As time goes on i start to like Sihanoukville more and more. The project itself provides an excellent service for the beach kids. The Cambodian attitude is laid back and positive in the face of poverty. So far on the project itself i have helped with painting, teaching English and general upkeep. My opinions on Sihanoukville and Serendipity beach are changing some for the better. Interesting how it always takes some time for a new place to take shape in the mind.
Some of the kids here are extremely talented and its great to see how passionate they are with thier painting.
This is a movie shot by the kids of CCPP with one of the donated camcorders. Its just a quick demo reel i edited together to show how we edit and what various effects we can use. When i have the media equipment set up properly im hoping they can look at this and ask how to do the certain effects etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4U60lywrss

First days

After a week finding the stillness within on the beautiful island of Koh Mak in Thailand recovering from a long period of hard work teaching English in Korea, i have arrived in Sihanoukville. First impressions are that much of this place is geared towards tourists getting completely wasted out of thier heads. It seems to be very much a lawless place with an unsubtle underbelly of drugs, prostitution and pedophilia. Though i know that its changing as Sihanoukville is developing relatively quickly. The Cambodian Childrens Painting Project is located right by serendipity beach, the centre of debauchery in Sihanoukville. Here local kids come to learn artistic skills and are taught English, they also have thier schooling paid for. More can be read on the website www.letscreatecambodia.org.

First day here was chaotic, trying to figure out how things work etc. I brought out a donated camcorder from the kind folks of Korea, the kids loved it, ill upload a video to youtube soon of thier experiments. My personal objective is to get an independant media art room set up within CCPP where the kids can learn video editing, photo editing and animation. There will be a website showcasing all of the kids work in a few weeks called 'Young Cambodian Filmmakers'.