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Saturday, May 30, 2009

I think this is the same {dweeb] appearing at the Cathedral as have a Youtube channel. The NightChurch project certainly is putting on music. The Jazz last week was excellent. Mostly standards so there was nothing too experimental. I did some extracts on YouTube, search on Cathdral Jaxzz or start here, The Way You Look Tonight.

A poster for the NightChurch event on 26th June is available for download.

Many things can happen over the same weekend. Maybe enough will be recorded to catch what you missed later on.
An actual meeting did happen at the Well House, part of a planning meeting for the Beer Festival. Some progress as I managed to get agreement for something to be quoted. "Exeter is the biggest village I have ever lived in" said Captain Gallows while handing out sample CDs of the Pyrates who still have a few unbooked dates over the summer. Exeter may be a regional capital but it is also a county town and actually the central part is not that big. It is possible to walk across most of it in a fairly short time. The loop between castle and cathedral is quite short and is a suitable set for photos or video. Taking in the Phoenix and the Apple shop suggests some tech for doing this. The Beer Festival 26/27 Junewill be just from the Castle though the Well House has a cider festival at the same time.

Discussion also covered the technology available in Bristol and a "non-conference" coming up in July called OpenMIC - a mobile innovation camp on 2nd July. This blog is about Wifi Exeter but we tend not to get too technical. Maybe we will just concentrate on content for a while and return to wifi around the time of openMIC. Proabaly there will be several blog updates on the same day, even a Twitter experiment. But things move more slowly once you get west of Bristol. Maybe some people visiting will have mobile phones with cameras etc but the plan is to work out a text guide over a month and then end up with a few three minute video clips.

The Pyrates will be part of Kendal Calling at the end of July. They would like to find some bookings near Lancaster on the way there and back, say Sat 1st August and/or 31 July. Kendal Calling have their own Youtube channel. Not updated so far for this year but it could be useful benchmark to compare hoe Exeter events are promoted. The Pyrates will be asked later for a full report on actual Kendal.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rougemont Global Broadcasting -
draft notes for chat show during Beer @TheCastle 26/27 June

(this blog is mostly about bandwidth but content is in there somewhere)

RGB is a longterm project to develop video from Exeter. So far there is some text and some clips on YouTube. Mostly the standards are not of broadcast quality. Exeter TV is also on YouTube but with some sort of standard and resources for DVD production. The summer light is a chance to record some interviews and Exeter Castle is a suitable setting. so far the organisers of the Beer Festival have no objections to photography though some of the musicians prefer not to be recorded. We have previously done video from Sidmouth Folk Week where most people accept photography.

Topics will be developed during June and even late May.

Why is music an area where artists are fairly relaxed about copyright? Or put another way, why is print publishing so worried at the moment? Exeter has two Waterstones with the Sony Reader. Also Blackwell at the University where there may bean Espresso instant book machine. Will book culture have to change? The Analogue to Digital Music Expo showed that many people in music have already adjusted.

The RGB loop is between Castle, Phoenix Arts, Cathedral, Apple Store and back again. Photography near the Apple Store not welcome but Second Life is an alternative. The dynamic is to explore technology and content. At the Cathedral there has been recent video of Simon Pope on show at Spacex and also jazz concert. Apologies for the low production standards in both cases. The wind wrecks the sound for most of the talk about Carved From Memory and the lighting collapses soon after the concert started at 8pm. However there could be studio interviews with people who were on the walk and Cathedral Jazz will perform again some day. The approach around YouTube is to load what is available. An edit can come later.

Editing is a major topic. OhmyNews is a citizen journalism site in Korea. They concentrate on editing resource for stories sent in by readers. I have done a report about the Exeter Korean Film Week. How will the approach to text change as more news comes through video? On YouTube the audience can choose a sequence. Is there much use of worldtv?

See http://worldtv.com/rgb-loop/

There is much discussion on how local newspapers can survive current difficulties. Working with bloggers and other websites could be an option if there was a shared idea of network news. some finance needed for video. the costs are dropping but editing still takes time.

Visual Images are probably still more closely protected than text. Galleries rarely allow video of interviews near to artwork. However, sound is part of the art mix and also video can be seen as an exhibit. What sort of thing turns up on YouTube? Conversation can be around both the value of what is on YouTube and whether recognised work of value should remain in a gallery.

Other topics may crop up. Or all issues may have been resolved already through text. If the musicians welcome it the concentration may be on recording performances. But some of these questions are worth repeating.

Simon Egan has claimed on camera that he will be loading the soundtrack of "Fraud" to the Internet Archive. Can't be found at the moment but perhaps this statement was a deliberate deception. Expect a follow up question if he can be found during June.

contact Will Pollard will.pollard at gmail.com

links

http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/eedcamra/fest/summer/index.htm

advance tickets

* The Old Firehouse, Exeter
* Great Western, Exeter
* The Bridge Inn, Topsham


Isambarde The Kesh & Old England on YouTube

The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit Exeter during the same weekend

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

test from New Horizons

on Longbrook street so could be updated on where i am near the centre of Exeter. Twitter only works one in three so far.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

This may seem a strange choice for this topic but I think the solution could be better access to photos from CCTV through some sort of network. The starting point is the possibility that trees are in danger in the Cathedral Yard not just because of Health and Safety issues but because of the need for clear lines of sight from CCTV cameras. I thought this was a wierd idea at first but then I did some Google searching and found the minutes of a recent meeting for Devon County Council.

Appendix II

To ECC/09/28/HQ

Key Issues identified at presentation on 12 December

--------------------------------------------(i) - (iii) missing here

(iv) Proposed tree planting: the positioning of trees was questioned because of concerns that CCTV views would be obstructed: the proposed trees around the relocated Memorial would also obstruct the view of the west front.


So it is least a possibility that CCTV concerns may have contributed to earlier discussions. As reported on the "This Is Plymouth" website, the reasons given for axing the trees were to do with the danger of branches falling off.

Cathedral authorities said consultants called in to examine the seven trees found they were all suffering from a “common structural fault” and had to be felled.

The cathedral took the advice after an incident the previous year when a branch snapped and took a lower branch with it.


Just in case CCTV may become an issue for the surviving trees, why not surround them with cameras? The scaffolding could be done with taste and the video stream made available to the public. Sound should be possible as well. Nowadays people share all sorts of information through Twitter. We have nothing to worry about if not breaking any laws so why not have more cameras as long as the results can be shared?

Monday, May 04, 2009

Raving on about the Guardian I realised I should explain more about local news and video. Sometime soon there could be a local resource with some sort of business model. not sure how this would work. But there is a discussion about local news that so far seems just to be about finding subsidies for a model that is under so much pressure it may not survive anyway. The Web can work with networks so new models could be relevant. YouTube is one example. To be continued.