I thought I would write, in simple terms, about some of ways I’ve used them.
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A pink tank featured in the 2007 Manchester Pride parade. Later I saw it speeding down Oxford Road, still with trans girls on-board, and pulling up at the traffic lights. Which was even funnier.

The 2007 poster for Manchester Pride doesn’t mention the words ‘gay, lesbian, transgender, bi’. It only has the abbreviation ‘LGBT’ in tiny print.

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Get Bent website.

Get Bent! Short Films

Date: Friday, August 31, 2007 20.00 – 00.00

Location: Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Description: The cutting-edge of underground queer film-making from across the country and beyond comes to the Contact Theatre. Get Bent! has selected ten cinematic gems that explore the darkest and most humorous recesses of contemporary life. The evening rounds off with a special performance by instrumental four-piece, 7 Hertz accompanying a black and white queer cult classic. Followed by DJs and late bar.

Warning: Contains explicit material.

This event is wheelchair accessible. Please contact filmfest (at) get-bent-manchester.com for any further information.

Get Bent! Documentaries: Life in Motion

Date: Saturday 1st September 13.00 – 19.00

Location: Council Chambers, Manchester University Students Union, Oxford Rd.

‘Life in Motion’ is a wheelchair accessible event. Please contact filmfest (at) get-bent-manchester.com for any further information.

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Flash Video Player is also nice, but free only for non-commercial use.

One issue I did have with Flowplayer, when I used the basic code for embedding, was that it seemed to ignore the setting not to loop the video. Eventually I solved the problem by using a simple playlist instead.

Playlists are a great feature. You can line up a series of videos and mix in still images too. If you don’t set a duration for a still, it will pause the playback until the user clicks.

Here is an example of the code I’m using to embed Flowplayer and you can see the player in action in yesterday’s entry.

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We’d watched a couple of episodes and clips on the Logo website, but Bill doesn’t have the channel and I doubted the series would ever get a showing over here. However I had a gift voucher for Amazon so I bought Bill the three-disc DVD of series one and after watching them himself he sent the discs over to me. They were waiting here me when I got back to Manchester last Saturday.

So I’ve had a great week viewing it all: episodes, pilot and extras. I love this series.

You can watch the whole of the first four episodes of series one for free here.

And the first episode of series 2 here.

There are quite a few clips on YouTube including the pilot scenes they did to try and get a network interested.

I think Logo is missing a trick by not making this available to European viewers as pay-per-view. I wouldn’t have minded paying a dollar a show to watch it. Whereas, I doubt many people here are going to import it on DVD like I did. It’s a shame.

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?