Drama Show / music conventions

 I am working on a pre-recorded drama show for Phonic FM at this time. It started sitting in for the storyteller but now is more permanent. It strikes me that conventions with theatre are different to music. Most of Phonic is recorded music or live recordings. No guests during lockdown. But even outside performance seems closer to a sort of gallery visual art convention. The performer need control of how things are seen so no photography. The content is coherent so no sampling for extracts. So the 'content marketing' approach through social media is not going to happen. There is a related reluctance to sample a lecture, so if the academic curation is an hour and ten minutes then this might suit YouTube. 

I can find drama online with Creative Commons rights so I can edit this for clips to make up a radio show. There is an Exeter Street Arts Festival next weekend. Social media examples do exist to promote what is probable. there will be a @wenotno show on Wednesday. But without the Widseth&Deor Theatre I am not sure there will be so much poetry and storytelling. Link suggestions welcome.

In October there will be an Exeter Fringe. My guess there may be some sound clips that could be used on radio. But just in case I will carry on with my own plays, rough ideas for behind the scenes how it was never made chat variations for radio. Worried About Jim will become Worried About Tim in case there is a mistaken identification with a known or living character. CD Walk continues in Exeter. there will be another siege of Kendal Fortress Uni in the new academic year. 

 

Problem of sequence and context

 Analytics reveal a complex situation, well a bit much for me anyway. I set out to explore sound in Exeter over the sunny phase. Influenced by a conference about "Urban Assemblage" I started with short clips intended to be put together later. In a blog such as this or in a playlist. My drama radio show is now pre-recorded so the idea of clips fits with this. 

The content for the walk is two brooks, the Taddiforde Brook and the North Brook . Common title - Follow the Water. There is an intended conversation. the Taddiforde Brook passes some new student accommodation and then a space that may have been intended for student accommodation or maybe not. it may just have been a nightmare. Anyway there will be a formal announcement on strategy later in the year so I will wait on reality. Fiction can get too complicated. The North Brook is more public and open as it joins the Exe. In September there is an Imaginarium about which I will find out more. 

Somehow the clips were found by YouTube Shorts and it seems they were promoted in India and other countries far from UK. Bits of water in open air, quite random which ones. So most zero or three, normal for my video, but two were 1,500 or 500. So I did some more to complete the walk and these also worked as "Shorts". I think it is a regional YouTube test to compare with TikTok. The problem is that there is no sequence or context to show that the clips are part of a walk.

So I have done a playlist and also three sequences of photos. With these on a phone you should find the route. 

Taddiforde Brook Upper part uphill from the Business School

Lower part footpath across road at main entrance

North Brook uphill from Posloe Bridge

downhill towards Exe from Posloe Bridge

The playlist

or maybe search shorts, not sure how in UK. Update on stats later. Somehow the walk guides may get similar numbers to the others. Is a minute too long?

Outside Social Media

I am trying out ways to promote Exeter Street Arts Festival on social media, actually just Twitter and YouTube. I try to keep up with both but do not really understand Facebook or Instagram. Most of the info about the festival this year seems to be on Facebook. I will also linkwith radio shows - We Don't Know and Wild Show on Phonic FM.

I have done some tweeting with tag #TempRadioShow this year partly looking for funding as there have been projects to research ways of working outside. I think the social media aspect benefits as devices can be mobile. The map aspect can be shared remotely or with shifted time. The Street Arts Festival is likely to be a good example of this, in ways the public will work out. Later I will compare with research Outside the Box and resources from Exeter Culture.

Next Saturday is Respect at the Phoenix. I had missed the real_life event as I thought it was just online. There is some social media around this but not much so far. ( Maybe I am in the wrong bubble. Anyway I will check over the next few days . )

Issues include copyright, should artists make content free as promotion unless it results in something else? Street performance is a form of this but sometimes there is a ticket event as well. How long should promo clips be? I think full work could be edited but I am struggling with youTube shorts. I cannot work out who is viewing them in whatever sequence. Results ona #tag could be random.

It was not obvious the Street Festival would happen. It was cancelled last year as it gained too much momentum. this year moderate crowds may be ok. I had been thinking about Exeter as City of Culture with Torbay. Seale Hayne as a corridor site. Others have suggested Powdeham Castle. So I am trying to find any notes from Radio 1 Academy when in Devon. They talked about "visual radio" but what is this now? or in 2025?

HE / Exeter

In Exeter the people who mostly live in the city are concerned about student accommodation. It sometimes appears the campus is far away but the city centre is a dorm area. Pubs and shops are demolished to make space. Maybe this a reality that will continue. But there is very little research or reporting on what the future trends might be. If there is a move of learning online will the campus be required on the same scale? There may be some sites that can scale up numbers to maintain another number at base for any one rent week. Is Exeter such a place? What happens to other sites? None of this is much discussed I think. Comments welcome.

See previous post for links to reports on what might be happening in UK. The Sunday Times mentions several Russell Group names but not Exeter. This could be because Exeter has a low profile or just tries to avoid difficult topics. I have tried to find out more about Telematics at St Lukes without much progress so far. It may have been closed down as one of the subjects that were not a research priority at the time. Meanwhile the Digital Humanities Lab is very helpful on Twitter. There is a "Big Conversation" for staff and students about online etc but any conclusions are still a mystery for the public.

I have tried out forms of fiction /  drama as a way to work on this. ( Partly also because I have started to do a drama show on Phonic FM ) #CDWalk is a walk around central Exeter looking at the places music retail used to be. This has been chat on Wild Show / @wenotno . Also over the summer I am doing walks along brooks - Follow The Water . The North Brook heads towards golf course and new routes. The Taddiforde Brook starts alongside the campus but is then much harder to follow. Student accommodation could be a topic on this walk also.

But I think the North Brook is the one to concentrate on for now. Other events are expected. An unusual thing has happened. I did several short clips and uploaded them to YouTube just as a way to keep track. They could be combined in a blog or playlist for context later. But two of them were recognised as "shorts" and had many views- 1500 and 500 . Most of my short clips have zero or three, even the best bits from Phonic FM shows. So I have done some more and there are now about 19 for the North Brook. Will the AI work out they are in a sequence? Analytics shows most views are from India. I will wait on the new term to ask for student help on understanding this better.

Two Discourses and the Sunday Times

 Yesterday the print Sunday Times had a story about UK universities "refusing" to go back to normal. Some online lectures will continue. This was based on a survey of 24 Russell Group unis and Times Higher Education survey of 65. It seems only 20 of the Russell Group may have replied. Lord Baker is quoted as describing the stance as outrageous. Returning to normal is seen as urgent. a report on page 4 quotes a student about to start a course-

"At Brighton they are promising in-person teaching. I'm keeping the documentation that says that, just in case."

The term "blended learning" is in quote marks. There is almost no mention of hybrid or benefits of some form of combination. There is a negative comment about YouTube.

But in the Business section ( p4 ) there is an interview with Andy Bird, the new boss of Pearson. ( Pearson Tears Up The Textbook ) He previously worked for Disney and knows about streaming platforms. As a model for textbooks this could avoid a secondhand market and restore margins. There is a new app "about to do for education what Spotify did to music and Netflix to films". This is just a start. HE is under strain. Student debt in USA now $1.7 trillion but HE resists lower prices although moving to Zoom.

So there are two points of view in the same paper. In February Adam Matthews wrote about "two discourses on 2020 remote learning". One is about going back to normal. One he wrote about is based on what worked well during the lockdown, the boost for existing models of how blended/ hybrid / online might work. 

The Sunday Times version concentrates on back to normal. The innovation has a business emphasis. There are several possible explanations for this. When journalists phone academics is there any support for online ideas? Is there a secret strategy somewhere that is not to be made public?

The next post is specific to Exeter where I live.

Variety of Formats for content - #CDWalk as an example

 I am thinking about formats that might work over the next few weeks. I am not sure about the lockdown, how it will work out. there is still no news about the Exeter Street Arts Festival so I assume not much will happen but some busking like last year. I hope the Exeter Fringe is not limited but I am trying to stay flexible in my own head.

Anyway my script for #CDWalk was not accepted by Down Stage Write for their radio plays. I am back to thinking about it as a walk, with online support, clues. My colleagues would like some new material so I am thinking about this also. Meanwhile the format of a walk situation seems to be well supported. The Outside The Box research continues with following bees and a map of sea routes onto Exeter. 

I have yet to see any theory about ways the outside performance links to ways of promoting theatre shows as "normal" . I think this must involve social media somehow to get to scale. But I rarely find bits of sound I can use on radio or bits of content to link to. Maybe I am missing it, some may turn up.

I am also working on #SiegeK2 , a renewed siege of the Fortress University. I visited Kendal recently and have four short clips. My video approach follows the starts and Shorts continue to be looked at. I may give up on this soon and go back to longer forms. AI cannot cope with context or continuity. Clues please if there is a site somewhere that sorts this out.

Unusual Analytics

 YouTube analytics show a very unusual pattern. I have been trying things out to get interest in the fiction / drama scripts around topics of student accommodation / moving learning online. I uploaded short clips from a walk in Exeter for later use in a blog. Somehow they were found bt a "Shorts" setup based I think in India. this seems to be a YouTube test for mobile phones, similar to other projects. Two of my clips were selected, with 1,400 and 500 views compared to zero or one for the others. So I am going to carry on with this somehow. There is still a problem of how to communicate some link between the clips. The AI method is all very well but only a blog or a playlist can show context.

In Kendal I did some shorts from the castle and one was selected. ( I have yet to find where the source is but the analytics show where the route is ) 

So this is getting over part of the story. The Siege of Fortress University Kendal is a way to represent discussion around moving online. More on Scott Galloway later.

The Taddiforde Brook flows past some actual student accommodation and a site that may have been intended for such or may have been spared, unknown at present.

The Shorts may be understood by students from India and nearby in YouTube terms - South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam. Not China as far as I can tell.