Thanks for the warm-up

Some cheekiness from Channel 4, literally picking up from where the first #Superhumans trailer for the London 2012 Paralympics left off…

How wonderful is it to see a pretty much sold out Paralympics? London, you’re a star

Forget Everything You Thought You Knew About The Paralympics

This 90 seconds of video is one of the best things that’s been made since I started at Channel 4 nine years ago (rivalled only by a dance in DV8′s Cost of Living and perhaps some moments in Jump London). It perfectly captures the spirit of Channel 4 and therefore why I work here.

I couldn’t have been prouder when it premiered last night simultaneously across 76 channels and got reactions like this (via Twitter):

Meet the Superhumans. C4 just made the Paralympics the most inspirational and important event this Summer

What an incredible promo #goosebumps #superhumans

Channel 4 just put down a big marker for best ad of #london2012 there with the #superhumans trail for the Paralympics

Oof. This trailer makes me want to watch the Paralympics much more than the Olympics.

Just seen the Channel 4 Paralympic ad. Great piece of work. Puts the very average BBC “Pixar” trailers to shame.

The Channel 4 Paralympic advert is something special! So much better than BBC!

what an inspirational advert about the paralympic games #Strength #Superhumans !!!

Stunning spot from channel 4 #superhumans. Very welcome to interrupt my viewing anytime…..

Just seen the premiere of the advert for the Paralympics  made me cry. Can’t think of a better word for those inspiring people #superhumans

Just got little bit emotional over Paralympics advert #inspirational

The channel four adverts are making me more excited for the paralympics than the olympics.

Advert for the Paralympics on Channel 4 is better than anything I’ve seen for the Olympics so far Oh  & I love that Public Enemy tune

And the choice of music is inspired – giving the trailer real attitude. Here’s the Public Enemy track Harder Than You Think and here’s where Chuck D and crew got that great brass sample from, close to home – of all places Shirley Bassey’s 1972 vintage Jezahel, so NYC meets …Cardiff.

Attitude is the key to this film and to C4. My favourite shots are the second one of the swimmer under the shower at 0:21 (her face is glowing with attitude) and the other swimmer adjusting her hair at 0:26. The trail was directed by Tom Tagholm of 4Creative.

When Team GB Paralympic team  got a preview of this trailer at a dinner on Saturday night they were delighted that their sport had finally been given the cool treatment and captured their spirit.

Links for Ritva

Mary and Dina like playing imaginary twins and dressing trash-chic

(All Channel 4 unless otherwise designated)

Channel 4 Digital Personas

Multiplatform metrics

Street Style – a pilot: photoblogging street fashion (2006) – this is simply the vestiges of the site with no backgrounds/design stylesheets

Style the Nation – second screen aspects can be spotted in this vid (see background here and here, plus show here)

Fashion House - Euro fashion design

How to Start Your Own Country (BBC – Danny Wallace)

Chop or Not - game to cut the budget deficit

Sell or Not – variation for Selling Off Britain Dispatches documentary

X – youth election site (2005) – Election Machine (based on manifestos, matching user preferences to parties) – no longer online

Meet the Natives - viewing a nation from outside

Groovy Fellas (1988) Jools Holland wrote and performed in a six-part comedy documentary series with Roland Rivron, The Groovy Fellas, about a Martian visiting Earth. Basically the same premise as Meet the Natives. Not online.

Train Journeys from Hell – UGC listed on this page, also see YouTube presence

The Great British Property Scandal

So here’s what it’s all about:

After just over 24 hours more than 52,000 have joined the campaign

Our Intrepid Leader (George 'Homeboy' Clarke)

It’s been a pretty tough project but that backing plus the following have made it worth the blood, sweat and tears: before the season even started transmitting this multiplatform commission prompted a debate about the senseless waste of empty homes in the House of Commons. I’m just back from an event in Parliament with George Clarke fronting our C4 delegation to rally more MPs behind the initiative, including the committed Lib-Dem Andrew Stunell and the shadow minister for Housing Jack Dromey.

George with The Great British Property Scandal literally on his mind

Here’s the extract from Hansard:

29 Nov 2011:

Empty Homes

Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con): It is an honour to have secured this Adjournment debate on empty homes. It is an issue that I and many Members on both sides of the Chamber have raised in recent weeks and months. Indeed, only last week, three Members asked about empty homes during the ministerial statement on housing.

…

I became involved in the issue of empty homes because of my deep concern about overdevelopment in my Colne Valley constituency in west Yorkshire. It is home to the lovely towns of Slaithwaite, Marsden, Holmfirth, Honley, the Huddersfield suburbs of Lindley and Birchencliffe and many more beautiful areas. I was concerned that our beautiful Pennine countryside was set to be dug up for new identikit homes.

The idea of green fields being developed is bad enough, but it defies all logic to be doing it while thousands of existing empty properties are being left to rot. In fact, my local council, Kirklees, has just voted for a local development framework that will impose 22,470 new homes in the district over the next 15 years, with some going on green belt. I say, bring Britain’s empty homes back into use first.

There is a groundswell of support for the empty homes campaign. I have to admit that I am a big fan of Channel 4 shows such as “Grand Designs” and “Restoration Man”. The presenter of the latter show, George Clarke, will be telling the nation about the scandal of Britain’s empty homes in a forthcoming series on Channel 4 next Monday and Tuesday evening—that is the plug out of the way.

…

What is an empty home? Homes are left empty for a number of reasons—for example, when they are between tenants, being refurbished, in probate or when the owner is in care or hospital. For the purposes of this campaign and this debate, however, we are primarily talking about long-term empty homes. These are properties that are stuck empty, and I believe that getting those houses back into use could be a quick and relatively inexpensive way of providing more housing.

7.17 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell): Like my hon. Friend, I have been in contact with George Clarke and Channel 4, and I am happy to add a second endorsement of the programme on empty homes that they are developing. He, I and they are appalled at the scandal that 250,000 properties [see how the Government manage to make 100,000 disappear - just like that?] are empty when millions of people are on waiting lists, anxiously looking for homes and unable to find them. As well as being eyesores and as well as easily falling into disrepair, empty homes are often an expensive menace to communities and public services, attracting antisocial behaviour, squatting and vandalism.

The Government know very well that we need to build more homes, more quickly, and the housing strategy statement made in the House by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government last Monday shows real earnest intent. At the same time, we have to make better use of our existing homes, as that is better for communities, for the environment and for the families who have the new home to live in. We have been working on ways to bring empty homes back into use, and tackling those homes is one of the key pledges that we made in the housing strategy.

Add your name to the campaign to fill Britain’s empty homes here

Here’s the season trail:

Update 8/12/11:

It’s Thursday night now, 72 hours on, and we have over 91,000 signed-up supporters on the site. Way beyond my expectations. 100,000 is a key number as that enables a parliamentary debate to be triggered. Turn, little counter, turn.

Kiss and tell

A piece from the Guardian today by Jemima Kiss:

Inside some of Channel 4′s new media projects

December 21, 2007 9:57 AM

Channel 4′s latest cross-platform project rolled out quietly this week. Picture This uses the talent show format to follow a group of digital photographers with Magnum’s Martin Parr, Alex Proud of Proud Galleries and Brett Rogers of the Photographers’ Gallery as judges.

….

The common theme with all of these is that they are thought of as “living projects”, pushed into the world by Channel 4 but then taking on a life of their own. For as long as new media departments are given the space to create those kind of projects without too much over-analysis of the market or preoccupation with a fixed end result, we might just end up learning something.

THE FULL ARTICLE

Skin Up

The blue wrap came off. The Big 4 saw the light of day. A real buzz was released into the air around the Channel. Big Art, bold creativity.

The Minister for Culture Margaret Hodge unveiled the 40’ high figure four based on those much admired idents on Channel 4. On the approach to the Channel’s Richard Rogers designed headquarters in Horseferry Road (London SW1), the 4 stands three and a bit storeys high. The structure forms a figure four only from a particular angle, just like the on-screen idents masterminded by Brett Foraker. The concept of the TV graphics is that the four only comes together for a fleeting moment. So, strictly speaking, the Big 4 should be viewed walking by, no stopping.

The structure has been skinned by leading British photographer Nick Knight. He is the first of four artists to tackle the task over the coming year. His approach: skin the figure with images of people’s hearts – from the outside. White skin, black skin, brown skin, the patchwork that is modern Britain. Stand in the middle and you can hear the beating of a heart.

In three months it will be the turn of Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, and then the marvellous Mark Titchner. The last skinner will be the winner of a competition run in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery.

The Big 4 celebrates 25 years of Channel 4 Arts and the launch of the Big Art Project – an innovative, bold cross-platform initiative involving a 4 part documentary series from Carbon Media, the commissioning of 6 new works of public art across the UK – from Beckton to the Isle of Mull, and the first comprehensive map of public art in the UK in the form of the Big Art Mob – a mobile blogging initiative where people photograph public art they know and love and send it from their camera phone into a visually led blog and a Google Map mash-up, the Big Art Map.

Today I had a meeting at the Public Monuments & Sculpture Association with its Chief Executive Jo Darke to make sure the Big Art Mob complements what the Courtauld Institute-based research project has been doing. We (Jo, me and sculptor Nick Pearson) had a fabulous chat in a tranquil corner of Somerset House animated with passion for public art. What I so love about this interactive commission is it’s so adaptable to partnership initiatives. From arts & disability groups to the Arts Council, from Kew to specific creations like Aluna, Big Art Mob is an easy, accessible way to record, explore, enjoy, engage with public art in all its forms.

The day before the unveiling Montreal-based Mexican-Canadian multimedia artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer revealed his idea for the Big Art piece in Cardigan on the Welsh coast to the local community. Home of the first Eisteddfod, hub of the oral tradition; point of departure for America in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Lozano-Hemmer has really got under the skin of the place and distilled in a work based on buoys floating just off the river bank, collecting and projecting back the voices of the local population and interested people beyond.

There’s 2,800 job cuts being discussed at the BBC today. That’s over three times the size of Channel 4. What the Channel lacks in bulk, it makes up for in size of ambition, degree of creativity and scale of idea. Sometimes it’s good to be the underdog. Between Saturday’s unbelievable England rugby match in Paris and yesterday’s unveiling of the Big 4, I’m totally c!h!a!r!g!e!d.