global digital creativity research & workshops

Mark Constable, Richard Millwood and myself headed to Weymouth to install the web camera for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution)’s Lifeboats.TV project, run by Ultralab.

The project is near completion and the web camera will provide an eye for young people visiting the website to explore live images from a lifeboat station.

View some pictures taken at Weymouth Lifeboat Station on the day of the installation.

The project is really pioneering for the RNLI who are exploring with Ultralab how digital creativity technologies can be used to engage the younger audience with the work of the RNLI.

Colin and I are pleased to announce that all the footage from the eight locations which we’ve visited over the past year for the RNLI’s innovative Lifeboats.TV project have been imported ready for editing. Before the editing begins I’ve cut a movie with all the people we’ve interviewed, in the exact order they were interviewed. 180 people were interviewed, 20 hours of footage created.

We were sad to hear that the very last person to be interviewed (last in the below film) passed away suddenly and respect the families wishes that material recorded should still be used in Lifeboats.TV. Colin, myself and the team from Ultralab send our most sincere condolences to the families of the Tobermory lifeboat crew.

The following film will take a while to load, but should be worth the wait.

 Watch 180 people the movie - made by Matthew Eaves this film includes nearly everyone who played a part in the Lifeboats.TV project: Play Now | Play in Popup

One year after the initial pilot in Burnham-on-Crouch we were off. Colin, Mark and Matthew headed to Dorset to meet and interview the Weymouth Lifeboat crew and their families. With 40 people to interview it was no easy task, we had to break up into three film crews to capture the footage. Pete Bradshaw from Ultralab joined the project as the local Ultranaut based in Weymouth.

The initial research conducted over the previous year meant the Lifeboats.TV crew would begin to film lifeboat crew and volunteers for their lifesaving stories, ready for compression and delivery on the internet on the lifeboats.tv website. Construction of the ‘virtual lifeboat station’ would also begin once the panoramic images were constructed from real images captured in each of the six lifeboat stations.

Weymouth’s crew room would begin as the first location on the tour, tricky with its unbalanced floor.

All the research conducted so far on this project has been done in conjunction with young people, exploring how creative use of technology could be used to enhance their learning, bringing the RNLI bang up to date with its uses of technology at the same time.

View a film showing one of the crew from Weymouth explaining why he is a volunteer.

Team:
Matthew Eaves (Ultralab)
Colin Elsey (Ultralab)
Mark Constable (Ultralab)
Pete Bradshaw (Ultralab)
Micky Slatford (RNLI)
James Vaughan (RNLI)

View the pictures taken inside the Weymouth Lifeboat Station.