The Major Minor Cinema: the Highlands and Islands Film Guild (1946-71)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Culture & Creative Arts
Abstract
The proposal focuses on the contact with cinema during 1946-71 by isolated, religiously- conservative, linguistically-distinctive and economically-vulnerable communities in the Highlands and Islands. This contact divided communities, threatened the Gaelic language, and it was feared, fostered young people's desire to out-migrate. The project seeks to explore this in detail, before the generation that experienced it dies out.
The formation of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild continued a pre-war initiative of the Scottish Film Council to make non-commercial cinema available to rural areas through the substandard gauge of 16mm. This continued during the second world war via the Ministry of Information and the Evacuation Film Scheme. The Film Guild was proposed to counter depopulation and improve leisure facilities for remote communities forming part of wider economic and cultural initiatives to bolster community activity, cohesion and recreation. It is a widely remembered but still unwritten part of Scottish cinema history in the period stretching from before television and extending into its early penetration into these zones. The service was often delivered personally by travelling operators with the assistance of local communities in spaces such as village or school halls not constructed for film exhibition. Localised exhibition projection in spaces shared by the operators, projector and audience, generated a different kind of cinema-going experience which is reflected in the depth of feeling and stories attached to remembering it.
The current international turn in film history towards other cinemas underlines the shifting geography of enquiries into where and what cinema has been. Given the geography of Scotland, the history of the Film Guild adds a distinctive contribution to this research. The research will look at the operations of the Guild in terms of local community reaction (popular memory), schools, churches and third sector institutions) the local authorities, and the Scottish Office (including the Scottish Education Department, the Home and Health Department and the Highlands and Islands Development Board). It will combine archival, oral and creative research, building a historical record of rural cinema-going through a series of case studies. The project will be promoted in local media prior to each study. National and local archival research will investigate how the organisation provided and managed its cinema service. The National Archives of Scotland will provide records of programming, distribution and exhibition, promotion, revenue, attendance and audience feedback. Oral history enables the past experiences of residents and Guild operatives to be added to the historical record. A pilot study of the Orkney rural cinema scheme confirmed the importance of the operators in guaranteeing programmes, the effects of improvised exhibition demanded by the variable spaces that accommodated the cinema and a preference for programmes containing local content. A network of contacts has also been accumulated in response to project publicity. The volume of respondents demonstrates the importance of carrying out the study while it is possible to make this audience this cinema part of our cultural history.
The PI Dr. Ian Goode has researched and published on rural cinema exhibition and will be supported by a research assistant specializing in oral history. Ian is part of a leading research strand concerned with 'other' cinemas and early cinema in Scotland. He has expertise in Scottish Film and Television and post-war cinema culture. The CI Dr. Sarah Neely specialises in Scottish Cinema, the Orkney based director Margaret Tait, and archival research. Neely has a background in facilitating creative writing. The CI Professor Callum Brown is a leading historian of religion and society in the west, with expertise in Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries, and with extensive experience in oral history.
The formation of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild continued a pre-war initiative of the Scottish Film Council to make non-commercial cinema available to rural areas through the substandard gauge of 16mm. This continued during the second world war via the Ministry of Information and the Evacuation Film Scheme. The Film Guild was proposed to counter depopulation and improve leisure facilities for remote communities forming part of wider economic and cultural initiatives to bolster community activity, cohesion and recreation. It is a widely remembered but still unwritten part of Scottish cinema history in the period stretching from before television and extending into its early penetration into these zones. The service was often delivered personally by travelling operators with the assistance of local communities in spaces such as village or school halls not constructed for film exhibition. Localised exhibition projection in spaces shared by the operators, projector and audience, generated a different kind of cinema-going experience which is reflected in the depth of feeling and stories attached to remembering it.
The current international turn in film history towards other cinemas underlines the shifting geography of enquiries into where and what cinema has been. Given the geography of Scotland, the history of the Film Guild adds a distinctive contribution to this research. The research will look at the operations of the Guild in terms of local community reaction (popular memory), schools, churches and third sector institutions) the local authorities, and the Scottish Office (including the Scottish Education Department, the Home and Health Department and the Highlands and Islands Development Board). It will combine archival, oral and creative research, building a historical record of rural cinema-going through a series of case studies. The project will be promoted in local media prior to each study. National and local archival research will investigate how the organisation provided and managed its cinema service. The National Archives of Scotland will provide records of programming, distribution and exhibition, promotion, revenue, attendance and audience feedback. Oral history enables the past experiences of residents and Guild operatives to be added to the historical record. A pilot study of the Orkney rural cinema scheme confirmed the importance of the operators in guaranteeing programmes, the effects of improvised exhibition demanded by the variable spaces that accommodated the cinema and a preference for programmes containing local content. A network of contacts has also been accumulated in response to project publicity. The volume of respondents demonstrates the importance of carrying out the study while it is possible to make this audience this cinema part of our cultural history.
The PI Dr. Ian Goode has researched and published on rural cinema exhibition and will be supported by a research assistant specializing in oral history. Ian is part of a leading research strand concerned with 'other' cinemas and early cinema in Scotland. He has expertise in Scottish Film and Television and post-war cinema culture. The CI Dr. Sarah Neely specialises in Scottish Cinema, the Orkney based director Margaret Tait, and archival research. Neely has a background in facilitating creative writing. The CI Professor Callum Brown is a leading historian of religion and society in the west, with expertise in Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries, and with extensive experience in oral history.
Planned Impact
Community engagement
The recording of the experience of and involvement in the mobile cinema by local communities will create a historical record that will take cinema history beyond the cities and provide a digital resource to benefit the growing number of local history, heritage and rural community groups and related co-ordinating bodies throughout the region.
The creative writing produced by the project will be of interest of local fiction authors and groups within and without the region as an example of how local cultural heritage can function as a catalyst for imaginative expression.
Library and archive
Users of the Highland Archive Service will benefit from digital access to the oral history records of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild. Transcribed interviews, focus groups, creative writing will form a historical resource about cinema history in the Highland and Islands.
Educational outreach
A series of publicized case studies and workshops covering the region will foster interest in the study of film and the craft and experience of its projection and exhibition as celluloid. The Film Guild is widely remembered and its significance is heightened by the disappearance of the craft of celluloid projection in the space shared by the audience. This communal experience of film shows can supplement the study of local history and heritage across the age groups. Educational resources will also be made available with the assistance of the Scottish Screen Archive.
Project website and related media
The website will promote the project and its key events, findings and outcomes. It will also receive submissions of contributions from members of the public who recall the Highlands and Islands Film Guild. It will also bring together a sample of memories from the case studies, creative writing workshops and associated visual materials and artefacts connected to the Film Guild such as letters, photographs, posters, limericks, stories, operators/caretakers log books. The collation of these materials will offer a unifying perspective on historical sources that might otherwise remain confined to a local audience. The future upkeep of the website after the completion of the project will be undertaken by Glasgow University.
The recording of the experience of and involvement in the mobile cinema by local communities will create a historical record that will take cinema history beyond the cities and provide a digital resource to benefit the growing number of local history, heritage and rural community groups and related co-ordinating bodies throughout the region.
The creative writing produced by the project will be of interest of local fiction authors and groups within and without the region as an example of how local cultural heritage can function as a catalyst for imaginative expression.
Library and archive
Users of the Highland Archive Service will benefit from digital access to the oral history records of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild. Transcribed interviews, focus groups, creative writing will form a historical resource about cinema history in the Highland and Islands.
Educational outreach
A series of publicized case studies and workshops covering the region will foster interest in the study of film and the craft and experience of its projection and exhibition as celluloid. The Film Guild is widely remembered and its significance is heightened by the disappearance of the craft of celluloid projection in the space shared by the audience. This communal experience of film shows can supplement the study of local history and heritage across the age groups. Educational resources will also be made available with the assistance of the Scottish Screen Archive.
Project website and related media
The website will promote the project and its key events, findings and outcomes. It will also receive submissions of contributions from members of the public who recall the Highlands and Islands Film Guild. It will also bring together a sample of memories from the case studies, creative writing workshops and associated visual materials and artefacts connected to the Film Guild such as letters, photographs, posters, limericks, stories, operators/caretakers log books. The collation of these materials will offer a unifying perspective on historical sources that might otherwise remain confined to a local audience. The future upkeep of the website after the completion of the project will be undertaken by Glasgow University.
Organisations
- University of Glasgow (Lead Research Organisation)
- Interface: the knowledge connection for business (Collaboration)
- High Life Highland (Project Partner)
- Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Project Partner)
- Eden Court Theatre (Project Partner)
- Orcadian Story Trust (Project Partner)
- Hebridean Celtic Festival (Project Partner)
- Shetland Arts (Project Partner)
Publications
Goode, I.
(2020)
Practices of Projection Histories and Technologies
Neely S
(2018)
Tantalising Fragments Scotland's Voice in the Early Talkies in Britain and Jenny Gilbertson's The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric (1934)
in Music, Sound, and the Moving Image
| Title | Creative writing submissions |
| Description | Creative Writing contributions in the forms of short stories and poems have been collected from five writers based in the Highlands and Islands including the Edinburgh Makar Christina De Luca from Shetland. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | Some of the writing has been recorded visually for future use and dissemination via the project website. Two readings were delivered for an audience at an event at the Inverness Film Festival dedicated to Remmbering the Highlands and Islands Film Guild. |
| URL | http://2016.invernessfilmfestival.com/timetable/ |
| Description | Case study research has revealed a diversity of rural contexts for understanding the recollected experiences of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild and its relationship with the wider social histories of the areas covered by the project. For example, the idea that the institution delivered film shows for "remote communities" elides the geographies of centres and peripheries that make up the Highlands and Islands. Certainly, islands such as Shetland are connected by their maritime location and are less remote than areas of the north east Highlands on the mainland. The material conditions of exhibition in the utilitarian space of the hall (in the widest sense of the term) are a key axis for remembering the film shows. In addition, the visiting nature of the shows weekly or monthly created an event for communities that is remembered and valued more as an experience of a particular kind of cinema than it is through particular films, stars and genres. The work of the operators who travelled with the equipment and films to the exhibition venues contained in their units is important and a full understanding of their social role in the communities they visited and their technical expertise is key to the meaning and understanding of rural cinema in this context. The response of Presbyterian Church ministers to the arrival of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild in their communities has proved to be an elusive dimension of the research. There is evidence to suggest that opposition to the Film Guild in particular, rather than the secularizing tendencies of social life in general tended to be expressed privately rather than publicly. The influence of the Free Presbyterian Church in the Outer Hebrides is evident in the attempts to oppose the construction of village halls in areas that did not have them, but whom, in general, wanted them. Their position on the financial support required by the Film Guild from local Education Committees such as Ross is evident in committee minutes but not to a sustained degree, judging by available evidence. There is no evidence to suggest that they were able to influence decisions taken to support the work of the Film Guild. The creative writing research has provided a useful resource for thinking about how narratives of cinema-going are articulated and constructed and by whom. The oral tradition of the Highlands and Islands arguably fosters the circulation and passing on of these narratives. In addition, the research conducted has presented the opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the oral expression of a cinema-going memory and the written expression of a cinema-going memory. The inclusion in the working methodology of creative writing in combination with oral history testimony and archival research helped to develop knowledge exchange initiatives and encouraged communities to contribute to the articulation of their own heritage. The role of the Film Guild in education throughout the Highlands and Islands was an important part of the institution's formation and its activity. Film shows for schools were provided during the afternoons of the day of the evening shows for the whole community. Archival research suggests that despite the well established infrastructure for the educational use of film in Scotland there was little explicit teaching with film carried out by local schoolteachers and informed by policy developed in Glasgow and Edinburgh by the Scottish Educational Film Association and the Scottish Film Council. The discussion of Film appreciation and the use of visual aids in education was well advanced by the early 1950s when the Film Guild was at its height, but there is little evidence of Highland and Island schoolteachers working with the Film Guild to develop these areas in their respective schools. Archival records suggest that this was because teachers did not select the films that would form the educational film shows and therefore did not teach their classes with film in the same way as schools in the central belt of Scotland did through the more planned use of the film library and associated teaching resources that were available from the infrastructure emanating from Glasgow. The arrival of television across the Highlands and Islands was uneven and impaired by the distinctive geography of the area. Whilst television was assumed to be a key reason for the eventual decline and end of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild the actual availability and take up of broadcast television was not clearly known during the period when this debate was taking place. Access to television was not available throughout the Highlands and Islands until the mid-1960s and in some isolated cases access to broadcast television came before mains electricity. The consequences of these findings for the existing histories of television, the relation between film and television and post-war modernity in Britain, are still being worked through. In addition, the uneven introduction of television across the area of our research suggests that its impact and attraction was lesser and different from that of the mobile cinema which preceded it, and which, in certain ways, also performed some of the same functions. Dialogue with existing community cinema provision in the Highlands and Islands organised by Regional Screen Scotland through the current mobile cinemas - the Screen Machine reveals that there is a continuity between past and present. For example, the tension between role played by the institutional centre in programming, organising and controlling what form cinema will take for community audiences, and the appetite for communities to actually take on full responsibility for their own cinema provision that tends to be favoured by government agencies remains. This forms an ongoing feature of the debate about current community cinema provision for rural/remote areas that do not enjoy easy access to permanent cinemas. Evidence suggests that the Screen Machine can and should co-exist with more local community cinema initiatives. |
| Exploitation Route | The material gathered by the research has the potential to continue to address local history/heritage groups and possibly inform local education. Interviews will be deposited in Highland and Island and National Library of Scotland archives for future use. The archival holdings on the rural cinema scheme for Orkney have been the subject of local school research projects that foster use of the archival resources. Given the resonance of the Film Guild at a local level there is no reason why this could not be replicated in other areas of the Highlands and Islands. Writing workshops and educational packs distributed to regional cinemas encourage the continuation of creative writing activities connected to memories of cinema-going. The project website and social media links will also increasingly function as a showcase for the project's findings and dissemination. Community engagement has been a strong feature of the project case studies and this will continue into the impact events to be held nearer the end of the final year of the project. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/ |
| Description | A recently restored archival film about the Highlands and Islands Film Guild has been discovered by the Moving Image Archive in Glasgow. This film is not only of interest to the project but also to the current mobile cinema scheme operated by Regional Screen Scotland the Screen Machine and associated community cinemas. This film whilst incomplete (no soundtrack/narration) will now form part of the future programming of Regional Screen Scotland and increases the possibilities of future synergies between past and present that are made available to Highland audiences. A collection of correspondence, photographs, publicity posters, annual reports connected to the Highlands and Islands Film Guild and generally not held in the national or local archives has been loaned to the project by a former operator employed by the Film Guild and resident on Yell in the Shetland Isles. This collection has been preserved and copied for use on the project website, dissemination of findings and for future donations to archives. Archival research of the Film Guild records is complete and this research helps us to account for the life of the institution during our case study research and in dialogue with our oral history interviews and group discussions. The combination of archival evidence with oral history testimony has proved to be a productive methodology. During our case study research in the Outer Hebrides, Inverness and Ross, Shetland and Orkney, a number of local history/heritage groups and associated museums in these areas have requested that samples of the project's findings relevant to their areas be deposited with them. The Creative writing strand of the project has produced an edited collection of writing (Reel to Rattling Reel: Stories and Poems About Memories of Cinema-Going) that has been published and contains the contributions of professional writers and the winning entry of the writing competition that was held during the course of the research. The contributions have helped to disseminate and highlight the creative potential of memory in the form of writing and the book which will be free to download after a year on from publication will provide a useful teaching and reference aid for future writers and teachers. The event held for the former Film Guild operators and their families and other friends of the project at Inverness FIlm Festival presented the opportunity to present our findings to a non-academic audience. Material gathered from archival research and from case studies such as photographs of the FIlm Guild vans, leaflets publicising forthcoming attractions, a printed ticket were made into a display for the event and in addition copies of leaflets, photographs, tickets, and the Film Guild members guide/rulebook were reproduced for attendees to take away and keep. The last surviving Trojan van used by the Film Guild and reacquired by the son of the operator for the Fort William area was transported to Inverness for exhibition as part of the event. The same van was present in a photograph taken in 1955 showing a visiting student from Ghana along with Vic Gall and other senior Film Guild staff. This visit was described in archival records and formed an opportunity for the audience to see and witness the past of the Film Guild in an innovative way. The event included a presentation from the Director of Regional Screen Scotland and member of the project advisory board Robert Livingston who spoke about current cinema provision in the Highlands and Islands covering the Screen Machine mobile cinema service and community cinema initiatives such as the scheme to open the Old Brewery Cinema in Cromarty on the Black Isle. This talk highlighted the legacy of the Film Guild in helping to ensure that cinema provision was desired and necessary to the Highlands and Islands. At the event a reel of 16mm film was donated to the project by a member of the community who provided accommodation for the operator serving the area - Vic Gall. The film was shot by Film Guild staff and records a local wedding at Strontian in the 1950s. It has been copied and digitised so that the present community of Strontian and its owner can see the contents. The original film will be donated to the Moving Image Archive at the National Library of Scotland. Our findings were presented at an end of project colloquium - The Medium of Modernity: the impact of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild held at the Kelvin Hall, Moving Image Archive in Glasgow. The event included academic papers. an exhibition of visual and written material collected during the research and closed with a poem about the film shows performed by one of the project's interviewees. The audience included the project's advisory board, academic colleagues, contributors to the research and members of the general public. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Innovation Voucher Funding Scheme |
| Amount | £20,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Government of Scotland |
| Department | Scottish Funding Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2017 |
| End | 05/2018 |
| Title | Oral history interview database |
| Description | Oral history interview database has been built from the 100+ transcribed interviews carried out during four case studies and with other contributors from within and without Scotland and the rest of the UK. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Dialogue is underway with the recipients of the database so that it can become part of their public archives and collections. The recipients will be the Moving Image Archive (National Library of Scotland) and the Highland and Archive archives. |
| URL | http://www.hifgilmguild.gla.ac.uk |
| Description | Community Cinema Statistics |
| Organisation | Interface: the knowledge connection for business |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | I have led the consultation phase and budget management of a collaborative project that is developing a prototype software platform for the benefit of community cinemas at different stages of development and who operate in Scotland. Using the experience and knowledge gained from our research into the Highlands and Islands Film Guild I have led the consultation with the community cinema sector with a view to finding out what the people who manage these cinemas want and would anticipate using in their cinemas. A report of findings was produced and software was in the early stage of development when funding ran out. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Interface have coordinated the community cinema statistics network and led the discussion, writing and submission of a successful bid to the Scottish Funding Council for an Innovation Voucher to fund the investigation and development of the prototype described above. Other members of the group involve Creative Scotland, Open Cinema, Driftwood cinema, Indy Cinema Group, North East Arts Touring Cinema, University of Aberdeen. |
| Impact | The first outcome is a report on the consultation with the community cinema sector in Scotland on a proposed software prototype to aid the operation of their cinemas in admissions, programming, marketing, booking & licencing. Disciplines: Film Studies, Cultural Policy. Computer Science. Software development of the prototype was commenced but could not be completed with the funding provided. The next phases of the project are likely to be taken over by the commercial sector. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | 16mm film programme event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The event was called Remembering the HIghlands and Islands FIlm Guild which was part of the Inverness Film Festival. The programe combined readings of recently commissioned writing inspired by memories of cinema-going with a special 16mm screening on projected from celluloid recreating a typical programme that would have been shown by the Film Guild to local communities in village halls. This included Scott of the Antarctic (1948) in colour, a newsreel, informational film and a short cartoon. The event was designed to publicize the project to the public and local media and invite participation through interviews and/or attendance at the Creative Writing Workshop the following day. It also showcased the craft of projecting celluloid film and acted as a trigger for memories of the film shows delivered by the trained operators who represented the Highlands and Islands FIlm Guild to remote communities. The event prompted media interest from BBC Scotland and STV (Aberdeen) with a short report resulting from the latter that went out on the local evening news programme. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://2016.invernessfilmfestival.com/timetable/ |
| Description | BBC feature/interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Feature about the project aims and the historical significance of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild particularly the role of the operators who delivered the film shows. Generated good response from general public across the UK and enabled the recruitment of further interviewees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37907036 |
| Description | Book launch |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Launch of Reel to Rattling Reel': Telling stories about rural cinema-going in Scotland book at Inverness Film Festival, with readings from contributing authors and discussion. The event demonstrated the creative and expressive potential of cinema-going memories and confirmed the successful recruitment of the general public to the submissions invited for the book and its associated writing competition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://2018.invernessfilmfestival.com/welcome/ |
| Description | Creative Writing Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A Creative Writing workshop was held as part of the Inverness Film Festival that invited attendees to draw on their experience and memories of cinema-going with a view to producing a piece of creative writing. Discussions using museum props, examples of creative writing submitted by the public to the project, and group exercises were held by Dr Sarah Neely and Nalini Paul of the Scottish Poetry Library and a creative writing specialist. Details of the writing competition and future publication plans were also outlined at the event in Inverness. Attendance was limited but the response was very good and encouraging. Work was initiated that could possibly feature in the future outputs of the project. The initial event in this aspect of the project was a success certainly confirmed the creative potential of memory and how the cinema and cinema-going experience can facilitate this expression. This is a key pathway to impact of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://2016.invernessfilmfestival.com/timetable/ |
| Description | Creative Writing Workshop at HebCelt Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Creative writing workshop on memories of cinema-going based around a series of exercises and aimed at developing participants own creative writing derived from their own memories. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Creative Writing Workshop at Orkney Storytelling Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Writing workshop based on participants own cinema-going memories and following a number of exercises designed to encourage the development of participants own memories as writing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Creative Writing workshop at Screenplay Shetland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Creative writing workshop on memories of cinema-going based around a series of exercises and aimed at developing participants own creative writing derived from their own memories. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Feature in Orcadian newspaper |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Press release describing the Orkney case study, the project in general and scheduled events. Invitation to participate. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Features in West Highland Free Press |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | This publication carried two features about the research and the project in 2016 and 2017. This generated a good response and the recruitment of over twenty interviewees since the location of the readership in the west Highlands was an area that was important for the Film Guild. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.whfp.com/2016/10/27/memories-of-early-travelling-cinema-sought/ |
| Description | Guide to holding writing workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The project has produced a guide for facilitating writing workshops focusing on the theme of memories of cinema-going. The guide, containing a number of exercises and notes on further resources, can be downloaded from the project's website, http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/creative-writing-workshop-guide/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/creative-writing-workshop-guide/ |
| Description | Interview for local history television series The People's History Show |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Two interviews carried out with Goode, I and Munro E. about the Highlands and Islands Film Guild and the findings of the project. The story will be featured in the next series of The People's History Show to be broadcast by STV in 2020. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Interview for local news |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview with BBC Radio Orkney concerning research case study in Orkney. Opportunity to inform audience about the project and local events scheduled in Stromness and Hoy and to invite contributions. Attendance at events was good and additional contacts made that led to ten oral history interviews. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Interview for national newspaper |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Discussion of the research and the vehicle that was used by the Film Guild operator Victor Gall to transport equipment and films to shows in the west Highlands. Gall's son Richard who traced his father's van and operator for the northern isles of Shetland - Billy Williamson who travelled to the reunion event from Yell also featured. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/inverness/1603972/the-men-of-the-wee-cinema-reunite-in-inv... |
| Description | Interview for national newspaper |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Coverage of the research undertaken and the significance of the history that it is concerned with for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-wee-cinema-that-brought-film-to-the-highlands-1-4825732 |
| Description | Interview in Gaelic for Radio nan Gaidheal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview conducted by Donald Pollock of Radio nan Gaidheal with Dr Ealasaid Munro research associate on the project in Gaelic following a schedule of questions concerning the projects aims and case study visiting the Outer Hebrides during the summer of 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Interview with Shetland Times |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Short interview with the Shetland Times that publicized the involvement of the project in the annual Screenplay Festival. Events related to the project were integrated into the festival programme and included a Creative Writing Workshop, a typical film guild programme shown on 16mm and held at Hillswick Public Hall the location for the first Highlands and Islands Film Guild show in 1947. Other events held at Yell Public Hall and Scalloway Hall with senior citizen groups. Invitation to participate. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://issuu.com/shetlandarts/docs/screenplay_2017_programme |
| Description | Launch of Writing Competion Reel to Rattling Reel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The writing competition, Reel to Rattling Reel, launched at the Glasgow Short Film Festival on the 18th of March, 2017. The open writing competition, on the theme of memories of cinema-going, received over 60 entries. A shortlist of entries will be selected for publication in an anthology featuring newly commissioned works by writers from the Highlands and Islands, including Alison Miller, Christie Williamson, Kevin MacNeil, Aonghas Macneacail and Christine de Luca. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/reel-to-rattling-reel-writing-competition/ |
| Description | Local magazine article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Short article describing the project and the importance of the Shetland Isles to the Highlands and Islands Film Guild and the memories of local poet Christine de Luca. Invitation to contribute to the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://hifilmguild.gla.ac.uk/hifilmguild-shetland-life-article/ |
| Description | Local television news report |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The report described the project and the case study planned for the Inverness area it also featured a gathering of some of the former operators brought together by the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkdq_5P2aaE |
| Description | Oban Times press release |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Press release about the project and the presence of the Film Guild in the Oban area. Invitation to the local public to participate generated a very good response and the recruitment of 10-15 potential interviewees in an area that was not covered by the case studies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.obantimes.co.uk/2017/07/18/memories-sought-for-highlands-film-guild/ |
| Description | Reel to Rattling Reel resource (developed as part of the creative writing workshops), used for Scotland on Screen's 'Top-up Programme Learning Resource' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Moving Image Archive identified the Reel to Rattling Reel resource, developed as part of the creative writing workshops, for use in Scotland on Screen's 'Top-up' programme, a widening access programme for those entering higher education. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://scotlandonscreen.org.uk/resources/lesson-guides/top-up-programme |
| Description | Reunion event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A reunion of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild operators and their families was held as part of the Inverness Film Festival 2018. The event included a display of the project findings, short film, and a discussion about the work of the operators and their memories and the continued relevance of the issues faced by the Film Guild for today's community cinemas in rural areas. A Trojan Van used by the Film Guild and driven by the operator Victor Gall was also transported to the venue and compared to a photograph from the mid 1950s. The event concluded with a discussion involving Regional Screen Scotland/Screen Machine and local community practitioners that put past and present into productive dialogue. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://2018.invernessfilmfestival.com/welcome/ |
| Description | Screenplay: 60 Plus event at Scalloway/Shetland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | 16mm programme including local content showed to audience of the 60 Plus group at Scalloway Hall. Event made possible by local representative of Alzheimer's Scotland and Screenplay. Memories shared afterwards over refreshments and contacts made for future individual interviews. Discussion about the importance of the opportunities to explore local and community memories in Scalloway took place and further activities were encouraged. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://issuu.com/shetlandarts/docs/screenplay_2017_programme |
| Description | Screenplay: Film Guild 16mm screening event at Hillswick Hall |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was a typical Film Guild film show held at the location of the very first Highlands and Islands show at Hillswick/Sheltand. A full 16mm programme was shown and afterwards the audience were invited to share memories with the project team. Refreshments were served and valuable contacts were made for future individual interviews. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://issuu.com/shetlandarts/docs/screenplay_2017_programme |
| Description | Screenplay: Stepping Out at Mid-Yell/Shetland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 16mm programme showed to the Stepping Out Club at Mid-Yell Shetland. Local representative of Alzheimer's Scotland in conjunction with Screenplay helped to plan the event which was very well attended. Audience included one of the surviving Film Guild operators and his sister who took over the role from his father. Memories shared over refreshments and valuable contacts made for future interviews. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://issuu.com/shetlandarts/docs/screenplay_2017_programme |