MAKING A DIFFERENCE

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that many a time I write about mini adventures I have in the great outdoors, mostly in the Highlands of Scotland. Regularly I find myself away on my bike or on foot, with Pauline, enjoying all that Scotland's landscape has to offer.

Well, this week I enjoyed another jaunt north of Stirling, this time to the small town of Callander, with the nearby, snow capped, Ben Ledi visible from the outskirts. But this was not a trip for walking or biking on this occasion.

About 18 months ago I became part of a team of film practitioners for Scottish Film Education, which aims to assist teachers, in the whole of Scotland, with online resources, to bring film into their classrooms. Not so much to make movies, but to use the medium to improve literacy instead of in print form.

It's been a long time coming, but finally I had my chance to launch a series of workshops that I will run in the Callander area between now and June.

By coincidence, the school that will play host to these workshops is the local school, McLaren High, the very place that my recent film students from Doune attend. Many of those young people struggle in one way or another at school, and the film project was a huge success with them. So I took the opportunity to sing their praises and promote the impressive work that those students had produced. Mostly teenagers do not speak up for themselves, and I knew I was in the perfect position to inform their teachers just what they had achieved and hopefully make a difference for them.

I was pleased to see that the response was immediate and enthusiastic, so fingers crossed new opportunities will open up for these kids.

Now I turn my attention to my usual Edinburgh students, who start shooting their next short film at a location away from the school where we usually run. The weather looks like it's going to hold, so fingers crossed for day one of principal photography tomorrow.