PiE Blog

And here is your host...

Mark introduced our evening of entertainment. We then heard about the success of the Video weekends - the products of which we will be watching this evening.

Our first film of the evening is a German version of 'Wife Swap' (now that's what I call a surprise ending!)
This is followed by a French film - what's a girl to do, when two guys want to take her to the film festival?
Our third film concerns a newly married couple (after seeing this, I'm never going near a hotel wardrobe again!)

What a crowd!

Everyone looks wonderful -

I wonder who will be in line for the gleaming awards?

Lets get this party started!

Now that's what I call arriving in style!

The guests are arriving...

Welcome to the live blog from the Partners in Excellence Film Festival '06!

For this special night, I'll be your guest blogger for the PiE blog.

The guests are arriving... the interviews are taking place... the banqueting hall is slowly filling up with excited young people...

AB

Film Festival - Live blog planned

Tomorrow night, some 300 students, teachers and invited guests will come together to celebrate a year of film-making in foreign languages. Andrew Brown, Education Support Officer in Argyll & Bute, has agreed to blog the entire event for us live from Kilmarnock. This of course means that parents, family and friends will be able to tune in to find out who has won the various awards.

Here's the challenge for our readers: if you're a parent, a friend or teacher who isn't able to be at the event, please send a message for the students - we'll read out the best ones live at the Film Festival! You can send a message simply by posting a comment after any of the stories which will be blogged live tomorrow night. We also hope to bring you photos of the event too!

Off now to complete the final preparations!

Film Festival preparations

Over on the PiE site I've just uploaded the Official Press Pack for the Film Festival. We're hoping to get some local and maybe national press interested in the event this year, and hopefully there'll be lots of coverage in the newspapers.

Things are exceptionally busy for the Film Festival and I'm spending today mastering the movies and outputting them as MPEGs for the presentation and the dvd. This will take most of today and over the weekend I'll be working on the films and photos dvd. The posters went out to schools yesterday, as did tickets to all students. Guests' tickets will arrive after the weekend.

I'll be posting regular updates over the course of the next week as the excitement builds!

Film Festival 2006: Nominations

Over the past few weeks a jury made up of representatives from the language learning and media education community from the PiE area and across Scotland has been meeting to decide on the nominations for this year's Film Festival Awards.

We are delighted to announce these awards tonight and would like to congratulate all students involved in the film-making and animation activities. The jury has commented on the professional quality of all films participating in this year's activities.

Awards are being presented in 15 categories this year, and in each case three or four individuals or films have been nominated. The ultimate winners will be announced at the Film Festival.

The following awards will be presented to individuals for their roles in live action films made during the three film-making weekends in 2005-06.

01 Best Actor in a Leading Role
• Euan in Tenues Dangereuses
• Callum in La Tienda de Disfraces
• Andrew in Un Joyeux Noël?
• Ben in La Réception de l'Ambassadeur

02 Best Actress in a Leading Role
• Ruth in Le Dilemme d'Amélie
• Rachel in Frauentausch
• Melissa in La Tienda...

03 Best Actor in a Supporting Role
• Steven in El Hotel de los Espíritus
• Colin in Frauentausch
• Martyn in Le Dilemme d'Amélie

04 Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• Anna in La Réception...
• Kara in Le Dilemme d'Amélie
• Alison in CD Français

05 Nastiest Villain
• Janine in Un Joyeux Noël
• Lauren in La Tienda...
• Eilidh in La Réception...

06 Game for a Laugh Award
• Scott in Vive la Boum
• Euan in Tenues Dangereuses
• Callum in La Tienda
• Emma in Super Samedi

07 Most Romantic Moment
• Ruth and Martyn in Le Dilemme...
• Scott and Kirsty in Vive la Boum
• Rachel and Daryl in Frauentausch

08 Best Presenter (Senior)
• Natalie in Tenues Dangereuses
• Hayley in L'Académie des Fées
• Rhiannon in Frauentausch
• Amanda in Aktenzeichen

09 Best Presenter (Junior)
• Suzanne in CD Français
• Diane in CD Français
• Emma in Super Samedi
• Lesley in Super Samedi

The following awards will be made to live action films (ie. not to individuals) created during the film-making weekends in 2005-06.

10 Best Costume Design
• La Réception de l'Ambassadeur
• Une Semaine de Tenues Dangereuses
• La Tienda de Disfraces
• Vive la Boum

11 Best Cinematography
• L'Académie des Fées
• Frauentausch
• El Hotel de los Espíritus
• Vive la Boum

12 Best Screenplay
• Aktenzeichen
• La Réception de l'Ambassadeur
• La Tienda de Disfraces
• Vive la Boum

The following awards will be presented to individuals for their role in animated films created during the summer schools and animation weekend in 2005.

13 Best Animated Character
• Chico the monkey - Jamie in Star Académie
• Lead Guitarist - Eleanor in T dans le Parc
• Bob the penguin - Kara in Autour du monde

14 Best Voiceover
• Lofty - Sarah in Bob the Builder
• PiE Man - Scott in PiEShip Enterprise
• Barbie - Natalie in Flash Spécial
• Bob - Andrew in Autour du monde

The following award will be made to an animated film created during the Summer Schools and Animation weekend in 2005.

15 Best Puppetry
• Bob the Builder
• Grande Assiette
• PiEShip Enterprise
• T dans le Parc

We would like to congratulate all our nominees. If you have been nominated for an award you should receive a letter in the next few days explaining the arrangements for nominees at the Film Festival. We'd also like to remind all students that on the evening of the Film Festival the audience will vote for the Best Animation and Best Film 2006. So everyone's still in with a chance of winning!

Recent PiECast pdfs

Apologies to many listeners to the PiECast who haven't been able to find the accompanying notes downloads for the most recent programmes.

PiECast 060506 Programme notes (pdf) (168k) - German 1
PiECast 060509 Programme notes (pdf) (158k) - German 2
PiECast 060512 Programme notes (pdf) (174k) - German 3

PiECast 060511 Programme notes (pdf) (154k) - French 1
PiECast 060514 Programme notes (pdf) (151k) - French 2
PiECast 060508 Programme notes (pdf) (151k) - French (Standard Grade)

PiECast 060507 Programme notes (pdf) (168k) - Spanish 1
PiECast 060510 Programme notes (pdf) (163k) - Spanish 2

Apologies once again for the delay with these notes.

Revision materials for Higher exams

Coming this week is the first in a series of revision materials for the Higher exams: a series of three podcasts taking each aspect of the Higher French exam in turn and discussing the best ways to tackle the papers. We've been working with the SQA to produce these podcasts and hope that the final products will be useful to staff and students throughout Scotland. Due to copyright issues, the podcasts will be restricted to use in Scottish schools. For this reason I'll be posting the details on the MFLE discussion board as soon as they're available.

PiECast taster edition

We've uploaded a taster edition of the PiECast, just to outline some of the materials which will soon be available. These include listening practice materials in the run up to the exams, and language courses which will be available later in the summer. You can access the PiECast in iTunes by clicking here.