The Daily Grind

One of the aspects of SciCast that’s been done right is the website design — partly because it’s not as simple as ‘just a website design.’ Rather, there’s an entire brand image going on, with the website merely one expression of it. That’s why the posters we’ve had done look so fab — the artwork was designed from the start to work in that sort of way. It’s also why people are willing to give the website a try: it’s a very basic site, technically, but the design expresses a care and professionalism that screams ‘we’re not wasting your time!’

Huge respect, then, to the designers on the project, Tijuana in Bristol. We didn’t ask them for any of this, they just did it anyway. Lovely chaps, and chipping in solutions to problems we didn’t know we had — exactly the sort of people I enjoy working with.

And hey, they’ve done stuff with Banksy.

It’s all very well having a shiny new FireWire 800 RAID drive, but moving 740Gb of video onto it is still going to take… the rest of the day.

Monkeys.

Good job I still have 30 tapes to log and label, then.

I’ve spent a modestly ridiculous amount of time fretting about updating my main editing machine (the new MacBook Pro) to Leopard, browsing around the various forums. Reading through the thread at 2-pop, it sounds like while there are some issues, they’re relatively minor.

At least, they’re minor if you don’t have hardware cards (which will often need updated drivers), and if you’re not reliant on plug-ins.

So… oh, monkeys, I think I’m about to update my MacBook Pro. And, most likely, buy yet another new hard drive so I can back up properly. Yay Time Machine.

<ulp>

On Wednesday I delivered the last of the SciCast seminars (it went well, thanks), then high-tailed it back to Cardiff. Yesterday was spent recuperating (and helping fix taps… long story), and today… today I’m still pooped.

I’ve a mountain of stuff to do, and I should probably be dashing into the university to film some oddball stuff with the Science Made Simple crew, but I’m still pretty wrecked.

And meanwhile, I really really want to install Leopard, only there are a bunch of conflicts with Final Cut Studio and I’m entirely reliant on that at the moment, so I can’t. Harrumph.

Back to Glasgow tomorrow; back in the office — and hence blogging more regularly — on Monday, I guess. Bleurgh.

The Media Guardian today has a story about the BBC’s Natural History Unit in Bristol, which looks like it’s seeing cuts on the same sort of scale as the children’s department.

Anyone know what’s going on in Specialist Factual, or whatever that department is called this month? We know that Horizon is supposedly safe, but what of softer factual ents? Are all slightly-off-mainstream departments seeing ~40% cuts in senior production staff?

I talked last night to a chum within Children’s BBC, and it’s worse than it seems. The total losses are about 20% of jobs, but the cuts are falling disproportionately on middle-senior posts. Which makes sense, since you need support staff to make programmes, but producers and directors you can bring in as freelancers from the external talent pool.

There’s a flaw in the logic, however. They’re reducing producer, director, and associate producer posts by what is looking like 40-50%. What’s left will be a skeleton crew, which would leave basically every series relying on freelance labour for crewing up.

Only, there isn’t going to be a freelance talent pool on which to draw. Not of specialist children’s producers. Remember, the independent sector was effectively shut down three years ago, when Children’s ITV stopped commissioning. There’s nobody left to bring in, because there’s not enough work left to sustain that community.

Thus, the days of children’s TV as a specialism — of senior staff really knowing what they’re doing, and crafting the best programmes they can manage — are numbered. And the numbers are: about 550.

Give it two years, and ‘I make children’s TV’ will not be a phrase anyone utters.

Perversely, this is actually good news for SciCast and the science communication industry, because in that specific field we’re going to be left as the de facto experts. But in general, this is at best the passing of an era. At worst, it’s the abandonment of mass-audience informal learning by the one remaining organisation that could make it work.

I hate to be a doom-monger, but my argument to the science and engineering world that they need to take matters into their own hands is surely bolstered by this. There’s not even a hope of anyone else doing it, now.

BBC cutbacks, and all that — inevitable, given the license fee settlement, and perhaps not quite as bad as one might have feared. However, showing more repeats is scarcely going to work, in the long run, since people will still turn to alternative sources (including the BBC’s own iPlayer service) to see TV when they want it, rather than when it’s scheduled. I really don’t understand the logic there.

Yet more worrisome is that the cutbacks are mirrored in the Children’s department. According to the Guardian, around 20% of jobs there will go in the next couple of years. This is, of course, on top of the decimation of the sector outside the BBC.

All the more reason, then, for special-interest sector (like, for example, science & engineering) to take matters into their own hands and make media directly.

There are times when the masterplan lumbering into view behind SciCast feels like a pipedream. And then there are times, like today, when it feels almost frighteningly timely.

Bother. Via the Dorkbot Alba mailing list, I learn of an open day being held by the CCA Glasgow-based Electron Club. It’s this Saturday.

I’ll be in London.

I’m on the road delivering training seminars for people who might contribute films to SciCast. It’s fun, knackering, and simultaneously exhilarating and discouraging.

See, we’re still having problems getting people to actually show up for the seminars. Yesterday 8 out of 12 showed, with one disappearing part-way through (apparently once he’d discovered that all the competition information was on the website, and the deadline is early January, which he declared ‘impossible’). Hardly a great turn-out, and we clearly need to rethink the tone and approach of the publicity material we’re putting out.

I’m also continually astonished by the lead-times necessary in education, in that you have to be very precise — it’s basically two terms. One term is too tight to do anything with, and three terms is far too far into the future to think about. So you need to start talking in the autumn for stuff that’s going to happen in the summer, and that’s roughly your only option; other terms are far too busy. But of course, the autumn is the start of the new year, so that’s busy too. Gaaah.

All of the above said, yesterday was a blast. Lots of enthusiasm, some terrific comments and thoughts, and it’s tremendously encouraging to see people get so fired up and enthusiastic about SciCast. Monday’s workshop in Newcastle wasn’t as good, but only because I talked too much — ah, the perils of debugging training formats. Luckily, the bit that felt high-risk worked wonderfully, which means I can use it with more confidence in subsequent days — which in turn means I can cut my prattle. A good thing for all.

So, yes, right — I’m in Norwich now. All’s well, I’m just not being very interesting today. Sorry.

How long do you think it’ll be after the release of Leopard before someone releases a Time Machine extension that plays TARDIS sound effects?

You know it’s not going to be a complete experience without.