Created in Birmingham

The organisers of World Aids Day Birmingham are doing a T-shirt competition and are asking for submissions along the following themes:

• Reflection: Let us not forget those whom we have lost to AIDS.
• Education: Saving Lives “Get Tested” “22,000 people in the UK do not know they are infected with HIV”. Being tested and an early diagnosis can save your life.
• Celebration: Rejoice for the lives of those living with HIV & AIDS.

The deadline for entries is 1 November.

Incidentally, the site itself is oddly silent on the fact, but World Aids Day is 1 December.

In recent weeks our prize giveaways have been living on CiBmail, our weekly arts and culture email round-up, but today we’re treating the blog to some competition action.

We’ve got a pair of tickets to see acclaimed comic and Fringe favourite Paul Sinha at Town Hall on Tuesday 23rd November up for grabs.

Here’s a little more about Paul:

Paul Sinha has spent much of the previous decade garnering rave reviews for his self-deprecating tales of his life as a GP, lovelorn gay bachelor, quiz fanatic and social coward. This year, he doesn’t want to discuss turning forty, because he has bigger fish to fry. A racist called him a racist. Paul would like to fight back.

And if that hasn’t tempted you, here’s a selection of glowing reviews from his recent Edinburgh Festival show and more:

‘Superbly crafted and erudite stand-up… highly recommended.’ ***** Scotsgay
‘This is one of the best written shows in Edinburgh right now.’ ***** The Skinny
‘Mesmerising… entertaining and thought provoking’ **** The Scotsman
‘Alluring mix of quick wit, self-deprecation and fierce intelligence’ **** Fest
‘Impressive… a breathless polemic relieved by sharp jokes.’ **** Chortle
‘Intelligent and bitingly radical… genuinely funny… enjoyable and uplifting.’ **** Broadway Baby
‘Fast-paced, surprising twists and laugh-out-loud punchlines’ **** Hairline
‘Paul Sinha is a star.’ **** Edinburghisfunny
‘A triumph…explosive punchlines and laser guided political asides.’ Independent On Sunday
‘Reassuringly intelligent and very funny’ Observer

To win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post with your name and we’ll pick one winner at random at 12noon tomorrow.

Good luck!

The first Visualise Festival will be held on 21 – 31 October, as a major celebration of young people’s visual creativity. They’re calling for anyone under the age of 24 to submit their artwork as part of the Young People’s Open Visual Art Competition, which will hold a high profile exhibition in Birmingham City centre.

All forms of artwork are accepted (apart from films), and must be no bigger than A3 in size. There are also some prizes up for grabs and will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place entries in each of the age brackets, along with an art box for every shortlisted entry.

Deadline for entries is 4th October 2010, and notification of selected entries will be made during the week commencing 18 October.

For more information, visit the Visualise-Birmingham website, or contact the Visualise team at info@visualise-birmingham.org or by calling 07886 367 544 or 07971 824 188

In the last week’s CiBmail (sign up if you haven’t already) we featured a competition to win a free 12-month CiB Supporters slot. We’re extending the competition for a couple more days.

To enter – email the name of your organisation to createdinbirmingham@gmail.com using SUPPORT as the subject.

We’ll draw a winner on Wednesday 7 July at about 5pm.

CiB Supporters is our way of helping to keep Created in Birmingham going. For £75 for 12 months we plaster your name and logo in the blog’s sidebar, in a monthly ‘thank you’ post, on our Supporters page and on our Facebook Page. We also include you in a special Twitter list and give you regular  mentions at the end of CiBmail.

We’ll even send you a Christmas card.

Sounds good? As online advertising goes it’s cheap. It also helps to keep this website going, which hopefully you think of as a Good Thing.

The Arts Council recently asked for regional submissions to win a significant pot of money under the title ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ - linking into themes of the Cultural Olympiad, and leading up to the 2012 Olympics.

The first selection process has happened, and details of the potential regional winners have been announced and can be found here.  Unsurprisingly, all of the West Midlands shortlisted are designed to happen in Birmingham (with perhaps the exception of Imagineer Productions – which doesn’t specify, but has obvious Coventry connections?) and so it seemed relevant to point it out to the CiB readers and point you to the site where comments are invited on which idea excites you the most.

I have rather strong feelings on the selected few and would be curious to find out what you all think.  If any particularly strike you (either positively or negatively!) then feel free to leave a quick comment below explaining why.

Richard Battye is one of Birmingham’s veteran photographers. A few years ago he had a very successful exhibition ‘This is England’ which showed at 14 UK galleries from North Shields to Mayfair. He even took it out  to Los Angeles and  became a visiting lecturer with Kodak. Past clients include: The Arts Council, Land Rover, Harley Davidson, Gibson Guitars, BBC, Channel 4, and channel 5′s The Gadget show, where Richard is ‘their favourite photographer’.

He is now working on another project based around dance, but can’t come up with a title. He would like CiB readers to come up with a snappy title and the winning chosen title gets a signed print and invite to the private view when the exhibition launches.

The work is around dance and was shot in Birmingham, you can view working progress here.

Please put your ideas in the comments and remember to leave your email address (which won’t be shown). Good Luck!

Animation Forum WM and my chums at Flip Animation Festival have teamed up to launch The Great Animation Challenge! Here’s how it works:

Some brilliant experimental musicians have provided tracks which animators can download for free. The animators need to use the tracks as a starting point to create music videos which can be submitted to the challenge Vimeo group. The best and brightest offerings will then be screened at a special event in Wolverhampton’s Light House Cinema on 21st July.

The bands supplying tunes are Pram (Domino Records), Epic 45 (Make Mine Music), Laurel Collective and Beat To Paris.

To enter:

1. Download one or more of the tracks.
2. Create an animated music video for the track(s) of your choice.
3. Upload the finished video(s) to The Great Animation Challenge Vimeo Group anytime before the 6th July deadline.
4. Contact david.luke.allen@bcu.ac.uk with your full name, email address, phone number and the title of your short.
5. The animators behind the best shorts will then be contacted in July for a screening copy of the piece.

The contest is open to animators across the UK at all levels (entries by studios are welcome) and the winner of the best short will receive a subscription to Imagine Magazine and a copy of  The Imagine Animation Directory at the Light House screenings on 21st July 2009.

This week Wendy Cope, one of the favourites to become the new poet laureate said that you can’t write poetry to order. Channel 4 set a challenge to prove her wrong: Write a poem ‘to lift the spirits of the nation’ in the format of a 140 character Twitter tweet.

Katie Parry aka @supercoolkp, a designer with supercool, did just that and managed to get her tweet read on air on the evening news.

Katie said:

I can’t begin to tell you how chuffed I was – I watch Channel 4 News every weeknight so to see my (Twitter) name on the screen was brilliant.

And it’s another small yet powerful example of the amazing connective potential of Twitter. How else would a graphic designer in Brum get their poem recited on the national news?

The segment is available to watch on YouTube and the best of the rest are on Channel 4 online.

I have two reasons for posting this:

1. It amused me that the site talks up ‘free entry to the splendid Birmingham Artsfest’ when entry is free anyway
2. It’s good to see Birmingham being talked about as a destination for an arty getaway

There’s a few other items bundled into the package that might make it worth throwing your name into the hat. Link to the competition.

Elsewhere on the site there’s a good profile of Studio 4 and mentions given to the Outcrowd Collective, Them Lot, Capsule, Beat13 and Fluid’s Lee Basford. ‘Log’ Roper from Studio4 ‘paints a rosy picture of a thriving, supportive scene, where musicians and artists intermingle’

Birmingham Future (the city’s ‘voice of the young professionals’  are having a medieval banquet-themed ball in Feb 09 and are looking for a budding designer to design their tickets and invitations.

The winner won’t be paid for their hard work but they will get a bottle of champagne, a couple of tickets for the ball and their work will be seen by 320 of the city’s keenest young suits.

The criteria:

• The Invitation must include space for the venue, time and date as well as sponsorship logos
• The Menu should include space for details of the meal and sponsorship logos
• Designs must be no larger than A4
• It must avoid any special finishes, such as cut-outs
• It must not use bright colours, such as orange (PMS 021), fluorescent colours or metallic inks
• You must have authorization to use any logos/images in your design

Designs need to be in by 21 November, give the Birmingham Future office a shout on 0121 632 2200 if you want to get involved.

The Flip Animation Festival (6-8 November at Light House, Wolverhampton) has been assembling a rather tasty line-up over the past little while, as documented on their nicely informative blog.

Highlights include:

A retrospective of work from Osbert Parker, best know for his cut out animation style mixed with live action; BAFTA & Screen WM Presents: Ninja Theory, the game developers behind the stunning Heavenly Sword and Kung Fu Chaos; Sita Sings the Blues, a screening of this modern classic and Indian epic; a day of Doctor Who animation treats and a real Dalek fleet will invade Light House!

The line-up is up on the Flip Festival website and tickets are available at very reasonable prices.

It’s competition time!

However, if you’d rather swipe a ticket for free then here’s your chance.  There are two available, to be given separately (ie not as a pair) so there’ll be two winners.

All you have to do is leave a comment claiming your ticket, first two claimants will win.  Rules are as before (except for the first one) and please use a proper email address so I can get in touch.

The second resonance events soiree will happen at the Town Hall on Friday 3 October featuring a host of local talent as well as the very excellent Heritage Orchestra performing the songs of Amon Tobin.  Musically, we’re talking jazz and hip hop but soul, leftfield, classical and any number of other styles will feature.

Here’s the full line-up:

The Heritage Orchestra

Lizzy Parks (album launch)

DJ Cro hosting 2 and a half hours of local MC talent including Ko-Syne (Soulthump, Livebox), SPX (Kung Funk), Redbeard (Eat Good) and more

Visuals by Chromatouch

It’s competition time!

I’ve been given a couple of tickets to give away for this.  All you have to do is shout up for them in the comments.  Just some quick rules:

• The first person to claim them takes both the tickets (well, guestlist places)
• No-one CiB-related can play
• No previous competition winners can claim the tickets
• You’ll need to use a proper email address for me to confirm things with you
• I get the final say on any decisions (if it’s really necessary)

So go for it…

Meanwhile, here’s the flyer:

You can also have a nosey at the interview with Mary Wakelam, of Birmingham Jazz, who co-promotes these events.

It’s competition time again!  Well, if a first-come-first-served grab can count as a competition.

Camille O’Sullivan is currently at the Edinburgh Festival and her show, La Fille Du Cirque, is collecting 5 star reviews like they’re going out of fashion.  She sings songs by Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Jacques Brel and Kirsty MacColl and generally looks to be a very interesting proposition.

You can hear what she sounds like on the Camille O’Sullivan MySpace page.

There’s no particular Birmingham link here, in case you’re looking, other than the fact she’s performing at the Town Hall on 5 September and I’ve got 2 tickets to give away.

So, the rules are the same as last time:

• Two tickets will go to the first (non-CiB-related) person to shout up in the comments
• Use a proper email address so I can confirm everything
• If the person claiming the tickets doesn’t’ respond to an email then I’ll go to the next commenter
• My decision on any/everything is final

Go for it…

Oh, and here she is doing Tom Waits’ ‘A Good Man (is Hard to Find)’:

**Update** Competition closed – congrats to Alex Hughes!

I went to the full dress rehearsal of Birmingham Opera Company’s King Idomeneo on Sunday night and loved it. What’s not to like about an abandoned factory stuffed with shipping containers, opera singers, dirt and orange trees?

Anyway, I have two tickets for tonight’s proper opening show to give away to the first person who shouts up for them in the comments.

Here are some guidelines:

• No-one associated with CiB (that includes Creative Republic types) can claim the tickets
• First to claim the tickets in the comments wins
• But feel free to stake a claim after the first post, just in case (see below)
• I need to give your real name to the ticket-giving people.  If you post under a pseudonym then remember to use a real email address.  If I you don’t reply to a confirmatory email quick enough and/or I think you’re messing about I’ll work my way down the list of commenters
• Tickets are to be collected on the door no later than 6.30pm today, 12 August 2008 – don’t claim them if you can’t make it (it sounds obvious but…)
• My decision on anything and everything is final

If whoever goes would be good enough to blog about the show or send me a review to post on CiB that’d be great.  Not essential or anything but it’d be nice.

If you don’t win the tickets then maybe consider buying one and going along anyway.  You’re not likely to get the chance to see anything like this for a while.

Finally, the Birmingham Post’s photographer was there on Sunday so you can see some pics to get an idea of what it was all about.  There’s more info in my last post about it and on the Birmingham Opera Company website.

Currently topping the Clipstar Animation category, this lovely piece of work by Birmingham agency Warblefly.

Here’s their Animation Forum profile which is where I heard about it (though I think I saw a preview on another blog a while back).