The entire school community at Blayney Public are busy creating, directing and producing their own short films, getting ready for their in-school film night .. of the SPARKE Learning Network, which will then be premiered at the SPARKE film fest, set to launch in October.

The SPARKE learning network incorporates local schools working together to share knowledge, ideas and expertise. This year the learning network has been rebranded from the Pre2 network to become SPARKE.

To make the difficult decision on what film Blayney Public School will send to the festival, the school are to organise their very own in-house film night, inviting parents and friends to come along, sit back, relax, enjoy and vote for their favourite, the top two films from the night will then be sent to premiere at the SPARKE film festival.

Blayney Public Stage 2 Teacher, Claire Donlan said this was the first time the school has been involved in the network and students were enjoying every second of completing their projects.

“Students are nearly finished their films which is quite exciting. We initially went back to basics and completed the script writing and story boarding, that took 4-5 weeks then we got into the filming aspect, students have been really great with their techniques and ideas, and they genuinely love coming in to work on their films.”

The films need to incorporate the theme of SPARKE. Eight-year-old Grace Folpp explained her groups short film is about a blackout to which their characters rummage for candles, creating a spark and some unexpected bad luck along the way, “We did lots of planning and we made films in our class so we were prepared. I enjoyed the filming part and making the scenes, we all share the roll of camera duties and we all have our own characters which is fun.”

Harrison Brown added, “A little boy that comes up with an amazing idea, for our spark idea we did ‘sparktacular’ and that is due to all of the things that he creates, the audience will have to wait and find out! Sometimes time will go by really quickly and other times it takes 20 minutes just to film one thing. I’m really enjoying the experience though; I have never made a movie before- it’s amazing.”

Goodluck to all!

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The SPARKE network consists of the following schools: Bowen Public School, Bletchington Public School, Blayney Public School, Orange East Public School, Calare Public School, Orange Public School, Molong Central School, Millthorpe Public School, Glenroi Heights Public School, Anson Street School, Clergate Public School, Nashdale Public School, Mullion Creek Public School, Spring Terrace Public School, Borenore Public School, Cargo Public School and Euchareena Public School.