Saturday & Sunday March 24 & 25 2012 10.00 to 16.00

This is a practical hands-on evening course aimed at people who want a fast way to acquire detailed and concise editing skills. It is particularly useful for aspiring documentary makers, journalists who want to expand their skill set and voluntary sector workers who want to edit their own films.

The short, condensed and effective course will give all participants a solid foundation of practical knowledge and a working understanding of editing software, from importing, marking, logging and editing, to adding soundtracks and effects.

We allow one person per computer, giving everyone extensive hands-on experience.

Completing this course will guarantee you a work placement opportunity with Spectacle.

What you will learn:

- Overview of Final Cut Pro
- Editing basics, cutting, moving and arranging clips
- Transitions and effects
- Use of logging, key words and database to organise your edit
- Creating titles
- Using sound
- Importing and exporting media
- Uploading on-line, basic intro to codecs and formats

Price

£200.00 + VAT = £240
Concs.: £100.00 + VAT = £120

Special discounts

- Bookings for three to five people: 10% discount
- Bookings for six people or more: 20% discount

Click to find out more and to book.

“These problems urgently need addressing and the APPG on Body Image will bring together some of the key players in this debate in a cross-party forum – youth organisations, the advertising industry, health sector and media. We will challenge some of the root causes of negative body image, highlight best practice and work towards building a society in which people feel more body confident.”

Spectacle contributed a short animated film to the campaign, that provides the viewer with a brief overview of the extensive research carried out by Central YMCA and Centre for Appearance Research in the University of the West of England, which premiered recently in the House of Commons. The film also draws attention to the financial, physically and psychological harm that appearance issues can invoke, ranging from the billions of pounds spent annually on dieting pills and food supplements, to the often devastating attitudes towards, and consequences of steroid use and cosmetic surgery. The video can also be found on the YMCA Body Confidence homepage.

As society in the UK becomes ever more sexualised and appearance oriented, the issues and pressures surrounding body image and appearance are becoming dramatically more significant and problematic. In Central YMCA’s research, statistically one in four people openly admitted to being depressed about the way they look, and as many as half of young females were open to the idea of using cosmetic surgery to enhance their looks in their future. The suggested ideals of beauty that is all too often plastered upon billboards, magazines, television, and the internet, shape the way that people, (in particular the younger generations,) perceive beauty and intrinsically sexuality. However it is thought that as little as five percent of the population look like, or could ever realistically achieve, the image of beauty and sexuality promoted by the models and celebrities.

This issue is of course further complicated by the introduction of image manipulation and airbrushing, which is now routinely used to perfect and enhance the outlandish ideals of beauty that the images promote. This means that not only are people being pressured into pursuing an image of beauty possessed by a tiny percentage of the population, the images often do not naturally exist in reality and are essentially unobtainable.

Results are leading to a steep rise in the number of young people affected by sever eating disorders, with girls recorded as starting their first diets at as young as eight years of age.

To help combat these issues amongst young people, Y Touring, which is part of Central YMCA, recently worked with a group of young teenagers from London to create a project that explores true body image through photography. Beautiful Photography Project 2010 empowers the teenagers involved to represent themselves and beauty as they perceive it, rather than the images fed to them by the aforementioned industries. Please show your support.

Click our Catalogue for more Spectacle productions.
See our blog homepage for more information and videos.
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.

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The Silwood Video Group continued this week as workshops were held on Tuesday in the Silverlock Centre and around the estate. We were able to conduct our usual sound and video workshops, taking new location shots around Silwood and engaging with residents curious about our work. This was followed by a screening in the Silverlock centre from 6 to 8, and preparations were discussed for a joint celebration of the culmination of the Silwood project and Spectacle’s eleventh anniversary of filming on the estate. Watch this space!

This week’s workshops will take place as per usual on Tuesday 22nd March, with location filming around the estate from 4.00 to 6.00 and screenings from 6.30 to 8.00 PM at the Silverlock Centre. Newcomers are welcome, and we look forward to seeing you there

An Urban media Practice: documentation, agitation, participation

8th February 3pm in Room 114, 26 Bedford Way, Department of Geography, UCL

Drawing on 30 years experience of independent and community based media practice in London, Brussels and Rostock Mark Saunders will describe the political and technological development of Spectacle’s practice and use of media in urban struggles for social justice in the built environment.

This will include, Despite TV, an innovative video co-operative in East London (1981-94), Jako Co-operative and the making of The Truth Lies in Rostock (90-98) establishing resident video groups in gentrifying Brussels (2000-2009) and long term video workshops on “regenerated” estates Silwood in Rotherhithe (10 years) and Marsh Farm Luton (15 years) and recent work on the London Olympics and Battersea Power Station.

Key Readings:

Olympics

Olympic project pages

Olympic blog

Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station project

Battersea Power Station blog

Suggested further readings:

Surviving Participation Fatigue< Erased Social Geography

Video in the City: Possibilities for Transformation in the Urban Space

Advocacy, Participation and Non Governmental Organisations in planning : A report and video on Spectacle’s APaNGO work

We had our first workshop with the Silwood Video Group on Tuesday, which allowed us to get a lot of new footage and more location shots to add to our ever-expanding archive. We are looking forward to getting the project up and running, with lots of positive contributions by residents. We are lining up interviews with pensioners and schoolkids alike, trying to get to the root of the changing nature of life on the estate.

Get involved!

Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.

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Poverty is a problem faced by both individuals and society.

Societies commentators are an exclusive group, selected via a hierarchy and instated within a system, how representative can their voice be of the individuals who, because of the restrictions of their experience, do not rise through this?

The stories that find there way into the mass media produce a profound impact on the public subconscious; all mediated by the editorial chain, with whom the conditions are set and must be met to be accepted. The commissioning editors of both BBC and Channel 4 documentaries present similar priorities in their commissioning guidelines: Their requests come in loaded language – requesting proposals to match.

Hamish Mykura, Head of Documentaries for More 4 lists ‘harrowing’ ‘obsessed’ ‘extreme’ and ‘compelling’ in the descriptions for previous successes, the titles of which are equally charged (Eight Minutes to Disaster, Killer in a Small Town).
Alternatively, there is a focus on the ‘cheeky’ (BBC3) or the BBC4 equivalent ‘witty’, with both seeking ‘onscreen talent’ just as Channel 4 emphasises ‘presenter-led’ documentaries; encouraging programmes that are less focused on informative or critical worth and more (as requested by BBC3) the ‘entertainment values in their DNA’.

None of these criteria are detrimental in themselves but with this blanket approach to issue based programming, there is an obvious conflict of interests, the end point of which is arrived upon by Mark Raphael.

“I want to make ‘Risk Taking’ films that shed light on subjects we thought we already knew. ‘Provocative’ films that stir controversy, and ‘Popular’ films that thrill and excite large audiences.”

Mass appeal and commercial viability, are not criteria that encourage varied and responsible reporting. Industry checks may happen but if the material never leaves this sphere, pre-public release, there can be no dialogue. Fact checking, largely to avoid any potential legal repercussion, only happens to concrete information, not implication and is far more perceptible in specific rather than abstract cases. Where backlash does happen, it tends to pass more quietly than the impact of the broadcast programme.

When RDF went head to head with the Queen (A Year with the Queen, BBC, 2007) the BBC placed all blame with RDF, whose misleading editing meant producer, Stephen Lambert’s, head rolled. Now he’s back (as Studio Lambert) with Benefit Busters and RDF are free to continue with programmes, Wife Swap and The Secret Millionaire. It is not the representation, but the victim and resource with which they can respond, that affects the reaction – but the personal harm and perceptual effect is no less dramatic for those without recourse.

The power the media wields in propagating and reinforcing hegemonic ideals has long been recognised: The veil of entertainment and pretext that responding to audience choice, removes the onus from the media, only highlights the need for institutional change.

This is just one of the issues that Spectacle’s ‘Poverty and Participation in the Media’ project seeks to address; finding alternatives, opening up discussion and challenging what is seen to be the authoritative voice. The project was commissioned as part of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s ‘Public Interest in Poverty Issues’ campaign, and project content can be viewed online at:
www.spectacle.co.uk/poverty-and-the-media

Being in a Reality TV programme can be psychologically damaging. To make sure you can financially benefit from your exploitation it is a good idea to have a public relations agent. He will look over product endorsement contracts for you and make sure when your private life is exposed in the press it is on the front page.

The PR consultant will oversee your career

What do  you think he is advising the contestant??

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Follow the link if you would like to know more about our Poverty and Participation in the Media project

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #1

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #2

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #3

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #4

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #5

In this picture the contestant is trying hard to win and keep his dignity. He is thinking about the fame and fortune that will follow. How the woman at the check out is going to say something like “‘Ere weren’t you on telly last night?”

How am I doing?

What else is he thinking? Any ideas?

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Follow the link if you would like to know more about our Poverty and Participation in the Media project

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #1

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #2

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #3

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #4

Reality TV shoot – caption competition #5