Half way through last year I had an idea: The Community Site needs some content, something for people to be interested in reading and checking regularly for more. I came up with the idea of 'PlusNet TV', where we get a bunch of people into the office, film chatting to them. We could talk about anything that was interesting and vaguely internet related: new technology, toys, problems, code and software etc. I mentioned it to Matt Grest and Ian Wild and we decided to 'have a go'. We decided that I'd be the interviewer (God knows why!) and Ian would start getting some interested parties. Based on our relationship with Andy Mitchell at Meecard after BarCampSheffield we invited him in and created a video. I rather amateurishly interviewed Andy, Matt filmed it with a camcorder and we used a really dodgy bit of software to create a working demonstration of his Meecard application. Matt then mixed it all together, uploaded it somewhere (it's still there, but I'm not going to point you to it!) and we stood back to look at it. I think the most constructive thing to be said was "we can do better than that." So, we tried again. This time we contacted the Leeds Metropolitan University and got in contact with some of their students. Calling themselves Team Mash (don't ask me!) they've picked us up as their final year project and will be doing a series of short videos with us. Utilising another relationship we've formed last year with the Leeds New Technology Institute, we've even got good equipment to use. Looking at the easiest way to get content that will be interesting to our community, we decided that we'd interview people internally, to put faces to names (beyond little Avatars!) and to show that we are a bunch of friendly humans, not faceless automaton robots. We drew up a list, arranged a time, took a deep breath and did it. So, yesterday Team Mash came down with cameras and grey furry things on sticks and filmed Dave and I talking about Traffic Management. Dave was a consummate professional, a good clear voice, hardly ever losing track of his conversation, or need to stop to get his bearings. Myself on the other hand, having just got back to work after a rather nasty bout of man flu wasn't so professional. Still, Team Mash think they have enough good footage which they can edit into something interesting. They'll send us a first edit next week and providing that seems to be working ok, we'll film a bunch more the next week. I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing the end result (although I'm sure I'll hate the sound of my voice... who doesn't eh?). They'll be on the community site as soon as they are ready!
Coming Soon on the (not so) Big Screen!