s’ Sense of Historyyesterday, Harwich’s Electric Palace was presented a first from some young local film-makers.
Lost Treasure in Jaywick was written, directed, filmed and acted by students from Clacton Coastal Academy, formerly known as Bishops Park College.
The Young Roots Heritage Lottery Fund project in conjunction with a local Essex charity, CoastNet, was a short fictional film inspired by the 1953 floods.
In April the students conducted oral history interviews with elderly residents of Jaywick and Clacton. The students wrote and shot the film during the summer. Their story involves a treasure hunt around Jaywick and Claction and a love story between fictional characters Sweet Tina and a 1950s gangster known as Jimmy the Dip.
The characters were inspired by an old photograph of a gentleman in an old fashioned suit and gangster hat from early Jaywick. Sweet Tina is a popular landmark in Jaywick and is actually a curtain and fabric shop but the students were so taken with the name that they wanted to incorporate it into their story.
Juliana Vandegrift, from CoastNet, said: “The students have worked really hard to produce a wonderful short film with an interesting twist at the end.”
(Source: East Anglian Daily Times, 16th September)
Film Premiere, Electric Palace, Harwich
