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Our Story

The story of how our company has developed since 2008

We began life in 2008 as DIY Drama, a festival for schools in the Darlington and Middlesbrough area.The aim of DIY Drama was to promote Devised Improvised Youth Drama and to give students the opportunity to perform their exam work to a wide audience

By 2009 the festival had gained enough support to fund a professional director and crew to film the event and create an official DVD. Our first experiments were guided by Garry Moore, director of of S.H.A.M Films.

In spite of the high quality of the work, the arrival of the cameras made it apparent that many of the students, although excellent stage performers, did not have the skills or knowledge necessary to transfer their talent to screen. So DIY Drama began to offer training and work experience for young people in film and TV.

Spring Term 2010 began in January under the new name, ACT 2 CAM. In just over 12 weeks, Brett Gerry Films and Act 2 Cam collaborated to produce our first film, "Beanz". This unique project was devised and performed entirely by our cast of 11–18 year olds.

In the Summer Term 2010, Brett Gerry Films and Act 2 Cam continued to work together, creating "Blood on the Catwalk", an off–beat murder mystery chosen at random from a list of possible genres.

Act 2 Cam ran its first residential holiday in screen–acting and film–making at Polam Hall in July 2010. Stephen Woods worked with the screen actors while Brett Gerry worked with film–makers behind the camera. The project, titled "Mystery Babylon", once again was devised and performed entirely by the cast and crew of 11–18 year olds.

In September 2010 Act 2 Cam cemented a new partnership with Big River Films. "The Good Barber", "Happy as Larry" and "It is Written" are the first term–time films to be shot and edited by the film company. Our company was expanding rapidly, and Stephen Woods left full time teaching in December 2010, to concentrate on building ACT 2 CAM as a business. In January 2011, five new centres were launched in Middlesbrough, Durham, Newcastle, Morpeth and Hartlepool.

For the Easter term, new people have joined the ACT 2 CAM team — Roger Armstrong, Ross McKenzie, Josh Michaelson and Rae Michaelson. We developed 11 centres across the North East.

ACT 2 CAM became a limited company in July 2011.

Our Summer camp at Kingham Hill School was a great success, and we are in the process of taking bookings for the 2012 Easter and Summer camps!

In August 2012 we ran our first ever radio advert, which was created and performed by the young people in ACT 2 CAM. The campaign reached nearly a million people! As a result of the advert we were able to open several new centres and begin offering regular workshops in Yorkshire and County Durham.