Annual Report 2012.Indd
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Annual Report 2012 Yangon Film School Non-profit Association for the Promotion of Young Burmese Film and Video Artists Courses like this one are very rare indeed ... I don’t know of any others like it. YFS is really exceptional. I hope the film school goes from strength to strength. Zin Mar Oo, participant of 2012 Beginners’ Workshop I used to watch films without thinking about them but now I can analyse what’s going on. I started with zero knowledge but I definitely know something now! Cho Phyone, participant of 2012 Beginners’ Workshop CONTENTS PAGE I Summary of Activities in 2012 1 1. Breakdown of YFS Management Activities and Project Plan 5 2. Fundraising 7 (i) Comments 7 (ii) School building 7 3. Schedule, Methodology and Tutors 7 (i) Comments 8 4. Permits, Participants and Implementation 8 (i) Comments 9 (ii) Networks & Adversting 9 5. Training of Trainers 9 (i) Comments 10 II YFS Management Training 10 1. First Visit to YFS Yangon by Management Coach 10 2. Second On-Site Workshop in Management Transition Process 11 3. Media Management Workshop 12 (i) Rationale for the Workshop 12 (ii) Methodology 12 (iii) Topics Covered 13 4. Final Yangon Visit by Management Coach and Overall Results 13 (i) Objectives of the visit 13 (ii) Challenges 14 (iii) Conclusions & Recommendations 14 III Advanced Editing Clinic I 15 1. Rationale and Methodology 15 2. Participants 15 3. Individual Mentoring of Projects 15 4. Recommendations 16 IV The 2012 Art of Documentary Filmmaking Beginners’ Workshop 17 1. Participants From Far and Wide 17 2. The First Three Days – Basic Technical Training 18 (i) Comment: language barriers 18 3. Week one – the First Exercise 19 (i) Comments on the first exercise 20 4. Weeks Two and Three – The Final Films 21 (i) Filming the final assignments 21 (ii) Editing 22 (iii) Comments: evaluation session with student trainers 23 V Editing Mentorship of Beginners’ Films 24 1. Aims and Methodology 24 2. Editing the First Exercises 25 3. Editing the Final Films 25 4. Evaluation 27 (i) Technical note 27 CONTENTS PAGE VI Sound Design Workshop 28 1. Workshop Rationale 28 2. Participants 28 3. Content and Methodology 28 (i) Recording sessions 29 (ii) Film screenings 29 4. Results 29 VII Advanced Camera Workshop 30 1. Participants 30 2. Rationale for the Workshop 30 3. Content and Methodology 31 4. Evaluation 31 VIII Beginners’ Screenwriting Workshop 32 1. Rationale for the Workshop 32 2. Participants 32 3. Content and Methodology 33 4. Film Screenings 35 5. Next Steps 35 6. Evaluation 35 IX Introduction to Editing Documentary 36 1. Aims 36 2. Participants 36 3. Content and Methodology 37 4. Outcomes 39 5. Evaluation 40 (i) Recommendation 40 X Ways of Seeing: the History of Film Technique and Style 41 1. Aims 41 2. Participants 41 3. Methodology 41 4. Content 42 5. Assessment 43 XI How Fiction Films Work: an Introduction to Film Analysis 43 1. Rationale for the Course 43 2. Participants 43 3. Methodology and Content 44 4. Recommendations 45 XII Advanced Editing Clinic II 46 1. Participants and Methodology 46 2. Individual Projects 46 XIII YFS Screenwriting Competition 48 1. Rationale for the Competition 48 2. Entries Received 48 3. Judging 48 4. Next Steps 49 XIV YFS Documentary Competition 49 XV YFS Annual Screening 50 CONTENTS PAGE XVI Direct Results of YFS Workshops and Activities in 2012 51 1. Visible Outcomes 51 2. Benefits for Target Group 51 3. Dissemination of YFS Films 52 (i) Commissioned Projects 52 (ii) Commissioned Work in 2012, New Commissions 53 (iii) Other Projects and Partnerships 53 (iv) The YFS Production Fund, Independent Projects by YFS filmmakers 53 (v) YFS Films at International Festivals and other Events 54 (vi) YFS at Festivals in Myanmar 55 (vii) Myanmar Television, Myanmar Motion Picture Enterprise 56 (viii) Cooperation with International Media and Visitors to YFS 57 XVII Conclusions and the Next Step 58 1. Assessments and Suggestions 58 2. Workshops in 2013 59 XVIII Appendix I - V 61 I Table 1 - Breakdown of YFS Participants in 2012 by Gender, Ethnicity & Religion 61 II Table 2 - Summary of Figures for 2012 62 III Table 3 - Summary of Figures for 2012 62 IV Evaluation Report, Christine Forrester (UK), February, 2013 63 V Meeting Plan of Evaluator Trip 79 Published by: Yangon Film School e.V. / Lindsey Merrison Copy editor : Rachel Mathews Proof-reading: Frances Calvert Layout & composition: Tina Walinda Photographs: Pe Maung Same, Myo Min Khin, Ivan Horák, Lars Barthel, Hnin Ei Hlaing, Anna Biak Tha Mawi, Thu Thu Sein, Ingo Aurich, Thar Khin Maung Win 1 __ Yangon Film School _ Annual Report 2012 Annual Report I Summary of Activities in 2012 Year Eight of the Yangon Film School saw another busy round of workshops, teaching modules and mentorships and a new intake of multiethnic participants. In 2012 the Yangon Film School held seven workshops, two clinics and two mentorships in Yangon for a total of 61 men and women. There were two residential and five semi- or non-residential workshops. Once again, there was an emphasis on attracting recruits from different ethnic groups and different parts of Myanmar and this was reflected in the intake for the Beginners’ course, half of whom came from locations outside Yangon. In 2012 the chosen topic for final film assignments was ‘Old Buildings in Yangon and the People who live in them’. In 2012 practical training took place exclusively on HD camera equipment using HD workflows. The emphasis in 2012 was on introducing the new intake to documentary filmmaking, screenwriting and sound design, and furthering the filmmaking and teaching Participants from the Beginners’ Workshop 2012 skills of previous cohorts. Transition at YFS: the YFS Committee, Management Training & Local Management Team The YFS Management Coach visited Yangon three times between November 2011 and June 2012 to assist the YFS Committee during the School’s transition process into the hands of local management. He also conducted a Management Training Workshop to identify four new staff members who were subsequently taken on for a probationary period. The coach returned to Yangon for a fourth time in August 2012 to help the new staff integrate and to monitor their progress. During this time he identified a number of communication and behavioural problems. These proved insurmountable in the case of three staff members who, at the end of the probationary period, handed in their resignation, anticipating a decision by the YFS Committee not to offer them annual contracts. The fourth recruit was successfully integrated into the YFS management team. A new YFS Committee was voted into office in September 2012. The new members are filmmaker and YFS trainer Shin Daewe; filmmaker, YFS trainer and development worker Eh Mwee, who is also a member of the Advisory Board to President Thein Sein; cinematographer and YFS trainer Aung Ko Ko; editor, sound recordist, YFS editing equipment manager and trainer Myo Min Khin; and finally, filmmaker Soe Moe Aung, who is a member of the 2012 intake. Lessons having been learned from the management recruitment and training programme, this Committee has returned to a solution that was once mooted but suspended due to a lack of suitable candidates, namely to integrate a YFS alumnus or Committee member into the management team as School Manager. Following a restricted call for applicants among YFS members at the end of 2012, this position was successfully filled by Thet Oo Maung, a graduate of the 2012 Beginner workshops. The current management team therefore now includes two YFS filmmakers: Thet Oo Maung as School Manager and Hnin Ei Hlaing as Production Manager, and two non-filmmaking staff, Win Naing Khir and Aye Ni Mar, the Administrator and Accountant respectively. With two female and two male staff members, there is gender parity in the management team. Instead of an external coach, the Committee has decided that in future the transition process should follow a more organic and less formal learning-on-the-job approach, under the supervision of the YFS Director during her presence in Yangon. The success of this approach, however, places additional demands on the YFS Director and depends on local YFS staff’s initiative and commitment to future challenges. (i) Comments If the school is to achieve its long-term goal of transition to a permanent, locally run media resource, YFS will in 2013 have to apply itself to increasing the capacity of its local management team. In addition, 2 Yangon Film School _ Annual Report 2012 __ cooperation with old and new partners will have to be developed alongside training and other regular activities. Political Changes in Myanmar The astonishing rate of reforms in Myanmar following the General Election in 2010 and more so following by-elections in 2012 has ushered in a new sense of expectation and optimism but also opportunism, as many local and international players and business entrepreneurs pour into the country and the media sector. In this new environment it is important for YFS to consolidate its reputation as a training centre whilst also looking at ways of diversifying its activities to meet new demands. For this reason, in 2012 the school pursued a policy of reaching out to different stakeholders in the government (the Ministry of Information, the Myanmar Motion Picture Enterprise, the Myanmar Motion Picture Organisation) but also to international aid agencies and cultural organisations (LIFT, LOI, 3MG Fund, the British Council, the Goethe Institute, the Institut Français) and civil society (the ‘88 Generation’, as well as individual players in the film industry, the Capacity Building Institute, local NGOs), in order to forge new links and pursue common agendas.