This month saw the start of the creative futures talks. having only found out it was on the night before on Facebook at 9.30pm was somewhat disappointing. The first lecture in our guide to entrepreneurship was by a lady called Trisha Jones. She was a ceramics and made mosaics. I guess she was inspiring to some people once you got past the front of my life’s so great. Her work was nice but she didn’t have much of a clue on pricing her jobs. I didn’t find her empowering at all. I guess it shows that anyone can make a good go of it once they focus on the task ahead. The great point that she dis raise was if you subscribe to artist news letter you get 5 million public liability.
The second talk was from Land Artist Sean Curley. He was really cool and inspiring and he never took his bag off his shoulder. Sean had a real just get out there and do it approach to his work. Curley described how he did his first project in Glynllifon. Where he was helping out. through his enthusiasm he ended up completing the project as the head of it. He talked about his vision pantisocracy; a utopian environment where everyone is equal. He said that we should always get a good project manager involved with project on your side. so they can recommend you to people. He recommended looking at Safle cbat and celfwaith for options of getting commissions and funding.
The third talk of the day was by Dr John Parkes from the Welsh assembly. He came to tall about Copyright trademarks and a branding. He discussed intellectual property. Intellectual property means you have the legal monopoly of the product. John parkes described it as if you walked into a car in the street you would not own it. He went on to describe that all our work is copyrighted. To prove its your own you can post a sealed copy to a bank or solicitor. Your Copyright covers your for the image not to be reproduced by other people without your permission. You also have Moral rights of your work so you can stop people using the work if you see it unfair. There is no fee for copyright and it only lasts for 70 years. Copyright on broadcasted things is for 50 years.
The second set of lectures where very good. They featured Welsh Photographer Terry Morris, Sid Madge and Shona Hambleton. The talk by Sid Madge was unreal it was so fluid. if he had been selling something id have bought it. He gave a great insight into how we take logos etc for granted. He talked about how the Harley Davidson logo was bigger than the actual brand itself. How we Most people don’t actually Know what intel looks like but we now that when we hear the tune the machine has intel inside. The Sony Brava sold itself on the advert with the balls bouncing down the street in San Francisco using the visuals of marketing to sell it self before anyone had seen the tele. Coke and iPod use the design of their products to sell as they are so iconic. The brand of Coca Cola is worth 70 billion ponds. Sid Madge went on to discus how the internet was a positive thing rather than the negative press it gets. Ebay Dell and google all embraced the net and the companies have risen by 18%. Social Media is Know bigger than Porn on the internet. Facebook would be the 4Th. biggest country in the world off its users. The music industry has very forward thinking ideas to market themselves. Radiohead released their last album in Rainbows where the fan could pay what they saw fit for the album The average people payed a $8. Jimmy eat World are the for runners of using the twitter site. However the dark side of most companies do not associate with three keys words Love Loyalty and passion. I really connected with this having just left Jessops Apple try to direct themselves of all three of those words. hence the apple customer service experience in their shops. I have witnessed this hence me crumbling and know owning a I mac. Apple as the with other well-respected company’s work on the ethics of a good idea, true to their values and the brand itself is the drive.
Terry Morris Talk was an Experience. I think only someone from Wales could have come in and hit the ground running like he did. He passed on the power and told us he was the savvy person sat in the corner with a dell computer that was faster than any mac in the room with £500 left in his pocket. You started to sit there and question who is this strange Maverick before us. Then on telling he charges £10,000 per photo shoot and the list of people he works with you kind of crumbled that you had like many been caught in the mass consumerism of the apple brand. Terry was true to his minimalist approach with no use of entourage at photo shoots and his lack of love for his camera which to him was just a toll of the trade. He sees it like a chisel to a stone mason. I Was lucky to have lunch with Terry Morris. He was very encouraging and positive. He was saying when approaching people to be commissioned always approach the top the managing directors have access to what they wont funding wise.
Shona Hambleton from the tax office had a hard job to follow the previous two talks. She did this however amicably sadly without much interaction from the crowd. I have done some basic business stuff so this was very refreshing. The idea of setting a separate 30% savings account to cover tax and national insurance was very good.
To be continued
The creative futures week was soon upon us this was a week of talks by professionals and post graduates. I attended the monday where we went to focus on image in birmingham. On the Monday of creative features a group of us went down the Focus event at the Birmingham NEC. This is a trade show open to the Public. There is a range of products available for whatever your discipline. Having been to the event several times i knew what to expect so i had planned what i wanted to see while i as down there. It’s always a very busy affair with many types of people. I have a strong representation from the Camera club world and is a very male dominated event. I spoke to two different insurance companies about getting cover for my camera equipment they wherePhotoguard insurance and Snap insurance. I did feel they was going for the hard sell. but it is a good place to start looking for other information. On the hp stand i had a go at their new template for making canvases. You print your image onto canvas. Cover it with a satin gloss or matt coating. Leave it to dry than line up your canvas with the wooden frame. staple the top edge by pulling it tight towards you. Fold the corners over then cut a little from underneath. Staple that down. Know you start to use the canvas dragging tool. The finished canvas should end up nice and tight like a drum. We went to watch a display of lighting on the bowens stand this was done by Christian Hough
I sent him this email as i was so inspired by his work: Hi Christian, Im a third you creative lens degree student at glyndwr University. I watched your 1pm presantation on the Bowens stand on Monday. I found your presentation really empowering and inspiring. You had such a clear way of putting your vision across. Your lighting on your website images is beautiful great control and shadows. Thanks you was defiantly a highlight of the trip to focus for myself. Keep up the excellent work Cheers Alan
The best stall for me again was sony. They create such an impression every year at Focus. They had this really inventive idea of having a cat walk with all there cameras from big to small to sly to video camera. It just looked so impressive. I also got talking to Margret Salisbury on the photo speed stand. She is very high up in photographic circles. I had a good chat with her and give her one of my invites.
I think on the whole the trip to focus was worth while. We did however have to rush around the last section which was a shame. I feel really confidant after coming away from it. Which is a first. I normally directionless after visit.
On the Wednesday the first talk i went to was by Sue Jeffries a producer from S4C. I found her really motivational from the start. she was putting the question right back at the audience from the start. asking what we wanted to do. I felt nervous at this which was a good thing a s i dont know what i want to do. I am interesting in getting into filming but asking the question i was not aware of all the avenues there was to go down. From what she said i feel my strengths are organising and motivating so i guess the producing title fits my job description. I will hopefully get in touch with smaller companies in the area to see about work. she discused the 12 subsectors that are available to work in. tv film radio animation commercial games multimedia corparte post production and photo imageing.
Sue also did the second lecture on C.v’s as she works for skill set media. she described how people forget to see lthemselves in a c.v she did a really good demonstration with differnt examples of what was right and wrong with peoples cv’s applying for jobs.
In the afternoon i caught a setion on motivation by Denise Chilton. i found this interesting even though im very self motivated. her description of people was body lanuguage was really good and that the body changes on every move. i feel i understand a little more what it is that motivates us. you need to set goals of where for and why you are trying to motivate. This can be done by using Mozlows Hirachey of Needs.
On the thursday i went to watch Phil Barretts talk. Im still not sure why he was giving a lecture!
The second meeting i went was very productive if not a little drab from Engage in comunity arts team. They work out of Wrexham Oswastry area. They where really posative and wanted to get people involved in what they was doing. I sent them A email to find about more of the things they do.
Hi Dewi,
ALAN WHITFIELD 
Leave a Reply