Supporting Shorts: a gateway to inclusive practice
By Steve Swindon
11-11-2025
TAPE Community Music & Film is a Wales‑based arts charity founded in 2008 to improve accessibility and inclusion, and creative advocacy for all ages and experience levels. Its co-founder and creative director says its Supporting Shorts initiative, launched earlier this year, has become a trailblazer for challenging exclusionary norms in the screen industries.
Supporting Shorts is a wonderful example of where an idea can lead if you take it, and the people behind it, seriously. We conceived it to make filmmaking more accessible through co-creation with those for whom public creative spaces often remain out of reach.
At its foundation lies the innovative Final Draft Easy Write Template, developed with partners at TAPE and Carousel in Brighton, working alongside the tech team at Final Draft, the company behind the leading screenwriting software that automatically formats screenplays, TV shows, and other scripts to industry standards. The aim of this co-creation is to simplify scriptwriting to make it accessible to people whose voices might otherwise be buried by complex industry language.
Inclusive short film The Return of Jamie Vincent
The initiative’s first showcase was held on January 24 2025 in partnership with the Faculty of Media & Sciences at the University of Leeds. It featured two short films created by participants from Welsh special educational needs secondary school Ysgol y Gogarth and TAPE. These films – Race to the Start Line, a comedy about a frantic mountain bike race, and The Return of Jamie Vincent, a horror story set in a mysterious hotel – were written using the Easy Write Template and produced in a wholly collaborative, accessible way.
The launch event was deliberately inclusive and supported by high‑profile figures including Gill German MP, Melanie Hoyes, director of inclusion at the BFI, and representatives from Vue Cinemas among other industry and inclusion partners from around the UK.
Perhaps one of the most powerful outcomes of Supporting Shorts is its opening of cinema screens for inclusive short films. Race to the Start Line was screened ahead of Dogman on February 7, and The Return of Jamie Vincent preceded The Monkey and Death of a Unicorn, beginning February 21 – bringing inclusively‑made work to audiences across Vue and Odeon cinemas in the UK. Over 500,000 people were able to see these films and connect with ideas around inclusive filmmaking and its significant value.
Equally thrilling for the young people from Ysgol y Gogarth was their appearance on Newsround, the BBC’s flagship young people’s news programme, whose presenters attended the premiere of Race to the Start Line at the student’s local Vue cinema. The journalists involved were so encouraged by the ethos through which the film was made, that they asked the young people to remix their report to make it more accessible.
So was born Supporting Shorts’ Newsround Remix project; with funding from the Creative Skills Fund administrated by Creative Wales, TAPE has been able to facilitate workshops through which the young people have been able to deconstruct the Newsround report and reshape it to be more accessible. From this work they will also create a template that can be shared for similar work to happen in the future, encouraging a new route into accessible news reporting co-created by the people who require those changes alongside the BBC journalists able to platform and support them.
Supporting Shorts exemplifies TAPE’s ethos of co‑creation, where those involved are not merely participants but leaders in the creative process. This shifts traditional power dynamics in filmmaking, supporting:
- Empowerment: youth participants from Gogarth school crafted narratives, characters, and production in spaces often closed to them
- Skill‑building: through simplified tools and guided collaboration, participants learned scriptwriting, production workflows, and team‑driven filmmaking
- Visibility: cinema, TV and digital screenings amplify voices in public creative expression, thereby challenging perceptions and opening doors to new opportunities.
The impact of Supporting Shorts stretches far beyond the immediate filmmakers too. By showcasing inclusively-made shorts in mainstream cinemas, the project demonstrates to chain exhibitors like Vue and Odeon that inclusive storytelling is both viable and compelling.
The Easy Write Template offers an alternative to traditionally dense scriptwriting tools. Its success may influence software developers, educators and institutions to adopt more inclusive approaches in creative education and training.
At a time when inclusion strategies are usually top‑down, Supporting Shorts models a participant‑led, peer‑driven approach. It allows people to define the terms of their creative participation, encouraging others to follow suit in designing accessible projects.
The model invites communities, including educational institutions, film festivals, and funding bodies, to reconsider participation models that traditionally exclude those with support needs, neurodivergence or communication differences.
It is fair to say that Supporting Shorts is much more than a filmmaking project, it’s a blueprint for inclusive cultural change. By co‑creating accessible tools, centring youth participation, and staking space in mainstream exhibition venues, the project has sparked multiple outcomes:
- Increased creative confidence and capability
- Raised visibility for voices often under‑represented in the screen industries
- Industry-level shifts in how inclusive practice can and should look
- Practical models for inclusive scriptwriting, filmmaking, and evaluation
- Practical engagement and partnership around new initiatives and practices.
Most importantly, the initiative embodies a shift in mindset: inclusive practice isn’t just ethically right, it’s creatively enriching, innovative, and impactful.
By trusting people with creative leadership and providing inclusive frameworks to support them, TAPE’s Supporting Shorts initiative lays the groundwork for a more equitable, vibrant, and inclusive screen culture.
