I’m Amanda Robertson and I am currently going into my fourth year of studying Film, Media & Marketing at the University of Stirling. This summer I had the opportunity to work with Summerhall TV and help film and edit videos covering the Edinburgh Arts Festival.

The beginning of the Arts Festival in Edinburgh was very exciting. The first thing we filmed was Charles Avery’s Tree. The amount of media covering the unveiling was slightly more than I ever imagined for Waverley Station. However, it was nice to be able to be involved in filming such an important figure in the arts world.

I particularly enjoyed filming in the Dovecot Galleries. Firstly, the art work by Kwang Young Chun was incredible. His detailed work was fun to film and it meant that we could be slightly more creative with the camera to fully capture the intricacies of his work. As it was the launch of the Arts Festival, Dovecot Galleries was filled with different media people as well as art enthusiasts. I was very aware the whole time we were filming that I was most likely photobombing other people’s pictures and videos of the event. I hope they filmed my good side.

In general, the whole process of filming various significant artists can be quite daunting, as well as creating work that they are happy with. However, I feel like along the process I learnt so much about the artists and their work and how to capture the best version of each exhibition. The arts festival is a busy time in Edinburgh but it is extremely exciting. By experiencing the festival from behind a camera, I feel that I was involved in some way in the creative excitement surrounding the city.

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Luci Wallace, Project Coordinator for Summerhall TV, an arts news organisation based in Summerhall. We make 2 – 3 minute videos covering contemporary arts news and events around Scotland. I coordinate what we shoot, and the content that appears across our websites artinscotland.tv, summerhall.tv and writerstories.tv, as well as our social media channels.

We started the day by visiting Charles Avery’s Tree no.5 at Waverley Station’s concourse. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the press, we grabbed the artist for a quick chat about his work. It was really interesting to see a piece of work like this in the station, and watching members of the public interact with it.

After that, it was a quick jaunt up the road to Dovecot Studios for the Art Festival’s press launch and to interview the festival’s director Sorcha Carey, about the programme. We were introduced to the beautiful work of Korean artist Kwang Young Chun, and spoke to his British representative, Grey Skipwith, about the work as well. One thing I’ve learned from press meets is to always be prepared for extra interviews!

We then made our way down to the Fruitmarket Gallery to meet Phyllida Barlow and talk about her newest exhibition, Set. The work was incredible, filling the lower and upper galleries, and completely transforming the space. We had a lot of fun filming this one as there was so much, and it was great to speak to Phyllida about her work.

Once filming was wrapped, it was back to the office to upload our footage and get to work on editing. A lot to digest but a great chance for Amanda to put her editing skills into practice.

A big thanks goes to Allison Thorpe and Victoria Mitchell from Sutton PR, who pulled together the interviews with Charles Avery and Sorcha Carey, Lizzie Cowan and the Dovecot team for introducing us to Grey Skipwith, and Louise Warmington at Fruitmarket for arranging our interview with Phyllida Barlow.

Find out more about some of the exhibitions currently on at Summerhall:

The Thermos Museum | until 31 August

David Sherry : One Million Years of Laughter | until 5 October

Glyn Thompson : A Lady’s Not A Gent’s | until 5 October

For more art videos, check out SummerhallTV Director Dave Rushton’s Top 5 selection from their archive on Central Station here.

More: Website | Vimeo | Facebook | Twitter

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Louise Bourgeois is one of the greatest and most influential artists of our time. In a career spanning seven decades, from the 1940s until her death in 2010, she produced some of contemporary art’s most enduring images, making sculptures, installations, writings and drawings which, in mining her own psyche, have entered the collective unconscious. There are currently two major exhibitions of Bourgeois’ work on display in Edinburgh.

Fruitmarket Gallery presents I Give Everything Away, an exhibition of work on paper with some of her most intimate work, both drawing and writing on display until 23 February. The exhibition begins with a labyrinthine presentation of Bourgeois’s Insomnia Drawings, a remarkable suite of 220 drawings and writings made between November 1994 and June 1995. Also in the exhibition are two suites of large-scale works on paper, When Did This Happen? from 2007, and I Give Everything Away, made right at the end of the artist’s life in 2010.

This exhibition complements a major ARTIST ROOMS exhibition of work by Bourgeois on display at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – Louise Bourgeois, A Woman Without Secrets, 26 October 2013 – 18 May 2014. This exhibition highlights her late work, showing for the first time, an outstanding collection of works on loan to the national ARTIST ROOMS programme, including Poids (1993), Couple I (1996), Cell XIV (Portrait) (2000), Eyes (2001-2005), and two late masterpieces, the cycle of 16 monumental drawings A L’Infini (2008-2009) and the artist’s final vitrine, Untitled (2010). These works will be augmented by important loans from Tate, The Easton Foundation and private collections.

There are special events linked to both exhibitions – see Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art events here and Fruitmarket events here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

The Gallery’s principal aim is to make contemporary art accessible without compromising art or underestimating audiences, and it presents world-class, thought-provoking and challenging exhibitions of contemporary art made by both Scottish and international artists. The 2012 Festival exhibition concentrates on the theme of the diary in the work of Dieter Roth. Roth was one of late twentieth century art’s major figures, and although he died in 1998, his work remains of interest to artists and audiences alike. He has a particular connection to Edinburgh, having been part of Richard Demarco’s exhibition Strategy Get Arts at the 1970 International Festival. This will be the first time his work has been seen in Scotland since.

The Gallery is also home to Scotland’s leading contemporary culture bookshop and a busy café making fresh, tasty lunches and delicious cakes. The Gallery sits neatly behind Edinburgh’s Waverley Station and is close to many bus routes and the Royal Mile, North Bridge, Waverley Bridge and Princes Street.

Visit the Fruitmarket Gallery’s website here and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. Also check out their Youtube Channel which has some great archive films of Artists’ and Curators’ talks.

The Fruitmarket Gallery is located at 45 Market Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1DF

Gallery Opening Hours Mon – Sat 11am–6pm Sun 12–5pm

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Edinburgh Art Festival was launched this weekend with more than 50 galleries across the city opening their doors to exhibitions by local and international artists.

The festival has commissioned 3 works: last year’s Turner prize winner Richard Wright has painted an intricate piece on the ceiling of the west stairwell at the Dean Gallery; Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth present Staged at the City Observatory on Carlton Hill – a video installation which looks at performance in the city, and at the Fruitmarket Martin Creed: Down Over Up looks at ideas of progression in the artist’s work.

There are also several performances/interventions taking place over the coming weeks. Read our interview with Neil Mulholland to find out more about An Unco Site! by the Confraternity of Neoflagellants taking place on 7 August. Ross Christie will be moving around the city with his Mobile Art Market showcasing emerging Scottish talent and selling all manner of artists’ printed items. And David Sherry will be performing three new works on the topic of Health and Safety, building on his residency at Deveron Arts earlier this year.

Here at Central Station you can look forward to interviews, reviews and discussions on all aspects of this year’s art festival. Keep your eyes peeled for blogs from our festival writers Tulta Behm and Stuart Fallon and be sure to add your own thoughts too.

Edinburgh Art Festival runs until the 5 September. Full programme details are available here.