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A Side Cinema event from 1982 featuring comment from filmmaker Philip Donnellan, writer Tom Hadaway, author & playwright Barry Hines, playwright Jim Allen, and author Jeremy Seabrook.
As Amber began its Channel 4 Workshop franchise, it organised a weekend exploring the possibilities of film and television as a means of engaging with working class audiences, experience and concerns. This roundtable discussion looks at many of the concerns and ideas around socialist creation and working class activation through media.
The Channel 4 Workshop Declaration in the 1980s was a statement of intent and policy regarding the commissioning and production of independent and innovative programming for the newly established Channel 4 in the UK.
When Channel 4 launched in 1982, it was mandated to be different from the BBC and ITV, focusing on diverse, experimental, and alternative content. A key part of this was its relationship with independent production companies and workshops, particularly those aligned with political, social, and minority-group perspectives.
This initiative led to a surge in radical and socially conscious programming throughout the 1980s, shaping the identity of Channel 4 as a progressive and risk-taking broadcaster. However, the funding and structure of these workshops changed in the early 1990s as broadcasting policies shifted.
0.00: Philip Donnellan. BBC. Feedback from audience. Letters.
1.20: Culture of BBC. Loss of confidence. Need for a political conviction.
2.25: Q. what feedback did you get from the blind community?
2.54: BBC Talkback programme. Producers invited to defend their programmes. Dick Francis – producer of current affairs, Panorama. Royal Institute of the Blind.
4.10: Charles Parker. Radio producer. Blind representation group. Establish a social spin off after programme. Film about gypsies (Where do we go from here?, 1968). Eat. West Midlands Gypsy Liaison Group. Eat, first site for travelling people in Wolverhampton.
4.50: Blind Integration Group after Bd8 The Enclosed World of the Blind film in London and Birmingham. Develop dialogue with two unions about blind welfare. County Councillor in Shropshire. Blind Committee – with one blind person.
5.55: Producer role. To expose people’s lives not adequately exposed. Sunderland. Programme, A Moment to Talk. Murray Martin contact in Boiler Makers. Austin & Pickersgill. Bartrams, South Dock, Sunderland. (Sunderland Oak, 1961)
7.20: Q. Brenda Whitelock, chairman of Newcastle Writers Club. New channel. Channel 4. Where to send scripts ans what they are looking for.
7.45: Channel 4. Commissioning Editors. Drama, Current Affairs. Charlotte Street, London. Swamped with application. First time access for independents. Embargo.
9.00: BBC Two research. A film by x for BBC television. BBC commission films by independents for BBC TV.
9.30: Double Image, 1965. 6 writers write a play and film documentary about the same subject. Ray Jenkins. Tom Stoppard. Allan Sharpe.
10.10: Set up with two directors. Charles Denton. Richard Marquand. Documentary for BBC Two.
10.55: ITV. Independent producers. Growth of freelancing.
