Village Underground Residency

As mentioned in previous blogs I've been doing a consultancy placement at Village Underground. I spent Monday and Tuesday in residence and two very different events were covered. On Monday we had a gig featuring TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone Rain Machine project, with Marques Toliver in support. On Tuesday I was able to catch the ‘get in’ for Collaborative Dance Experience’s debut production Out Of Time.

I took with me 2 Kodak Zi8s and a Flip, my Dictaphone and an SLR camera. I was very happy with the material I shot. My first catch was Marques Toliver performing In The Cab. We were able to grab him between soundchecks and take him to the drivers cab of one of the tube trains on the roof. After his interview he performed an exclusive song. I shot this on all three cameras but put a quick rush on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xJxgFuL2SQ

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Why stay on the 'side?

Putting the Created In Birmingham shop in the Bullring in the centre of Birmingham means that we're proud of our art.

A bug bear I have about Birmingham is creativity occurs on the fringes of the city, and often this can make us appear self deprecating. It's almost as if were embarrassed by our artists so we push them to the outskirts. Don't get me wrong, I'm behind the redefined Eastside. In fact I wrote the brochure's main copy. But where I struggled was working out how to make art accessible and appealing in description, without appearing to trivialise or belittle 'the art.' A picture paints a thousand words, I just wanted people to visit Eastside and make up their own minds. Hopefully, many will this weekend.

The great thing about CiB shop's centrality is that people can check it out, with very little effort. If this shop was based in Digbeth, for example, they wouldn't have a fraction of the footfall. Take a look at this large and diverse mix of people in this 30 minute sample (recorded by me at 11am on a Thursday).

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/10347275[/vimeo]

Okay, Pete Ashton in particular acknowledges it's "in a shopping centre" so there are a few pieces that might be too leftfield for this consumer-centric audience. But its strong centre-stage presence is great exposure for all artists adorning the walls and shelves. And intrinsically Created In Birmingham features independent artists creating original pieces.

Besides wouldn't it be great if when the City Of Culture judges get off the train and the first place they pop into is this shop?


To Vimeo Or Not To Vimeo

For my first Multimedia Assignment I'm experimenting with video. But even putting out short chunked segments takes a while to edit, and even longer to upload. In my Production Lab work there's been a lot of discussion about which platform is better, Vimeo or YouTube. Certainly from a time perspective, YouTube is much quicker to upload. It took me a few hours to get three three-minute clips up last night. With Vimeo I had to leave the first clip overnight, the second took two hours this morning to upload, and I've given up on the third after it kept on dropping out.

The thing is I know Vimeo is generally considered the better platform, especially for aesthetically sensitive designers but it appears my allocation only allows me to upload on HD package a week. And besides YouTube now offers unlimited HD. For standard Vimeo there's a cap at 500Mb. Here's the two clips together, see if you can really spot the difference. For extra fun play them together.

[vimeo width="720" height="300"]http://www.vimeo.com/10295461[/vimeo]