Education
Our new-media adventures began in 2007 with the creation of TrueTube, the award winning educational site for schools. TrueTube produces and hosts high quality short films, media and downloadable resources about social, ethical and moral issues and currently receives more than 1 million hits per month across 130 countries.
TrueTube materials are regularly used to tackle topics in the PSHE, Citizenship and RE curricula which are important, but difficult to approach in the classroom. It helps to spark discussion and inspire debate, and to facilitate student film-making and action based learning. The site is fully pre-moderated to prevent users from being explosed to content which is offensive, obscene, racist, libelous, or which contravenes copyright law.
In 2010 CTVC commissioned a new online live action teen soap, Being Victor, in co-production with Shed Media to support the educational aims of TrueTube . Over 20 episodes shown online at MTV UK, Being Victor follows the lives of Vinnie Dupe, his online alter-ego Victor Sage, and his friends, through college, family, work and the trials and tribulations of teenage life. The drama focuses on 5 themes that are key in the lives of 21st century teenagers: Relationships, Online Identity, Sex and Promiscuity, Depression and being a Young Carer. TrueTube has developed teaching units for the PSHE curriculum to accompany the series. The units enable teachers to use episodes of the drama to explore these themes. The series operates across MTV.co.uk, Facebook, MySpace and a specially built blog and interactive forum, as well as the free downloadable teaching resources available at TrueTube.
In 2011, CTVC will be developing TrueTube further in order to offer increased support for the RE curriculum at Key Stages 3 & 4, and using our training arm Boldface Productions to deliver professional film-training for teachers and students in order to support the use of media to create exciting cross-curricular lessons and improve learning outcomes in schools.
TRAINING
Back in 2008, we received funding from ‘V’ to run film-training workshops and support for more than 1000 young people across the UK, helping them to use short films to engage with their communities, gain skills, and campaign on the issues that mattered to them. In 2010, we built on this with the launch of Boldface Productions. Boldface delivers high-quality training in film and media to help young people achieve their full potential, and operates a fully equipped mobile media-van fitted with cameras and edit equipment in addition to extensive in-house equipment and facilities.
By working with our trainers, young people from a wide variety of backgrounds in communities and educational settings develop a range of technical, creative and life-skills, as well as learning how to make films about the issues they care about. The best films are showcased on our education site TrueTube, and used in schools across the country to teach social issues lessons in the PSHE, RE and Citizenship curricula.
BoldFace believes that empowering young people changes communities and the team work to ensure that new knowledge is shared and that the whole community benefits. This means developing partnerships with communities to train young people, who then train others with our support but also after we have gone. This includes working with older people, under-16s, disability groups, and any other groups in society who are experiencing isolation.
In addition to location and in-house training, Boldface supports and connects a rapidly growing online community of film-makers, through YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Using these platforms, it provides industry advice, technical know-how and tips designed to build the confidence and skills of new talent. A steering committee of committed young film-makers supports the Boldface team with their ideas, films and passion.
