Over the past seven years Multi Media Arts Documentation (M-MAD) has been developing ways of engaging young people with their communities using digital multimedia.  

It was a dream of both Krystyna Zdan-Michajlowicz, independent film maker and Pete Lewis, sound engineer and technician, to help young people, especially the more disadvantaged, to be able to make their own films and music.

The company has gone from strength to strength, working closely with East Cornwall CVS (formally Community Projects Trust) to bring digital media technology to young people in the North Cornwall area.  By using digital media, music and drama M-MAD have been able to help young people and local people look at themselves, their environment and the communities where they live, producing a finished film that they are proud of.

Krystyna has worked in partnership with youth and community groups in the area and has built up a good reputation for engaging young people who are difficult to reach.  Working with artists and musicians she has built a model that works, which reaches out to these young people and provides them with a platform to express their feelings.

Pete, a sound engineer, has worked with many local bands and has built a reputation for providing sound reinforcement that accurately reproduces the source.  Pete is also a dab hand at coach building as well as mechanical engineering, he has spent the past eight years developing and moulding his Bedford TK into a vehicle for both living and working out of.  The Bedford TK has now been replace by a 1964 Bedford Embassy Coach, Pete has spent 36  months restoring this and it is now a very usable space.

The outreach coach (Molly Media) has enabled Krystyna and Pete to take the sound and video equipment to the young people and community groups who want to use it, running workshops to them to make films about their lives.  Training includes the use of cameras, developing storyboards and ideas for content, interviewing techniques as well as editing using various software packages.  The young people are also able to make their own electronic music to use as sound tracks for their footage.