FA Creative and Digital Media course builds characters

FA Creative and Digital Media course builds characters
FA Group

Foundation Apprentices in Creative and Digital Media showed off their characters recently in a stop-motion project designed to prepare them for an upcoming unit on Storytelling.

And Forth Valley College were delighted to use Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2023 as the ideal opportunity to showcase the skills that can be learned through the FA programme. 

The talented and enthusiastic group used small figures or 2d paper figures to create a short narrative film with the theme 'oops my bad'.  Photos of some of the films being made can be seen below.

They also used the opportunity to practice their technical skills such as shot framing, angles, lighting and editing in a fun a creative manner. 

FVC Creative Industries Lecturer Colm Clerkin lead the creative project with them senior phase school pupils from several Forth Valley secondary schools.

He said: "Students have really loved the opportunity to learn a new multi-media skill. The quality of the animations are currently very high and this project has allowed students to study movement, framing, lighting and masking using rigs. We showcased these projects in class and the students were excited to showcase their hard work." 

Summer Noe (16) a pupil at Grangemouth High School, said: “I enjoy the FA more than school. The lecturers and the practical work have been great. My stop motion involved cut out flowers. I had never done that before, but it was really fun and really simple to do. This has been the perfect course for me as I hope to get into film school and build a career in film-making. I would recommend it.”

Matthew Nowak (16) a pupil at Stirling High School, said: “I have honestly looked forward to coming to the Stirling Campus every day to do the FA Digital Media course. I have really enjoyed meeting new people from other schools and all the practical skills you learn on the course. I had never used stop animation before, but I honestly enjoy it now. I have been inspired to think about film-making as a career and I would recommend that other pupils give the Foundation Apprenticeship a try.”

The FAs have also recently completed another practical project where they re-created movie sequences from films to work on their storyboarding, filming and editing skills. They recreated short scenes from movies such as Alice in Wonderland, High School Musical and the iconic detention dance scene from The Breakfast Club.

The students made good use of the Stirling Campus utilising multiple locations to complete their filming. And it certainly gave the College’s library staff a smile to see students respectfully dancing between the stacks of books! 

FVC Creative Industries Lecturer, Stacey Lange, led this practical project. She said: "At the end of the movie sequence project, we decided to hold a screening and invited a few members of Staff.  We were all blown away by the quality of the work produced.  We held mini awards after and the groups won categories like best edit, closest to the original and best acting. These students prepared well during the pre-production stage and it paid off - I got hold of our curriculum manager as soon as I could to talk about using the work made as recruitment material for the course!  Colly and I are so proud of them all."

Lorna Gow from FVC’s Schools Partnership Team has also been assisting the project by arranging forms for the parents to sign to give the College permission to highlight their work in this way. 

Lorna, said: “The FA in Creative Digital Media is a great platform for students wishing to hone their skills in the Media arena.  They have access to excellent facilities at our Stirling campus and the expertise of fantastic lecturers which makes for exciting projects.  Their impressive work should be highlighted at every opportunity.

“As a School Partnership Support Officer, it is lovely to watch how much the students’ progress throughout their course.”

More information on Foundation Apprenticeships at Forth Valley College can be found here

At the moment firms such as Alexander Dennis, Syngenta, Edinburgh Airport and Bo’ness Railway are actively recruiting for Engineering MAs, so anyone interested in finding out more about the FVC Modern Apprenticeship programme should visit https://www.forthvalley.ac.uk/ways-to-study/apprenticeships/modern-apprenticeships/

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