Last week we held the final session in this series of 14 workshops delivered by Bristol Media as part of the Bristol BBC Anchor project, funded by the South West Regional Development Agency.  The partners included the BBC Academy and BBC Bristol Production Innovation Team.  A session has been held every week since the middle of January and over the three the months, more than 400 people have attended from BBC staff and the wider Bristol Media Community

Delegates said the sessions were "lively and passionate, with excellent and informed moderating", "good coverage of a complex subject”, "well presented & easy to understand" and "a great mix of disciplines represented".

The Project brought together expertise from within the city – from Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol Old Vic, Bristol University and University of the West of England (UWE), as well as from leading companies such as Mubaloo, Team Rubber & Nomensa from the media community. 

They a huge range of topics from IPTV and connected TV developments to user-experience design for web and mobile to prospects for media sharing across the city of Bristol.  If you missed any of the 14 sessions they are all available as podcasts as audio podcasts, and these are now posted on the Bristol-BBC Anchor website http://bristol-bbc-anchor.org/

Workshops included:

3D Wildlife: Presented at the Wildscreen Festival by Mark Jacobs from the BBC Academy, and featuring 2 films shot in 3D by the BBC Natural History Unit. These featured conventional wildlife behaviour, graphics sequences created by Bristol company BDH, and a behind-the-scenes film.

Short Documentary : Business models & distribution: Presented at the Encounters International Short Film Festival by Paul Appleby from Bristol Media & Encounters. With contributions from Mark Fielder (Quickfire Films) and Conor McCormack.

3D production: Presented at the Encounters International Short Film Festival by Paul Appleby from Bristol Media & Encounters. Featured a screening in 3D of the NHU Africa film made by Vicky Stone & Mark Deeble, and a panel including Rob Hifle from BDH, Alexander Lentjes, Tom Barnes from Aardman.

New Year Revolutions: Held at the BBC, an overview of media developments, and thoughts on the coming year from Andy Parkhouse from Team Rubber, Gavin Henderson NHU development, & Dan Biddle, BBC Vision Social Media Producer. The in-depth session,  was an presentation on social media from Dan Biddle.

Great Graphics We can Afford: A panel session with Nicola Kingham, BBC Vision Graphics & VFX Advisor, Luke Wilmot, from Shadow Industries and John Paul Dowling, Sr. Lecturer, Graphic Design, UWE. The in-depth session was hand-on with staff and students from UWE, looking at the latest graphics tools, and work-in-progress.

IPTV & YouView: This session contained 2 presentations from different perspectives on IPTV.

*EX, Lies and NO Videotape – Secrets of filebased production: The panel included a walkthrough of workflows from Josh Wallace of Support Partners, and experiences from BBC production teams from Robin Lewis, Nick Easton and Andy Mosse. The in-depth session was a practical run-through the shoot, upload and file copying workflow, with a running Q&A.

Sustainable Production: This panel covered the business of sustainability and was presented in partnership with Future for the Future. The Panel session featured Ed Gillespie, Futerra

Imagine a City where…: The panel covered perspectives on the flow of digital information within the city of Bristol, with input from Tomas Rawlings, Peer-to-peer Foundation, Stephen Hilton, Connecting Bristol, Mark Cosgrove – Watershed, Ben Green - Bristol Wireless Heather Craggs – Delib, Tim Pemberton – BBC & Steve Virgin – WikiMedia.

The Interface : Great User Experiences: The panel session provided insights into current design standards in web & mobile platforms from Simon Norris – Nomensa, Fergus Roche – one big field, Paul Deane – BBC Multiplatform, Eli Newman – Mubaloo.

Brilliant Pictures : Beyond HD: This session covered advances in stereoscopic 3D, shooting in 4K using datacameras, and high dynamic range production, with presentations and images from Andy Corp & Mark Jacobs – BBC, Terry Flaxton – AHRC research fellow at Bristol University, and Dr Erik Reinhard – Engineering Department at Bristol University.

Contemporary Stories – Raising the Game: The panel session looked at new approaches to story-telling on new platforms, with new opportunities and constraints.  

Media – Mobile & Pervasive: Hosted by the Pervasive Media Studio, this session looked at mobile - regarded by most commentators as THE growth area in media, covering the current state of play, and what’s coming over the horizon. The panel is Matt Hatch from app developers Mubaloo, Richard Wilson from Bristol start-up Mobile Pie, and Clare Reddington, Director of the Studio, one of the nationally-recognised centres for innovation in mobile delivery.

The Pervasive Media Cookbook: Part 2 of the coverage of mobile innovation is a session at Pervasive Media Studio with Professor Jon Dovey of the UWE Digital Cultures Research centre, tracking the development, social and cultural impact of mobile and location-based media.

We are now in discussion with the various partners to continue to deliver these invaluable sessions later this year.  Keep an eye on the website for further details.