Radio Feature

This is a four and a half minute radio feature on the Cardiff Bay Sports Village development.



Images courtesy of:

image-division at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cf247/2905243969/
capt' Gorgeous at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_salter/311259881/
& obrdaniel at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21575484@N04/2090660943/

PULP FICTION: THE POP TART SCENE

Directed, produced and starring Joe Tidy & Matt Tozer

CAPTURING CARDIFF

I went to speak to four different people in Cardiff to investigate...

CINEMA IN WALES FOR 2009 AND BEYOND

What's the first thing you think of when we talk about the film industry?

Packed out multiplexes? A sun glistening Cannes film festival? The famous stars of Hollywood Boulevard?

Well the truth is that the business of film-making isn't as glamorous and alluring as many people think. The film industry can be an unpredictable and very often a gruelling business to work in. This can be true even when considering the successful, money making Hollywood productions let alone the small, often considered non-existent Welsh film industry.

Karl Francis is a leading Welsh writer and director known for his independence and brazen partisan film-making. Over the past thirty years he has tackled many political and social issues from the traumas of Welsh pit closures to his latest film, Hope Eternal, a multi-lingual story of a Madagascan nurse working in a TB and Aids hospice in the Congo.

Karl told me he is content continuing making the films he is making, but thinks there is a real dilemma in British film-making and even more specifically in Welsh film-making claiming we are currently in the "dark ages of film". Karl still believes that very good films can be made for half a million pounds or even less, but there is fundamental problems such as the best Welsh talent ending up in television and the massive distribution problems every Welsh film-maker encounters.

Iwan Benneyworth works for Cardiff based company Boom Films and is also a young director and writer. He discussed the importance of marketing and distribution,

"Distribution is one of the biggest problems in Welsh film-making with so much emphasis today on the marketing machine and muscle needed to get a film widely seen"

Part one of an interview with Welsh film director and film production worker Iwan Benneyworth discussing cinema in 2009:



While Karl explained how so much of the great talent in Wales ends up working in television as opposed to the film industry, Iwan believes that while the general Hollywood film industry is in decline, this has actually caused the resurgence of quality American television. Iwan believes there is a big call for European directors to find that 'X' ingredient that is so often lacking from Hollywood productions and feels there needs to be a balance between the intelligence of film-making so inherent with Britain and the commercial component from Hollywood.

Second part of my interview with Iwan discussing 2009's future projects & more:



There are certain groups trying to help the Welsh film industry. Visit Wales have teamed up with Screen Academy Wales to try and get young people involved in film. The Film Agency for Wales has a new £2 million pound investment for Welsh film-making talent and the UK Film Council is still funding certain film projects in Wales.

One of these projects is Tornado Films. Antony Smith is the owner of Tornado Films, a film production company based in Port Talbot that has been producing short films funded by the British Film Council, The Arts Council of Wales and the BBC since 2002. Antony expressed the importance of making films that are commercially viable admitting that currently commercial film-making is not being made in Wales.

Antony expressed his views on the future of the Welsh film industry claiming:

"Wales very much needs to be part of the European culture of film-making although it does stand out as being isolated and potentially doesn't have an opportunity of moving forward"

He went on to say that Wales has to find a unique voice and a niche with huge importance in developing a brand for finding British films that can travel, but realises the quality is here in Wales:

"The quality is here, there is no question of that, but there is a lacking in ambition and that goes back decades".

Full interview with Antony Smith:



Carol Jones is Head of Marketing at Chapter in Cardiff, which is one Europe's largest and most dynamic art centres well known for it's contribution to local cinema.


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Audiences have grown in general for Chapter for the centre based in the Canton area of Cardiff, and despite re-development, figures are currently the same as last year with half a million through the door in 2008.

The global financial crisis definitely proved to disrupt the American film industry with many producers and distributors anxious about the future in Hollywood. But many, such as screenwriter Julian Fellowes, are optimistic.

Despite certain business predictions globally looking glum for certain sectors of the movie business, last year we actually saw a growth in the home entertainment market and The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia smashing all sorts of UK box office records. Many local views are equally positive for cinema during the recession. Carol at Chapter felt that in terms of people's cultural consumption decisions during these tough financial times, the fairly cheap option of going to cinema is looked upon positively:

"Generally cinema is helped by recession and in fact in the depression in the states cinema attendance went up dramatically so we will probably be helped by the credit crunch"

Chapter has a very loyal audience and it seems with this new £3.8 million pound makeover in action that it is not doom and gloom at all for this side of the film business. Carol explained in terms of their decisions on what films to show that at commenting that at Chapter,

"We are mainly about promoting independent and world film"

Full interview with Carol Jones:



Chapter also has a crossover programme where recent films such as Che or The Reader are a central part of both Chapter's and the bigger cinema complexes. Both Cineworld and VUE in Cardiff benefited from some of the cinema box office surprises last year, which they hope continue in 2009.


Antony from Tornado Films also thinks that the film industry differs from other industries as it doesn't naturally follow economic trends. Usually when there is a downturn in the real world there is usually an upturn in entertainment revenues going back to the Nickelodeon theory of the depression of the thirties in America.

So it is clear that not all sectors of the Welsh film industry are suffering but there does need to be fundamental changes in the structure, ambition and perception of Wales for it to properly fulfil it's potential as a true force in modern film-making and cinema.

Extra Photo Gallery:

The Untouchables?

In today’s modern world, how important is brand? I don’t mean that Essex longhaired controversial comedian, although his own brand is of some interest that I will discuss later. I mean the trade names given to products, companies, services and ever more importantly, public figures that we all grow to know and recognise.

The face of the recent credit crunch coverage on the BBC was Robert Peston, Business Editor, who through his blog, Peston Picks, and his constant TV reports delivered breaking updates of the financial crisis day after day. Rick Waghorn, an ex-local newspaper sports writer, in a recent lecture discussed with us the idea of the Robert Peston brand and how during the financial crisis the 'Peston brand' potentially became bigger than the BBC (particularly on that niche subject). Waghorn, who now has his own brand in My Football Writer (an online site dedicated to the latest insights and updates about football teams such as Norwich City) told us that this type of brand-orientated journalism is where we are headed.

Both Jeff Jarvis and Shane Richmond on their blogs have discussed the idea of a journalist creating their own brand and it’s growing importance, as news organisations can’t afford to employ them all as journalists. Jarvis looks at whether the future of the newsroom isn’t a room at all but:

“an open network of journalists who succeed or fail by the value of what they do and their reputations and credibility?”

Richmond discusses whether other journalists will pursue Waghorn's route of going alone and questions the cost of subscription fees if all his favourite writers followed that path.


This made me consider some of the other big brand names within the BBC, such as Jonathan Ross and Jeremy Clarkson, who arguably could be considered almost untouchable because of the success of the brand they have created.

Clarkson is undeniably both an assured journalist as displayed in his Sun and Sunday Times columns, and clearly an entertaining presenter, leading one of the BBC’s biggest shows, Top Gear. Yet it would be difficult to deny that he seems to be able to get away with just about anything. This joke on a recent show that offended many people with 339 complaints is just one of many outrageous remarks Clarkson makes on a weekly basis on the high-ratings show, Top Gear, which have included several run-ins with Ofcom and the public, even over allegations of racism and homophobia.

Jonathan Ross, a household name among Britain as a talk show host, film critic and radio presenter is another figure whose position at the BBC where he earns a reported £18 million annually, seems to be impenetrable. It may be too early to tell but he appears to have come away from the recent Ross/Brand/Sachs prank call saga relatively unscathed and is another figure that is no stranger to controversy, as Nigel Burton details in his article, often with very little backlash.

So are these names just too big of a commodity for the BBC to lose? On the other hand, could these brands survive even when parting with a huge corporation like the BBC and could these individuals have become the brands they are today without the BBC association?

Renowned PR man Max Clifford believes that Ross would nosedive if he parted with the BBC and went to a rival broadcaster, but its hard to say when you see the almost immediate success Russell Brand found since leaving the BBC. After resigning in October 2008 Brand’s second series of the Channel 4 show ‘Ponderland’ has had an average audience of over one million, he has further success in America and has also won best live stand up at the British Comedy Awards even dedicating his award to Jonathan Ross.

Despite the BBC being a public service broadcaster, it definitely needs cutting edge programming and adopting an over sensitive approach to all of their output would likely lead to a drop in the quality of programming. Yet questions still have to be asked over whether some of these individuals command too much power and clout within the BBC considering their positions as presenters and primarily entertainers. It is clear that brand is very important in this modern world as it can help garner this amount of influence and fundamentally you have to question how dangerous of a position a brand like the BBC find themselves in when these internal brands potentially have this amount of power.

Photo courtesy of claire h: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flashback/2322626646/
and photovalve: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photovalve/1413090804/

To boldly go where no man has gone before

Currently we are existing in the era of Web 2.0, which is the term used to describe the changing trends in web technology and design. It effectively refers to the changes in the way developers and end users utilise the Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the evolution of hosted services and communities that we all use every day, for example social networking sites or blogs. In this rapidly changing environment, the question is what's next? The answer: quite simply, Web 3.0.

So what will the future look like with the arrival of Web 3.0 and beyond? Well the honest answer is that most people don't really know. The future is just as unimaginable as the world we live in today was just a couple of decades ago. There are obviously some educated speculations, such as Nova Spivack, a leading web pioneer who says Web 3.0 refers to the attempt by technologists to radically overhaul the basic platform of the web so it understands the near infinite pieces of information and connections between them. So it is effectively about making the web smarter and as Jonathan Richards puts it, "giving the Internet itself a brain". This to me sounds all too close to science fiction.

One thing we can be sure of is that the web will become even more fragmented. More information will be floating about and there will be even more customisation and personalisation of what of we want to use and consume. This trend has already started to emerge, for example just look at applications, such as iGoogle and Google News. Google News uses content from all other sites to create its news page with links to other news outlets. While iGoogle gives the user even more freedom allowing them to decide what news, feeds and information they want to consume and read with links to favourite sites and headlines or information streams from chosen web sites.

The next question is, how far will this trend develop within computer technology? Are we actually going to breach the realms of many of the fictional representations that we so often see of the future. Hollywood movies over the years have predicted or at least envisaged the future, most of the time quite wildly inaccurately, but every so often a film or fictional idea comes along that ends up being truly prophetic.

Films such as 2001: A Space Oddysey, Blade Runner and Minority Report have all contained ideas and visions that scientists think may become reality or have already formed part of real science.

In years to come will we have even more personalised computer technology that even greets us via retina identification when walking into shopping malls like in Minority Report?

Click link:

Or will we have to worry about this dismal depiction of the future from Terminator 2, by giving the web its so called 'brain'?

Click link:

Some claim that science and technology are moving so fast that it has become impossible for science fiction to keep up. Sci-fi did fail to predict the transistor, which as Marcus Chown from the New Scientist argues, is the development that enabled computers to conquer the modern world. Chown now believes that it may have become harder to predict the technological developments which will change our lives. With huge sci-fi films that portray even more depressing visions of the future, such as Avatar and Terminator Salvation, on the horizon lets just hope the rest of these predictions don't actually become reality.

Photo courtesy of Troutfactory:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/troutfactory/2046952826/

SuperlativeQuip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeradkaliher/2226420056/
and

anthx: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23402088@N07/2237237354/

Blog first, ask questions later

Individuals are finally taking over the web. Today over 50% of online pages are now personal pages and for the first time this year social media even overtook pornography.

In a recent Online Journalism lecture Antony Mayfield from iCrossing (a leader in Search Engine Marketing) hit us with some pretty impressive statistics. There are roughly 1.4 billion people online with 400 million members of social networks. There over a trillion web sites tracked by Google and ten hours of video footage is uploaded onto Youtube every minute. Who are all these people producing all this content? The people formerly known as the audience.

Clearly as I am blogging, I should talk about one of the biggest forms of user produced content, the blog itself.

In an even more recent lecture from Shane Richmond, the Communities Editor of the Telegraph, we were told that their most successful blogs were not chasing the mainstream audiences, but the niche, focused blogs that build audiences at title and even article level. He wasn't just referring to Telegraph journalist's blogs, but more importantly the user blogs part of their My Telegraph site that allows anyone to start blogging on the Telegraph's site. It was also clear that unless you blog regularly, its not worth blogging. This can be witnessed even when looking at more mainstream blogs for example Ricky Gervais's Blog that keeps its high popularity with constant posts including numerous links, multimedia and amusing anecdotes.

In this new world full of virtual conversation it is Google that rules. It doesn't just have an 80% market share, but effectively defines the way in which we know and use the web today. The reason for this is that Google puts the user first. And guess what? Google loves blogs. There are many reasons why, including that it fits their business model and that blogs are constantly updated and full of archived information, but also because blogs are considered one of the most honest resources on the net. This brings me onto one important factor when considering user content, which is moderation.

Many people argue the web is full of rubbish user content. Shane Richmond argued that it might be rubbish or it might just be not be for you, which is a fair point. Yet one thing that is clear in this era of necessary constant contribution, immediate updating and even possible future correction, is that sometimes content is let loose on the web at the cost of accuracy. Not only that, but despite re-editing, the idea of yesterday's news being tomorrow's fish and chip paper isn't true anymore as this content is effectively out there forever, rubbish or no. Sometimes this need for speed, as it were, can even have more serious dangers such as legal implications.

Many argue that it is the journalists and media that have allowed the user conversation to flourish online, but the conversation has always happened, instead it is the journalist that has joined the conversation. Richmond said that as journalists we should not expect the audience to change, but we are the ones that have to change the way we think and evolve in this modern world. Clearly in this epoch of more freedom and individual expression online I agree we need to let the conversation continue, but as long as its not at the total expense of accuracy and decency.

Photo courtesy of kekuri:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kekuri/1116048366/

The Deadline is now

The deadline isn’t next week, it isn’t tomorrow, and it isn’t even 5 o’clock. For the journalists of today the deadline is now.

This was the message in this week’s online journalism lecture endorsed by Adam Tinworth, Head of Blogging at Reed Business Information, Europe’s leading online and offline publisher.

Adam said that weekly news magazines don’t work anymore as news has to be instantly published in today’s modern world. Undoubtedly this is true. There still can be weekly news analysis magazines and print media still has a role to play in news telling and analysis, but it is the world wide web where news is now first broken. News today also doesn’t end when the article is published, it is constantly updated, re-examined and followed up. News stories aren’t finished they are simply developed.

I was doing work experience with a local newspaper, the Bath Chronicle in September 2007 when they changed from a daily to a weekly edition to cut back on costs. This made me realise how the stories and style of news reporting had to change and adapt to fit to this modern world and evidently so much more emphasis for breaking news went through the online site.

All of this led me to consider the British newspaper reporting on the American election last week. Ironically this came up in conversation with Peter Preston the ex-Guardian editor in a lecture later in the week where Peter was questioned about why some British papers had the election result by the morning and why others didn’t. We were told it was simply about editions as certain national newspapers managed to get the result in earlier editions than others. Yet it did make me wonder whether anyone in the UK read a British newspaper to find out the outcome of the election unlike maybe in the past. Surely it would be through the online and broadcasting channels that most people found out that Obama had won.

Certain sporting matches bring up these issues again for newspapers where decisions whether to include results or match reports in the first edition can depend on where and when they finished. Sports reporting in fact is one sphere of journalism where these wider changes can be noticed more than anywhere else.

Today sites like the BBC have minute-by-minute updates of all the football matches and you can have instant messages sent to your mobile phone.

We also have massively successful and exciting live sports programmes such as Sky's Gillette Soccer Saturday that have instant reaction, analysis, scores and information. Despite not actually showing any football coverage it remains one the most popular, distinguished and as you can see from this clip brilliantly funny sports programmes on television.

Then you also have Setanta’s 24 hour sports channel that is hugely popular online available through a stand alone player as both audio or video with constant rolling sports news, which is also on a digital television station.

Even ITV’s Formula One site is full of continuously updated news and video content with live streaming of races.

This trend has even reached more local stations and individual matches for example Steve Tucker from Wales Online blogged the whole Cardiff game at the weekend live.

Newspapers have to keep up with broadcasters and online stations with their own online coverage, as shown by the acclaimed Timesonline ‘news site of the year’, whose own sport coverage is pretty extensive and revolves around breaking stories, updates and scores.

So it seems if the news and sport isn't instantaneous, live, breaking or immediate, then the chances are that it is probably not news anymore.

Photos courtesy of JonHall: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ormondroyd/265542756/

and sunsetbeach: http://www.flickr.com/photos/veeg/64817511/