Nice bit of film - only one minute long

http://www.wimp.com/travelsworld/

I absolutely love this - reminiscent of Harvey Keitel's character in Smoke, where he takes the same photo at the same time in the same spot for over 20 years, just outside his tobacconist.

Watch, enjoy

Our green screen session at Leeds University

 Today went very well.  Although initially nervous and slightly unfocussed regarding the whole different location, the group very quickly relaxed into being in the green screen room.  Edgar took his place, very stoically, on the camera dolly, and the gang used various hats and glasses to discuss different topics.

Andy Thorpe was extremely accommodating, and we managed to create some lovely scenes.

Amy’s birthday cake went down a storm, and Edgar had saved some bits and pieces of food from an event yesterday for the gang, which was a lovely thing to do.  Very proudly, they almost all tried food they were unsure of, although the crab bites are still repeating on me now…

However, a short walk to the M & S exhibition [are we nearly there yet, how much further] ten minutes round the corner, and we looked at pants through the ages.  I would like to revisit this a little in a small discussion next week if possible, so that the whole purpose is explained i.e. small business man with no money does good. 

We all had lunch in the refectory, although we almost lost Lucy which the gang were concerned about, an unknown man magically seemed to fit the conversation I was having on the telephone with the one Lucy was having, to expose the fact that she was approximately four metres behind me. 

Very interestingly, everyone, barring Stephen, said they felt as though they fitted in to the environment, and by the time we were walking out for taxis, Liam was rather enjoying being the group comedian.

I think this may be something to do with all the people surrounding them were of a similar age, although we could do with exploring this further.

The green screen, although not an immediate film format that Lucy or I would veer towards, had it’s benefits stretching far beyond the film structure.  I also feel that the group have a great bond, and have integrated Amy, Stephen and Brandon right in. 

Claire x

Some pictures from the M&S Archive ...

We had an interesting interlude at the Marks & Spencer Archive today.
The Archive is in a modern sculptural building nestled in between the red brick residential streets around Leeds University. Inside, we were given a tour explaining the humble beginnings of Mr. Marks selling his wares out of woven baskets and his eventual partnership with Mr. Spencer who gave him £5 to kick start the business!
It was great to see how the merchandise changed from the 1880's to now but most fascinating was how the M&S ethos and marketing strategies have evolved in order to reach different social classes of customer.
There was definite agreement from the group that M&S is 'posh' and it would be good to use the visit as the basis for some future discussions.

Food for Thought

"A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

 Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

 A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time.

 This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. 

Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?" Share if you took the time to read this 

Benefits Street? It's nothing like the James Turner Street we researched

The fieldwork we did in Birmingham produced a picture of a community very different to that portrayed in Channel 4's series

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  • theguardian.com, Monday 20 January 2014 14.32 GMT
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‘None of us would have suggested it was a cosy neighbourhood, but it was far from the hell hole portrayed on Benefits Street.' Photograph: Christopher Thomond for The Guardian

"James Turner Street? I'm sure I've heard of it," I mused, when watching the trailer for the first episode of Channel 4's Benefits Street. But it didn't look like or seem to be the same street that I was soon to recall. Within a few seconds we had statistics quoted by a narrator – "only 5% working … almost everyone on benefits" – and residents to set the scene. Images of rubbish piled high were provided backed by a collection of dysfunctional individuals paraded in front of the cameras. And then it clicked.

I first went to James Turner Street in 2008 for my company, Vector Research. Specialising in researching what are known as "hard-to-access" groups and neighbourhoods, we had been commissioned by the city council and Urban Living, one of the government's housing pathfinder organisations seeking to improve communities in north-west Birmingham, to produce a report on the area. The project, conducted in partnership with Ark Housing Consultancy, was a neighbourhood renewal study to look at the conditions of properties and to gather a range of data from residents to identify their priorities for future intervention.

The neighbourhood we were covering consisted of James Turner Street, Foundry Road, Perrott Street and Eva Road. Before the initial household survey I took two of our executives down for a quick recce. The three of us agreed it was quiet, non-threatening, not particularly untidy, just a bit rundown – and obviously a very low-income area. Typical "terraced melting pot", as such streets are known in one of the key neighbourhood classifications that social researchers use. One or two houses with loud music or rubbish in front, possibly a noisy neighbour or two, but hardly an unpleasant environment.

A month later we had interviewed 321 households in the neighbourhood – more than 60 of which were in James Turner Street. We were pleased with managing to get more than 70% of households to take part in our survey. A certain amount of credit for that was due to our proactive promotion and use of multilingual field staff. But the response rate also tells us something about the neighbourhood.

And the neighbourhood told us a few hard facts, too. The respondents were a mixture of friendly, suspicious and cynical; just one or two were more difficult and had a substance problem or other issues. Not hugely different from middle-class areas from a field perspective – other than the fact that a high proportion were prepared to participate!

More important though, the results for James Turner Street showed that at the time, just under four in 10 (39%) of adults were working – more than were unemployed or on disability or sickness benefit (35%). In excess of 100 residents came to consultation event at Foundry School, in James Turner Street, and took part in an interactive exercise in which they identified priorities for the future. If only we had filmed the event: it featured a slightly different group to the characters that Channel 4 has focused on.

In 2009 we returned to the street as part of a sub-regional study that produced data for the whole of north-west Birmingham and West Bromwich/Smethwick. The 2,500 household interviews showed just how typical the James Turner Street neighbourhood was – with similar rates of unemployment and benefit claims across the area, which housed a third of a million people.

In 2011 we returned to James Turner Street for a case study on low levels of access to the city's cultural services. Once again we found a group of obliging residents in a largely unchanged neighbourhood. None of us would have suggested that it was a cosy neighbourhood we would seek to live in, but it was far from the hell hole portrayed on Benefits Street.

Indeed, the programme misrepresents the true conditions of James Turner Street and ignores objective evidence. Claims of more than nine in 10 not working and on benefits ("based on informal door-knocking") are ludicrous. I appreciate that my company's data is from 2008 and 2009, but conditions locally have not changed drastically since then. Indeed the cost of an independent household survey to update our outputs would have been tiny in relation to total production costs for the documentary series. But perhaps hard data would spoil the story. Instead unsubstantiated figures are being banged out and going unchallenged. The end result is a biased and misleading picture which is damaging for a fragile community.

I'm here

So, Communities and Cultures gang, anyone been watching Benefits Street?  
Anyone been reading the backlash?

Wednesday 15 January 2014 should see us tackling this whole subject head on - Kirsty, I'm expecting some very colourful language :-)

See y'all Wednesday

Claire

Welfare Myths

Benefits Street

Here's a link to a fantastically written article by Owen Jones about the current television programme "Benefits Street".

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/benefits-street-a-healthy-media-would-stand-up-to-the-powerful-and-wealthy-ours-targets-the-poor-and-voiceless-9046773.html

Some photos from our first workshop...

Artists Claire Irving and I have been commissioned by Space2 in Leeds to work  with a group of young adults to explore the impact the Welfare Reform has on their everyday lives.

During our first couple of workshops we spent a little time talking and getting to know one another before getting out and about to capture some film and photos.

We looked for particular shapes in the immediate environment which helped focus everyone's attention on the details which often go unnoticed.

We then experimented with projecting the images and film onto various backgrounds including ourselves.