UPDATE (October 2008): this video has ‘retired’ into the archives. I’ve left the production notes below.

Bargain Hunters is our reality shopping programme. Can we get some good last-minute deals at the local grocery stores? It’s a race against the clock!

This one was filmed at Easter but I only just got it edited. I think it turned out great — especially considering we had a few issues.

Five minutes into filming it started to rain (April was just SO wet here). Rain has to be extremely heavy to show up much on screen, but even light drizzle isn’t too good for the camcorder. Then my voice recorder seemed to stop working, so we abandoned one thing we had planned (it turned out later I had hit a ‘helpful’ switch which prevents recording and which I’d forgotten was there).

As usual, here are my thoughts on this episode and some of the ideas behind it…

I’m going to scream if I see another lazy PR person, estate agent or journalist refer to ‘vibrant Manchester city centre‘. It’s become a cliche and we need an organised campaign to take the piss out of the unimaginative people who do it. Even churches and the Arndale Centre (with its tacky new catchphrase ‘come together’) are ‘vibrant’ supposedly.

Big Brother starts here this coming Thursday. It was, of course, Big Brother contestant Michelle who famously offered Stuart the chance to squeeze her ‘baps’. As usual I expect to watch the start of the 13 weeks, get bored and stop tuning in, and then return for the last few days to see how it ends.

One of the things I love about editing video is the way all the different elements — picture, live sound and music — sometimes combine to create something unexpected. As I filmed Chris in the lift, in the background there was the sound of a rather emotional woman talking in a loud voice. During editing, when I added the music, I found it became almost like some weird operatic version of our regular theme music. Bizarre.

Chris makes me laugh an awful lot, with his enthusiasm and that slightly-eccentric British thing he has going on. Like a Kenneth Williams or Frankie Howerd, he can make the most innocent remark sound suggestive.

Memo to self: remember not to film broccoli or salad in front of a green screen.

On YouTube.

Police in Columbia are training rats to sniff out landmines.

Lola the rat has a ninety percent success rate in locating explosive material in her training maze. Soon she will be working out in the field (literally).

Police say rats are much smarter than dogs and can be trained in half the time (three months instead of six). Rats are light enough to stand on a landmine without setting it off, unlike dogs and people.

The original news story is no longer available at Reuters. But another account can found at The Telegraph and this also describes how rats are being used to detect tuberculosis in human saliva samples.

How serious is the BBC about public participation and user-generated content? Not very serious, I would say…

The BBC has always looked on the public as material to be used in its programmes and now it looks on photographs and videos that come from that public as material to be used in its programmes. So not much change…

The old joke is that the official BBC tie has small checks (cheques). But, for many people these days, the BBC means no cheques…

My experience, as a former magazine writer/photographer and now web developer, is that the Corporation is always on the look out for free content. I’m tired of producers and researchers asking to use my photographs for free. There’s never any money. With a remit to encourage creativity and promote culture in Britain, the BBC is the last organisation that should be doing this.

Then there’s the raw deal that independent TV production companies have experienced over the years… If this is the BBC’s attitude to fellow professionals, then pardon me for being just a little bit cynical about the Beeb’s enthusiasm for material from the public.

READ THE SMALL PRINT

Before you supply any photos or videos, as a member of the public, read the terms. You’re giving the BBC:

‘a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide. This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners’

In the case of video, it says they may not even be able to credit you. Wonderful — no payment and not even a name-check either. Isn’t there some European law that entitles everyone to be identified as the author of his or her work?

I hope the public will wake up to this soon. I believe that the companies that deal unfairly now will pay later once people get over the novelty of seeing their video on screen and realise that they have been ‘used’.

It really pays to keep people happy these days. The video blogger or photographer who has a good experience of providing footage to a company, may continue to do so for years to come. But leave someone with a bad taste in their mouth and there will be no more material from that source in the future.

Guess which of these is the best business model?

UPDATE: LoadedPun has the story of a video blogger who helped CNN make a report for TV but then was told he would have to pay $1000 if he wanted to include the final video on his blog. In fact, so far, he hasn’t even been able to see the report!

Maybe this guy will think twice before getting involved with CNN again? Piss off enough videobloggers, who then tell everyone else, and soon no one will want to work with CNN. It seems that yet another big media company hasn’t quite woken up to the way things are changing?