CLAPPERBOARD
Award winning Liverpool actors Christine Tremarco, Alison Steadman and John Henshaw. Alison said,“ It’ s an honour for me to be returning to Liverpool. Not only to this great city but to support the Clapperboard Youth Project which aims to bring both new and existing talent together in these monthly events
that will raise much needed funds”.
Award winning Liverpool actor Stephen Graham said ” I’ m made up to be back in my home city and able to support Clapperboard. It’ s fantastic what they are doing to help young people. Hopefully some of them will choose the same career path as me and follow in my
footsteps.”
Award winning Liverpool playwrite Willy Russell said“ I’ m delighted to be associated with Clapperboard and glad to be able to make some small contribution to a project that concerns itself with engaging the spirit and creativity of the young. If I was remotely still young myself, I know I would be knocking on Clapperboard’ s doors and trying to be involved”.
As previously mentioned, I have been very fortunate to have been helped along the way by some amazing individuals including above professionals from the world of film and television who have given their valuable time to support Clapperboard( including my present Board members: Perri Allain Hughes, Jonathan Ford, Iain Hoskins, Cllr Patrick Hurley, Michelle Langan, Steve McDermott, Felix Schroer, Lynn Saunders) and organisation such as Merseyside Police, Liverpool Echo, Bermans Solicitors, Liverpool Film Office, Ma Boyles, Frederiks, Liverpool Hope University, Pinewood Studios, British Board of Film Classification, Pinewood Studios, BBC, Red Productions, Lime Pictures, Liverpool Film Studios, Hope Street Hotel, Bill Elms Associates, amongst others, all who have helped with Clapperboard UK’ s legacy.
However, sadly, with the present government’ s austerity implementations, like most charities we have had our funding drastically reduced. Most of our income, unlike much larger charities, goes directly into our projects – not into anyone’ s salary, or into PR, marketing etc., as everything is done‘ in-house’ delivered by a very small team. In the
past our work with young people covered the whole of the North West and further, but because of lack of funding, the past 2 years we have focussed on Merseyside as we are fortunate to receive funding from Mersey Care-NHS, Sefton Carers, PH Holt and Arts Council-Lottery.
To conclude, our successful work with young people and adults who may have issues can sometimes be challenging, but at the end of the day those people are being empowered to have a voice and have their say in telling their stories whilst learning how to create and produce a short film. They can be involved in every role from script to screen, including pre and post-production and they are also able to be involved with the actual high profile awards ceremony( brochure design, event management, marketing, PR etc.). There are lots of opportunities here that allow young people to gain work experience and at the actual Awards evening itself, they are presented with a special Clapperboard award for their achievements by the many celebrities that give up their time to support us. When I see the young people’ s reaction and the fantastic praise and feedback from their families who attend, it’ s very emotional. That’ s when I realise why I do this job, as it’ s the positive end result that makes it all worthwhile, seeing them achieve so much with the assistance of Clapperboard’ s team and our many kind supporters, funders and sponsors.
Finally, we have extended our work by offering technical expertise to companies who would like to promote and market themselves through the medium of film. We offer a charitable rate and have recently produced short promos for Tobacco Free Futures supporting their anti-smoking campaign with the Liverpool writer-actor Neil Fitzmaurice and Hollyoaks actress Jazmine Franks who both starred in the film, aimed to highlight the risks of smoking in cars with child passengers. Now, doing so is against the law. We also produced a short film for Liverpool Housing Trust to use for staff training.
Clapperboard’ s annual awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 4th April 2017. If you would like to sponsor a Clapperboard Award or take out an add in our annual brochure that is distributed regionally, nationally and internationally, or would like to find out more about Clapperboard, you can visit the website at: www. clapperboarduk. com or call Maureen Sinclair on 07973783140.
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