To be or not to be?

The month of January for Cre8ive8 has definitely been the month of plays, dramas and acting :)
What we're on about is the 3rd English Drama Festival that was held on the 16th December 2006. This cheerful event took place at the Dramski theater in Skopje and featured 12 drama groups aged 9-20 who performed the plays they had written by themselves. And of course Cre8ive8 was present there with its members who performed their own plays in their own heads. It's much safer that way :) Haha ... the team enjoyed itself and managed to relax in the "young-ish" atmosphere floating all around. Just a couple of days ago the promo DVD of the festival was finished including all 12 plays and a short clip about the teacher's comments.

Aladdin in Chinatown :)

… All I want for Christmas is you… is what Mariah Carry would say. But if you ask Cre8ive8, they would definitely ask for another Pantomime. And if you ask why, you will certainly get the simplest answer. Because it was on of the most exciting, enjoyable, amusing, amazing, funny, interesting, puzzling, brilliant, thrilling, hilarious events we ever took part in. Aladdin in China, extremely positive people of all ages taking the challenge of acting, fascinating story, fascinated audience, great scene set up, and even greater back stage atmosphere is a short depiction of what was happening for more than 7200 seconds. And the eye of Cre8ive8 was there to film it all. We put the evidence of that amazing crime, which is considered to be a traditional English Christmas play, happening in Macedonia for second time this year, on 5 tapes, filmed from 3 different cameras. Thanks to the warm and friendly team, which was responsible for this play, we managed to make interviews with almost all of the actors, including the British Ambassador, and the director of the play. We also did what we always do, which is catching much juicy footage. No more words are needed, because the DVD we have produced tells more than 1000 words of what was happening during the Pantomime. So, hope you will have the creative chance to take a look at it.

SEE the FUTURE

Somewhere in the second week of December 2 little (or not so little :) Cre8ives were invited to work & document the 1st Regional Session of the European Youth Parliament for SEE ... SEE the Future. Vesna (Dzi :) and Alex were their names. But that was not all. Since in most stores when you buy 2 u get 1 plus .. on our biggest delight we had one C8 member joining us who's role this time was strictly EYP-ish.
That was Tamara and she was an Orga (- nizer - of course :) And so together this lovely trio, supporting each other, worked brilliantly together (whether we had problems or ran out of alchocol). Joking .. :) What we can say about the Session was that it was a very intensive and exausting event, on which people had a lot of fun but at the same time learned many things. If you are interested in how the Session looked like - the What Makes a Session link on their website should give u a good clue. We have to add that the parties were very good and that perhaps it wasn't as bad that sometimes we were feeling cold since it motivated us to go and mingle. We believe that C8 left a very good impression on this Session and left a very professional image behind with the people that attended it. Proof of this, lies in the Cumu article in which we were included and of course became famous again. Autogram signing is tomorrow :P Hehe .. anyhow ... a 5 min official clip was made of the event and finished about a week ago.
Hope u like it!

P.S> I'm afraid that this is the part when we'd have to mention the President of the Session Ms. Elena Stavrevska and thank her for the endless support, all those nights spent in laughter and of course the lovely gatherings were she threatened us that "We would be creating outside :)" if we didn't quiet down. It was Alex's fault :D

That's all amigos! Astaluego :)

Art Line

Think of a line… think of a unity of dots, floating freely through out the space…

Now think of a unity of young people, floating through the cre8ive world of ideas…think of Art Line…

It all started almost a year ago, at the beginning of 2006. Till then, C8 had worked mainly on promotional films, we all felt that it was high time to set free our ideas in the field of short art films. And so, the Art Line Project was born. At first it looked like an ambitious & promising idea, but later on it proved to be much more. The point was to open this project for other inspired young people as well, so we made an open invitation to all young film enthusiasts to join C8 as cooperators in this project. It was absolutely fantastic to realize that out there there are so many young inspired & inspiring people, who look for opportunities to devote the cre8ive energy.

The Art Line Project was an opportunity like that. Even from the very beginning of the project was followed by fresh, open-minded ideas. Three intriguing topics were chosen to be the themes for the films.We were to work on Flirt, Paradox & Muse. All three ideas are closely connected to the young person, who copes with the flirt in the everyday life, looking for a muse, source of inspiration, while trying to understand the paradox of living to die. After 2 months active work on the scripts, we started filming the 1st Art Line film "Flirt". It was an unbelievable experience. Experience that helped C8 to mature like a team in a way and develop relationships with the talented people taking part on the Art Line project. We also got deeper into the work of professional film making. It was amazing being part of a team of young amateur professionals, working with such enthusiasm.

We managed to film the 15 min film in 2 days, or shall I say 2 nights. The location where the filming was set, Kapan An, was a perfect for the flirt crime. Mysterious hallways, candle lights, beautiful girls, and shining coins… it's just part of the story. Wait for the rest by February 2006, when to postproduction of the film is about to be finished.

What are we having for dinner tonight? ... Beer & chocolate?!

19-23 November was the time when Cre8ive 8 decided that they would become expansive, hence Tamara, Martin and Stefan were sent to the EU & ME conference to Brussels, Belgium. Discussions and workshops were held on a daily bases during this period, and these 3 Cre8ives managed to cover all of them, plus some incriminating shots of participants swilling divine and absolutely delicious Belgian beer!
None of the participants were camera shy, nor were the MEPs (Members of European Parliament) who were interviewed in the enormous building of the Parliament. Attentively following our work throughout were Elizabeta Jovanovska and Andrew Hadley, and of course our dear friends from Blue Sky, Andreja, Sofia and Igor.
Accidentally meeting Robert Jankulovski and his photography team from Macedonia, was a good opportunity to see ancient Macedonian pictures on the walls of the Parliament’s substantial building. These two teams were a happy combination to film and show the Macedonian audience where and how our culture is being presented.
Overall, the experience was invaluable, the team worked smoothly, we became a small family, and we tasted the best beer and Belgian chocolates that were ever made!

Alex going international!

One of Cre8ive8 members, Aleksandar Mickov has been invited to be a Jury member in a one minute film contest taking place in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 17-19 of November this year. He will present the award for the best film clip at the Conference organised by UNICEF. This is another great achievement for Cre8ive8 since last year when they won the award for the best film clip on theme Voices of Youth. Good Luck to Aleksandar and may he present Cre8ive8 in the best light.

GDLN Achievement

Macedonian video entry "Stairways", produced by Cre8ive8, ranked third for the People's Choice Award at the 2006 GDLN World Forum, held in Washington DC on 9-11 October 2006.

Dear humans & Blue Sky beings? we're happy to inform you about Cre8ive8's new achievement :) Not more than a month ago C8, supported by the British Council's Study & Conference Centre and in cooperation with the State Authority for Geodetic Works, decided to take part in the World Bank's Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) Video Competition. We were due to submit a 3 minute video clip that would celebrate the achievements and illustrate the impact on the GDLN related work over here in Macedonia. Thus why, the video's main "heroes" are the employees of the State Authority for Geodetic Works that attended the GDLN video sessions. Anyways, just a couple of days ago the announcement came that:

Macedonian video entry "Stairways", produced by Cre8ive8, ranked third for the People's Choice Award at the 2006 GDLN World Forum, held in Washington DC on 9-11 October 2006.

"When our video was announced, it was described as "very interesting production and very different from the other entries" by Monika Weber-Fahr, Manager of the GDLN and Multimedia Division at the World Bank Institute." - says Zarko Koneski, the British Council's Study & Conference Centre representative at the GDLN World Forum 2006.

Other countries that participated as well were: Australia/Timor Leste, Benin, India, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, Thailand and Ukraine, and the awards were presented by Frannie Lautier, Vice President, World Bank Institute, and members of the jury.

Even though video entres like these are not Cre8ive8's main goal this is yet another achievement and proof that we have grown into a professional film crew.

Off we go looking 4 new challenges :)