Coventry Team's photography session

We were lucky to have a photographer come and work with the team, to help us understand what makes a good image and how to take a decent picture. After we had learnt about how a camera works and some of the technical stuff. We looked at a variety of pictures and then went out in between the April showers to take photographs of Coventry. We only had time to walk around Spon End and medieval Spon Street but the team managed to get some great images. We have opened a flickr.com website called grapevinemedia67 and have also posted lots of pictures to the BBC's record breaking attempt project called the Big Picture 2008.
Why not visit our flickr website and have a look. Peter has also opened his own flickr website and will be adding some of his pictures next week.

Visit to the BBC Mailbox, Birmingham

Recently the team visited the BBC at the home in the Mailbox. We had a chance to do a weather forecast and a news reading. There were exhibitions about the history of the BBC and a chance to see into the production office. Unfortunately we didn't get to see anyone famous.
After we had done all this we took a long walk around Gas Street Canal Basin to Centenary Square. Everyone had a good time but there were lots of aching feet.

Update on training (Nuneaton Group)

The Nuneaton group have only been together for a few weeks but are doing really well. They have put together a newspaper and last week they made a TV programme. The team spent some time planning what sort of programme they wanted- they settled on a lifestyle and called it the Media Show. Jo & Zoe were the hosts, but everyone else had a slot, Sarah did a cooking sketch, David H. read the news, David S did a report on local pubs closing, Jason was sports reporter and Lesley was special guest, talking about his new film. By the end of the day we had more idea about what goes into a programme and who is responsible for what jobs.
This week the team are going to look at how the media uses images and then, weather permitting, we will go out and take lots of photographs.

Update on training (Coventry)

The coventry team have almost finished their training and are already planning a positive images campaign for learning disability week starting 15th June.
Recently we have looked at how to change people's minds and how the media can influence how we think. This might sound boring but it was great fun. We spent some time looking at clips on YouTube to decide whether the clips were real. We looked first at http://youtube.com/watch?v=sCOLZJIfbc4&feature=related which is the Sony Bravia paint advert. The group thought that this had been computer generated. Next to challenge their views we looked at http://youtube.com/watch?v=HC65uIu0j-Y which is a spoof of the Bravia advert, this made people think that perhaps the paint exploding had really happened. Finally in this section we looked at http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z66_Y72ZYb4 which shows how the advert was made.
We also looked at the Polo advert featuring the singing dog and some Dom Jolly Trigger Happy TV sketches to decide if they were real. Finally we looked at a couple of April Fool sketches, the first was Hilary Clinton turning the presidential elections into a bowling match and the second was the BBC and flying penguins. Why not take a look, tell us what you think.
Later Zoe and Lynne acted out a scene where Lynne tried to change Zoe's mind, she didn't manage to so the team talked about how they would have got Zoe to change her mind. Finally the team split into 2 groups and looked at a subject bound to get people arguing, they picked vegetarianism and the war in Iraq. They had to present 'facts' to the other group and get them to change their minds. The team used a variety of tactics including the guilt factor and cute pictures of lambs (the veggies), or pictures of coffins and lots of hard facts (Iraq). By the end of the day the team all agreed that they will no longer believe everything they read in the papers or see on the TV.

survey results

Thanks to everyone who took the time to take part in our survey. 53% of you thought that people with learning disabilities hardly got a mention in the media. So how do we change this?

press attention- just like busses

Isn't it funny how you try to get some attention from someone and just when you think no one is listening you find out that they are. Last week we managed to get 2 stories in the media. The first was an article about this very blogging project and appears in Learnign Disability Practice. the second was a story about our photography competition and appeared in our local paper the Coventry Telegraph.
We also had some more good news today, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire are willing to give us some live interview slots during learning disability week June 15th-22nd; which is great for our planned positive image campaign running from now until learning disability week.
Now how do we get to appear on TV? we had a practice run last week when the team visited BBC Birmingham at the MAilbox, where we got the chance to do weather forecasts and read the news. But it would be great for the team to do it for real- any ideas?

Uncover's 1st Birthday

It's really hard to believe that yesterday was our 1st anniversary, and what a difference a year makes. This time last year the project had recruited 2 staff (myself & Zoe) and were looking for a 3rd person to join the team. We didn't know much about the media and had very few local contacts. We were also faced with trying to find people who wanted to be on the media team, our target by the end of the project is to have worked with 35 people.

One year on we have 2 media teams, one based in Coventry and one in Nuneaton and we found a 3rd person to work with us in the office. We have also worked with some students based at Henley College, who are now our media minding group. They watch TV and tell us what they think of it. We will be looking to set up another team in Coventry during the summer and we have a big PR campaign running during June to cover Downs Syndrome Week and learning Disability Week.

So what have we done in the year?

2 of the team have been on the radio. Zoe has worked in the communications department of the city council and helped edit their bi-monthly magazine. The Coventry team have finished their training and are helping run the press office. We have starred in a video for the Big Lottery Fund website. Lynne has just done a placement with the BBC and Peter is doing a photography placement with Coventry University. We have set up 2 blog sites. The Nuneaton team have been asked to be in a feature for the Nuneaton Tribune. We have designed our own postcards and spoken at a number of events.

Not bad for our first year so HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY UNCOVER MEDIA TEAM.

Denise