Agenda07_Appendix PDF 5 M

APPENDIX A
SCREENZINE
apr 08
issue 10
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IN THE AVENUES &
ALLEYWAYS
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YOU MAY NOW REMOVE THE BLINDFOLD
Elsewhere we’ve had a rash of dancing in the
streets, from global showcase moves to the flashmob outbreaks of Guerilla Dance. Even Her
Royal Oddness Queen Yoko of the Plastic
Ono Band dropped by for a typically kooky twirl!
Get ready, set... and they’re off! From horses at
the 161st Grand National to the launch of the city’s
year-long cultural smörgåsbord, the tipping
point has most definitely been reached following a
five-year cable car climb to the top of Mount Anticipation. So grab a sack, choose your lane and
hurl yourself down the Astroglide that is 2008 as
we navigate the peaks, the troughs, the fast bits and
sudden stops.
Contents
Open Culture
Movement on Screen
Alt Valley Vision
Pocket Pictures
Grand National
Guerilla Dance
Yoko Ono
Frozen Waves
Double Dutch
BBC Bus
School Report
Holocaust Memorial Day
Keep an eye out for our exclusive 08 Big Screen
Commissions staggered throughout the year, a
mix of film, video, performance, interactive works
and other suprises. The first - Beneath a Cloudless Sky - launches in time for May Bank Holiday
weekend and involves a colourful collaboration
with The Liverpool School of Architecture.
Soon after the city streets will be infested with
outsized insects, clambering across the screen
itself to herald the arrival of Sizemology. Are we
pulling your leg? Can you spare one and will it
grow back if we do? You’ll have to wait to find
out.
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My Thought My City is a frequent video series
spread across the year, voicing the fervent opinions
of citizens, workers, arts practitioners, celebrities
and everyday folk of the city - eventually filling the
entire screen.
OPEN CULTURE: MY THOUGHT MY CITY
Open Culture is a collaborative project between
the International Centre for Digital Content
(ICDC) at Liverpool John Moores University and an
alliance of local media including the Liverpool
Echo and Daily Post, BBC Radio Merseyside
and Radio City.
To date these have included Phil Redmond (Mersey TV: Hollyoaks, Grange Hill, Brookside), Eton
Road (The X Factor), Roger Phillips (BBC Radio
Merseyside), Pete Price (Radio City), Tina Malone
(Shameless), Young KOF (Urbeatz), Claire
Sweeney (Brookside, Chicago, Celebrity Big Brother),
Vasily Petrenko (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), Neville Skelly (musician), Neil Fitzmaurice (Phoenix Nights, Peep Show), Andrew
Lancel (The Bill, Bad Girls) and Leanne Campbell
(Juice FM). Content can also be viewed online at
http://open.culture.org and every day on Sky Channel 167.
Led by Professor Phil Redmond and supported by
the Liverpool Culture Company, it has three direct
aims: to open a cultural conversation with, by and
about the people of Liverpool and its region to
explore who, what and where they come from; to
open up new cultural avenues through which
new talent can be encouraged and a cultural legacy
will be left beyond 2008; and to open access to
existing institutions by encouraging them to find
innovative ways to reach new audiences.
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MOVEMENT ON SCREEN
North West-based moves is the largest exhibition platform in the UK in the form of dance films, interactive installations, animation, videogames and experimental shorts at international level. In January we hosted
the touring arm of last year’s festival, moves07, easing our schedules into a pair of bewitched ballet pumps
to coincide with British Dance: Edition 2008. Taking place once every two years in a different city in the
UK, British Dance: Edition is one of the foremost events in the dance calendar. A prestigious showcase, the
four day event provides an opportunity for selected British dance companies and independent dance artists
to present their work.
Hundreds of national and international programmers visited Liverpool in search of inspiring British
work to take to their own audiences, with the screen offering a rolling programme throughout the day and
night. Just a few months later and in April moves08 was ripe for plucking, with a new, innovative line-up that
bundles little Billy Elliot to a punishing reformatory; replacing stereotypes and sagging tights with fresh,
sexy, brooding, stylised and always painstakingly accomplished work.
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POCKET PICTURES
ALT VALLEY VISION
ICDC swung another bottle of adult pop against
our steel rivets in christening not one but TWO
interactive applications focussed upon community
generated content in the same period. Pocket
Pictures is a moblogging project in which local
groups produce creative content using mobile
phones. Still images generated by Powerhouse
Foyer, Liverpool Arabic Arts Centre and the
Greenhouse Project populate a database of
snaps that appear in a random, updated sequence in
the form of miniature polaroids, bobbing and drifting upon a live camera feed at the screen. Pedestrian movement casues the images to swell and
expand, so if you were to reach out and grab or
wave at a chosen image, after a few seconds it
would ‘pop open’ as a larger version for viewing before shrinking back to join its jealous pals.
Pocket Pictures is part of the ICDC Digital Inclusion Programme designed to encourage diverse
take-up of new technologies to build confidence,
create content, enhance skills and encourage selfexpression.
But wait! There’s still more! Alt Valley Vision is a
community web project for residents of the Norris Green, Warbreck, Clubmoor, Croxteth,
Fazakerley and County areas of Liverpool. The
main aim of the project is to develop compelling,
entertaining rich media content with the local
community, with organisations and residents of all
ages receiving training and support in creating
video diaries, short films, animation, and
websites. The developers in the ICDC attic drew
the curtain upon their sole window to plunge into a
cold, code bath and emerge with their latest incarnation of the video jukebox, further enhanced
and polished. Short films sit in the top half of the
screen upon a scrolling carousel, with observers
able to step into a controlled zone to direct the
movement - left again, left, missed it, go right - ultimately selecting a clip of their choice via waving
an arm (or indeed any limb). The film then plays
with audio at full screen size, proudly naming the
title and creators across an attached information
bar.
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JOHN SMITH’S GRAND NATIONAL
Held over three days in April the world’s biggest
horse race occurs at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool, culminating on the Saturday afternoon at
4.15pm with the heart-stopping Grand National.
Celebrating the 161st running since 1839, over
600 million viewers across the globe tune in to
watch the 40-strong field tackle 30 fences, with
pound sterling, dollars, euros, rouble and yen riding
on the result. Passionately attended by Merseyside
residents, Friday’s Ladies Day has become the
ninth wonder of the world, splashed across newspapers and TV screens as for one day, thousands
of wage-slave Cinderellas blow the overdraft
and step out in a dazzling array of outfits, shoes and
accessories... but never any sensible coats! Time
stood still at the screen during the big race itself
when over 2,000 viewers packed Clayton Square
to cheer on their office sweepstake, be it the race
favourite or a no-hope nag. Congratulations to
winner Comply or Die!
A BIT OF A
FLUTTER
GUERILLA DANCE
As part of their continued coverage of the yearlong activities in this, the European Capital of Culture, BBC2’s The Culture Show staged a series
of their own secret, candid camera dance events on
the streets of Liverpool. The results of these lo-fi
guerrilla performances included a shopping-mall
mass waltz in the Met Quarter, hip hop street
sweepers in Williamson Square, suited commuters dancing in Lime Street Station and a rival
urban crew dance-off to the astonishment of
shoppers upon Church Street. The highlight for the
Big Screen involved local competitive dancers Jamie McLachlan and Philippa Amer, who took
to Clayton Square to perform a gravity-defying
quickstep on four occasions during the afternoon
shoot. We used our screen camera to broadcast
the action live, with footage subsequently cut into
the final edit alongside material from cameras at
street level. Startled Fiorentina football fans,
visiting the city to attend their UEFA Cup match
against Everton, became caught up in this display of
fancy footwork of an entirely different kind, breaking into applause for each graceful glide upon the
tarmac.
STRICTLY COME
PRANCING
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YOKO ONO
Forty-one years after her first ever paid
UK public performance, Mrs John
Lennon, the artist Yoko Ono returned
to the historic Bluecoat arts space following a £12.5 million restoration project. Peforming as part of the goup exhibition Now Then, celebrating the history
of the venue, the instant sell-out was
relayed in a live and exclusive simulcast to the Big Screen where hundreds
more gathered to view this once-in-alifetime opportunity, never sure of what
the 75-year-old doyenne of the
avant-garde might deliver next. In
1967 she had invited the audience to
‘fly’ from the top of step ladder, wrap
her in bandages and handed out shards
of a broken vase. In 2008 there were
more bandages, film projection, knitting, light aerobics, flashlights, peace,
love and a ‘Yoko Disco’ reminiscent of
tipsy relatives at a wedding reception.
Bravo Yoko!
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digital knot, reminscent of budget-price LED strips
had they been melted down and repurposed for
Paul Snowden’s IN THE FUTURE. Mark Titchner’s Nope pauses for thought with his heavily stylisted block text, exploring the relationship between
word and action. With undertones of visual hypnosis and subliminal communication, the latent power
inherent within the written word begins to surface.
And clincher of the most fabulous title of the year
award without any doubt goes to Eva Weinmayr
for We Are Racing to God Aligning With the
Shipwrecks by the Blue Galaxies (Well, Well Do
Not Exaggerate!), apparently sourced after toying
with the title of German pop song Hey, Captain
Starlight into the online Babelfish translation engine.
Here the artist mouths a silent, impossible warning
to observers with increasing urgency, unable to
communicate, a prophecy lost in the telling.
FROZEN WAVES
Curated by Michelle Cotton and Sylvia Kouvali, Frozen Waves is a series of newly commissioned video
art for Yama, a public art programme hosted upon
an outdoor screen on the roof of the Marmara
Pera Hotel in the centre of Istanbul. Titled after
a chapter in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1937 dystopian
novel, We, Frozen Waves, the five invited artists
employ visual and textual codes familiar from the
language of commerce and the information
economy. These include Babak Ghazi with
choose1.jpg, referencing Katherine Hamnet’s iconic
political t-shirts and of course, the era-defining
FRANKIE SAYS RELAX! and the retinal assault of
Mustafa Hulusi’s bold, dizzying, stop-and stare
graphics. Fragments of conversations are clipped
from their sources and instead fed into an endless
TURKISH
DELIGHTS
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DOUBLE DUTCH SKIPPING
BBC NEWS SCHOOL REPORT
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY
BBC MERSEYSIDE BUS
The British Double Dutch Skipping Team
held a demonstration at the screen to encourage
more newcomers to this ankle-wrapping pursuit.
Due to feature for the first time as an exhibition
sport at the London 2012 Olympics, the forming
of six local teams are anticipated. Current world
champions Japan will be challenging our homegrown talent at the Brouhaha Festival in the city
later this year!
A project that gives 12 and 13-year-olds from UK
schools the chance to make their own video, audio
or text-based news at school and to broadcast it
for real across television, radio, online, red-button
and the Big Screens. This year the central base for
the national transmission was at Bosco City
Learning Centre, Croxteth, with many more
local schools participating across Liverpool,
Knowsley, Wirral, Runcorn and Widnes.
Our award-winning BBC Merseyside Bus has
sadly been decomissioned as part of funding cuts to
hit the BBC. Having proved invaluable in the wider
inclusion of all communities, regardless of age,
creed, colour or diversity, it was therefore fitting that it should provide one last bundle of inspirational content generated en-route across the region. Have mercy, sings Welsh songstress Duffy.
Alas, too late.
Teenagers at Kensington based Yellow House
linked up with a group of young people in Krakow,
Poland, to visit the death camp at Auschwitz together. Participants recorded video diaries for the
BBC Video Nation project and Big Screen incorporating photographs of their journey. Further artwork, poetry and banners were displayed at St
Luke’s Church in the city centre - a wartime ruin
now used as a peace garden and exhibition space.
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IMAGES
1. Philippa Amer and Jamie McLachlan for BBC Guerilla Dance 2. Open Culture - Eton Road 3. Double
Dutch Skipping British Team 4. ICDC: Pocket Pictures 5. (clockwise, from top left) A. P. A. A. I, Este Silencio, A_Way_Away, Harmonics 6. (clockwise, from top left) Out Of The Weeping Web, Defaced, Tea
Time, Wake Up 7. (clockwise, from top left) Mark Titchner, Babak Ghazi, Eva Weinmayr (x2), Mustafa
Hulusi (x2), Paul Snowden.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Got a question? Get in touch!
Bren O’Callaghan
BBC Live Events
Big Screen Manager Liverpool
Address:
BBC Merseyside
31 College Lane
Liverpool L1 3DS
Telephone:
+44 151 794 0982
email:
or
bren.ocallaghan (at) bbc.co.uk
bigscreenliverpool (at) bbc.co.uk
to submit city diary and listings information
visit us online at
www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool
www.bbc.co.uk/bigscreens
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APPENDIX B
The Plymouth screen got off to a flying start in August with the opening ceremony of the Beijing
Olympics. Installation delays and last minute technical hitches meant the screen went live without a
full technical shake-down period. Thankfully, day-to-day operations have been relatively problem
free since the launch.
Widespread publicity on regional television, BBC Radio Devon, the BBC Devon website and in the
local newspapers, combined with sunny weather, helped build a substantial crowd for the opening
ceremony - including a large contingent from Plymouth’s Chinese community.
They watched the proceedings from the front two rows waving their Chinese flags and cheering at
key moments. It was a disappointment that when the Beijing ceremony overran, scheduling glitches
meant we were unable to show the final moments on screen.
Overall there was some very good feedback
from the public, The Plymouth Evening Herald
ran a very positive story the next day including
some vox-pops with members of the audience
praising Plymouth’s new screen.
We learnt some valuable lessons from the
experience and in future important sporting
events will always be shown in full-screen
format.
Our partners at the Plymouth City Centre Company pulled out all the stops to create an Olympic
experience in The Piazza, with seating for 200, together with a variety of catering outlets. Sadly the
August weather wasn’t kind to us and this significantly reduced the number of people watching the
action from Beijing. However on days when the weather was dry, the screen proved to be a big
draw.
Crowds peaked on the final Saturday when Plymouth’s own teenage diving prodigy appeared in the
men’s final. Hundreds of people were riveted by the unfolding drama, cheering loudly every time
their local hero appeared on screen. It was clear many people had come down to the city centre to
watch Tom compete as part of a communal activity and showed the potential of the live site.
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Interestingly the screen also proved popular with television, radio and newspaper journalists who
were guaranteed an easy source of vox-pops from the watching crowds.
The screen’s debut week coincided with the Flavour Fest food festival, one of the biggest events in
Plymouth’s annual calendar. Again, the catering and seating arrangements beneath the screen
created a perfect venue for people wanting to chill out and relax. The screen provided on-screen
pointers to daily cookery demonstrations and a photo montage using the festival branding - this
helped to make the screen feel part of the event. In future years and with more experience under
our belt, we hope to build on this relationship with some more creative programming.
From day one the Plymouth screen has been
running a full schedule of local film and video
content with more than 70 items appearing in
the local playlist during the first two months.
A wealth of high quality material has been
submitted by a wide range of organisations
including Plymouth University, Plymouth College
of Art, Exeter Phoenix, Motion Plymouth, the
South West Film & Television Archive and
Scope.
Plymouth in particular has a very strong visual arts community and early indications suggest there
won’t be a shortage of compelling visually engaging material for the screen.
We’ve already been exploring ways to work more closely with local media and arts students and
other organisations in the wider arts community. Both the university and college of art are planning
to include commissions for the screen as part of student course work and the regional Arts Council is
very keen to explore ways of bringing interactive commissions to Plymouth city centre.
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The big screen has formed a successful partnership with University College Marjons, through a
project based work placement scheme. We now have a small group of five media students available
to work on event coverage. With two events under their belt, the students have proved to be very
enthusiastic and capable in operating the live cameras and I’m sure we can look forward to better
things as they gain experience.
The first true test of the screen’s event capability came towards the end of August at the Beijing
closing ceremony and handover. Unfortunately a software bug, affecting all Locog’s new screens,
played havoc with our plans to use live cameras.
However crowds turned out in force to watch the spectacle and were treated to a live performance
of a specially choreographed dance routine and music from the Plymouth Pipe Band. As the Olympic
flag was raised by the Lord Mayor, the crowd joined forces to make two minutes of noise.
September saw three more events working closely with the screen, two of which saw the overhead
camera come into its own. Once again The Piazza was turned into a dance arena for the launch of
the Cultural Olympiad.
Fifty dancers, ranging in age from 18 to 92, performed a routine based on the human pulse - creating
a spectacle of movement and colour that attracted a big crowd. The event demonstrated how live
cameras can add a new dimension for the audience, with the screen showing close-ups and a
captivating overhead view looking down on The Piazza. Feedback from Dance South West and the
regional Arts Council has been extremely positive.
As part of the BBC’s Losing It and Headroom campaigns, BBC Radio Devon organised a lunchtime Tai
Chi event, encouraging shoppers and business people to spend a few minutes winding down.
The screen also worked with the organisers of the Hidden Cities Festival to programme a series of
specially commissioned video pieces exploring some of Plymouth’s lesser known buildings. These
videos were programmed to run at regular intervals throughout the festival.
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Freshers week at the University Of Plymouth saw a lot of activity across the city and the screen was
keen to get involved. We programmed a series of 12 short films focussing on the lives of students in
the city. These were on a high rotation during the week that new students were finding their feet.
Although it’s still early days in the life of the Plymouth big screen, event organisers and art
practitioners across the city have been quick to spot its potential.
Eight events are already pencilled in to use the
screen between October and the end of the
year. The winter schedule to date includes a TriParks art installation, Plymouth Respect Festival,
Plymouth Olympic Parade, Fish Music, Motion
Plymouth, Remembrance Day, Christmas Lights
switch-on/Children in Need and an
Interdenominational Christmas Service.
There’s also some positive news for the spring.
A small group of film enthusiasts, led by Anna
Navas at the Plymouth Arts Centre, is investigating ways of bringing family friendly feature films to
the screen.
One suggestion actively being pursued, is programming a short season of feel-good musicals in singa-long versions.
Kevin Heathorn
Plymouth Screen Producer
October 2008
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