Media Bus visit gives College pupils and Digital Media students a very different ride

A double decker bus with a difference visited University College Falmouth recently, giving 30 students from Penryn College the opportunity to produce short films about their expectations and feelings about the forthcoming London 2012 Games alongside BA(Hons) Digital Media students.

Looking very much like a standard double decker bus, (albeit a very colourful one), the tardis-like Media Bus, has been cleverly converted inside into an innovative state-of-the-art digital media facility. Founded in 2009 by the team at Poole's White Lantern Film, the project aims to bring formal and informal training and educational opportunities to rural and disadvantaged communities across the region.

RELAYS, the Regional Educational Legacy for Arts and Youth Sport, organised the visit to University College Falmouth's Tremough Campus as part of a regional tour designed to engage young people in the South West with the 2012 Games.

"Working with Media Bus is really exciting for us," explained Leanne Dingle, Project Manager for RELAYS. "This bus is truly amazing. The students have a unique chance to learn about film creation, editing and production.  We are also excited to learn about their views on the 2012 Games. Young people are usually very clear, and vocal, in their opinions and ideas and it will be very interesting to understand what they really think."

The involvement of Digital Media students in the project exemplifies how the BA(Hons) Digital Media course offers live practical projects that encourage innovation and creative communication in order to engage audiences with great success. "It was great learning about the technology in such an enjoyable environment" commented Megan Williams, a Penryn College student.

The Media Bus Managing Director, Darren Nicholson, added: "The Media Bus concept was created to fill a gap in the educational and training market by taking facilities and space to the people who would benefit from it the most. It's great to be able to combine that aim with getting young people thinking about the 2012 Olympics and give them a creative channel to express their views."

The Media Bus is fully kitted out with high-end digital media technology, including a number of high-definition still and video cameras, digital film editing and sound mixing software, and various Adobe packages.

RELAYS is led by Universities South West through a network of universities and cultural organizations. It aims to blend youth sport and cultural in a vibrant mixture of activities across the region in the build up to the 2012 Games.  It is funded by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity that has been set up to help build a lasting cultural and sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic Games and HEFCE (The Higher Education Funding Council for England).

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For more information about this story or the RELAYS project please visit www.universitiessouthwest.ac.uk/relays or contact: Rachel Jenkins on 01392 454104

For more information about The Media Bus please visit http://www.themediabus.co.uk/, call 0844 842 5454 or e-mail info@themediabus.co.uk

For more information about RELAYS at University College Falmouth please contact tamsin.godfrey@falmouth.ac.uk 

Notes to Editors:

• The regional RELAYS (Regional Educational Legacy in Arts and Youth Sport) is a £3.1million project which will deliver an ambitious, flexible programme of linked cultural and sporting events. The project is grounded in education and aims to inspire a generation of young people and diverse communities throughout South West England. RELAYS is run by Universities South West in conjunction with its partners Lyme Regis Development Trust, The Works and Watershed. The project is funded by Legacy Trust UK and HEFCE. Website: www.universitiessouthwest.ac.uk/relays
• Universities South West is the regional higher education association for South West England. It provides a forum for the 13 Universities and Higher Education Colleges in the region to work together. It aims to extend higher education's contribution to sustainable regional development and to influence and shape the social and economic agenda in the South West region by appropriate joint action. Website: http://www.universitiessouthwest.ac.uk/
• Legacy Trust UK's mission is to support a wide range of innovative cultural and sporting activities for all, which celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and leave a lasting legacy in communities throughout the United Kingdom. Legacy Trust UK has been established as a charitable trust to use funding endowed by the Big Lottery Fund, Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Website: http://www.legacytrustuk.org/
• HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) distributes public money for teaching, research and related activities. In 2008-09 HEFCE will distribute over £9 billion to universities and colleges in England. Website: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name.  It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing.  The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2013/2014 that will be unique to the South West.

The University College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One and Convergence), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

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For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby Dip CIPR MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792, or email:  jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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