Shared Creation Projects

The good news is that I like Facebook. It’s easy to work, and clear to see what’s going on. The mini-feed (what has been done) is a great idea - a sort of automatic self documentation. At this stage I’d have to say that on usability and extensibility it’s way ahead of Myspace. The applications that extend Facebook are a great idea - though I haven’t found one that I can publish my RSS feeds onto yet - and that is a shame. The interface is simple and clear. That is true of all the profiles. Facebook profiles are fairly uniform and easy to read - much easier to read than the mess that is the typical Myspace page.

Major gripe - the public profile listing - that anyone - including non facebook members can see is limited. That’s a shame. It means facebook though good and useful is not really a contender for being a personal portal.

So the search continues - but I will continue to use Facebook.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, puppy, Web

Continuing my random and ongoing project to highlight some interesting writing on the web……

This time I want to introduce you to Strange Maps a fascinating repository on the subject of maps that are unusual in nature. I first discovered this website via a much dugg article that geographically placed middle earth in ancient europe. The concepts and writing were strangely fascinating and well written. So I explored further and realized that Strange Maps is a great piece of online writing.

So go take a look. I had a great time - hope you do.

Check out the latest maps and navigation software withs maps that will take you places.

Technorati Tags: strange maps, Web, Writing

The Public Listing

Ok so the start of my attempt to organise my current whirl of accounts and blogs more cohesively hit a hiccup when I didn’t publish my Public Facebook profile.

Here it is: http://www.facebook.com/p/Robert_Davies/603733091

Though it is little better to be honest than not publishing it as the information I’ve placed on facebook so far is only accessible to other facebook users. First conclusion - Facebook is more of a gated community than a publishing system

Part One: The concept of the Personal Portal

When Facebook recently opened it’s doors to everyone the inwards rush to grab and secure a place in it’s virtual world was nothing less than rapid. It shouldn’t be classed as surprising. Take a look at the number of accounts on Myspace and then also at the other networks - Flickr and Youtube instantly spring to mind. Also do not forget the long established social sites - never discount the good that locations such as absolutearts can do, plus of course the very many Web 2.0 variants. A look at the plethora of social services all say that people want to interact. We are after all social animals.

The fact that so many places exist to talk about ourselves and show off what we do means that we now live in a world where an awful lot of people have a virtual billboard that advertises themselves. Yes they are sold with the concept of contacting other people and showing of your own cool stuff in mind, but a primary effect of all these networks is to raise your visibility to anyone who wants to see it.

For most people this is straightforward. You want to chat or show films or pictures. You simply choose the site that best suits your needs and you work with it.

However if you find yourself spread over more than one creative project, or you find that you need to more that just say here I am - what do you do? Existing in multiple social networks can mean a veritable workload of messages. If you’re tight on time this can be a burden. What you need is a way of compressing these networks into one. What you need is a personal portal. A mashup that brings all of your online interactions together in the most convenient way possible.

I am therefore starting out on quest - it’s aim is simple to let me promote Shared Creation, publish photographs, publish artwork, and to move along the Consumed project by seeking assistance. This is a pretty tall order, especially as I am a very busy person. I’ve started by going to Facebook.com and creating a profile for myself and not my projects. The coming weeks will determine if that is the best move or not. You can see this profile at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=603733091#

Once I am happy that the facebook profile does what I need it to to I will start examining what I can do with my current repositories - a myspace page, blog feeds and accounts with Flickr and Youtube.

Robart, my slow and sure personal exploration of the world through digitally enhanced photography continues with a new image. If you’re interested - take a look here.

Technorati Tags: Art, Photograph, Photography

Ok the old Geezers are the elder generation of play and screen writers. Think Shakespeare, Chekov, Bennet, or even (and if you watch UK TV you’ll understand this one), Lord Lloyd Webber. Established greats of writing.

Here is the idea - I cannot claim this for myself - I heard it on a radio interview hosted by Jonathan Ross. Lets stop all production of plays, television and films based on material that has already been written by greats. Not forever as we cannot deny access or use of this wonderful material forever. Let’s just put a stop to it for a few years at a time. Doing so digs a creative hole that needs to be filled. Nature and the entertainment industry abhors a vacuum. In order to fill this gap instead of reaching into a bookcase and saying ‘Let’s do Macbeth again’, instead the producers will have to commission new works. Sometimes they’ll go to a living legend, and sometimes a new writer will get a break.

The net result - new cool stuff for the audience and more new writers getting their work out there.

So how do we establish such a far reaching ban?

Technorati Tags: Art, film, Torchwood, TV, Writing

We recently completed the first day of filming on the Consumed Pre Film. The pre film came about as a need to gain more experience in actually shooting a film. We scripted several possibilities - which ran into location difficulties then came up with something that was easy to locate.

On this first day we shot in an empty car park in Cwmbran and then in Cardiff Bay. Cardiff bay is a glamour location. We shot outside the Millennium Centre as gloriously illustrated by the BBC show Torchwood. We consciously used that location. Torchwood runs on horror themes and plays heavily on it’s Welsh origin. We’re doing the same.

The filming itself took place over an afternoon, starting after lunch and going on till sometime approaching 7pm. All we had to do was record two monologues. Basically two ‘phone conversations that the viewer sees one side of. It keeps the shooting simple and as a story vehicle uses the viewers imagination to flesh out the other side of the conversation.

My role on this afternoon was to get everyone together. Make sure our cast (of 1) had the right clothes on and to document the event. My documentation was covered by still photography and video footage.

We learned a fair bit about picking our place and setups. Making sure we had all the angles we needed came into play was always in our minds - as was figuring out how to best use our primitive equipment (remember the steadicams are made of wood).
In short our two little scenes took hours to transition from page to camera.

Everyone involved was kept busy. Anyone watching got bored. - a hoary old film making cliche coming true for us.

The only acting problem was our leading man - playing an Englishman dropped into a Welsh accent when he swore. Being able to do an accent doesn’t mean you can swear in it. Don’t worry - it’s not a big problem. Anyway due to wind noise we have to do some over dubbing - and will fix it then.

All in all a very good start to our filming.

And as for my documentation ….

The video footage isn’t edited yet, but 15 photos of the day have been placed on my Flickr account. To see them click here.

Technorati Tags: Consumed, film, film making, Flickr, Photography, Torchwood, steadicam, Video, Wales