I recently saw a demonstration of this extraordinary technology at the Culture 2.0 conference in Warsaw.  Brussels based performance group CREW have teamed up with the University of Hasselt to create a ground breaking fully immersive medium.  By donning video goggles and headphones and strapping a laptop onto their backs the user experiences a 360 degree film allowing him / her to observe an entire virtual world around them.  This virtual space enables the user not only to observe reality but to participate in it, moving around, talking and teleporting themselves into new locations.  In the example that I saw users were physically in an old communist communications centre in Warsaw but entirely experiencing walking down a busy modern street in Brussels!

The applications for this technology are also rapidly expanding, ranging from CREW’s immersive performances resulting in new approaches to theatre writing, in which narration is transmitted as much by sound, image and sensations as it is by words, through to therapeutic work with people coping with mental ill health.    Here is what one of CREW’s founders, Eric Joris, says:

The dream of dwelling in each other’s bodies and thoughts is as old as the human brain.  For me it started with drawing while I moved within a three dimensional picture.  Later, I even caressed the pixels, physically.  Now, with CREW, we step into each other’s bodies, move, breath, act within them.  Could we also swap identities?  Can we mediate intimacy?  Will theatre allow us to dwell in this amoral zone?

Check out CREW at www.crewonline.org <http://www.crewonline.org>

Josh’s free exhibition will be open for anyone and everyone to walk in and become a guinea pig for his invention – described as “a stereophonic headset using binaural audio with 3D HD cameras and LCD goggles allowing capture and display in one!”

Essentially, this will be a point of view camera to allow you to see through someone else’s eyes!

The exhibition will take place at the Engine Room media centre in Bridgwater, over REVISED START DATE OF TUESDAY 6th, Wednesday 7^th and Thursday 8^th of December.  The hours will be 10am till 4pm, admission free.

Josh explains, “I have grown up with a fascination for storytelling, from conversation, books, comics, films, radio. It’s the way we relate to each other and share our experiences.”

“Films like ‘Being John Malkovich’ and ‘Enter the Void’ inspired me where we go inside a characters head. I hope that this prototype will be a new way of relating to different perspectives and I am looking forward to testing out people’s reactions to it”

Josh’s show has been made possible through a Reveal Innovation Award. This is an annual bursary for a visual artist to develop new digital work curated by the Reveal partners – Brewhouse Visual Arts, Somerset Art Works and Somerset Film – with support from Arts Council England.

So come along and check it out and follow Josh’s blog on www.1stpersontech.wordpress.com to see it in the making…

10am   3D TV with Neil Richards…

Founder and director of Somerset based

Digital Film Company Neil Richards introduces
us to the basics of stereo 3D viewing; the
technology behind the cameras; tools for editing
3D films and the different options for viewing the
results on large and small screens.

Neil will be demonstrating a 3D camera live and
showing a selection of short 3D videos shot locally
in Somerset and Bristol plus we’ll discuss some of
the dos and don’ts of shooting in 3D.

11am Documentary Feature Film Production
with James Dean of Level Films

Director James Dean (and former Engine Room
bursary) will talk about their fantastic new
documentary feature film ‘The Endless Winter’,
which tells the history of British surfing from the
viewpoint of some of our leading surfers.
The film has attracted sponsorship from Ford
S-Max and is an example of how major companies
are looking to invest in productions that can reach
niche markets. Currently in post-production James
will show us some exclusive footage and reveal
how their company moved from corporate shorts
to feature filmmaking.

12pm Feature Film Script-writing
with Richard Addison

Whether you are writing a short or a feature,
Richard will guide you through the essential
elements to creating a successful script more..

Drawing on his successful career, from comedy
writing at the BBC to selling feature scripts to
Hollywood, his session will be focus on good
writing practice for feature writing much of
which is vital for shorts too. Includes top tips
and useful ‘what not to do’s’.

1pm – 2pm Somerset Media Hub - 
Somerset TV Launch and working lunch

Somerset.yourlocal.tv is a brand new online TV
channel for Somerset. It will be free to view and
free to upload content. Join us for a working
lunch and help bring it alive.
2pm – 4pm ‘Best of the South West’ Junction

A chance for film societies to watch some of the
best short films made in the South West and to
meet the filmmakers behind them.

The session was broadly positive although there were serious concerns
expressed about the geographical gaps in planned provision for Scotland from
an SNP MP and others.

Jeremy Hunt opened the session by sharing his positive vision of local TV in
every city, town and village – delivered on DTT in the centres of population
where the transmitters are available, and (by 2015 at any rate) on IPTV for
everywhere else.

Dave Rushton from the Institute for Local TV was one of those with concerns
– while IPTV is widely seen as the panacea for rural areas, even when
available it will not have sufficient capacity at peak times – rural 2mg
broadband delivered down a copper wire will slow right down once a
significant number of people tune in to the local news at a particular time
for example.  While there is a general belief that we moving away from
scheduled viewing to a VOD world, again this is in part contradicted by the
experience of operators like UR TV whose viewers tune in regularly on a
daily basis to catch up with local events.

How long will many people have to wait for the 2mg anyway?   Even in
Somerset (an area that has been one of the successful bidders to the
government’s broadband offer) the coverage to be delivered will not be
universal.

If local and community TV is public service TV (which Jeremy Hunt says it
is) then surely it needs to be universally available.

Helensburgh is where John Logie Baird came from and UR TV launched there on
the 85th anniversary of the first practical demonstration of TV – originally
delivered from a bedroom in Glasgow’s Central Hotel.  One time Apple
employee Brian Keating described the success and strength of this all-online
service that employs four full time professionals and engages numerous
volunteers.  For him he sees aggregating online content predicated on local
rather than personal criteria (as with Facebook) as the next logical step
for the internet.. They have developed a mobile app through which it’s not
only possible to view content but also to record material for the channel.
Their team is making significant progress with attracting advertising and
the channel is currently covering its cost.  They are keen to exploit the
potential of syndicating advertising across multiple locations. I spoke to
him briefly about the similar moves afoot in community radio.  He made the
point that to attract advertisers it’s important to present well, to look
and feel like TV on the net, rather than just the internet.  UR TV intends
to integrate with DTT when it becomes available.  The station represents one
of the two distinct models for local online TV – in which a core team of
professionals generate the content assisted by volunteers.  The other model
is training led (e.g. MON TV) with individual and groups of volunteers
making most of the content.

Julie Craik spoke wittily about the local TV experiments past and present in
Dundee, about the Scottish Parliament supported plans for a Digital TV
Network, about concerns for rural areas and widening the digital divide
between the haves and have-nots.

Greg Bensberg described Ofcom’s way forward working with DCMS to licence the
first twenty stations by next summer.  He said significantly that he is
interested to hear any bright ideas for how services might reach more than
the stated likely 65 areas – through which the coverage achieved will be
around 60% of the UK population.

I picked up on this for ULTV urging Ofcom and government to look more
closely at how greater reach might be achieved – through working with the
Digital TV Group and in particular by choosing not to create a single muxco
to handle all transmission but rather to allow transmission to be organised
via an approved list of suppliers thus giving local operators far greater
flexibility in terms of siting (whether on one of the designated masts or
elsewhere) – and through having greater control, accruing greater revenue
opportunities down the line.  It didn’t feel appropriate to say this at the
session but separating infrastructure from operation sounds ominously like
National Rail 2.0!

I also made the point that the new framework needs to guard against single
owners buying up numbers of stations and attempting to run them remotely –
as happened in the 90’s, leading to bankruptcy and permanent closure of
services.

I know the points I made have been made by colleagues at the other summits,
I know they and others will be made at the London session also.  It was
helpful for me to have made it to Sheffield last week for the local TV forum
where a lot of these debates were aired.  You can get the flavour of the
Sheffield event online at

http://www.youtube.com/ynuktv#p/c/4B6E7B90CFD51D62/0/omNWH8qLhCs

The winning teams were

Homeless young people from Bridgwater – New Voice award

Young People’s Film Council from Somerset – Best Drama

Stogursey Junior School – Best Animation

An amazing result and a very exciting event!

There were wins too for Wedmore School, Exeter Phoenix Media and Watershed meaning that six out of the ten national awards went to the South West!

If this concerns you please sign the letter below and send it to government:
do this simply via this link

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_uk/?vl

**
Dear Prime Minister Cameron,
Dear Deputy Prime Minister Clegg,
Dear Ministers,

Granting Rupert Murdoch controlling ownership of BSkyB would trample our media ownership laws and threaten our democracy.

No one person should be permitted to control nearly half our country’s mass media, certainly not someone with such a clear record of abuse of media power for political influence and personal gain. Opinion polls show that opponents of the Murdoch bid outnumber supporters 9 to 1. We strongly oppose any deal made with Murdoch, and pledge to hold you accountable for this crucial decision for the future of our democracy.

Yours sincerely,

Three films from Somerset Film are up for national First Light awards this year:

Can You Teach A Worm To Tango – an animation produced by the children of Stogursey School (as above!)

The Apothecary -  a short story produced by the Young People’s Film Council (YPFC) based at the Engine Room

When My Heart’s Like Broken -  a documentary produced by onetime homeless young people from Bridgwater YMCA

read all about the awards at

http://www.firstlightonline.co.uk/fl-awards/the-first-light-awards-2011/

Great news for our JUMPcuts partnership – Somerset Film’s collaboration with Biggerhouse Production.  Huge credit too for Somerset NHS Primary Care Dental Service for taking the risk and investing in innovation!

Article below from preventivedentistry.co.uk

The team who made a 14-minute film to get kids brushing their teeth is off to Canada this weekend to receive a prize for best educational film at a film festival.

Teeth the Musical DVD has already scooped the 2010 Patron’s Prize at the National Oral Health Promotion Group annual conference, adding to the 2010 Education Business Award from Somerset County Council.

Now, the JUMPcuts team will travel to Calgary, Canada, this coming weekend to receive the prize.

Picture This is one of the leading film festivals in the world for the disabled community and it is JUMPcuts animated film ‘Teeth the Musical’ produced with and for learning disabled young people that has won this coveted award.

Travelling to Canada will be a member of the cast, Bridgwater College student, Freddie Wolfman accompanied by film-maker Tom Stubbs, part of Biggerhouse Film who together with registered charity Somerset Film make up the JUMPcuts partnership.

Tom Stubbs said: ‘This is a great honour and a fantastic opportunity for Freddie and I to present our film to an international audience, to fly the flag for Somerset creative business and the talent of disabled film-makers.’

Working with fellow Calgary winners Purple Field Productions the film-makers are supported by the local branch of AC Mole and Sons, also Aardman Animation who generously donated an original Wallace and Gromit drawing signed by Nick Park to help fund the visit.

‘Teeth the Musical’ is suitable for learning disabled audiences as well as for primary school students and is available on DVD from www.jumpcuts.org.uk.

A Bristol-based senior dental officer said this week: ‘I have never seen anything like ‘Teeth the Musical’ anywhere else. Absolutely fantastic in all respects’.

To see the making of Teeth – The Musical, click here