digital:works artist Joe Stevens has worked with residents of Old Town, Poole and Parkstone to document their lives through photography. The 'Beautiful' project has enabled the group to create a series of images that reflect the extraordinary through to the everyday and beautiful elements of their lives. This has resulted in a stimulating body of photographic work, which was exhibited in a number of places around Dorset.

We worked with young people, volunteers and teachers from Westfield Technology College and St Andrew's School in Weymouth on the Pavilion Past Project. We partnered with Dorset History Centre to help the children understand history through a contemporary issue. The children learnt research skills, which they later used to explore the history of the Pavilion. We built links with older community groups and filmed interviews with local people to record their memories and experiences of the theatre. Our findings were put together on a website, on which we created a blog for the children to update. The interviews were compiled into a short film that we presented to over 240 people in the Pavilion Theatre, alongside an exhibition of photographs and a timeline of the theatre's history.

The Pavilion in the Past film has been nominated for the BBC Big Screen Awards.

Mark Kermode, who judged the nominated films said, "Pavilion in the Past is a charming, affectionate evocation of Weymouth Pavilion, evoking its changing fortunes. Interviews are intercut with evocative photographs to very moving effect. Eye witness accounts of the fire which destroyed the pavilion, and memories of the bands and comedians who worked there are wonderfully captured."

Only three films from across Dorset and Hampshire have been put forward for this award. Karen Bidwell, Inclusion Co-ordinator at Westfield, said, "We are all very excited about being nominated for an award. We are grateful to the LHI for funding this project and for Joe's hard work and enthusiasm. All the pupils involved enjoyed the experience and learnt lots of new skills."

Children, working with digital-works artist Joe Stevens, interviewed many local people on their memories of the Pavilion and the old Ritz. They took a year to produce this film and in the process learnt many new skills including filmmaking techniques. Joe paid tribute to everyone who took part: "this shows the outstanding documentary film work that the children have produced. They have been brilliant. It has been great fun working with both Westfield Technology College and St Andrews schools."

Watch the film here: Pavilion Past

We continue to provide training in digital video, podcasting and animation. Recent projects at the BBC include work with children and young people with learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities. A recent project with Islington Green School and Richard Cloudesley School led to the following enthusiastic response:

Just to say thank so much for two great days at the BBC. The IGS students really enjoyed the whole experience very much indeed; they loved the fun element of going out and about the building and doing their interviews; but they were particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity of developing their video creation and editing skills. The students were unanimous in their praise and enthusiasm for the workshop leaders. Tiarnan Ocleirigh

We have used illustrations, animation, stills and audio to create a film about slavery for teachers to use in the classroom. Teachers have found the film to make otherwise dry information much more appealing to young people and aids discussion and learning. The film is part of a printed educational resource pack which is available on an accompanying website.

We have worked on a project with Hammersmith & Fulham Young Carers using animation and blue screen technologies. The children had fun coming up with outlandish ideas which these technologies, when combined, allowed them to achieve.

You can see some of the results of their work on the Bubblycrew Website.

Camden Council and the Roundhouse asked us to work with Haverstock School students to use photography and digital art to create street banners to be placed in the Camden Town/Kentish Town area. The theme was Found Patterns. Each group of young people learnt some photography and photoshop skills to create banners depicting the Camden environment using just their photos of found patterns.

CEEN put on a consultation day for young people at The Roundhouse to find out what were the main environmental concerns for young people and what would engage them in environmental action. We filmed the event, conducted interviews with stall holders and vox pops with the young people. The footage has been edited to show what happened on the day and to get a record of the young people's views.

For three years running we worked for the BBC on their Over to You project, which trained teachers and BBC staff to work with young people to create short films based on the curriculum and incorporating footage from the BBC's Creative Archive.

We have also helped teachers and students with their BBC School Report projects.

We worked with a group of disabled young people from Hammersmith & Fulham Action on Disability (HAFAD) on a film looking at accessing services for young people. This was part of a young people's project run by Hammersmith & Fulham Urban Studies Centre to get young people to participate in the development of new health facilities in the White City area of west London.

By looking at how easy or difficult it was to access current health services, the young people were able to make recommendations as to how newly developed services should be organised.

You can see some of their final video here.

We produced a ten-minute documentary with clients of the Kipper Project, a project for homeless young people in the east end of London. The young people developed their film with us to show the progress made through the project from a new arrival to someone receiving an offer of permanent accommodation.

As well as concentrating on three main characters the film is interspersed with vox pop from the clients talking about their first day at Kipper and where they expect to be in 5 years time.

Discovering Water Safety
digital:works was commissioned by Lea Rivers Trust and Enfield Council to work with the young people at Bounces Road Youth Club to devise and develop this original story and animation.

The young people developed the story after visiting their local waterway and learning about the 4 water safety points. They then drew their characters and acted out the scenes. To make the animation as accessible as possible there was a no dialogue policy which the young people dealt with very effectively. After we produced the animation we returned to the young people who added sound effects and created their own music.

The aim of the project was to encourage and promote the safe use of waterways for educational and recreational purposes.

Industry Exposure
Cultural & Creative Skills with BBC Radio One commissioned us to work with students from Queens Park Community School to create four podcasts for young people looking for careers in the British music industry.

The students interviewed a variety of people including Producers, Artists, DJs, Publishers and Promoters who have worked with the likes of Oasis, Robbie Williams, Sade and Faithless. They edited the interviews using Garageband; wrote and added intros, links and credits; and used jingles, stingers and sound effects to complete four ten-minute podcasts.

The podcasts are available from iTunes: Just search for 'Industry Exposure' or directly from the feed at Cultural and Creative Skills where you can download the MP3 files.