DiG Space Program Round 1

The Round 1 DiG creative team brought to life Urban Futures with a multimedia video celebrating and exploring the importance of trees in our community.

The team created Urban Futures, a multimedia video celebrating and exploring the importance of trees.

Creative brief:

Background

In 2015 Council adopted our cooling the City Strategy, to help make the region cooler during extreme heat in summer. The Strategy identified increasing tree planting as one of the key actions to achieve a cooler region. This includes on Council owned land such as reserves, roadsides, and nature strips, but also on resident’s own properties. However, resident’s views can sometimes be polarised on trees, particularly when they are close to their own homes and businesses, so we want to promote their benefits.

Cooling the City Strategy – August 2015

• Investigate innovative approaches to build community support and ownership of green infrastructure e.g. Adopt a street tree, Shade ways.
• Encourage new and refurbished buildings to contribute to a landscaped, cooler and more sustainable City Centre through design including shade trees, water features, rooftop and vertical gardens
• Develop, resource and implement an enhanced Street Tree Master plan

The City and Urban - Cooling the City

• Housing styles - standalone suburban housing, high density residential apartments, units and town houses.
• City and Urban streets

Creative team:

The project was brought to life through the collaboration of the Round 1 DiG team:

• David Clarkson (Mentor)
• Petar Jovanov (Composer)
• Neil Hawkins (Graphic Designer)
• Adam McPhilbin (Cinematographer)
• Me-Lee Hay (Composer)
• Peter Long (Composer)

Mentor:

David Clarkson – international Executive Producer and Artistic Director of Stalker Theatre.

Testimonials:

“The DIG Creative Development Program conducted by Penrith City Council is an excellent program. I am very grateful and fortunate to be among one of the artists for this program. This program has enabled me to meet other artists and practitioners from different disciplines whom I have now become friends with and hope to collaborate with on more projects in the near future. The program has also permitted me to work in a collaborative environment which I am a strong believer in.

It is a great way to network with people from all different types of disciplines and work backgrounds. Furthermore, the opportunity to be mentored by a true professional who has a vast amount of knowledge and experience is also very liberating for me as a practitioner therefore I am learning a whole lot of new things that I can incorporate in my own practice. The whole program is amazing, and I think this opportunity should be offered to young artists every year.”

- Petar Jovanov, Composer 
Website: www.petarjovanov.com

“The DiG Space Mentorship and Residency Program has given me the opportunity that will create pathways and networks that could potentially open doors to future employment, in an industry that I am most passionate about. Graphic Design and photography has been a love of my life, for over 20 years I have been dreaming about working in the creative industry and with this opportunity, my dreams are now coming into reality.”

- Neil Hawkins, Graphic Designer

“The DiG Space Program has created great opportunities for myself to grow as a filmmaker. One of the many great things about this program is that it has created a great opportunity to collaborate with talented Artists from the local area and explore filmmaking in a different way. I have never worked with Film Composers before so the DiG Program is a great way to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone of just choosing royalty free music from a website.”

- Adam McPhilbin, Cinematographer

"The DiG program is already showing new ways of pushing my arts practice forward into new directions which excites me. It also gives me the opportunity to work in new environments of industry levels which wouldn't normally be available to me unless it was at commercial costs. "

- Me-Lee Hay, Composer

(Composer Me-Lee Hay won Best Music for a Short Film for Last Tree Standing, a dark dystopian fairy tale at the Screen Music Awards. November 2017.)

“The DiG digital creative space in Penrith has provided an invaluable opportunity for myself as an early career audio-visual artist to meet and create with other like-minded individuals. It gives us the freedom to contribute our own expertise within a set brief, but also builds upon our knowledge by providing mentorship from an experienced creative, as well as opportunities to look at different ways of working with new media and technologies. The meetings are always full of shared ideas and compared notes, fuelled by coffee and plenty of bad jokes – we enjoy ourselves, but have a common goal in delivering an outcome that will benefit and engage the broader community. The DiG space proves an ideal environment for us as artists to network, collaborate and create.”

- Peter Long, Composer