East Cleveland Online

If you can’t make it to the event in Saltburn today  (Thurs 3rd March) you should still me able to enjoy it online. I say “should” because this is experimental. At http://tvcm.co.uk/animex2011 there is a tweetstream with the hashtag #tvcmanim11 – a chat stream, a live stream and a “blogcast” releasing each film at the same time as the audience sees it.

Production has begun again after the Christmas break on “Tommy and Barry Go Back”. We lost a lot of production days before Christmas to weather condition and ill health so we have postponed the world premiere to March 3rd. It’s the same venue, Saltburn Community Theatre at 7.30pm. We moved our production location to Destinations in Saltburn as a more convenient location. Yesterday we got some very tricky shots in the can including Zeppelin flying and Chilean rescue pod maneuvering!

Next production day is Friday 21st (Destinations Again) when we hope to finish the 1945 Jetty scene. Below are some stills from scene 6.

On Thursday 18th November children at Whitcliffe Primary School will re-enact a famous event from their Schools history. Actually the story relates to Skinningrove school but both schools have been amalgamated and children of Skinningrove and Carlin How all attend Whitecliffe. Whitecliffe has the logbooks of both schools going back over 140 years and one entry states; “school evacuated on the occasion of a Zeppelin sighted overhead. The children will re-enact this momentous event and Inspector Charlie Bell of Cleveland Police will play the part of the calm voice of authority leading the children to shelter in the mines (this actually took place too – many Skinningrovers took shelter in the mines during both world wars.  This will form the audio track of an animated film  “Tommy and Barry Go Back” to be premiered at Saltburn Community Theatre, Animex Fringe on February 10th 2011.                                                                                         

Straad Kirk has been cast in the role of the captain of the Zeppelin that will fly over Skinningrove School re-enacting an event that took place nearly 100 years ago. Unlike the actual Zeppelin of 1915 the one Kirk will be flying has a fully stocked bar. Clearly the cast will be frequenting this craft regularly. This is part of the filming of “Tommy and Barry Go Back” to be premmiered at Saltburn Community Theatre, Annimex Fringe on February 10th 2011.

Last weekend saw a fantastic event at Loftus Town Hall. As part of Heritage Open Days the Town Hall played host to a range of exhibits from community history groups downstairs and the fabulous Octorama was housed upstairs. In the Council Chamber there was a presentation of the wonderful image archive from Loftus Digital Village. Overall the event had over 500 visitors with the public on Saturday and schools visits on Monday. The eight screens featured content from East Cleveland communities and 8 speakers delivered sounds and stories from local people recorded by Skinningrove History Group. On screen were images from the Skinningrove, Carlin How, Margrove Park, Moorsholme, Brotton, Loftus and Marske Digital Villages. This had been a culmination of over two months work by volunteers including most of Loftus Town Council to build a portable Octorama.

You can see video and images of the whole development here:

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/development-blog/

Or follow the weekend event in this order

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/elected-volunteers/

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/the-build/

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/the-event/

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/schools-visits/

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/the-end/

Or Follow the entire story from start to finish

http://tvcm.co.uk/ironage/development-blog/?order=ASC

Directly following the exhibition the Octorama featured again at the “Inspiring Digital Engagement Festival” in Sheffield. See below.

Here are two previews of the exhibition taking place on September 11th and 13th as part of the Heritage Open Day at Loftus  Town Hall. . Although we can’t do the 8  screens and speaker of the Octorama justice here, these two clips may give you a flavour of the event

NB – the audio and video content are separate  entities. They are independent of each other although occasionaly they  seem to synch. This is unintentional.

This clips now feature  pictures from the East Cleveland Image Archive and John Lawson, readings from the  Skinningrove and Carlin How Schools log books by children from  Whitcliffe Primary School and recordings by Skinningrove History Group  all put together in a soundscape by Steve Thompson. There are also  videos from Skinnimation, TVCM and the Straad Players.

A very interesting evening was had at Loftus Library this week hearing the story of the East Cleveland Image Archive and seeing some wonderful old pictures. For anyone who doesn’t know, the project began as Loftus Digital Village but grew so big that is seemed highly appropriate to rename it the East Cleveland Image Archive. You can see for your self the wealth of images by clicking here.

Many of us have seen these pictures but the story came alive in the hands of Librarian John Hannah. John described linkages between people and places, past and present in a way that was fascinating.

Others with an interest in history and heritage such a the Skinningrove History Group and the Mulgrave Community Research Project were present and we discussed ways of knowledge and resource sharing. The community archives is here in it’s infancy – www.thedigitalvillages.com

The presentation from the evening is below and you can view the images along with their descriptions and comments here

There can be no doubt that the East Cleveland Image Archive housed at Loftus Library will play a big part in the “Iron Age to Digital Age” exhibition. The diagram below shows how images are panning out with regard to East Cleveland Villages. We think that we will place images geographically around the 8 screens. I have edited the obvious ones first andt here are another 938 still to be placed into a location.

A large group of Digital Photgraphers were seen wandering Loftus today. Cllr Barry Hunt had organised a visit to the Town Hall and thanks also  go to Alison, Clerk to Loftus Town Council for showing us around.  Barry features on these walls in both name and image. Our intrepid group are pictured below in the Council Chamber. We then took to the streets of Loftus. What a fabulous place, I’ve visited many times and driven through even more but you see so much more on a walkabout. This visit was accompanied by a rich tapestry of local stories from John including the one about the famous Race between a Camel and a Lion. The pictures will end up as digital post cards as well as featuring in the Iron Age To Digital Age exhibition to take place in Loftus Town Hall in September.