Creative Stars was an exciting, one-off, year-long project run by Cornerhouse in partnership with Band on the Wall, Contact Theatre, the Library Theatre, the Royal Exchange, Unity Radio and Zion Arts Centre. The project was funded by Manchester City Council and involved 19 talented young people living in the Greater Manchester region. The Creative Stars project ran from April 2011 – April 2012 and gave the 19 successful applicants the fantastic opportunity to develop and showcase their talents.
We received over 100 applications from young people wanting to take part in the project and the standard was high. The successful applicants had a fantastic selection of skills between them in the areas of visual art, design, filmmaking, photography, music, performing arts, radio production, writing and events production.
During their year-long experience, the team undertook a huge range of skills workshops to help develop their talents. They also visited exhibitions and saw theatrical and musical performances. They programmed a young people’s cinema takeover day and Christmas film at Cornerhouse, they curated and produced a fantastic exhibition at Cornerhouse called Lost Is Found, and their final project involved creating a short film which enabled the team to bring all of their talents together in one final showcase. The film, Henry: Portrait of A Serial Sketcher is about a young lad who escapes the real world through his illustrations. The Creative Stars came up with the idea, wrote the script and storyboard, created animation sets, directed, acted, filmed, animated, edited, completed all After Effects and even created the film soundtrack. They truly are a talented bunch.
The Creative Stars
Adele Ralls Glynn
Adele is passionate about performing arts and played a great role in the final film as one of the pupils. We expect to see Adele on our TV screens in the near future.
Alastair Howard
Alastair is a talented young creative who played a key role in curating Lost is Found. He’ll either be working as an architect or as a leading creative in the future.
Alex Leigh
Alex is a gifted artist who expanded his skills as one of the curators for Lost is Found. Alex will be exhibiting his work at Cornerhouse in November and we’re sure that he’ll go far with his art career.
Charis Riley
Charis loves dance and drama and is also involved in radio production with Unity Radio. She has so many talents. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Elizabeth Gibson
Liz specialises in photography and filmmaking and is particularly interested in wildlife photography. Liz has had a busy year as she was shortlisted for the International Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and won a student award for International Understanding. We expect to see her photography in various competitions over the coming years.
Emma Shales
Emma loves film and photography and her life long dream is to become a professional filmmaker. Emma was a key member of the filmmaking team and will no doubt go far in this field.
Jennifer Renshaw
Jennifer is a keen performing artist. She loves music and drama and dreams of eventually working in theatre. Jennifer made some fantastic sets for the animated scenes in the films too.
Katie Harris
Katie is into film and television. She loves stop-motion animation and led on all animation for the film. We’re hoping that Tim Burton may coming knocking on the door sometime soon.
Liam Roughley
Liam is a keen graphic designer and has a particular interest in advertising. Last year he was on the production team for Cornerhouse’s underexposed film festival and this year he expanded on his experience through the Creative Stars programme.
Liza Vul
Liza is an artist and filmmaker. She is also a musician and has appeared on a young people’s talent show on Ukrainian television. Liza became a core member of the filmmaking team during the project and is aiming for big things in the future.
Maisie Barker
To date Maisie has written short stories and poems in her own time and during the filmmaking project, she got stuck in with the writing of the script. Maisie loves writing and hopes to one day work as a screenwriter.
Mike Nickson
Mike is a keen filmmaker. He was heavily involved with all filming throughout the Creative Stars programme and led on the After Effects elements to the film project. He’s already half way to realising his filmmaking career so watch this space.
Neetu Roy
Neetu loves art and is interested in how an artists can challenge people’s thoughts. Neetu played a vital part in the curation of Lost is Found and even overcame her public speaking fears and sat on the discussion panel for the exhibition. We’re looking forward to seeing her excel in her career.
Oliver Jones
Oliver is a natural presenter and actor. He played the main character in the film, hosted the Young People’s Cinema Takeover Day, hosted the Lost is Found podcast and represented Cornerhouse in a radio interview with the BBC. Oliver also led on the writing of the Lost is Found press release and gallery guide copy. He’s bound to go far.
Paddy Johnson
Paddy is a dedicated young creative. He tried out every skills workshop and creative opportunity that was thrown at him during the Creative Stars project and despite not reading music, he composed the soundtrack for the film. What a talent! We can’t wait to see what creative path Paddy will take.