[from page 53 of the catalogue]

YOUTH MEDIA FORUM

You know, everyone that you come up against these days in the world of video are usually adults, so they don't really take much notice of you, you know, they think that all you're capable of coming up with is rubbish, and that's just not true ... I bet if we had half a chance, we could produce better stuff than they do . . . But the trouble is, we've got good ideas and everything, it's just we don't always have the skills to operate everything, and how do you get that, I mean, if you go for a job or something, they say you need experience, and you can't get experience without a job, so it's a vicious circle, you know?

So, anyway, that's where the youth video forum is going to be really excellent, because for one thing, we don't have to worry about it being for a broadcast audience or anything, so there's not those hassles of tape quality or having to be a certain length ... we're just going to get out there and tell all the kids about what other kids are doing with video these days,

In fact, a forum, and the festival, and things like video cassette magazines and cable television, which is starting up in Redfern at the moment, are the alternatives to the kind of television that we have to compete with, and groups like us – the youth, and women, and aboriginals can have a fair go and not be left out in the cold like a small minority, but can be treated like equals.

We decided that in our particular forum we would show you a taste of what's being made by students and young people from classes and groups, from heaps of different places, starting right here in this building, and from as far as Birmingham in England. When you've seen that you'll want to come and see some of the stuff in the festival itself, so you can try to do similar or better. The Metro Video kids, for example, have been taking classes in production here in Metro Television since 1983, and they've done some amazing work, and some of them, with the experience they picked up at Metro, go on and score places in really worthwhile courses like North Sydney Tech, or NSWIT, and others have got jobs in TV channels so that's where you get the kind of experience that I was talking about before.

What they discovered from these workshops was how much there was in video for young people, and since then it's grown heaps right across Sydney. There are now fifty schools which have media classes, and about half of them are working with video. This is going on the groups that are registered with the 'Youth Media Project", run from the Inner City Education Centre. That project was set up in 1986 as a communication network among young people who work or study in the field of media, including video, and we've got some works from those groups to show.

There's Sydney Girl's High - they have a great video in this year's festival; Jannali Boys and Jannali Girls have two Media Groups working on some interesting sounding stuff. Also there's the ClevelandSt High School Media Studies Group, and they're working on video, and magazine, and a radio station as well. They already put out the 'Clevo Koori' magazine, and we're hoping that the Aborigine kids will have something to screen and talk about too at our forum.

So it's going to be a giant rage of course, which is what we want, with stuff you can watch and then as much as possible rave with the people who made it, at the same time, or right afterwards, at least. People like the Tamworth Youth Media Explosion, which happened a while ago, and was an unreal experience to be part of. Getting further afield now, and as I mentioned, as far as Birmingham from where we were sent a tape called 'GirI Zone' from the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop, which won an award at the B’ham Film and Television Festival.

Ohh, yeah ... there's that word ... Television ... everything I've talked about so far has been to do with what kids are producing on video, but there's another side to it as well. That is what kids are consuming – what's being made for youth by adults and corporations, mostly, of course, on television. We are going to touch on that just a tad when one or two recognisable faces tell us their side of the 'kid's TV' story ... As for the rest of the adults who have little faith in 'Priority Fun' . . . Let them eat soap!".