A GPS activated digital harp created by the group.

Today is the last day of the lab that we are running in collboration with National Theatre Wales. All week twelve digital producers from a range of creative diciplines have been taking part in a lab at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol.

Last night, Carl Morris from NativeHQ led a discussion on Welsh language in the digital realm. He touched on a range of media and explained that he considers community, content and interface when designing digital projects. Some members of the group are fluent Welsh speakers, others aren’t and some are considering learning. So it was a broad audience for Carl to present to. One of the points that came out of the discussions that followed was brought up by Catryn Ramasut, Producer at ie ie Productions, who felt it would be far more reflective of Wales for more productions to be bilingual, rather than produced either in Welsh or English and subsequently translated.

 

This morning Kim Plowright came along to chat to us about the life cycle of projects - from development to post-release. She described her role as a producer as one of developing structure around creative ideas. Through her discussion of the neuroscience of telling stories, which included the serial position effect and the peak end rule, Kim made it clear that the emotional weight that audiences associate with a product is heavily reliant on how you end projects.

 

Whilst embroiled in the emotional journey of project as a producer, it is important to bear in mind that, if invested, your audiences will also go on an emotional journey. However these journeys are going to be very different. It is important to consider how you might change and adapt your project as you find your audience. Critically for digital projects be aware that your audience has an audience. Word spreads through social media and often your audience’s first experience of your project will be through a friend or follower. This means that it is important to produce outcomes that are shareable in that way.

 

Before lunch we headed out into the cold and wet for the demonstration of the GPS activated instruments that the group have been working on all week.  Amongst these was a digital harp that had to be moved towards Wales in order to play a tune. It was pretty impressive stuff, considering the fact that none of them had ever played with Arduino before Monday. Over lunch we discussed how the creative task had added to the week. With a packed schedule of talks, a large proportion of the group felt that having time to be hands on with technology had been a good addition to the mix.

 

After lunch Caper’s Rachel Coldicutt gave a talk on cultural entrepreneurship. Rachel described her work as partly being a process of making things that people don’t know that they want yet; she explained that part of being a cultural entrepreneur is creating a market for your work. This point fitted nicely with one of the main themes of the week, which has been that producers need to be able to sell projects, whether that is to commissioners, funders or audiences. You need to be excited by projects, and if you’re working collaboratively you need to start that relationship feeling respected. Rachel said that there are times when you must turn work down and not be frightened of doing so if these criteria aren’t being met. Her final tip was to take the time to understand your business’s finances.

 

Clare Reddington facilitated an evaluation session at the end of the day. This allowed the group to feedback any suggestions on how we might make the lab framework stronger. It was a really productive session and the network that the Digital Producers had developed over the last week became very apparent.

 

We have one more day in Cardiff at the end of the month, where there will be a series of mentoring sessions with individuals from a range of high profile arts institutions. However I doubt (and hope) that will be the last time our Digital Producers get together. Some have been bitten by the Arduino bug… there was even talk of Code Club.

Find out more about what happend this week using our twitter hashtag #digiproducers or take a look at our Storify

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