The Factory - Hamilton, ON

Hey Bloggers!

So I don't think I ever introduced who I am. My name is Rachel Milak and I am a designer in Hamilton, ON. Hamilton is a real up and coming area for designers - from illustrators to media designers.  Today I traveled down James St. North and came upon a few amazing places any designer or art lover should check out! The Factory was my favourite of all!

"The Factory: Hamilton Media Arts Centre is a not-for-profit artist-driven resource centre dedicated to the production and promotion of creatively diverse forms of independent films, videos, and other streaming multimedia art forms. The mission of The Factory is to develop and support a vibrant, sustainable, creative, and diverse community of Members and non-Members within Hamilton and its surrounding region, who are involved or interested in the Art, the Craft and the Technologies of, but not limited to the motion picture media. The Factory exists to provide access to facilities, equipment, peer resources and educational initiatives to the community of time-based visual artists, as well as to the community at large. To encourage the development and appreciation of all related visual art forms through an ongoing program of screening and events." - http://www.hamiltonmediaarts.com/whoweare.htm

While I was at The Factory I got a chance to speak with Cheryl Blankeney and I found out some really interesting things - not only about the company itself - but about how this company influenced Hamilton art lovers.

The Factory is a great place to go if you are interested in films. The Factory helps provide people with the equipment they need at reasonable prices - and helps you understand how to use them in the most effective way possible with sessions. To use there products you can purchase a membership (students too) at very reasonable prices.

The factory has some really interesting workshops for any film marker in the business if your the director, screen writer or enjoy every aspect. Cheryl told me about this cool 4 week workshop. Basically the take a one page script and break it into a story board, on the second weekend they figure of the camera, lights, etc. On the third weekend you actually make the film. On this week you do all the jobs - camera, camera assist - etc. So the cool thing is - you go in with a number of people making their own film - but using the same script. Each movie comes out differently because each person got to direct it. 

The Factory has been in business since 2004 and recently moved into their new home at 228 James St North, Hamilton, ON - definitely a must see!

So heres the sad news about The Factory. The were robbed not to long ago and lost a lot of equipment. If anyone reading knows about this equipment - you know it isn't cheap. So after all the clean up and heartache had passed on as much as possible - another hard hit came there way. The money they got wasn't fully enough to get everything back after HST. So news spread around and Gallery 205 was outraged at how much this was all costing The Factory so they decided to take action.

    

The gallery gave The Factory 3 rooms to throw a fundraiser in. The fundraiser is April 29th, 2012 from 6pm - whenever, with many local bands all donating their time for supporting The Factory.

I highly suggest taking a trip down to talk to Cherly Blakeney about The Factory - she's a true expert!

Cheryl Blakeney - Arts Administrator

infor@factorymedia.ca