Inspired by the North Pennines – youth film project

By Naomi Foster, Geology Projects Officer

The North Pennines AONB Partnership worked with Jack Drum Arts to find out what inspired the young people they work with about the North Pennines. The aim was to make two short films as a creative response to this fascinating landscape that could be shared with others. The two groups involved were Jackass Youth Theatre, and Connections, a group for young adults who face complex barriers.

The groups made visits to locations in the North Pennines, scouting them for filming, learning about the landscape and developing their ideas. They worked with poets to produce their own creative writing inspired by their experiences, recorded voiceovers, made music and costumes and performed on camera. Both groups chose to include important messages in their films – Jackass Youth Theatre created a fantasy story that challenges our relationship with nature, and Connections focused on their feelings and the landscape as a healer – a place of discovery, happy memories and wellbeing.

Spirits of the Earth, by Jackass Youth Theatre

This film is inspired by the hills and valleys, rocks and plants, skies and rivers of the North Pennines AONB and UNESCO Global Geopark. The young people felt it deserved an epic fantasy mood and created their own myth around the forming of the landscape and its interrelationships. They also wanted to convey an environmental message, to get people who see the film thinking about how we as humans impact the world around us. Here is the finished article:

Frozen in Time, by Connections

Connections’ film is a creative response to a day spent exploring in the North Pennines. It features a poem written collaboratively by the group made up of sights, feelings and thoughts and read in their own voices, sweeping vistas and more intimate shots of individuals experiencing the landscape, and music created with movement, voices and instruments. The result is this beautiful, contemplative film:

Thanks to staff at Jack Drum Arts for their vision, input and making it all happen, to VonFox Productions for filming, editing and post-production and to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for making the project possible.