Eight Months Later

Eight months ago I started Northern Ireland Screen’s Aim High Production Trainee Scheme. Fresh from the first ever Belfast Media Festival, I was excited and impatient to begin working in the burgeoning industry here that I had heard so many positive things about. What can I say now I’m eight months into the job?

June 2012’s Belfast Film Festival has given me useful pause for reflection. When the 15 trainees began we knew fairly well the capabilities of the TV industry here and we weren’t disappointed. I know I can speak for everyone when I say we have all seen and experienced the breadth and quality of TV production coming out of the region. But the recent film festival has demonstrated that Northern Ireland has the ability to reach beyond the small screen, and fill theatres with its feature films.

During the course of the Belfast Film Festival, there were three premieres of feature films produced by Northern Irish talent and made on location in the region.  Good Vibrations is a biopic of Terri Hooley, a Belfast record storeowner at the height of the punk-rock scene, directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn. Jump, adapted from comedian Lisa McGee’s play, is a heart stopping journey through Derry on New Year’s Eve as seven characters find themselves entangled with one another, produced by Brendan Byrne and directed by Kieron Walsh. Whole Lotta Sole is the latest film from Oscar winning Terry George. It’s a comedic tale in which a hapless father and a visiting American get caught up in a fictional underworld in Belfast, starring Hollywood stalwarts Brendan Fraser and Colm Meaney.

All three films embody an ambition that is building in Northern Ireland to test the potential here and see how far it can go. The reception they each received was equally telling of the appetite and support there is to see the industry go far. The effect of the festival on myself, as a trainee here in TV, was to spur myself on to stretch higher in my own roles. I am coming to the end of a placement that gave me experience in numerous fields and taught me a lot about Northern Ireland – its politics, culture and people. For my next placement I feel able to push myself further and take on more responsibility. This is something I hope will be possible.

My first ever blog was written the day after the MTV European Music Awards. I must admit I felt rather jaded that day, but I was brimming with optimism about the city of Belfast and the time I was going to have here. This latest blog is being published at rather an apt time, as someone I met that night has just appeared in a short film made by a friend of mine who also attended the awards. In a rather cyclical progression of time, after meeting David Monahan on the 6^th November 2011 when he streaked at the MTV EMAs we kept in touch and Jane Fletcher asked him to be the subject of one of a series of short films she is making for the NI Tourist Board. David’s story of courageously putting himself, or should I say running, onto the world stage is something that Northern Ireland can empathise with.

Over the past eight months Northern Ireland has done nothing but put itself at the forefront of the world stage, including the hosting of an international concert, the opening of a world class exhibition centre, the launch of three feature films, a visit to the US by the First and Deputy First Ministers on an investment mission, and there is more to come with the Irish Open being hosted in Portrush and a potentially history making state visit by Queen Elizabeth II.

There are now ten months left of my trainee scheme, keep checking in to find out where it will take me next!


I interviewed David for Jane's film. You can watch it below.