global digital creativity research & workshops

I was very lucky to be invited by the Cleveratom team to work with them as part of my ‘Work Experience’ within my Year 10 school curriculm - and what a week to be working with them on!

From the 5th through to the 12th July, Hal and Matt have both been working incredibly hard with students of various ages at the Bromfords School - Wickford, Essex on Creative Radio Production. This was in preparation of leading a cross-media production based entirely on the rather topical entertainment superstar ‘Michael Jackson’ as a tribute to his life and work. The workshops the students took part in during the week, led up to a final showcase which was performed to various Year 6 induction groups from accompanying local primary schools.

The final production consisted of a wide variety of highly-talented performances incorporating modern and contemporary dance and vocal engagement which was led in a ‘radio-style’ format by student DJs with a helping hand from Matt and Hal. Below are a few photos and YouTube videos displaying just some of the songs from the fantastically performed, exciting production.

To access ALL performances and visit our YouTube channel: please click here

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.

It was great to be joined once again by Ultralab’s Shiley Pickford as the BBC Blast Truck rolled into Albert Square in Manchester for a fun packed four days of Animation, Film, Music, Poetry and Dance. A big stage was hired in Albert Square for some of the young people to perform on in front of a large audience. On the last day of the event was the famous England v Portugal football game, after the young people had gone home the BBC Blast team sat on the back of the support truck huddled around a tiny TV to watch England lose on penalties again.

View some of the pictures taken in Manchester.

The Blast Truck arrived in Guildhall Square, Derry on Thursday 15 June. Many young people got on board to get involved in Film, Animation, Dance & Theatre.

Hamish is the lead facilitator here in Derry, Northern Ireland on the BBC Blast Truck Tour 2006. I’ve flown out to support Hamish in his role through the running of clay animation workshops. Hamish and I have had a fantastic time working together with some of the biggest talent in the Northern Ireland circuit.

Here are some of the creative output from the Derry location:

Click to launch BBC Console to watch films.

I’ve really enjoyed the Blast national tour so far, most of all, I’ve worked with some amazing people these past two weeks…. every day I’m answering questions, burning media, fixing equipment and answering seven people at once (which I love)….but wow, what an amazing team….. BBC Northern Ireland are excellent, BBC Liverpool are excellent….the work experience from Liverpool were flown over to Northern Ireland to support the team there because they are so good at their job…..

For years the lab, and BBC Blast have known what young people can do when given the right tools and time to be creative….and its really nice that the lab is supporting the BBC as it embarks on the very important job of showing the nation just how creative young people can be…. I can’t wait till this creativity hub arrives in Belfast.Derry is the hometown of Ultralab’s Martin Doherty, it was good to see Martin onboard meeting the BBC Blast team.

View the pictures taken by Matthew in Derry.

I have been working on the BBC Blast Truck at its first location ever at Liverpool’s Mann Island. Ultralab are working on board the BBC Blast Truck to provide a facilitation roll, while running creativity workshops for young people.

These past few days on the BBC truck have been amazing. I’m really proud to have been a part of the very first location for BBC Blast on Tour, this project is so important to those it reaches.

I’ve worked with some of the finest users of technology for creative purpose in the UK. In a nutshell, anyone who’s anyone in Digital Creativity local to the truck stops… is being asked to run workshops with local young people….in DJing, VJing, Filming, Dance, Animation, Hip Hop, MCing, Poetry, Creative Writing and loads loads more…. We’ve even had the head make-up artist at Mersey TV’s Hollyoaks programme making up the faces of our young people.

I’ve seen young people writing and singing songs from scratch in just two hours, to a live audience……oh and by the way, they could not hum a note prior to the workshop….

I watched in awe as our Shirley Pickford and Levi Tafari ran an urban poet class in Liverpool …. as young people, who started out shy stood up and read out their creative writing poems with passion and pride to an audience….

I saw tears in a mum’s eye as she proudly watched her daughter excitedly demonstrate her animation to her…

One young lad even ran into town to get some scissors to cut up some card to improve his animation…

Liverpool, an awesome place with an awesome team.

View the photographs taken by me.