Jimmy McGovern Visit

On Monday 13th June, Shorefields Technology College were fortunate enough to have a local writing legend visit the school. Jimmy McGovern of “Cracker, Hillsborough” and more recently “The Accused”” fame came into school to complete a creative writing workshop with a group of year 9 and 10 pupils. The aim of the exercise was to create a short script that could be filmed in the weeks following Jimmy’s visit. The pupils where asked to work in a circle and get their “thinking caps” on.

Helped a long by the natural enthusiasm displayed by Jimmy, the pupils soon began to think creatively and their ideas began to flow.

It was interesting to for the pupils to see Jimmy’s technique in story telling. He explained to the pupils that when he starts to gather ideas about a script, he likes to walk around the room and visualise the scene in his head, he then got up out of his chair to demonstrate this point to the class. In fact, there was a pen and piece of paper ready for every pupil to use, Jimmy explained that they would not be needed because he didn’t write anything down when building ideas around a script...

Before long the pupils had jointly agreed to create a script involving a bullying incident in a school. The story was to begin with a scene showing writing on the girl’s toilet wall in school. It was at this point that Jimmy explained to the pupils about the importance of building intrigue into a story and how you can create a scene without using language, for example in one later scene, the girl (our heroine) was going to leave the house early. He asked the pupils, “How can we show our heroine is leaving the house early without her saying she is leaving early?” The children’s response was excellent, “well you could show her leaving the house without having her breakfast, slamming the door and then cut to her mother’s bemused face” ...that way the audience will know what is happening...Jimmy was very impressed with how quickly the pupils had grasped the idea of creating a scene without words.

The pupils where eagerly rushing ahead with the story from the off, Jimmy had to slow them down and remind them that when you are writing a script every detail of the minds eye has to be thought about and recorded, for example, the door being ajar, the expressions on faces and of course, the positioning of cameras. This concept proved quite difficult for the pupils as their natural instinct was to rush from the beginning of the story to the end in two seconds flat. This was a constant theme throughout the morning and it was revealing to see how slowly and the amount of intricate detail is involved  in creating  just one scene.

As the morning moved on the story continued to develop and the children became more enthusiastic with ideas flowing fast towards the ultimate climax. After a short break the script was concluded, all that was left was for the children to thank Jimmy for giving them the opportunity to work with him, this was followed by a spontaneous round of applause.

 What happens next? Well, the children are going to act out and film the script. Jimmy was keen to point out that he wants to come back and see the finished product and we look forward to welcoming him back to Shorefields in order to do this...Before leaving he commented on how impressed he was with the pupils and how enthusiastic they were to learn. Well done to everyone who was involved and we wait in anticipation to view the final cut!

Miss J Hart