For European Get On Line Day March 4th we’re organising a Day of Cultural Blogcasting from Destinations, Saltburn UK. We’ll plan to use the “live blogging” approach employed for the recent Saltburn Community Animation event so that media is released throughout the day to a schedule. The site is here: www.destinations.uk.com/gold
At this short notice it’s unsure how much content will come from Europe but we at least expect items from Latvia and Finland, possibly Greece. We’ll be firing up 5-10 min videos, some audio stuff and perhaps image galleries: all hoping to reflect who and where we are. If anyone has anything they would like to have considered for inclusion contact me direct on s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk
The community animation event in Saltburn on Thursday was a tremendous successes with a full house for the matinee (in which we hooked up with children and police in Latvia) and around 80 people for the evening event. We even made it onto Latvian National TV !
You can relive the event on the blog at www.saltburn.org.uk or if you really want to re-run the event in the order it happened click here ( it builds slow but quickly gets media rich) – just read each page, scrolling down and then click “older entries” at the bottom. As well as the hook-up with Latvia, the event was followed by people in Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Finland and the UK.
The event saw the world premier of “The Force is With You” which you can enjoy below.
With the assistance of Northern Film and Media and the UK Film Council there will be a Fringe Animex event in Saltburn featuring community produced animations. This will take place at 7.30pm on February 11th at Saltburn Community Theatre, Albion Terrace, Saltburn, TS12 1JW.
Featured this year will be World Première of “The Force is With You” which has been produced in partnership with the Institute of Digital Innovation, the Skinningrove Community, Whitecliffe Primary School and Redcar & Cleveland Community Safety Partnership. The school children will get their own matinee screening at 1.30 on the same date.
During a recent International workshop in Vienna one of scenes in “The Force is With You” was “voiced” using the services of some of the workshop attendees. The film clip below is a sneak preview of one of the scenes and a behind the scenes look at how it was put together.
Trouper 1 is played by Markus Petz from Finland, Trouper 2 by Thomas Chepaitis the Minister of foreign affairs of Uzhupis Republic (Lithuania) Arthur Vador is played by Steve Thompson and Barry Hunt the Mayor of Loftus is camera operator.
In the background is Laura Pakalne, Senior Officer in the Public Relations Department in the Ministry of Justice, Latvia who is most interested in our working with the British police and the movie production team on more collaborative projects. Markus has delayed his return to Finland to travel to Saltburn to assist with a hook-up with Latvia during the event on the 11th. It’s quite possible that people all over the world will be able to participate in the event. More information on this will be released closer to the event.
A new movie is going into production we have a tight production schedule so if you want to be involved please email stmedia@gmail.com asap to be added to the subscription list. We’re working towards a screening of February 11th 2010 so we need to get cracking. The outline scenario can be found here – we have a full set to build and costumes to design. We have the full backing of this from Cleveland Police and some of the force including Inspector Ian (Charlie) Bell who will take a leading role.
Yesterday on a cold and misty day the Mayor of Redcar & Cleveland Cllr Mike Findley and his wife the Mayoress Judith visited Skinningrove Jetty. He was really up for it and insisted on going right to the end. We were all a little nervous as losing a Mayor was not part of our plan. This was his first ever visit to the real Jetty as his last trip was in a computer lab when he strolled down the virtual jetty in second life. Afterwards we made plans over bacon sarnies for our project presentation next week before the full Council. The Mayor and Mayoress took a look at the huge mosaic being built. The mosaic was designed by artist Derek Mosey who also made the Mayors second life avatar (someone quipped that the Mayor had finally met his maker). The mosaic (click here ) depicts Skinningrove village but the Jetty that appears in it is the one of the future. This, we feel is a good omen as it also depicts the otters that live in the beck/river – back in 2001 this was simply a rural myth ( click here ) but now it’s a reality.
His Worshipfulness the Mayor of Redcar & Cleveland came to visit the Skinningrove Jetty in Second Life. He was amazed by what he saw and pledged his full support to seek the means to regenerate the Jetty in real life. He has invited a delegation to visit Council Chambers later in the month and show the film. He was so delighted with his own lookalike avatar crafted by Derek Mosey that he wanted to appear in a movie himself. Here are the results.
Parish Councillor, Barry Hunt now has a web page in the Digital Village Social Network. Visit it here www.barryhunt.org.uk Yes, he has his own domain name. And as if that weren’t enough, he and fellow Parish Councillor, Tommy Evans are featured on the local bus shelter, see below. (click image to enlarge)
The premiere of the Skinningrove SL movie took place on Thursday 5th of Feb during the Animex International Animation Festival. There was a really good turn out which was great on a cold snowy evening in Saltburn just a few miles up the coast from Skinningrove. Saltburn Community Theatre provided a fantastic venue with its cinema style screen giving an excellent platform for the Skinningrove movie.
The Mayor of Redcar & Cleveland opened the proceedings and then we had a series of animations produced by local school children at Redcar & Clevland City Learning Centre. Next, was some professional work by Digital City Fellows and then we had an interesting and insightfull talk from Martin Chatfiled on animation over the past hundred years. Martin used to work for Hanna Barbera and has embraced animation from the early days to the present day of computer driven movies.
Finally there came the film “Skinningrove Welcome To The Future”. This was fantastically received. Unfortuantely Ashok Kumar could not make the event but he was there in spirit (in Avatar?) and as far as we know represented the worlds first Member of Parliament to appear in an animation! (you can view the film below)
There was a Question & Answer session at the end the Mayor of Redcar & Cleveland said “the film was a brilliant use of technology to vission the future” and he pledged his support for the rebuilding of the Jetty in real life. That same afternoon there had been a fantastic matinee performance. (pictures to follow) This was standing room only for local schoolchildren including the Skinningrove children from Whitecliffe Primary who had sung the two songs featured and appeared in the movie as child avatars (played by adults)
There are some more screenings planned and there will also be an”installation” at the University of Teesside in the reception area. This is actually in the Second Life Island Teesslife so many more people will be able to visit and see the presentation, visit the virtual Jetty and enjoy the movie.
