Arts Archive

How I managed to avoid the X-Factor

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: December 15, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , , , ,
How I managed to avoid the X-Factor

I’m writing this post listening to a Spotify Playlist I created specifically for blogging (it inspires me to actually write instead of thinking about writing) and praising myself for having avoided the X-Factor and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here this year.

And I don’t mean just avoid watching it – I mean avoid it almost completely (with the exception of the odd photo of the stupid haired jedtwins thing) – I’ve not seen a single episode or video clip, I’ve not heard a song by or seen performance from ANY of the two shows.

But to achieve this I’ve had to pretty much avoid all of the main television networks, all television news, YouTube, shop windows, electronics shops and more – I’ve even had to avoid looking at the plasma on the wall in the BBC Jersey newsroom.

I haven’t watched a single show on ITV, the television at home has not been set to the channel once in the last few months and I only watch shows on the BBC or Channel 4 recorded through Sky+ or through iPlayer/4OD.

This isn’t so much because I’ve got a moral objection to the show – talent shows have been around for decades – more than I know I’ll get sucked into the crap and hate myself for it afterwards.

However, I have now heard the winner singing his version of the Miley Cyrus song, The Climb (heard not watched) – so I could comment with a tiny bit of knowledge and …. It’s rubbish.

He sounds like a poorer version of Gareth Gates, he has no feeling or emotion invested in the song and just dies.

I’m not a massive Miley fan but as I have a 9 year old Hannah Montana obsessed daughter I do know her music well (was dragged to see the film) and at least she has an interesting twang to her voice, a unique element and a bit of passion – the X-Factor one is just rubbish.

I can’t bring myself to come up with anything more creative than that because his voice and interpretation doesn’t deserve anything more creative.

Yes it will probably go to number one this week and so be Christmas number one (hopefully Rage Against the Machine will be at number two) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t rubbish – it’s just another item of merchandising that the fans of the television drama that is X-Factor have brought to support and show alliegence to their favourite show.

I’ve got no problem with that at all, in the same way that I’ve got no problem with the charts being manipulated by Facebook fans – the charts are meaningless and have been for a long time.

What matters is the songs/artists my friends suggest – the songs I discover myself through hours of scouring Spotify (like tonight) and the playlists I find hidden around the blogosphere.

Than and the charts in iTunes around specific genres. But that hasn’t stopped me getting the Rage Against the Machine song or listening to the rubbish X-Factor song.

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Let me scrap my boxes of CDs with Spotify Stereo

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: November 30, 2009Posted in: General, TechnologyTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Let me scrap my boxes of CDs with Spotify Stereo

I love Spotify, I love internet radio, I love podcasts, I love the freedom to just drop in and out of content as I see fit.

Whether that dropping in and out be in the form of music from almost any album ever released on Spotify or a speech based podcast show.

But I’m not overly keen on having to turn my computer on to listen to that same content when all I want is something to hear while washing up.

At the moment CDs and linear FM radio win out for the ease, cheapness and convenience of being able to push two buttons and be listening to ’something’.

Broadcasting tower in Trondheim, Norway
Image via Wikipedia

What I’m really looking for is a reasonably priced (under £300) home stereo I can put in my kitchen that has WiFi built in with a VERY user friendly interface that gives me access to albums on Spotify, podcasts streamed straight to the device and on demand content possibly through the new UK Radio Player.

A simple device that had space for a CD at the bottom alongside a USB and SD (why are the cheaper ones still Compact Flash) card reader with a LCD screen just above that – and a speaker either side.

The interface would give me the choice of a number of services through a simple icon based menu system on the front screen.

These would be:

CD | OTHER | SPOTIFY | ON DEMAND | LIVE

CD would give you all the options for the CD player including the option of ripping the music straight to an SD card inserted in the slot below.

OTHER would give you access to the media on the SD card or any USB device plugged in.

SPOTIFY would give you access to the full Spotify library using a specially designed interface for a small touch screen based display.

ON DEMAND would give you access to the UK Radio Player on demand interface including the BBC iPlayer – so all radio content from the last seven days.

It would also give you access to the wealth of podcasts from around the world in a specially designed directory.

LIVE does what it says on the tin and gives you access to both the UK Radio Player and radio stations broadcasting live from around the world.

But obviously that wonderful dream device isn’t available at the price I’d be prepared to pay at the moment so I use a combination of the annoyance of powering up a computer just to listen to audio – at which point I find other things to do and forget what I started out doing.

And of course my iPod – I have music synced to it, I have podcasts on it and with the help of a little app I have on demand content ripped to it – but this isn’t exactly what I want or even nearly what I want.

The computer thing does still work sometimes though – normally for my children’s birthday’s we will have pass the parcel and other party games at home with family.

This involves me having a playlist of kids music in iTunes and stopping/starting as necessary – this year I used Spotify for the music and didn’t even need to load up iTunes.

I just want to finish my design of my dream stereo by saying – I love Spotify.

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Beebs College of Journalism to go live in December

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: November 23, 2009Posted in: General, NewsTags: , , , , , , ,
Beebs College of Journalism to go live in December

Nearly five years ago the BBC launched a new virtual training service for its journalists called the BBC College of Journalism – or CoJo.

CoJo has evolved considerably since it first started but is basically a mixture of digital courses, face to face courses and information/best practice provided in the form of a blog and articles.

Their are focused exercises looking at things like writing that includes digital courses, videos, guides and advice from people within and outside the BBC.

There is also a very impressive, and fun, virtual newsroom application that throws story updates and tasks at you in quick order.

Well this incredible resource for BBC staff will be opened up to the wider British public on 14 December. It will be free for British users and under a subscription for people accessing it internationally.

The team behind the service have been busy “writing, editing, blogging” to get the content ready to launch the site to the wider public.

As well as the learning resources and blogs the team are also making use of feeds like twitter and delicious to pull in information from around the rest of the web.

According to Kevin Marsh of the team, there are currently around 2,500 pages within the site, a couple of hundred videos and dozens of virtual newsroom scenarios.

Once it has gone live I think this will quickly become an invaluable resource for journalists, bloggers, academics, students and even people sharing stories with their friends.

And hopefully it will be picked up and used by people contributing to message boards, comment systems and phone-ins as the libel courses would help make those platforms run more smoothly.

One to read

Story Curve: Emerging into the light

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iPlayer pick: I’m sorry I haven’t a clue

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: November 19, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , , , , ,
iPlayer pick: I’m sorry I haven’t a clue

I’m Sorry I haven’t a clue is one of the best comedy shows on radio, in fact it is one of the best things being broadcast on either radio, television or online.

Well now it’s back and it is finally settling into itself with a permanent host in the form of Jack Dee for the whole of series 52 and jokes that don’t sound like they were written with Humph in mind.

Good start to the series and high hopes for the next five episodes.

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Keeping movie magic alive

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: August 21, 2009Posted in: General, Media, TechnologyTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Keeping movie magic alive

Kevin Lewis has been working with film for the last 40 years and his passion extends beyond what you see on screen.

For Kevin his passion is as much in the nuts, bolts and water cooled appature ring as it is in the moving pictures.

For the last 15 years he has been rebuilding the 50 year old projector that now brings the prints at the Jersey Outdoor Film Festival to life.

And despite telling me it is finished, he still finds himself tweeking, playing and cleaning it every day.

The projector in question is a Westar, is 50 years old this year and is one of the last to be made in Britain.

However, after being rebuilt over the last 15 years from spare parts and with the passion of a dedicated enthusiast it bares only a passing resemblance to the one originally built during the hey day of British cinema.

Old ProjectorOriginally built to play films in a cinema, the 35mm projector is now built into an old television outside broadcast truck called ‘OB2′ – Kevin wanted ‘OB1′ but two was in better condition.

And the truck itself, brought from a now defunct ITV franchise holder in the UK, gets the same level of care and attention as the project it carries around.

The ‘truck’ has now become a trailer, partly because having big metal bars makes it easier to ‘level’ when playing a film and partly because it makes it more portable.

It has been the centre piece of one of Jersey’s ‘hidden gem’ summer events.

OK so it is a bit of a stretch to call something attended by over 3,000 people ‘hidden’ but you won’t find it in the high profiles brochures or promoted in shop windows around town.

Every year Kevin brings out the ‘pearl screen’, the projector and makes use of his contacts as a former cinema owner to get the prints – so that thousands of islands and tourists alike can enjoy a film under the stars.

Despite being watched by thousands and appreciated by all, even those asking for the big grey truck to be moved, the event’s future could be in question if a sponsor can’t be found for 2010.

Kevin payed for it himself for the first four years, got a grant from Tourism after that and in the last four has found himself begging for sponsorship to keep the event going.

It would be a shame to see this great summer tradition come to an end over money. Even more so for the projector and truck that work so hard to keep its audience enthraled.

And the projector, the truck, and the screen – those vital ingredient in playing a film- they just sit there working away.

Despite technology that is nearly 50 years old they manage to keep the young, the old and everyone in between wrapped in the grip of the magic of the movies year in, year out.

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iPlayer Pick: Man on Wire

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: August 3, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, General, iPlayer PicksTags: , , , , , , , , , ,
iPlayer Pick: Man on Wire

When coming up with my iPlayer picks I would normally ignore anything in the top five simply on the grounds that most people will have seen it already – but I’ll make an exception for Man on Wire.

The film tells the true tale of how Philippe Petit managed to achieve his amazing high wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York back in the 70s – it’s funny, poinant, irritating and slightly scary all at the same time.

It’s a British film with a French sensability and Philippe Petit has such an over archingly exuberant personality that he brings the whole film alive – mixed with black and white footage and a selection of equally ‘interesting’ head 2 head interviews with his ‘crew’ of the time.

Watch it and enjoy.

Embed code generated using the Up Your Ego PIP tool.

I first saw Man on Wire at the first Branchage film festival in Jersey, an event I’m more closely involved in this year through the Sheer Talent/BBC Jersey Introducing gig.

Branchage pulls together films in alternative places – in locations you might not expect to see a film like The Wicker Man at the twelth century Gorey Castle.

It also mixes live music with that venue selection as well – from live scores to silent films to a heavy metal guitar solo before the screening of Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

If you can be in Jersey between 1st and 4th of October – you’ll find SOMETHING to do and probably discover a few new ‘favourite’ films in the mix.

Speaking of mix and music see if you can spot me in this months Gallery Magazine.

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A full on summer

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: July 28, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
A full on summer

I’ve been working in Jersey for about nine years now and seven of those have been spent at the BBC doing everything from live blogging elections (first one was seven years ago) to photographing a street carnival in the form of the Battle of Flowers.

There is also the Jersey International Air Display – one of the largest free air displays in Europe.

In the last few years a number of new, cool events have started up in the island – some with a message like the Human Rights Film festival and OxJam – others cool, fun and funky.

First there was the Jersey Live festival, now in its sixth year and featuring some of the hottest musical acts in the world. This year headliners include Basement Jaxx, The Kooks, Doves, Dizzee Rascal, 2ManyDJs and Passion Pit.

More on Jersey Live (I’ll write a whole post on the festival later): Official | Twitter | Facebook | My Podcast

Then last year two new events joined the funky fold in the form of Grassroots, a more acoustic, green festival taking place the first Sunday in August and featuring mainly Aussie singer songwriters – this years headliner is Newton Faulkner.

More on Grassroots: Official site | Twitter | Facebook

And the Branchage Jersey International Film Festival – a cross arts festival that puts films on in places you wouldn’t normally expect to see them – like The Wicker Man at the 12th Century Mont Orgeuil Castle in Gorey.

Anyway – here is the promo video for this years festival:

Last year I reviewed four films over the three day weekend and went to see about six. Although because of BBC rules the reviews had to be more features than reviews.

This year I’m hoping to do at least as many reviews and will also be co-hosting a live music event tied to the BBC Introducing brand – not done anything ‘live’ in front of actual people before – so it could be fun or it could be horrible.

I know I’m talking to a few thousand people when I present my show – I’ve seen the stats – but it just isn’t the same, sitting locked away in a stuffy soundproofed studio talking to a microphone isn’t really the same as standing up, amplified voice in front of a few hundred!

More on Branchage: Branchage Site | Branchage Facebook | Branchage Twitter

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Licence fee and the internet

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: May 18, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
Licence fee and the internet

Appologies in advance for this extremely long blog post.

Before I get on with this blog post I feel I need to say that anything written here is my own personal opinion, that I’m not even convinced I agree with any of it and that I am a 100% fully committed supporter of the licence fee and the way it is currently used.

So all that said lets take a look at the TV licence – the £142.50 almost every home in Britain has to pay for the right to have a television – and more specifically how it can be applied in an online, on demand world.

licence_body

Recently Erik Huggers, BBC Future Media and Technology boss expressed a ‘personal opinion’ that it might be time to look at how the licence fee can be extended to the include those watching only on a computer.

BBC Television Centre
Image by flem007_uk via Flickr

He said: “My view is that if you are using the iPlayer you have to be a television licence fee payer. I don’t believe in a free ride. If you are consuming BBC services then you have to be a licence holder.”

Obviously at this point I should probably mention that the current ‘official BBC position’ is that a television licence is only needed if you are watching live, as broadcast programming – not on demand.

TV licensing currently state that you need a licence to: “Use any TV equipment such as TV set, digital box, video or DVD recorder, computer or mobile phone to watch or record TV programmes as they are being shown on television.”

You can police the television, digital box, video/DVD recorder side of that fairly easily – you just make sure that when someone buys any of those devices they have a TV licence – or at the very least you take their name and address so it can be checked against the TV licensing database.

It is possible that someone buying one of these devices has no intention of using it to watch television – they could be getting it to watch DVDs, copy DVDs, burn their homemade movies or play games.

More often than not, statistically people buy a television to watch TV, a DVD recorder to record TV and a digital box – well to watch digital TV.

But the opposite of that probably applies to computers and mobile phones. I expect it to be the opposite with those devices where the majority are using them for anything BUT watching TV.

BBC iPlayer 2.
Image via Wikipedia

OK so millions do use the iPlayer on a regular basis – but far fewer watch television live through the iPlayer and even the millions watching on demand is a considerable amount lower than those watching television generally.

At the moment making sure those watching live TV via a mobile or computer sort of relies on them being honest: “Yes guv, I’ve got a licence and wouldn’t dream of watching TV on my computer without one.”

Or equally, or even more often: “Nah I don’t use it, can’t use it and couldn’t work out how to use it even if I wanted to.”

But technically anybody could use it, they could decide not to own a TV and watch all their television live over the internet through their fat broadband line and 30” computer screen.

Which means they can be using all the BBC services that the rest of us are paying for – I think those watching only on a computer who don’t have a licence – should have a licence if they want to use the iPlayer.

But the question is – how do you do that without upsetting people that have no intention of owning a TV or watching TV on their computer?

It isn’t a problem at the moment as most people watching on the computer probably have a television and in turn a licence as well.

But what about in the future when 50mb broadband is common place, when large computer screens are common place – or even laptops in the bedroom?

How do we get around that problem?

Well I can see a few solutions and one jumped out at me when I opened the post on Saturday to find my new TV licence.

The letter included not one but two big blue boxes with my TV licence number in it. There are even instructions on the back for entering your licence number on the TV licensing website to find out or update your details.

BBC Television Centre autostitch
Image by ➨ Redvers via Flickr

So if people are getting comfortable entering the number to update details on the TV licencing site – why not enter it on to the BBC website to use iPlayer?

OK so the number could potentially be shared between people – students using their parents number while at university – but you could get around that problem by tying the number to a MAC address or IP range/ISP.

Or you just ignore that problem, accept it as a fact of life and move on.

I don’t think entering your TV licence number when registering for access to the iPlayer is such a big deal – however, having recently spent a morning teaching people who can’t use a mouse to get online – I have a different perspective over what is easy.

That extra step might put people off the wonder of the iPlayer, off a valuable and useful BBC service that comes as part of the licence fee they’re paying – it’s those people, and the honest ones this will cause problems for – not the tech savvy ones who will find ways around it.

No, in my opinion we should probably continue to rely on honesty – with a twist.
Build a codec/include into the iPlayer stream player (live only) that you have to install/accept – make it as seamless and painless as possible – click YES to watch live TV sort of seamless.

That way instead of requiring a licence fee if you own a computer – you only require the fee if you have this codec installed on your computer.

Like I said at the start though – just a few random thoughts for preserving the licence fee – that I think is so vital to the massive British creative industry – imagine the quality of TV we’d all suffer if it wasn’t for this collective good that we contribute to together – much like the NHS, schools, libraries and to a certain extent – the armed forces.

I don’t think this will be a problem for at least a decade, by which time we will be entering another charter renewal anyway – and who knows what that might throw up.

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Star Trek Review

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: May 8, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Star Trek Review

I spent all of 30 seconds deciding on the headline for this blog post. Sometimes I try to come up with something clever but in this case I took the decision to apply the Ronseal approach ‘it say’s what it does on the tin‘.

I go to see a lot of films, I’m a big cinema fan and to be honest always have been. Testament to that is probably the fact that the last post was about the theatre of cinema and I’ve written regularly on the subject.

This is going to be the first actual film review I’ve posted to the blog – so please go easy on me. I’m more experienced at audio reviews on the radio – and for that reason I’ve included the review I did for BBC Radio Jersey on Star Trek.

My Star Trek review on BBC Radio Jersey

And I’m not going to break my tradition of avoiding writing down my thoughts in review form by explaining how I came to the thoughts I expressed in the audio above and repeating a few of those thoughts in text format.

So I guess the first step is to tell you that I would give this 5 stars, but I don’t like the idea of giving stars it is FAR TOO LIMITED a rating model. Lets give it 97% out of 100%.

I think the headline of my review was really that this is a Star Trek film that transcends the Star Trek universe and opens the franchise up to not only a new generation but also to people that wouldn’t normally consider SciFi.

Enjoy that? Yeah well you’ll enjoy the whole movie a lot more – I’m a big Star Trek fan, have watched all the movies and have them on DVD – but this is by a LONG WAY the best Star Trek movie I have ever seen.

This film transcends Star Trek and even to a certain extent SciFi – the film creates that ever needed entry point into the wider Star Trek universe for people that never got into the series before.

It takes that wonderful concept the Gene Roddenberry created all those years ago and then updates it for the modern cinema going era – with speed, polish and humour.

In fact one of the most wonderfully surprising aspects of this film was the comic lines – they were brilliant, perfectly timed and well delivered – the other is how effortlessly I found it to believe in the new cast as the characters I know of old.

In my radio review I compared this re imagining of Star Trek to the re-launch of Doctor Who on the BBC – keeping the basic essense of what makes it special but making it for a more cine and SciFi literate 21st Century Audience – or as Mark Kermode said: “Star Trek the Smallville years.”

Starfleet Command symbol.
Image via Wikipedia

If I can convince her to go I’m 90% certain that my SciFi hating wife will love this movie – taking the aliens, epic space battles and jumping from a space shuttle through the atmosphere on to a floating drilling platform out of the equation – this is part buddy movie, part coming of age movie and part comedy.

It’s amazing to witness the growth of both Spock and Kirk from their teenage selves into the future standard bearers of Starfleet – to watch as the crew of the Enterprise (that we know) come together for the first time and find their friendship and how, as I’ve already mentioned – funny the film is.

At the very start the movie set itself as, although part of the bigger franchise, although a prequel to the Star Trek series we know – something different.

It involves time travel and alternative time lines – it allows for the series to continue with the new cast and to do things that might not be ‘cannon’ and get away with it – a very clever move.

There is a LOT more I could say about it that I can’t think of words for right now – a lot more about the actual film, an analysis of the whole thing but that will have to wait until I know more people have seen it.

I loved every minute of it and can’t wait to see it again.

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