Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bore Da is the Sunday morning service for learners which looks at items from the previous week on S4C, and Pawb Cyf have been commissioned by Tinopolis to provide the competition lines which run each Sunday morning. This cements our long-term partnership with Tinopolis across much of the content which they provide for S4C, and we’re obviously excited by the new venture which is aimed squarely at helping Welsh learners at all levels.

You can now go to www.ramshacklemedia.org to see the basic version of the site, sorry it’s taken so long. Because it’s based on WordPress, it’s dead easy for us to change themes etc and develop it as we want, so it’s something to think about before next week’s meeting, perhaps trawl around for some more themes if you can. We can mess about with it accordingly.

All we have to do now is think of the content! We do need the multilingual capacity etc, and there’s quite a few tweaks before we’ll be happy with it, btu it’s up and functioning. I’ll send more details over the days to come.

We’ve also got www.ramshacklemedia.co.uk , but I haven’t had time to redirect that yet.

Hey, good meeting, and I feel pretty excited about this. Given respective backgrounds and experience, we can come up with something interesting. My main task now I guess is to get some sort of web presence up and running, so I need a domain name to work with. I’ve had a look at Ramshackle, and we could register the Ramshacklemedia.org or Ramshacklemedia.co.uk domain names (.com is gone) – which one do you think fits (there’s also .info etc)? We could nab both for a few dollars. For voluntary sector kudos, maybe .org would be best, and it’s also nice and ‘neutral’ I think, but maybe it would make sense to buy both.

I’ll set up using WordPress, and we can pick out some themes which might fit the bill, use a multilingual plugin also, see how it works. Once set up, it’s pretty easy to customize.

Some good ideas this afternoon: local sponsorship for courses (could be a really good model once we’ve established), ‘Film it, Cut it, Show it’, and quite a few others. I think there’s a lot of potential in not just the training course(es?), but in refining and developing the ideas around participatory media using what’s to hand, very often for free etc.

As I mentioned, I thought it might make more sense that we blogged our ideas, we can keep all the relevant research and links as we go along. Why did I call it ramshacklemedia?

1. I really like the word ‘ramshackle’, and I’ve always thought I’d like to use it somwhere
2. It kind of expresses partly what I think we can offer i.e. the ability for people to create in whatever media they want, using whatever is at hand, and not to be afraid of experimenting

But really it’s not that important, just what came into my head after the 3rd coffee this morning.

What we discussed on Thursday can be boiled down to the following, based on the rather grand premise that society in general is becoming more audiovisually literate, that we’re moving more into a visual culture which created by ‘us’ not just ‘professionals’:

– there’s a gap in the market here in the Third Sector for people wanting to create audiovisual material either internally or for their external media presence (or for team building activities)
– this material is usually in the form of short films which illustrate case studies about what the organisations do, how they interact with service users of all sorts etc or news items from events
– increasingly, this is seen as part of the role of all press and pr departments, who currently receive training usually in other places, not Cardiff
-though being confident with technology of all sorts is important, being able to craft and edit a story is equally important, be that using a mobile phone, flip camera or professional kit
– being able to offer a cheap, open source alternative is always good news, and will increasingly become better news as more money is cut from the sector (in my book, it’s also morally good use of software which should be free, but we can talk about that some other day…..)
– increasingly, organisation use such material as qualitative proof for funders of what they do, and for some organisations, getting service users to use such techologies is a way to teach broader IT skills – there are a lot of funding schemes here in Wales trying to get people to do this…..

What I propose is that we do some research, find out if there’s a viable business for us to build. Start small, see what happens. If you’ve got a spec that you can put together in terms of what you offer in your one day training course, all the better. I’ve got to write a piece for the WCVA newsletter soon, and I’d like to be able to offer/promote a service . As an organisation Pawb (not-for-profit, been going for roughly 9 years – clients include a spectrum from broadcasters to local authorities , even HM prison service – website currently being redeveloped, so current one is a bit old unfortunately), and as director I span both telly and the third sector, with social research being my main thing (when there’s work…..) – one of my current main projects is S4C Support, offering helplines etc as well as the site, which we’ve developed over the years. Over 300 organsiations in the backend database, and we control this bit of the S4C site – we’re offering organsiations space in this bit to show off more about what they do (for free), and will encourage them to give us any audiovisual material they might have…..

I’m also chair of Inroads, a succesful drug and alcohol agency based in Cardiff and the Vale (again developing a new website).

We can talk about costs etc after a bit of research, but I can definitely see there might be a business here. There’s probably quite a few people doing it already – I know some in Cardiff (so do you I guess), but not many.

Hwn di’r olygfa o’r swyddfa dros y deuddydd diwethaf yn y Galeri……

Y sgwrsio gyda pobl am y prosiect yn mynd yn dda, wedi gallu recordio dipyn o rhain i allu pigo’r pwyntiau pwysig i’r ymchwil. Yn sicr, fel sydd wedi ei grybwyll yn barod, mae’n ymddangos fod pawb isio un lle hawdd i fynd i chwilio am gerddoriaeth, gyda costau (isel) clir – ond sut bydda hyn yn gweithio wedyn ar lefel y cerddoriaon ochor arall? Lot awgrymiadau gan bobl, felly byddai’n pigo rhain i’r adroddiad wythnos nesaf.
Mae cost ac amser yn ffactorau mawr, a’r shift i gwmniau cymeryd fwy o gyfrifoldeb am gynnwys (o S4C) wedi golygu newidiadau dros y blynyddoedd diwethaf, gyda tueddiad i gael mwy o buy-outs etc. Y cwestiwn sy’n codi yn aml yw’r cwestiwn ‘1940s french accordeon played by clown’ : os mai dyma beth mae cynyhyrchydd/golygydd isio i eitem, pam mynd i chwilio am ddeunydd o Gymru, pan does dim byd ‘cymreig’ am y peth a mae’n haws a llai o hassle ei gael o rhywle arall ar y funud…….un awgrym oedd sustem haws i gomisiynu cerddorieth yn sydyn fel hyn, un pwynt o gyswllt i gerddorion a chynhyrchwyr. Mae’r cwesrtiwn o faint mae pobl wedi trwytho eu hunain mewn diwylliant cymreig yn codi ei ben dro ar ol tro hefyd.

Hefyd, wedi dod yn ymwybodol o bobl sydd yn barod wedi trio gwneud rhywbeth am y broblem yn eu ffordd eu hunain e.e. Traciau Cymraeg – Nici wedi rhoi fi ar drywydd Catrin ac Emyr Rhys/ARAN felly fyddai yn trio tracio nhw i lawr nes ymlaen ar bod yn Barcud.

Hyd hyn, wedi siarad gyda pobl sydd mwy ar yr ochor gynhyrchu, ond heddiw am gael sgwrs gyda rhywun sy’n dybio lot o raglenni a sydd yn cael dipyn o fewnbwn i’r ‘feature music’. Golwg agosach felly ar peth o’r mechanics o sut mae cerddoriaeth yn cael ei ddewis wrth dybio.

Good to meet you Hefin and Lisa! Bit of a clearer idea of the way ahead now, and some of the underlying themes for the question framework. What hit me was that, the underlying driver for many themes in our dicussion was technology, so I think gaining a perspective on the use (by producers and editors) of current web-based services will be essential (last.fm and the like, as you mentioned Lisa, or music blog aggregators e.g hypem.com ), with web-based technologies being particularly disruptive. Memory has never been cheaper, and vast libraries of tunes are the norm for all. So we know people (including music producers) are listening and consuming music differently, compared to even a couple of years ago etc. etc. – how does this affect current practices and approaches, consciously or unconsciously? This is bound to affect the next generation of editors and tv producers: so how can the music producers respond to that? However, people aren’t just bound to the technology, obviously, and good practice is more than following the latest trend. How important is company ethos, reproduced through informal/formal training etc.?

It’ll be interesting to compare biographies and professional backgrounds for those concerned. Though it’s not a scientific sample by any stretch, there might be some underlying themes which cut across working for larger bodies such as the BBC or coming from a smaller independent company background etc. What’s the ethos? Cheap and cheerful, or thought out with more quality? Also, what the attitudes to local consumption, in this case the sense of pride in using Welsh-sourced goodies, not just four-legged varieties? There’s a whole heap of understanding about economics and culture behind the decisions people make I guess.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, I’m pretty busy on other stuff until Wednesday pm, but I’ll be writing out a question framework (and hopefully road testing part of it) before the end of the week, + filling out the diary for interviews.

Looking forward to hearing how our editors/producers view these distinctions between ‘featured’ and ‘production’, what it actually means for them in practice, how they make their decisions and on what basis – my hunch is that cost wil be one of the biggest issues, but this we can explore using the question framework. From initial discussions with some contacts, the whole issue of ‘searchability’, tagging the information properly in a single database, would seem to be a consistent theme, but we shall see. It was remarked that the difference in price is always going to be an issue and that there has to be some flexibility in this – but also, time restraints/pressuresetc.

More links added, including to Rhys’s site.

Martin o yourmindseye wedi gwneud gret o job ar ein gwefan newydd. Rili hoff o’r dylunio. Dechrau paratoi i fynd allan i Wlad y Basg i weld gem Cymru yn erbyn y Basgwyr ac i ddechrau gwaith paratoi i rhaglen Stwffio S4C. Wrthi’n darllen El Hijo del Acordeonista gan Bernado Atxaga & darllen papurau newydd ar y we i bracteisio’r Sbaeneg ychydig cyn mynd. Bydd y rhaglen dipyn yn wahanol i un Dudley, wedi ei anelu at blant.