DVD
The Haydays is a project delivered by the Richmount Rural Community Association and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
This project is an exploration of farming and home life in the 1950s, with a specific focus on the North Armagh region.
Over the period of 16 months, we brought filming crews along to capture:
- ‘Diary room entry’ style interviews, each discussing a different element of life in the 1950s,
- A tour of the local orchards and countryside,
- A scripted tea dance reenactment,
- A video showing the process of ‘hay making’
- Local event, ‘Country Comes to Town’ highlights
It was decided that each would be filmed, editing and released at staggered intervals to give the online audience fresh material to look forward to.
In the conclusion of this project, all videos were integrated into a DVD menu with different chapters with 1000 copies being copied and printed.
https://www.facebook.com/thehaydays1950s
www.thehaydays.com
Booklet design and production
The Haydays project also involved the design of an 80 page, A4, booklet which was divided into chapters to give a historical and entertaining run down on life during the 1950s in rural Armagh.
We worked with the talented writer,Joe Garvey, to ensure that the design complimented the content of the booklet and was consistent throughout.
1000 copies were printed with an attachment on the back page for the Haydays DVD to be simply attached.
Event Management
Through the Hay Days project, we were delighted to help manage the organisation of a tea dance reenactment set in the beautiful Brownlow House.
Participants from The Richmount Rural Community Association group joined together with some young people to ‘re-live their youth’ and show the fun side of the 1950s.
We linked with Laura McGrath, a local dance tutor, so that RRCA were able to both learn and perform a dance to “softly, softly,” by Ruby Murray and the young people were transported to the 1950s as they learnt and performed a dance to “Jailhouse Rock” by the one and only Elvis Presley! A wonderful spread of afternoon tea was arranged with antique china supplied to add the finishing touch. As well as this, BNL were pleased to work alongside’Rustic Runway’ in Omagh to provide costumes and accessories for the ladies, both young and old, and Make-up was completed by Naomi Tate.
Aside from the co-ordination of this event we were able to provide photography and filming services to make sure that this day was one they wouldn’t forget!
We had a lovely day, this project was a wee reminder of “the good old days” and we loved sharing fond memories of all the shenanigans that went on!
Website
A one-page website was designed and hosted by BNL Productions, the main purpose being to signpost any online traffic to the social media site and Youtube channel for more information.
Social media set-up and training
In the hope of enhancing the initial audience and lifetime of this project, we taught the group how to best promote their project on Facebook and Youtube.
The group were able to guide the content of this
Photography workshops
One of our wonderful facilitators, Jo, took the members of RRCA through a series of 5 photography workshops looking at the technical and artistic elements of photography with the group.
Together, they explored examples of nature photography and gathered thoughts on what they wanted to capture themselves, to contribute towards the Haydays booklet and DVD aspects.
Throughout the process, the participants were supplied with DSLR cameras or taught on the workings of their own cameras as they travelled to local farms and fields to take photographs.
The final session involved a visit to a Mac computer editing studio were they were taught how to edit photographs using computer software.
