The Story of Digital Voice: Mike Pentney
Over the fifteen years we’ve been in existence we’ve collected together a rather wonderful group of people who bring their skills and experience to our projects. Our freelance team is one of the aspects that make Digital Voice stand out from the crowd. This week I talked to
Mike Pentney about what got him involved in the organisation in the first place, and why he keeps coming back.
Mike Pentney is a film-maker who runs his own company, Notorious DIT, based in London. Originally from the North-East, Mike studied Media Production at Northumbria University and then worked for a well respected post-production house in Newcastle. Mike is working on a number of projects, most recently a Guy Ritchie production. He has an RTS award for Professional Excellence in Editing.
Mike’s first encounter with Digital Voice was in the very early days of the organisation’s work:
“I was working as an editor for Imagine, a post production house in Newcastle and Olwyn and Julie [co-founders] brought in a few different films that I edited on. I got talking to Julie and an RTS awards do and she started telling me about the participatory work they did with children and young people the rest was history!”
It’s no coincidence that someone with such an inspiring career in film should work on our Inspiring Futures programme, input from professionals like Mike make such a difference:
“Julie asked me to help develop a course called Inspiring Futures where we’d help groups of young people and sometimes adults make a film in a week. It was great fun and really good experience for the groups. From there Olwyn and Julie devised Passionate about Media, an initiative where myself and other TV and film professionals mentored a group of young people with an interest in the industry to make a film about the RTS awards. I mentored the editing trainee who went on to study film making and then set up his own film production company.”
I asked Mike what he enjoys most about the projects he delivers with Digital Voice:
“I loved being able to help people share what they have to say, using the skills I have. We did so many great projects but they all had social justice at their heart which is really important to me.”
And that social justice element has led Mike and Julie to some places rather far away from the North-East hasn’t it?
“Julie and I were lucky enough to go to Colombia! We were making a documentary about human rights issues for indigenous people for a Colombian organisation, and while we were there we worked with a group of young people to support them to make a film about the human rights event we were all attending. There were some sketchy moments, like when the army was patrolling outside and we were filming, and when we were being searched at the airport and asked about why we’d been there, but it was ok!”
Delighted to have you as part of our team Mike!
We’re excited to be running Inspiring Futures again this summer and have more to tell you about that in our next interview with broadcaster Chris Jackson.
For information on all of our programmes click here.