Tag: video

Complaints are welcomed at Channel4

We’ve made a film featuring our talent bringing to life genuine complaints which viewers have made about them. We understand that not every programme, or even every presenter, is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. That’s because Channel 4 was set up to be different, to provoke debate, take bold creative risks and represent unheard voices from all around the country. So sometimes we may cause a bit of a stir, but that’s part of our job.

Do like this video, Channel4’s humour around feedback is very welcomed.

Youtube isn’t the place it use to be?

Will smith is a youtuber now

I had the absolute joy of attending the 12th Thinking Digital Conference. One of the speakers Chris Stokel-Walker so called YouTube Investigator, raised a number of interesting points about the evolution of youtube from its history as place for cat vdeos, pirate videos and silly antics; to a place with 1.9 billion monthly views, algorithmic bias and massive hollywood stars (Will Smith is on Youtube, bloody heck?!)

Chris made the point “youtube grew up faster than hollywood” alongside the fact its one of the most desirable career paths for young people currently and the vast amount of video being uploaded is unthinkable now. 4 months of youtube uploads will have you watching till the year 8096!

Youtube litteracy

He’s right, our media literacy around this all is seriously lacking, and its very clear while reading theverge piece I recently read.

Updated Sunday 19th May…

Weirdly enough I was reading a piece titled The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over, which I felt was very fitting. As it almost felt like while Youtube was becoming less authetic, Instagram with its super glossy unnatrual filter was shaking that off. They seem to be going in opposite directions?

“Everyone is trying to be more authentic,” says Lexie Carbone, a content marketer at Later, a social-media marketing firm. “People are writing longer captions. They are sharing how much money they make … I think it all goes back to, you don’t want to see a girl standing in front of a wall that you’ve seen thousands of times. We need something new.”

…

James Nord, the CEO of Fohr, an influencer-management platform, says he sees this shift play out in his clients’ numbers every day. “What worked for people before doesn’t work anymore,” he says. “For the first time, influencers are coming up against this problem of, How do I continue to grow as tastes change?” A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow. According to Fohr, 60 percent of influencers in his network with more than 100,000 followers are actually losing followers month over month. “It’s pretty staggering,” he says. “If you’re an influencer [in 2019] who is still standing in front of Instagram walls, it’s hard.”

What do the general public think about the internet?

https://vimeo.com/331179758

We (BBC R&D) helped NESTA to explore what the general public think about the internet. It was during a bitterly cold day but me, Rhia and Vicky took to the streets of Manchester to ask the public in a series of vox-pox interviews.

The results surprised me, as it was clear most were concerned and have serious but diverse reasons. Some gave short and some in-depth detailed experiences. The video only scratches the surface.

Over the past few decades, the internet has become the most important infrastructure of our time, radically rewiring how our societies work and how we interact. We asked the BBC to find out how ordinary people feel about these changes – watch their varied answers in the video below.

The video is a small part of NESTA’s Visions for the future internet work.

In March 2019, the World Wide Web turned thirty, and October will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the internet itself. These anniversaries offer us an important opportunity to reflect on the internet’s history, but also a chance to ponder its future.

Massive thanks to the people of Manchester who answered our questions even with the weather at close to zero degrees!

Viewers might find this disturbing

Manchester Ferguson protest

The last 2 weeks have been difficult to take. Theres been too much I have wanted to say and so much I have wanted to do. I have been thinking and deeply worried we have taken a few steps backwards in evolution.

For me two videos have summed up so much, and I do worry they exist in spaces like Facebook.

Video one is the shooting of Philando Castile, a black man in St Paul, Minnesota. #Blacklivesmatter but you can clearly see this isn’t the case, in a city I have visited and actually enjoyed in the past.

The second video comes in the days after the EU Referendum or Brexit. It shows a racist tram abuse at 8am in the morning in Manchester.

Each person who filmed the killing and abusive attack, showed incredible bravery to stand up and put a camera in the face of such situations. If you are old enough to remember the Rodney King beating, its important to remember George Holliday who filmed the beating.

Video: Dating Against Humanity – #tedxmcr

My Dating Against Humanity video is now up on Youtube. Enjoy… Sure I’ll get some very mixed feedback from people.

Background information about the focus of the slides is here in the notes.

I did wish they sorted out the aspect ratio on the slides, but otherwise its what I pretty much remember of the talk. Other TedxMCR talks are also up.

The book I mentioned is now the start of another blog called dating yarns.

What Cinema can learn from Broadcasting?

IMG_8891

Its weirdly ironic that I wrote a blog post about what cinema can learn from TV, 3 years while ago almost to the day of the this way up conference in December I’m about to talk at.

The this way up conference is a film exhibition innovation conference which launched last year. It returns with a jam-packed two-day event that promises to inspire and enlighten, provoke and challenge, connect and share.

I’ll be doing two things on behalf of BBC R&D

The first one is on Wednesday and is a lunch time workshop around a unreleased Perceptive Media project, I have been working on for most of the year.

Lunchtime Lab: BBC Perceptive Media – Want to contribute to the evolution of storytelling? BBC Research and Development’s North Lab, based at MediaCityUK in Salford, showcase their latest experiment in a top secret, closed door workshop. A select group of THIS WAY UP attendees will try out a new smartphone app before being a shown a premiere of a short film that looks to change the way we engage. Further details are strictly under wraps, but the BBC are looking for volunteers to take part in this limited study and to share and discuss their experiences with other participants. Workshop led by Ian Forrester, BBC R&D North lab. Results from the workshop will be revealed at Thursday’s The Film is Not Enough session.

Its really research in the wild and we have no idea how the audience will react to this. The results will be intriguing to say the least.

On the Thursday I’ll be on a panel talking about the changes which need to happen to regain the cinema audience.

The Film is not Enough – With the rise of event cinema, alternative content, enhanced screenings, sing-a-longs and tweet-a-longs, is there a danger that the original purpose of cinemas is being lost as audiences demand novelty and gimmickry? This panel will hear from those folk changing audience perceptions and expectations of what ‘coming to the cinema’ means. Panel includes: Tony Jones (Cambridge Film Festival), Jo Wingate (Sensoria), Rhidian Davis (BFI), Gaby Jenks (Abandon Normal Devices – chair), Lisa Brook (Live Cinema), and Ian Forrester (BBC Research & Development).

I’ll talk about details of the project experienced on Wednesday and explain why this is a good and scalable way to regaining the TV and maybe the cinema audience. The panel should be good with a number of really viewpoints and Gaby Jenks from Abandon Normal Devices chairing the debate.

What cinema can learn from broadcast will be driven home by the keynote from Nick North, the director of Audiences at the BBC.

Look out for more details soon… but theres already plenty of interest….

Why I moved to Manchester…

#Manchester from Craig Murfin on Vimeo.

A video project inspired by the talented people and content featured on the @wearemcr instagram group.

Music mixed and edited by me
Wait For Me (Aaron Mist) / CC BY-NC 4.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode

What a great piece of work and really shows off why I moved to Manchester over 7 years ago.

Airbnb’s new slightly creepy advert?

The nextweb say airbnb’s advert is a little creepy…?

And I have to say there are not wrong… Not quite sure what to make of it. Of course Airbnb have their reasoning.

But if you do book my spare room, please don’t think…

Sleeping in my spare bed will fill you in on my dreams. This really sounds like the promising start of horror film…?! Honestly what on earth Airbnb? Human? More like scary movie?

HBO’s Rethinking Dyslexia

Somebody suggested I seek out HBO’s one hour special on rethinking dyslexia. The special is called the big picture movie and had me in slight tears to be honest.

From IMDB…

Successful leaders in Business, law, and Politics reflect on their Dyslexic experiences as we follow the story of Dylan, a high school senior who is must overcome the challenges of Dyslexia to achieve his dream of getting into a competitive college. By following his journey as well as other children, we come to see how many myths and misconceptions there are about Dyslexia, and how it offers gifts as well as challenges. Recent findings in neuroscience reveal for the first time that Dyslexia is physiological challenge, and Drs. Sally and Bennett Shaywitz, top experts, explain how Dyslexia works and what the opportunities are. Written by bronyaur

And the two reviews are excellent too.

The film does a great job at allowing the viewer to understand many of the challenges faced by dyslexics. Most don’t realize what dyslexia really is and how many people it effects. I wish the film offered solutions or let people know that they can deal with dyslexia if their school teaches them correctly. People need to know that they can learn to read and spell much better if the proper method is used. Specifically the Orton-Gillingham method or the Wilson method works. Whole language method is an absolute failure for anyone with dyslexia or a dyslexia related issue. This film is inspiring for dyslexics but should be watched by all. Fight for your children. Don’t let the school systems label your kid as LD, instead make sure they know your kid is dyslexic, and as such needs specific OG methods to learn properly.

The documentary is excellent and I have already sent a link to my parents and sister. Hopefully give them more insight into how I think and go about things.

I recently bought the Dyslexia the advantage (although I got to say its not very dyslexic friendly from a quick look, so as usual I got the ebook version too) and am looking into different methods which I have never heard of including the the Orton-Gillingham method and  Wilson method. The more I learn, the more I wish I knew back when I was in school. There is a level of regret but like in the documentary my character was changed (maybe) for the better because of the mountains I had to climb as a result?

Dating in the 90’s vs Now, which do you prefer?

Tim continues his run of good quality links on twitter. This time something from Buzzfeed Yellow Youtube channel.

Dating in the 90’s verses now… is a witty look nostalgic trip back to dating in the 90’s (loving the drink reversal btw) Something I see a throw back to in many dating apps. I hear everyday from certain friends, I just want to meet someone like the old days… Well this is a reminder of what it really was like.

I’m not saying things are better now, just different. As I said in my Primeconf talk, the geeks won but it was a pyrrhic victory (not peridoc victory as I thought it was spelled in my talk). People have been left alienated and hurt by the way things have changed. I’m unsure if people will get over it or it will swing back the other way?

Fascinating reading the comments on youtube following the video.

Gareth Ferguson writes…

Virtual dating is for cowards. Nothing says success like meeting a girl somewhere in public, flirt for a lil bit, and get the number. There is no mystery, what you see is what you get. When using the Internet, its common for fat chicks to use old pictures of themselves so they can give the illusion that this is who you are talking with. Where is the confidence in that? Then you get persons who seem to be so interesting online til you meet them in person and its like BORING!!! Give me a real date than a virtual date any day

As you can imagine that caused a massive load of comments… but there are some interesting ones mixed in.

atomic jacob replied with…

it has nothing to do about not having courage, its infact the opposite. women need to stop taking the role of submissive and have the courage or balls go out and get what they want. i admire women who have that sort of courage, and that doesnt make me weak or lacking balls(i liked that term lol)

On balance, I prefer to float between both ways. There is a feeling that a nostalgic look back is waste of time really? And ever so easy, maybe this part of growing old? Sorry things are the way they are, learn to adapt… Change is the only constant.

The fight over dating will rage on, and anyone who manages to get the balance right will make a killing, specially if they don’t manipulate users too…