TWO young people have had the chance of a lifetime working on a movie filmed in Great Yarmouth.Emily Payne and Joe Jackson have been working as trainees on the set of Cuckoo, a thriller starring Richard E Grant, helped on their way by the town-based charity SeaChange Arts.

TWO young people have had the chance of a lifetime working on a movie filmed in Great Yarmouth.

Emily Payne and Joe Jackson have been working as trainees on the set of Cuckoo, a thriller starring Richard E Grant, helped on their way by the town-based charity SeaChange Arts.

Emily, from Beccles, studied media at Yarmouth College but was unsure of what to do next.

After a college presentation from SeaChange's youth officer Corrina Giles, Emily applied for a place on film and scriptwriting workshops run by the charity, which led to a film-making programme in Latvia and a film camp last summer in Thetford Forest.

Having worked with professional filmmakers through SeaChange, Emily decided to make film her career. She's now studying for an HND in Media at City College Norwich.

She said: “It's been a dream come true. I've been working in the production office and as a trainee camera assistant but best of all I've interviewed the crew and cast for a behind the scenes look, which will hopefully make it onto the film DVD.”

Joe, 20, from Potter Heigham, made his first short film when he was just 12.

Media and film A-levels at East Norfolk Sixth Form college and involvement in the SeaChange film and scriptwriting project led to his current course at City College Norwich, on the same HND as Emily.

On the set of Cuckoo, Joe worked closely with local sound recordist Jonathan Wyatt as a trainee recordist and boom operator, but he's also had the chance to operate the clapper boards.

Joe said: “It's been the most valuable and important experience for me at the start of my career. To have the experience of working on a feature film will open up so many new opportunities for me.”

Now Emily and Joe's relationship with SeaChange has turned full circle.

Having set up a film production company, Sprintlight Productions, with friend Lucy Wilkinson, they've been employed by SeaChange to produce a film of a project for young people called It's Our Theatre, funded by Arts Council England's Young People's Participatory Theatre Programme.