the Oxford Women's Training Scheme to provide a film industry-approved course in digital video production in the South-East, as part of a regional initiative to train women in broadcasting technical skills. Funding has also been attracted from the European Social Fund.

There are of course dozens of highly expensive documentary and media courses run in Oxford these days. But Putting Women in the Picture deserves its moment in the spotlight for a whole series of reasons. It is free, run within school hours and is based on the OCVC's (Oxford & Cherwell Valley College)campus in Blackbird Leys.

In other words it offers opportunities to women, who in most cases would have next to no chance of ever getting behind a camera, writing scripts or directing their own films.

Course tutor Anne-Marie Sweeney, certainly sounds like a teacher on a mission. "We want to give women the skills and training to encourage them to work in the media. Not in the traditional areas like wardrobe department. But in the areas where they are really under-represented in film making.

"I am committed to the idea that unless we get more women behind the camera, women's stories will never be told properly in front of the camera."

The film work recently produced by local women was undoubtedly pivotal in attracting money from Europe.

When I eventually found Ms Sweeney in a teaching room on the third floor of one the tallest buildings on the sprawling OCVC campus, she was viewing impressive examples of recent work.

There have been documentaries on subjects ranging from Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum to domestic abuse. One of the most moving films completed by three young women is a tribute to Charlie Marting, a teenager from Barton, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2004.

Charlie Marting's short life led to the creation of "a wall of love", bearing artwork and messages near shops in Barton's Underhill Circus. Now the 15-year-old's story inspired his friends Fiona Rennie, Karen Hall and Kelly Jaycock, who were recently on a Putting Women in the Picture course, to produce a short film about his life, entitled Charlie: A True Bartoner.

It includes interviews with his family, friends and his former teachers at Peers School. Hardly studious, Charlie emerges in this "warts and all" look at his life as a hugely popular figure on the estate, with a smile that girls fell for and a devil-may-care attitude that school mates admired.

In a way, it also offers a vivid snapshot of what it is like to grow up on an Oxford estate at the beginning of the 21st century.

"Charlie was an iconic figure in Barton," said Ms Sweeney. "These days there are so many films about teenagers in this country. But very few made by themselves."

Charlie's mother, Mandy Marting, was hugely impressed with the finished product and the journey on which the three girls themselves embarked.

"The film was one of the things that made grieving for Charlie easier. I actually found out things about Charlie that I did not know - the Charlie who went out with his friends.

"When the girls started making it they did not seem to have much confidence. To be honest I did not think they could do any of it.

"I think the film really helped build up their confidence. The end product amazed me. It's lovely and I am so proud of it. It is good as watching a documentary on television."

The same could also be said of another project which lifts the curtain on the early years of Oxford's celebrated Regal cinema in Cowley Road. The film was the idea of Anna Shelton, 26, of Percy Street, East Oxford, who attended a three-month long film course earlier in the year.

She said: "I have lived in East Oxford all my life and the building has always been a point of interest. I attended an alternative May Day ball there and saw what it was like from the inside."

But what brings their documentary to life is the memories of local people about the old cinema, which opened in 1937. Anna's co-director Sarah Hyams knew the old cinema's original projectionist Graham Wintle, now in his eighties. They took him back to the old projectionist room for the first time in 30 years, where for once he stood in front of the lens and not behind it.

"We never got to see our audience," he recalled sadly, before reflecting on the demise of the silver screen, swept away by the bingo boom.

One of the women involved in making the Regal film, Erika Stevenson, turned out to be an experienced documentary maker with both the BBC and Channel 4. Her past projects included Tales Out of School, featuring the likes of John Peel, Victoria Wood and Kate Adie.

But she gave up filming work to concentrate on bringing up her young family. For Erika, Putting Women in the Picture offered a marvellous opportunity to update herself about the latest technology.

Erika, now in her early fifties, said: "I did the course in order to get into the digital age. Things changed massively while I was away having my children, everything had gone digital. I worked with video tape or 16mm film.

"Yes, I have a lot of experience. But I have been away from the industry for quite a long time. It is hard to get back into it. The media is very much a young person's thing."

She says the course proved as valuable to her as the complete beginners. "It covered an enormous amount of ground right from developing an idea, producing a proposal, developing a script, right through to the production process, drawing up a shooting schedule, learning to use the equipment and editing the programme. People came out of it with a lot of skills."

She has already gone on to produce and direct a new film for the Oxfordshire Deaf Children's Society, highlighting the difficulties young deaf people face.

Some women on the film course have gone on to pursue media courses at university, others harbour ambitions of breaking into television. They can point to the fact that at least some of the films already coming out of the Blackbird Leys college would not look out of place on regional news programmes.

By the time I left Anne Marie and the other students to their editing, with a clearer view about about film-making in Blackbird Leys, the fog had lifted slightly. It still remains to be seen how much of this budding talent will ever be found.