global digital creativity research & workshops

I’ve spent the past three days working on the BBC Blast Truck in Hatfield, delivering a Film and Camera Production workshop for young people delivering this workshop each day:

The Truck will stop this year in 30 places, Hatfield was the first location. Last year Hamish, Hal and myself travelled with the truck (under the Ultralab flag) working with the local facilitators to deliver the Blast experience, we ran workshops and supported other facilitators to run theirs.

When I arrived at the venue it was good to see a lot of young people crowded round a DJ from BBC Radio 1xtra, clearly enjoying the experience of learning ‘Radio Production’. My own Film Making workshop was attended by 21 young people, we used Sony Z1 video cameras, learned how to shoot, edit and create a film together. After practicing, each group made their first film ‘Surprise’ within the three hours and were then set the tougher challenge for the following two days.

I challenged the young people were then to make a 100 second film entitled ‘Confusion’. The film had to be exactly 100 seconds long, could only have three lines of dialogue and had to be shot is a way which was modern and not traditional.

The films the young people created were very good, considering none had prior experience in film making.

The youngest participant was nine years old, the oldest, seventeen. The abilities of the young people were so good in both iMovie and Final Cut Pro they finished their work in double quick time and were able to visit some of the other workshops taking place on the truck, filming and documenting what else was happening.

Both myself and the team at Cleveratom have lots of experience running film, animation, creative art and photography workshops and were delighted to be invited on to the truck to pass on our knowledge.

Cleveratom wish the BBC Blast team the very best of success in delivering the 2007 national Blast Truck tour to a further 29 locations.

Hamish Scott-Brown joined the BBC Blast Truck in Newcastle to be Lead Facilitator in a feast of film, animation and music. The event was highly successful for everyone involved.

Hamish Scott-Brown headed to his native Glasgow for a couple of days onboard the BBC Blast Truck as facilitator. Hamish’s role as Lead Facilitator is to lead creative workshops while supporting local facilitators as they come onboard the truck to run their own creative classes. Glasgow was a huge success for BBC Blast with film being a particular favorite of the Glasgow young people.

The BBC Blast Truck headed down the M32 Motorway to join Hal MacLean for an exciting two days of film and dance.

Hal represented Ultralab as the lead facilitator at this location. Matthew Eaves, Hamish Scott-Brown and Hal MacLean are on a rotation system throughout the tour, doubling up at some locations to support each other at some of the larger events.

Hal was pleased to work with Gail Taylor, who worked herself on an Ultralab project back in 2002 called ‘The Online Soap’. Hal also spent time working with friend of Ultralab Samantha Beddoes who filmed Hal and myself back in 2004 for BBC Blast’s November TV show, Sam now works for BBC Newsround and worked closely with Hal on Final Cut Pro, Apple’s film editing software.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.