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Sam Bentley with his debut blog!

I don’t usually write blogs and this is my first time doing so, here goes I suppose.  I’m going to start by talking about The Detective Collective, which in case anyone doesn’t know is the film Tom and Bailey have been making at gold for the past couple of months. Just recently the short film was released onto YouTube and it shaped up to be a very fun watch. The film is around 16 minutes long and is a comedy about a group of friends that are solving a mystery together, basically Scooby Doo without a talking dog; I will leave it there so I don’t spoil too much. The film was shot in and around the Hepworth art gallery in Wakefield, it was generous of the Hepworth to let us interrupt their otherwise peaceful Saturday mornings so a big thank you to them for that. The Detective Collective was a very fun film to be a part of making as it was made with some of the funniest people I know and this film allowed these people to be as self indulgent as they could which in my opinion makes the film what it is, that and the great editing and storyline from Bailey. So when this film was released, I’m not going to lie, I shamelessly self promoted amongst my friends and family, but that’s okay because they all gave good feedback about it. The making of the film took about six months I think, I’m not 100% sure though, either way during that time one of the struggles faced was continuity; obviously it couldn’t be avoided, it’s not like we were on a Hollywood film set with a high budget or anything, so we were bound to face issues like weather and appearance, but in watching the film we did well to make these things not so obvious.  The Detective collective has been my first experience of being in a film and I very much enjoyed it.

My week at Yew Tree this week began with my volunteering for orange company, me and Jacob both started there because we were using it for our D of E, and through being there a few weeks I feel like we’ve both become a lot better at it, in fact this Thursday I recall us discussing that even when our D of E finishes we plan to continue our volunteering, for me it has become something to look forward to and I feel like I learn a lot from it. My younger brother is also a member of orange company, he started more or less the same time I did, and it’s been good seeing it help his confidence the way it did mine several years ago, it reminds me of my early days at Yew Tree and I’m glad he enjoys it as much as I do.


The final thing I’d like to briefly talk about is gold company’s upcoming performance next Saturday, the 18th called Lit on the Lawn, which is at the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield, now at first with this performance I was unsure, I’ve never exactly considered myself a big fan of classic literature, however through taking part in this performance it has sparked my interest in something that previously had not bothered me too much, I think it is a well written performance that can interest fans of literature and people who aren’t as big on their books.

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