It has it all: An ambitious idea way ahead of its time; an eight year story from idea through to conception; a fascinating mix of world-wide collaboration, physical devices (a handheld species identifier if you can believe it), totally unique data visualisation techniques; and at the end of all this we end up with something that is going to add a rather significant amount to the sum of human knowledge.
In short, a story of "how big things get done". Inspiring.
3 professional, 3 community and 3 estate-led choirs
An audience of 3,000
1 aim: to sing Birmingham’s truths
On 28th October 2007, REALITY ESTATE will transform the Five Ways Estate, Shopping Centre and roundabout. Developed by Friction Arts and working alongside a roster of internationally renowned artists and the people of Ladywood, together they will ‘sing Birmingham’s truths’, accompanied by some of Birmingham’s best known choirs, to a backdrop of spectacular projections and lighting.
I’ve been working with producers Friction Arts for about six months now helping to embed web 2.0 approaches to the projects they run. It’s first stages at the moment, but the Reality Estate site is the first step, and a good one in the right direction in my opinion.
I’m not often really blown away by a new site but this one has really impressed me. Jumpcut is a system which allows users to create their own videos online quickly and easily.
To make a video you just need to:
Upload titles and imagery.
Upload your video clips (it doesn’t seem to complain much about formats which is nice).
Upload background music.
Whack it all together using a very simple interface.
I managed to put one together in five minutes flat - and the best thing is it’s already up on the web ready to add to your site. None of that waiting three hours for it to upload nonsense.
It’s beautifully made, ridiculously easy to use and is something I’ll definitely be using for projects in the future.
Sites like this are another step along the road to allowing anyone to create without needing a ton of equipment. Good one guys.
UPDATE: Also just found Eyespot which does a similar thing; will let you know how I get on with it.
This month’s show is for Film and Documentary makers and looks at how new internet technologies are changing the landscape of this industry. Includes interviews with Patrick Walker from Google, Fabien Rigall from Future Shorts and Emily Renshaw Smith from Current TV.
For more information on the shows and to subscribe to the podcast, please visit the New Media 4Casts Homepage.
Brightcove - Set up your own online TV station, including advertising revenue and direct sale systems)
Comments, ideas and suggestions
Please let us know what you think of the issues raised in the show. Do you have any other interesting stories or experience in this field? What would you like to see covered in future shows?
I spent an enjoyable half-hour this afternoon interviewing Emily Renshaw-Smith from Current TV for the next show in the New Media 4Casts series for 4Talent. The show will look at the opportunities opened up by new technology for film and documentary makers. It’s been a really interesting one so far and we should be online within a couple of weeks or so.
Here’s the beef, taken from the email I originally received about the project:
“Current TV, which launched August 1, 2005, is the first national network created by, for and with an 18-34 year-old audience. The network shows young adults what’s going on in their world, in their voice. Current is also the first network in history whose programming is supplied in part by the very audience who watches it. It has developed the television industry’s leading model of “viewer created content” (VC2), which comprises roughly one-third of Current’s on-air broadcast, and allows the audience to submit short-form, nonfiction video “pods. Its award-winning programming ranges from the current trends in technology, fashion, music and videogames, to pressing issues such as the environment, relationships, parenting, finance, and politics. Current is available in 30 million U.S. Homes and will be launching in the UK and Ireland in March.”
“… We’re launching in 8+ million homes in the UK and Ireland in March. And we’re looking for filmmakers who can help us make an impact when we do. …”
They’re also running a competition - 1st prize is lunch with Al Gore. Not a bad contact to have in your address book I reckon. It’d be great to see a Midlands based filmmaker win this.
If you’re interested, get in touch using their website.
A great example of how to mix online and offline elements to create a great participative project. Check out the website and tell them who you think should be projected in gigantic letters across Birmingham City Centre.
Here’s a very good example of how some parts of the TV industry still have their heads buried firmly in the sand when it comes to how online video is going to radically change their business.
“The Long Tail…is not an economic reality and it has almost no relevance to the economics of the television business”. A quote from Shelly Palmer, chairman of the national Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards Committee
I’ve just been having a play with Brightcove, a system which allows anyone to set up their own online TV channel. It’s quite like YouTube but much more geared to content producers who want to charge for what they want to do and make a business out of it. It has other advantages over YouTube. I put together my own channel to test it out, and here are my initial thoughts:
Easy to sign up
Easy to use
Comes with its own offline software application (the PublishPod) which converts the video before you upload it, unlike the annoying YouTube process which forces you to do it yourself, degrading the quality.
It’s possible to set charges for each individual video. This is the first time I’ve seen this available in the UK, although I may be wrong.
The player skin looks better than the YouTube one
I’ll post more as I play with it. Here are the results - it took about 20 minutes in total from start to finish to set up the channel and upload this video.
The World Economic Forum are holding their Annual Meeting in a couple of weeks. The 2007 event is being held in Davos and features a pretty heavyweight of speakers including Mohammed Abbas, Mohammed El Baradei, Paul Wolfowitz and our own beloved PM.
Traditionally a fairly closed event, the WEF have decided to get communicating with the wider public. As well as webcasting many of the seminars they have also invited the public to submit video questions and responses.
In addition they will also be setting up a Davos Conversation page which will collate media related to the event from around the web.
Nice to see the world’s great and the good actually making an effort to listen to people for once (it doesn’t seem to happen very often, especially in the UK nowadays). Whether they actually will or not remains to be seen.
