Idea Submission

Archived: Eye on the Wall TV

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• Video
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The Eye and the Sky from Richard Bolam on Vimeo.

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Manchester is, perhaps, as famed for it’s music venues as its home-bred musical history. From legendary Manchester bands such as The Smiths, New Order and the Happy Mondays to cutting-edge collaborations of international musicians, venues such as The Hacienda, The Deaf Institute and the newly re-launched Band On The Wall (BOTW) have hosted these acts and their fans alike.

Having re-opened last year, we approached BOTW as the pilot location for our cross-platform audio-visual project, Eye On The Wall TV. Using multi-view, time-lapse video capture we aim to make a record of the venue, its spaces and activity throughout the day, and use the internet to make this freely available for viewing and remixing.

Our plan is to develop a technical framework for shooting and automatically compositing multi-view time-lapse video, that will be flexible enough to be implemented in a number of low-impact configurations. We aim to create a system that can be implemented in any venue or public space, and either bring in cameras or else piggy-back on built-in CCTV cameras, or even a bit of both.

This technology will allow us to make simultaneous, split-screen time-lapse videos of the live venue as they put on shows, from set-up through to performance and break down. Capture and compositing will be automated so that the final videos will be available almost as soon as the event is over, available for playback in the venue and as digital files on the web.

When screened at the venue, the videos could act as social documents, video backdrops to other events or promotional material for built-in screens. Making the videos freely available online, we would invite remixes and soundtracks by other musicians, artists and video makers. This near-instant, automated production will encourage audience interaction and create media that any venue can use in their own learning and participation programme or self-promotion.

The "almost-live" and online distributed nature of our project will be useful in promoting artists playing at BOTW (and other venues) and will attract attention to Manchester and the venue itself as the home of a great live music experience.

Eye On The Wall TV is Richard Bolam and Matt Lewis. We are independent media producers and have worked together on a number of arts projects, live events and video productions since 2001. We were part of the prize-winning Electric Chaos team that won the 2 Weeks 2 Make It music promo competition in 2009.

We have plenty of skill, experience and motivation, but do not have the equipment necessary to implement our project. We hope to use Umbro Industries funding to purchase computers, cameras and networking equipment to carry out this pilot project, which will help to kickstart our venture.

Amount applied for: £5000