So up steps the Sony HVR-Z5. Almost identical, but with better optics, more considered ergonomics and additional settings in almost every feature it is a direct replacement and all of the Z1 accessories will still fit. This looked like the right piece of kit, but who to buy from? With almost every site in a google search for camcorders returning some price comparison or review site it is easy to find these things reasonably cheap (OK – £2,500 isn’t cheap, exactly). The thing is, they are mostly offered for sale with the standard one year warranty, and I had hoped for slightly more.

As usual, for all things video we call a select list of suppliers. Today we were delighted with the service from Jeremy at provisiondirect.co.uk. This company has an enviable reputation for great value and excellent product range. We have recommended them to clients looking to purchase kit, and indeed we have made one or two modest purchases there ourselves. Today was the day for buying again!

Jeremy is one of the most knowledgeable and friendly folk when it comes to pro and prosumer video gear. He is often very busy, but when you do get him, he finds the most brilliant pieces of kit for you, and tells you exactly ‘how it is’ with everything. After talking to Jeremy today I was satisfied that they still provide one of the best routes to buying kit, and the value he gives is second to none. So it was that we bought a Z5 with 2 year warranty at probably the most competitive price available. Not content with that Jeremy also added a few extras for us, which was brilliant… unexpected and not asked for. That’s the kind of person you are dealing with – full of information and very willing to help.

It is with great pleasure that I recommend to anyone looking to purchase a decent video camera, lighting, accessories, sound equipment, anything related to video, really provisiondirect.co.uk.

The theme was ‘broadcast journalism’ as in previous years and our role was to lead the project and work with the students to teach them some of the skills for video capture and edit, presenting, camerawork and production. We also get to define the task, too.

This year it seemed obvious to have the group make a five minute news story on the impact of swine flu. Working in small groups the students were given a variety of tasks, such as gathering vox pops, researching the facts, organising the schedule and presenting to camera.

It was a tough challenge. From no experience whatsoever we expected the young people to create a news broadcast and present it live over the Internet by 3pm on the second day.

It is therefore a real delight to say that they did. It was a close call, but they rose to the challenge and managed to produce a very credible result. Given that this was their first ever attempt, and the time constraints are huge, I think the result is yet another example of the stellar performance of young people when given the opportunity to be creative. Getting the level of challenge right is incredibly important, but giving enough space for creativity to thrive is more so…

If you want to see the result, have a look on YouTube for Anglia Ruskin Summerschool 2009. I will link to that from here as soon as I can.

City College Norwich have been working with Geo Mapping – using a GPS enabled device (called a ‘Trackstick‘) to log locations every few seconds and enable the user to download the data which can then be added to Google Earth. The result is a path that shows as a line across the map, and which, with careful planning, can be made into all kinds of shapes!

The students from City College Norwich had to plan their routes using maps of the area around Picadilly, and make sure that they created an interesting shape. They then stepped out on the town to walk the walk, returning to download their data. Once they had it in Google Earth they didn’t stop there! They took screen grabs and manipulated the images using ‘3D Maker‘, a small app that makes a number of 3D files, some of which require a pair of 3D glasses to see – you remember the kind, one red lens, one cyan lens…?

The result was a lot of walks in the shape of cup cakes, boats, shoes, geometric designs and all kinds of interesting images. However, of far greater importance was the ability of the students to undertake a considerably complex task (which they did with ease) but also to communicate it to the many visitors who were intrigued as to what was going on. The highly demanding environment of a show such as this really tests the nerve of people who are normally reluctant to talk to people, and I am delighted to say that each of the young people at the event from Norwich were excellent ambassadors for the college.

A quick word about ’3D Maker’ – it is a superbly simple application and needs no real tuition to use. You simply take your image, scale it to fit on the screen when at 100%, then select the items in the image that are to become foreground in the 3D output. You trace around them and adjust a single slider and the app does the rest! You can set foreground, middle ground and background items pretty easily, adjusting the extent of the ’3D’ effect. Wearing a pair of 3D glasses really brings the images to life. If you are even remotely interested in tis kind of artistic imagery, go and buy a copy of 3D maker!

A quick word also about Tracksticks – wonderful little devices that just work as you expect. Turn them on, let them acquire a satellite signal, and go for a walk! When you get back to your computer you’ll need the Trackstick Manager application to download the data to, and then export in the appropriate format. Google ‘.kmz’ files are a snap, and loading them in to Google Earth is a double click away. One slight reservation about the Tracksticks and that is with the software which is PC only right now. A nice and friendly mac version would be the icing on the cake, and really help make the trackstick experience very good indeed.

Since I consider myself a learner still (and probably aways), particularly when it comes to photography, I really find this kind of book extremely useful. Yes, there are bits that are probably common sense and need not be said, but then again there will be folk will appreciate the information nonetheless. After all, having your common sense ‘confirmed’by an authority such as Scott can only be a good thing!

One immediate action as a result of reading the book was to buy a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens. I love it… so fast compared to even my f2.8 Sigma and the results are tack sharp. Thanks Scott! It didn’t cost a fortune, and I am sure it will be a firm favourite of mine very soon (probably by Friday afternoon, since it will be used for a wedding shoot then).

Reading Scott’s book also prompted me to  go through all of my kit and check out some of the features I know I don’t use so often. One such is the ability to use my SB800 flash gun ‘off camera’ using the wireless connection from my Nikon D200. I love the depth you can get when you move the light around to a different angle instead of blasting right off the top of the camera. Another tip was to shoot ‘tethered’ – i.e. using a USB lead from my camera straight in to my Mac. This needs a piece of software from Nikon (30 day trial) and you’re away. I liked the ability to see the image right on my laptop screen instead of in the viewer window on the back of the camera, but the software leaves a lot to be desired… more on that in another post, I think.

All in all, the two books I now own from Scott are proving to be a goldmine of useful information and I can thoroughly recommend them. The information in the second one about the use of flash is brilliant (no pun intended), and just what I needed to give me the confidence to go off and try stuff out. Buy the book – you won’t be disappointed.

The group were excellent – every single person remained engaged despite some pretty intensive talking at various points. They were enthralled by the editing process and the ability to re-tell a story to create an event that just didn’t happen. Use of five shot technique, editing for story telling, cut aways, audio creation and so on really helped bring their work alive. I can honestly say that this group were amongst the very best in terms of their concentration and drive to succeed.

One very notable trait was that we spent a lot less time explaining the technology than ever before, and a lot more time on how to get the best story out of the footage. It is almost as if the young people were fully aware of how the technology would support them, and in fact were almost unconcerned with it to the point where they didn’t question whether it would or wouldn’t work, just that they could rely on it and get the best result from it.

Once again, we were using Apple kit. This time we provided a number of desktop machines to augment our small and ageing fleet of powerbooks.  If ever we needed new equipment for these events it’s now! However, the desktop power macs did us proud – incredibly heavy to move around, but ultimately the most reliable kit for the job.

We edited with iMovie again. I am always amazed at how versatile this software really is compared to some higher end authoring apps we use, such as Final Cut Pro. iMovie does the job up to the point where someone wants multiple video tracks. Using garageband to create a soundtrack is usually a second activity for a different part of the day, however during this event we found the participants anxious to multitask and were firing up garage band during the import process. We  were intrigued to see how they would review the footage but as it turned out most of the groups used a shot list and storyboard, despite not having introduced that. Times they are a-changing! In the end they achieved a remarkable amount in a short time, and out of 24 or so students only one had used a Mac before, two others had seen one and the others weren’t fussed. The type of kit they used wasn’t as important to them as whether they could tell their story. Powerful stuff, eh?! I guess if we had used unreliable machines the whole event would have been different, so once again a big grin from me for the old faithful hardware!

Check it out in more detail over at digitalcreativity.org 

A number of partners made this stand exist. Apple computers gave their support with Alan Bennett from Apple Education Europe on the stand each day to answer questions and talk about the education market for Apple. Nick from AT Computers provided a stunning range of kit for us all to use (thanks Nick – really good!) and John from Reflecmedia provided a state of the art chromatte station with live chroma keying happening direct into iMovie. BBC Blast helped establish the stand and Learning Central were there to talk about innovative work with the BCS.

Matt from Cleveratom organised a group of children from King Harold School to be on the stand for four days to run the equipment and talk to the visitors. As ever, King Harold School pupils were brilliant! Their enthusiasm, infectious energy and determination to succeed meant that the stand never had a dull moment. Many thanks to Malcolm Burnett for organising the group and being there with them, promoting both their activities and our new company!

The image shows Matt giving (yet another) impromptu demonstration to some of the many, many visitors. We used iStopmotion from Boinx software to run some stop frame animation activities.

Both the stop frame animations and the chroma keying were used to create instant podcasts on the stand. It never ceases to amaze us how complex some pieces of software would have you believe a podcast is… don’t be fooled! With relatively little skill and only simple software everyone can be podcasting at will. Email or phone us to find out how we can get you podcasting like a pro! We will happily run sessions in your place of work or school and show you exactly how easy it really is.

In addition to the Create at BETT stand, I was also working on the ‘Tomorrow’s Learners Today’ stand, organised by Stephen Heppell of Heppell.net and situated in the middle of the Grand Hall on the main floor. This was a brilliantly interesting stand with a continuous flow of speakers all talking about building schools for the future. Some amazing presentations from people including Stephen himself, I was available to answer questions from the audience to follow up on the content and get people talking more about how to use the BSF programme in their own school. More about BSF another time – BETT was huge, and a great success!

More images from the stand can be seen by CLICKING HERE. This should open a new window with a web gallery in it.

What struck us both was the absolute quality of the films in terms of the story behind each one. The animations they created (all stop frame, all using the excellent iStopMotion from Boinx) may not have had the precise model making skills for a Nick Parks production, but the digital literacy the children exhibited was astonishing. The participants were all aged from 9 to 12 at the time of the event, which is a very young group to do this kind of work with.

They are not the youngest, however! That honour falls to Cressing Primary School who we worked with to see if stop frame animation could be used with 6 and 7 year olds. We found that it can, but you cannot simply go in and do it without a certain amount of preliminary work.

The Bromley pupils were part of the Bromley learning alliance, which was formerly known as ‘SEEVEAZ’. We have worked with them for the past five years running summer projects in digital creativity and they have carried the torch on further than we originally anticipated.

Top marks to Bromley, then – and our sincere thanks to Andrew Ferrier, Sue and Merrill for their support and time in making this all happen.

We made the DVD for the children to take away on the night, but there were so many issues with the media that we will re-do it for them free of charge.  This is the first time such a glitch has descended on our DVD production routines – I only hope the re-make will be better! We use DVD Studio Pro for the authoring and I am confident that the problem lies in the media or the audio format we used. I’ll investigate… but my apologies to the children of Bromley who have a disc that may not work well!

For a lot of the time I went over the last five years worth of work, which was absolutely compelling to do – I can’t say how much of an impact this stuff has – it is really leading the way in the digital creativity stakes! The staff were attentive, asked questions and ultimately just *had* to participate!

When I get round to demonstrating clay animation it is really captivating – not because of me, but because of the subject and the materials you get to use. On this occasion I animated a mobile phone and a ball of plasticine, making a six second film called ‘disappear’. Then it was the turn of the teachers and boy oh boy you should have seen the way they got into making those plasticine models! It really is a refreshing thing to do and to see…

The actual training day for the children is next week, and I am sure we will have every bit as good a result as in previous years. We ought to make a few DVDs of this work…

BBC Blast have commissioned a truck to be built which converts to a studio and workshop area. This is quite amazing on its own, but add to that twelve PC laptops, three MacBook Pro laptops, High Definition DV cameras, networking, A3 colour printing and scanning, a sound studio, video editing capabilities and all manner of digital creativity tools, and you have some idea of what can happen inside the vehicle.

And that’s not to mention what goes on outside! The outer area is going to form a workshop space with a stage for performances, too. Covered by a large awning, the space has room for about 100 people when showcasing work, which is quite a number.

So what is Ultralab’s role?

We have been working with the Blast team for a while in different capacities. At the BETT show last January we were part of the collaborative venture between BBC Blast and Apple computers that became the ‘Create at BETT’ stand. Since then, we have been talking about how to take the ideas ‘on the road’ and the BBC wanted to run a creativity roadshow… seems like the two were destined to meet!

Ultralab staff will form the lead facilitation team on the tour, with one person at every location acting as the head of a small team of local freelancers brought on to run the workshops. This will then provide for a good deal of continuity between cities as the tour takes place, ensuring someone with a clear understanding and years of experience of the creative opportunities is at every venue.

I am delighted to be a part of all that, along with colleagues Matt Eaves and Hamish Scott-Brown. Between June and September the three of us will be on the tour taking on the lead role between us. Starting in Liverpool with Matt, then going over to Northern Ireland with Hamish, the tour then moves into Scotland and works its way south through Sheffield, Norwich, London, Reading and many other places along the way. The North East is hosting the truck as well, with Hull and Newcastle carrying the responsibility.

Each location will have a mix of dance, video, audio and graphic creative activities, running over a number of days and culminating in a showcase day. This is going to be a 15 week tour, and if all goes well then next year becomes a 30 week tour!

Amazing to be part of something so exciting, and I am thrilled to be working with such a forward thinking team at the BBC.

More news as the tour progresses!