British children’s laureate to deliver creative keynote address at leading U.K. children’s media event to be held July 5-7 in Sheffield, England.
SHEFFIELD, UK -- The Children’s Media Conference (CMC) has announced that current UK Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell will deliver the Creative Keynote speech at this year’s annual Children's Media Conference, which takes place from July 5th – 7th in Sheffield. Chris Riddell is an acclaimed children’s illustrator and author whose work is familiar to both children and adults as he is also the political cartoonist for the Observer newspaper. His illustrative work involves collaborations with celebrated authors including Michael Rosen and Neil Gaiman and his illustrations feature in beloved children’s favourites Ottoline and the Yellow Cat, Beyond the Deepwoods and Fergus Crane.
The Laureate traditionally takes on a specific campaign role during their two-year tenure. Reflecting this year’s CMC theme “Making it Happen,” Chris Riddell has chosen creative empowerment as his agenda for the kids of Britain. He passionately believes that children’s visual creativity needs to be supported so that all children get the chance to continue what comes naturally, drawing their view of the world around them. His presentation will explore how to make that happen for young audiences while also taking delegates through his own creative journey for this 13th Creative Keynote at CMC.
Greg Childs, Editorial Director at CMC added, “Chris Riddell is the perfect creative catalyst for CMC 2016 because his agenda is inclusive. He wants to make it happen for every kid who aspires creatively and he passionately believes that telling kids they can’t or putting obstacles in their way is a form of discrimination. This resonates with our conference theme, and the growing awareness in the creative industries that it’s essential to ‘make it happen’ for diversity with non-stereotypical representation on screen and in products as well as inclusivity behind the scenes, in production teams and in the creative community. How can we make teams more reflective of the wide range of people in our audiences? Workshops, sessions and special Changemaker presentations throughout CMC will reflect the “Making it Happen” agenda so we are thrilled that Chris will be making a uniquely audience-focused contribution to that discussion, in the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Wednesday, 6 July.”
CMC 2016 will itself make changes which should offer greater engagement for the 1100+ delegates attending. A new midweek format will start on Tuesday and wrap up on Thursday, allowing delegates to take full advantage of all three days during the working week. The event will kick off with the annual CMC International Exchange on Tuesday, July 5th, which aims to bring together IP owners, producers, writers, interactive media specialists and service providers from the UK with broadcasters, distributors, funding agencies, and producers seeking co-production potential from around the world.
Tuesday, July 5th will also see the CMC’s first Open Space workshop, allowing delegates free rein to discuss the diversity agenda from every angle. Tuesday evening sees the CMC Opening Keynote, followed by two full days of conference sessions with multiple tracks exploring every aspect of children's media content creation and delivery. Included will be sessions dedicated to the latest creative trends, business issues, strategic understanding, policy debates, research and commissioning news. All of this will be across the many different sectors of the kids’ media industry including audio, film, TV, digital media, games, licensing, publishing, the arts, culture sector and the ed-tech community.
The conference ends with the Closing Keynote “The Last Word” on Thursday, July 7th at 3.30pm.
Following last year’s hugely successful inaugural Changemakers strand, delegates will again hear from contributors, many of them under 25, who are creating waves in traditional media models, in education, and in the minds of today’s young audience. Changemakers already committed to CMC 2016 include Leo Waddell, the transgender protagonist of multi-award winning CBBC documentary I am Leo and Tourettes Hero Jess Thoms whose comedy demands uncompromising acceptance of her own difference.
Source: The Children’s Media Conference
