global digital creativity research & workshops

Riding the crest of a BBC Blast wave, the truck rolled in to Norwich right outside the Forum. There wasn’t enough room to put up the awning, but we had a marquee instead for the dance workshops and music. The main event for me was to work with ‘DJ Swift’ to create a pop video, working with a team of young people who have never handled a video camera before, let alone thought about how a music video is put together!

We had brilliant support from Julian Langham, who normally edits things like Blue Peter - he was a star! Julian gave his time and energy all day long for three days to make sure this project took off.

Also on the team was Louise who presents on Look East… between us we had enough folk to go out into the centre of town and start filming.

There was a lot of local interest in the work, but we spent a lot of time on the top floor of the multi-storey car park… this caused enough of a problem for someone to complain - thinking a bunch of youngsters were up to no good (It’s been a while since I was referred to as a youngster… thanks, whoever you were!). We trekked through the town and into the castle grounds, filming different sections in different places. The best was an underpass, in my opinion, but only because it really seemed to fit the urban landscape of the song.

Using simple reflectors, daylight (boy it was warm) and Sony z1 cameras, we spent two days out filming, plus another editing (well… Julian did). Between locations and shoots we visited the editing suite in BBC Look East, passing by Dr Who’s Tardis and a few Daleks as we went.

In fact, it’s worth mentioning that one spectacular workshop was a radio show where Dr Who landed in the middle of Ambridge, amongst ‘The Archer’s’… very funny, and very topical for the location!

The first night saw the truck crew happily tucking in to a Pizza Express pizza in the forum restaurant when a lightning storm took hold… followed by torrential rain. We found a quick way downstairs out in to the storm, because the site was flooded with two inches of water or more in seconds flat - we really had to shift the equipment off the floor pretty fast! Needless to say we were soaked, so a quick change of crew t-shirts was in order before we could go back to our meal.

This was an outstanding location for BBC Blast and full of fun and excitement. The results for the filming are superb, and there are some fantastic products that have been created.

For one day only Hal MacLean and the BBC Blast Truck were in London’s Trafalgar Square demonstrating the BBC’s flagship creative project and encouraging young people to climb on board and have a go.

Above, Hal juggles.

Hal MacLean and myself joined the BBC Blast Truck in White City to in the lead facilitation role working with young people from the London Region on Digital Creativity projects. Hal and I spent two days of the event working with a group of budding young enthusiasts interested in a career in television. We demonstrated to them the technologies before undertaking a tough filming task. On the first day of White City we were joined by Ultralab’s Colin Elsey and co-Blast Lead Facilitator Hamish Scott-Brown who brought the young people from the Anglia Ruskin Summer School for a day on the truck undertaking an Animation task.

King Harold School’s Malcolm Burnett arranged for a bus load of his young people, spending their time between the truck events and the BBC’s 21CC Creativity Centre.

A huge amount of BBC staff were about for the three day event, in particular a strong presence of BBC mentors…. that’s people that work for the BBC helping the young people with advice.

The final day was completed with a big celebration of music, film and dance attended by well over 100 people. A great time was had by all.

Richard Millwood, Director of Ultralab joined the finale event and filmed the performances from one of the live cameras. Iona Walters, friend of Ultralab from ‘Input CBBC’ project days was also in attendance filming the dance participants in action. It was also great to see Gail Taylor, who was part of the Ultralab ‘Online Soap’ project back in 2002 (read more about it on this site), Gail now works for the BBC on mobile telephone projects and will be joining the Blast Truck when it arrives in Bristol, as a mentor.

Click to view some of the pictures taken at the event.

The Anglia Ruskin Summer School 2006 completed today. The objective of the project was to show University life to young people who are considering a University education but their parents have not attended University themselves.

Throughout the week the young people have worked with various people across the University, on Wednesday the young people spent the day with the Ultralab team on the BBC Blast Truck in White City London.

Here are the completed projects generated over the five day period:

 Black Clouds: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Difference isnt Different: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Internet Kidnap: Play Now | Play in Popup
 The Norms: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Under Age Smoking: Play Now | Play in Popup

For the past four years (excluding last year) Ultralab has been running the Anglia Ruskin University Summer School. Young people from around the Essex region will be attending Ultralab for an entire week working on their film, music and animation skills. On Wednesday the young people will head to the BBC Blast Truck in White City to join myself and Hal MacLean for their Animation session. Hamish Scott-Brown, Neil Boughen and Colin Elsey will be working with the young people for the rest of the time they are with us.

Lecturers and other visitors from around the University will arrive at Ultralab to give talks to the young people who’s parents never actually attended university themselves.

Over the next five days the young people will be invited to participate in much ‘tougher’ creative challenges.

In the first hour from arriving Hamish set the young people the challenge to make a ‘12 photograph story’ as a team building and ice breaking exercise, here is the completed work from that one hour session:

 Black Cloud Group: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Cheese on Toast Possy: Play Now | Play in Popup
 iAttack Group: Play Now | Play in Popup
 JMTLV Group: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Turnips Group: Play Now | Play in Popup

It was great to work with Ultralab’s Geraint Lang at the BBC Blast event in Cardiff. The truck was in Cardiff for two days, the first day working in the English language, the second day in the Welsh language. Geraint speaks fluent Welsh and undertook the lead facilitation role on the Welsh day.

Animation, Film, Art, Music and Dance all played an important roll in the trucks stop in Cardiff by the docks.

Today 30 young people from Saffron Walden County High School and their partner feeder Primary Schools attended a training day at Ultralab to learn how to animate, make music and film for their 2006 Summer Challenge. Every year the Ultralab team set a tough challenge to these schools to complete over the summer months. Patrick Gordon from SWCHS will be running the Summer School, which has been funded for the second year running by Essex County Council. Between the year 2000 and 2004 SWCHS’s Summer School was part of the Ultralab/SEEVEAZ (South East of England Virtual Education Action Zone) Summer School and the good work has continued after SEEVEAZ came to the end of its natural life.

The young people were mixed up into groups and challenged to make clay ball animations, then edit some music together and then create a final piece which was exhibited to the rest of the group. During the day we looked at what makes a good film, and concentrated on sound as a critical success factor.

The young people then left Ultralab clasping four pieces of paper each from three different hats. Each young person had to select one ‘Start’, two ‘Middles’ and one ‘End’. Their first job (in groups back at school) is to negotiate from the sentences which ’start’, ‘middles’ and ‘end’ they will use from their groups collection, to make a film. Complicated, we hope so. The challenge was simple, to encourage the young people (who don’t know each other very well) to negotiate from the sentences they have which of them they would make a film about, and simply throw the rest away.

Jamie Harris, one of our work experience team was on hand to support the day. Another Ultralab Work Experience team member Ben Millwood has since made an excellent automated sentence generator:

The Ultralab team enjoyed making the sentences, using SubEthaEdit on their Apple Mac computers to collaborate their writings together.

Throughout the project the young people will be keeping blogging diaries, along with podcast output.

We’re really looking forward to seeing the completed summer projects.

The young people created their first animations today, here they are:

 Blobs Adventure: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Crazy Frog Man Gone Crazy: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Green Blob of Doom: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Our Great Movie: Play Now | Play in Popup
 The Orange Guy Movie: Play Now | Play in Popup

Hal MacLean joined the BBC Blast Truck as lead facilitator onboard as it arrived in Sheffield for a fun packed three days, including a big showcase event of young peoples creative work.

The Ultralab team have worked extensively in Sheffield in the past, back in 2002 Hamish Scott-Brown, myself and Richard Millwood spent time working here on the BBC’s Input CBBC project, which gave young people the opportunity to be creative using computers to make television for broadcast, without adult intervention.

The past two days have been a huge success for the young people from King Harold School who have been working with their partner feeder Primary School’s to engage some of the younger pupils in a fun filled Animation fest. The Summer School was run entirely by year 9, 10 and 11 pupils. All equipment was loaned by Ultralab.

Ultralab are proud to work with King Harold School who continue to pioneer in the field of Digital Creativity, investing heavily in the power of creative technology to engage and enhance the learning journeys of its pupils.

Click to see the pictures taken during the Summer School.

Here is the completed work:

 Alien Invasion: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Crush: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Dory: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Simpsons: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Squashed Bee: Play Now | Play in Popup

Ultralab has a long working history with the pupils and staff at King Harold School of Waltham Abbey, Essex. For the past four years pupils of King Harold School have been involved in Ultralab’s Summer School programme. However, this summer the pupils will instead run a Summer School of their own Summer School for pupils of the Primary Partners Schools who feed King Harold each year with new students. King Harold’s pupils will run the entire event themselves.

A team of students from King Harold arrived at Ultralab to spend the afternoon with Ultralab’s Hal MacLean to plan and discuss the activities which would be running on the Primary Summer School. Hal is a former Primary Head Teacher and assisted the young people with experience working with the younger age groups. Malcolm Burnett from King Harold School is overseeing the project, pictures and completed animation work will be posted on this site soon.