More talent from around me - Wonderful wordsmith Terry Victor

Mindfulness in March - Seeing Red was a blog post back in March featuring fellow Equity member Caron Reidy

Terry is the welshest non-native Welshman living in wales I have ever met. An energy presence at Equity Annual Representative Conferences and a long-standing advocate and active member of the Equity Online Branch.

Another talent I have never seen perform. I do know he has a regular podcast and features regularly on Radio.

Time to listen to the inimitable Word Wrangling Terry Victor

Word Wrangling is a series of slightly skew-whiff looks at the English and the way we skewer it. This episode is formed around an attempt to see how many adjectives can be loaded on the back of a single noun.

Informative and silly. I don't know about you but all this social distancing is getting at me.

Slang lexicographer and language commentator Terry Victor is happiest on the liberal left-wing of language usage. Here are his short, sharp and sideways looks at the ways we mess with the English language. It's our language, we can do what we like with it.

Occasionally provocative, sometimes grumpy and generally mischievous: that's Word Wrangling.

I enjoyed listened to… 

Have you had enough Zoom? One more it should be this one.

Niche information sessions serve 2 purposes. One, to unite and recognise the niche, and Two for those not resident within the niche to gain greater understanding and advocacy.

Equity's Equalities Committees are hosting a series of weekly virtual coffees to help members to keep connected. Every Thursday at 11.30am performance industry professionals gather on Zoom to hear from Equity members, staff and activists on an array of topics, ask questions and share experiences.

Equity’s next Zoom’s In On is zooming in on Dyslexia.

Around 10% of adults in the UK have dyslexia, and some drama schools report that up to 30% of their students are dyslexic.

It's not just coming out of drama school but a life long understanding of adapting and understanding life as it is perceived by your brain. How do you manage, work and co-create with #Dyslexia and help those around you to do the same.

Join to hear experiences of being dyslexic in the industry, what support is available and what best practice looks like in the workplace and casting process.

There will be a chance to hear from invited speakers and ask your questions.

Equity make these meetings fully inclusive and accessible. If you have any access needs - for example, if you need a BSL interpreter or if you are dyslexic and would benefit from alternatives to using the chat function for the meeting, please email Lottie on [email protected].

Captioning is available via Otter.ai for any meeting by clicking on the icon on the top left of the screen.

It's good for non-dyslexics to attend. There is additional funding to be had with dyslexics on your production. Extra good planning is needed as time moves slightly differently. To accommodate Dyslexic thinking presents immeasurable rewards. Sustainability and focus being just 2 major advantages. I see my dyslexia as a gift but it needs management and understanding.

Join us to hear speakers talk about their experiences, what support is available and what best practice looks like

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/equity-zooms-in-on-dyslexia-tickets-150586011815

Equity Zooms in on - archive

https://www.equity.org.uk/at-work/equity-zooms-in-on

How to Turn a PDF in to JPG

pdf2jpg.net
Turning PDFs in to JPGs

Locate PDF file, upload file, select quality setting, process, download JPG file

So useful
Here ends todays blog!!

Age and Nostalgia - time slips

It’s a feeling that haunts me on occasion. The brief glimpse back to youth. It’s a feeling, a moment of presence and in a moment transported. A millisecond with no anchor to remain.

It’s invariably the same moments, the same people Mrs West, Nan Lyon’s London house, the wardrobe den and the corn fields behind the house on Wroxhall Drive. 

I want to visit those moments. Through imagination and literature those experiences resurface.

I feel distant. The immediate present with its technology and progress is not my time. Do I keep chasing or accept this platform and wave the train on?

Would I be young now? I’m supposed to say No but the now of youth interests me. I feel I would have been good at being young now. It’s an adventure I can never have. I started my conscience life, uncertain when. I have moments of powerful nostalgia. 

I think my broken heart unexpectedly led me here. I wouldn’t be anywhere else but I feel cheated at times. Not by love I have the most abundant love. I am in one respect lucky. 

I am independent. I always demanded that of myself.

Digitise vs Digitalisation

This is profoundly relevant and routed in a guiding principle that has long been quoted by me imparted by one of my greatest influencers Marcus Romer. “Don’t add technology to the way you do things. Change the way you do things once you know what technology can do.”

This is distilled as 2021 opens in to summer rephrased like origami to Digitalise not Digitise.

What does this mean for lockdown innovations in screen and live performed online theatre? Blended and Remote attendance, digital live evaporating into on demand.
John Maeda’s medium article referees to business innovations.

“Digitizing is easy, but succeeding in digitalization these days requires care and attention to the design of an experience if you are intending to charge a premium.”

https://johnmaeda.medium.com/how-i-learned-what-digital-transformation-truly-means-after-waving-to-a-couple-gs-3be62c4cef7a

Digitizing: Taking what is an existing process or activity and making it electronic to create cost efficiencies.

Digitalizing: Realizing an entirely new digital business that can take on the likes of Amazon or Netflix to generate new topline revenue.

Michael Fisher tweeted below John’s medium in my timeline. The two synchronised tweets inspired today’s post.

https://twitter.com/fisher85m/status/1380812398479691780?s=21

It’s easy to get light headed by the overwhelming newness of each and every day. It’s easy to allow anxiety to wash over me. The digitalised horizons are revealed the closer you approach. I want as much time as I can embrace. But the world is moving faster than I want to move. Faster than I can competently process. 

That internal metronome will orchestrate me through. We are entering exciting times.
Transformation. I like this concept.

Analogue heart and a digitalised soul.

“Uniquely work in progress” is how I feel.

Perhaps that should go on my grave stone!

Vaccine - Jab 1

Yesterday in the weekly Tuttle amidst talk of jabs... notably second jabs, I bemoaned that I had not yet had my first.

My phone rang just before 10.15, I was offered a jab at 11.40, I arrived, had the jab, was asked to sit for 10 mins, pulled out my phone and it was 11.43! I have been Pfizer jabbed.

Such a tiny thing. The ‘injector’ (I’m sure there is a proper name for them) made me feel at ease. These viles hold 6 vaccine shots.

Standing by for second dose.

Lunchtime Livestream S4|E4 - First Jab & Unconference

These live streams are just about doing them. It's a simple goal but immediately achievable and I make media. I intend to make more focused work but the nature of my dyslexia means the ideas in my head all occupied the same space. The space of Here, Now and immediate decision making. I need to put some space in my brain. I need to increase my capacity to track and develop ideas.

I want to up my game in terms of studio presentation but I know that requires some extra prep and some design work. So much to do and my mind to structure it. I take small steps. I keep moving forward. Here is episode 4.

Shownotes

Sound Me a Story... and Zoom

Digital Stagemanagement duties were front and centre today. Show timings, title slides, spotlights, sound checks, original sound, practice sessions, webinar attendance and panelist’s and... a live venue with a remote audience. 

Most of what I do is make sure things happen as smoothly as possible and with little complication. 

In Zoom webinar it’s most important that I know what each participant sees be they a guest on screen or a member of the audience. Optimising the best view is not always easy. I need to see what the majority sees. In webinar that is straight forward. In Meeting it’s a little harder as attendees can toggle between speaker and gallery. Spotlight is your friend. Follow Hosts View and Hide Non Participants make uniform viewing a little easier.

Amazon Smile - Donate to your fav Charity with every purchase.

Do you work with Charities and Use Amazon?

Are you using Amazon Smile? I know Amazon isn’t everyones cup of tea. It is with gritted teeth I write this post now but if I can get just a fraction of my Amazon expenditure diverted to my charities it is a good thing. 

As a trustee of SafetyCurtain a charity providing small grants to performers living in countries that are scarred by extreme poverty, hardship and/or devastating ongoing conflict.

This post is conceived as I’m sourcing the links and cover art for children books selected for the Sound Me a Story music story making workshop for tomorrow I’m digital stage-managing for Spark Arts for Children. I was wondering if I could create QRcodes to the books which linked to Sparks AmazonSmile ID.

If you shop through the AmazonSmile (in the UK .co.uk) site Amazon will make a donation at a percentage of the purchase value to the charity you nominate. the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to the charitable organisation of your choice.

Go to https://smile.amazon.co.uk and log in as you would to Amazon.co.uk.

AmazonSmile is a programme where Amazon donates to a charity of your choice,at no cost to you - all donations are paid for by Amazon.Support your charity when you shop.

Find your Charity. All registered charities are listed you need to claim yours. https://org.amazon.co.uk/

Amazon Smile – How To Create A Clickable Link – Perrito Social

 

How will I make this? to Who will I work with? Pt1

Focusing on an entity still in book form had an overwhelming number of hurdles. Theatre is the ultimate collaboration process. There are many levels of collaboration but even a solo show at some point will require collaboration support or at the very least coordinated centralised working.

A live performance is more than the stage and the auditorium. As experiences the audience’s journey begins with each audience member’s encounter with the idea of seeing the performance. It might be the story it might be the connection with a performer or member of the creative team. It might be the specific stage crafting technique. For the performance it begins with an producer. For the venue it begins with the programmer. In the same way that the audience contrive to attend so the producer and programmer contrive to present.

My experience track is to produce. A Stage for me is not synonymous to a Venue. My audience hook is the staging technique and the story. My aspiration to produce theatre is linked with my aspiration to take theatre to audiences where location makes the 7.30 theatre experience logistically impossible without it being a special occasion.

I believe the attending experience should be led by the desire to see a show and to be told a story. Where the journey home offers a time of reflection. To enjoy the evening and look forward to the next opportunity to be immersed in a new story with fellow story hunters, fellow experience culture companions. Theatre shouldn’t be saved for a special is should be recreational and available.

Extraordinary and accessible to all.
With the media machine fed directly into homes on televisions and now mobile devises too. I wonder how large the TV screens are in homes today? Electric Theatre right in your living room. The bulky cathay ray tube encased by contrived furniture then plastic formed boxes gave way to LCD panels. The proscenium of screened media was liberated.

From Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube“Since the late 2000s, CRTs have been superseded by flat-panel displaytechnologies such as LCD, plasma display, and OLEDdisplays which are cheaper to manufacture and run, as well as significantly lighter and less bulky. Flat-panel displays can also be made in very large sizes whereas 40 in (100 cm) to 45 in (110 cm) was about the largest size of a CRT.”

The turn on and turn off digital polarity replaced the previous if small fuzzy analogy of tuning in.

With the advent of the remote control meant even the necessity to make the small journey to turn over, change the channels left watchers sofa bound. It was the dawn of the mouse click manoeuvres. 
Effortless transition. Each moment’s attention to be established in the time it takes to channel hop. Entertainment roulette. A roulette wheel spins but the small white ball is the media. The attention staked but the bet the ball will land and wheel will stop. Win or loose? Watch or hop? 

I will be producing the extraordinary within everyone’s logistically possible. Collective experience.