Introduce Yourself : Hello from Neath, South Wales in the U.K. by Edward Grabczwski

I've lived and worked in and around London most of my life now. That's when I started to work on sound for several shorts and features, founding The Sound Manifesto (www.thesoundmanifesto.co.uk). After moving with my family to Neath in South Wales, I thought the time was ripe to start an amateur filmmaking community. The idea is to attract local people to make films in this beautiful (albeit wet) part of the world and show them to local people. Neath Filmmakers (www.neathfilmmakers.org) started over a year ago and attracted a few enthusiasts, but it also repelled those who saw themselves as professionals. I've stuck with the word amateur (which means "to love") because it describes our philosophy. The past year has taught us a lot about what the group needs. We had a lot of promises for stories and screenplays but very few materialized; so now I'm concentrating on running a free screenwriting course to get more people started.