Lights, Camera, Action: AYT Summer Project 2026

Cleo shares what she and her peers got up to during the summer term at Arcola Youth Theatre: 

This term at Arcola Youth Theatre we have worked very hard on a filming project where our end goal was to produce a short TV show inspired by Gogglebox. We used many different techniques and participated in many different exercises to craft our end result. Film and TV wasn’t a new concept to AYT but creating pieces to be filmed was a new and exciting opportunity. We had to learn new ways of acting like being aware of your eyeline and acknowledging where the camera was plus learning to stay in frame. It was interesting because the techniques we were so accustomed to using and the rules we always followed like being aware of our proximity and keeping distance to use the full stage were thrown out the window.

To create our scenes we had many brainstorming sessions where we thought about different news stories we would like to see or fear to see in the future and discussed what genres of TV there were like reality TV or sports channels. We also played many character development games like Werewolf where we played as devised characters. We were also lucky to have a stage combat workshop which gave us an insight into how people on screen fight without getting hurt. It also gave us the opportunity to broaden our scenes and add some excitement to them through learning how to safely punch, slap and even strangle!  After generating initial ideas we began to move onto creating scripts and finalising scenes. We participated in specific exercises that developed our pieces like being given a place or genre of TV and then going on to devise our pieces. After creating our individual scenes we performed to our youth group peers who gave us feedback to further develop our performances. Our group leaders then took our scenes and consolidated them onto paper in the form of scripts that were suitable to be performed on screen.

On the filming day all AYT groups came together to work with professional filmmaker James Duffy who helped with breaking down our scenes so they were ready to be filmed. We focused on where our eyeline was, where the set should go and how props should be used. We had a very exciting and professional set up which included equipment such as a green screen, lights, a clapper board and a boom mic. We also had two cameras which allowed there to be different angles creating a more engaging piece. Each scene was carefully rehearsed before the actors entered the studio because whilst they were with James they only had a few takes to get it right.

Considering the filming day took place during 30 degree weather and the studio was a few degrees hotter than that I feel as though everybody did an amazing job and the outcome is truly terrific! The film is a brilliant mix of all genres including comedy with seriousness (but lets be honest how serious can you be when fights are ensuing because of yellow cars?) and ties all three youth theatre groups together perfectly creating a strong community and a project everyone should be so proud of! Expect traitorous roundtables, sloppy school meals and a nice dose of old lady gossip plus all kinds of drama that will never beat a Jet3 Holiday!

Percy gives a sneak preview into the film Arcola Youth Theatre created: