Created in Birmingham

Boxxed – the art, film, music and education venue on Floodgate Street in Digbeth – is to close its doors.

The venue – which hosted the shoot for Juice Aleem’s Rock My Hologram music video and more – made this announcement on their Facebook page:

It’s with a great deal of sadness that we have to announce BOXXED ceased trading on Monday the 19th Sept 2011. We’ve had fun and we hope everyone that experienced our unique space did too, but it’s time for us to bow out.

Massive thanks go to everyone that was part of our project, particularly Dave Checkley, Ksmk Neil, all the graff guys that painted our walls just for the love of it (especially Hoaks & Fluid), The Project Pigeon Crew and everyone that volunteered their time to help us out. You know who you are.

According to Digbeth is Good (hat-tip for posting about this originally), Project Pigeon, which is based on Boxxed’s Custard Factory grounds, will be unaffected for now and there will be a couple of closing parties at the venue to see it off in style. Inquiries should be directed to the Boxxed team on 07826 523 650.

If things have been a little quieter here recently, it’s because I’ve just started working for Made Media after they bought my company. You know what it’s like when you start a new job. Anyway, there’s a blog post about that here and normal service is being resumed.

Made Media are the folks that built the websites for The Rep, Sampad, International Dance Festival Birmingham, Town Hall Symphony Hall, Warwick Arts Centre, BCMG, Tindal Street Press and many more (and that’s just the West Mids stuff – they work nationally).

I’m posting this here for a few reasons – partly for reasons of transparency and partly because I’m really quite chuffed with the move. There’s also the fact that I’ll inevitably spend work time running CiB, so it’s only fair to give Made a nod on that score.

It’s also meant a move from Digbeth over to the Jewellery Quarter. We’ll have to see if that has an effect on the stuff I write about.

While I’m at it…

The days when CiB existed solely on this site are long gone. If you don’t already, you can also keep up with us on:

• Twitter
• Facebook; and
• Tumblr

Those are the main places, at least. I’ve been enjoying having the CiB Tumblr and have been treating it a bit like the flyer wall that we had back in the CiB Shop. If you have a look at the archive view you’ll see what I mean.

There’s been a little flurry of blog posts from BCU’s Interactive Cultures team announcing a few events and such, including:

• Animation Explosion 2011
• Creative Enterprise Conference
• The Online Mainline

There’s also a set of Creative Metropoles Case Studies which looks interesting (if you like that sort of thing) and features a range of European projects, including the Advantage Creative Fund, Custard Factory and Fazeley Studios office spaces, the PLOT Project and Brilliantly Birmingham from our own fair city.

Meanwhile, the other day, D’log posted about some notes about some other articles including some mentions of Birmingham in a paper called “Enabling and Inhibiting the Creative Economy: The Role of the Local and Regional Dimensions in England“.

I’m actually slightly embarrassed to be giving this one any more oxygen – it’s a non-story on a slow news day and should really be treated as such. For some reason, though, I’ve found myself getting sucked in. So…

To give a bit of background, every so often the city council (or a Birmingham-focussed organisation) will award a contract to a company unfortunate enough to be based somewhere other than Birmingham. In the past couple of years Marketing Birmingham and the MAC have been lambasted for looking further afield for suppliers.

The Library of Birmingham is the latest, having awarded a PR contract to a company in London called Colman Getty after a tendering process which involved several local companies. Unfortunately, the result has been the kind of short-sighted outcry that clamours for protectionism and only makes us look ridiculous, parochial and insecure.

The Birmingham Post have provided the headline most likely to feature in indignant tweets:

Library of Birmingham marketing contract awarded to London firm

Whereas Business Desk WM have been a bit more measured with:

Midlands firms beaten to Library PR contract by London agency

I like how those two seem to imply slightly different things.

On the plus side

Ok, so they might not be from around these parts, and I can’t tell whether the best company won (I haven’t read the proposals and I didn’t see the pitches) but lets see if they have anything to recommend them.

Colman Getty’s clients includes cultural and literary institutions like the Saatchi Gallery, Manchester’s Lowry Centre, the Man Booker Prize, Cheltenham Literary Festival and JK Rowling. So that experience could come in handy when drawing up a “high impact regional, national and international campaign” for the LoB.

Although bids of up to £350,000 were invited, they’ve asked for £292,000 (83% of the total). That seems decent of them, especially as we all know how expensive those London agencies are.

Incidentally, someone mentioned that that’s a lot of money to spend on marketing. Bearing in mind that’s to cover activity over a three-year period for a £189m project that’s meant to give Birmingham some international profile it doesn’t seem all that much to me.

The interesting bit that’s been missed

Colman Getty’s MD says she’s looking forward to working with Birmingham City Council and, more interestingly, “our partners, Writing West Midlands“. So there’s a local link. It’ll be good to find out what role they’ll be playing.

If you only read one thing…

What I usually do when this issue crops up is point towards the guest post that Fullrange’s Lee Kemp wrote for the Birmingham Post a couple of years ago. It’s the best explanation I’ve come across for why reserving regional projects for regional companies is a bad idea. Although I should give a nod to Pete Ashton’s post and the comments below it.

So, while I’m sorry for the likes of Rewired and S&X (who are understood to have pitched for the work – and I’ve only got the BPo and BLWM stories to go from) and others who pitched, it’s surely healthy to bring others into the city.

Tomorrow

I might round-up a load of work that companies in Birmingham have been winning from under the noses of other agencies in other cities. No-one seems to make so much of a fuss over that news.

On 1 May 2010, mac will open its doors again and there’s a bunch of stuff going on to mark the occasion.

There’s a celebratory gig featuring Misty’s Big Adventure, Vijay Kishore, and Kevin Dempsey and Joe Broughton, there’s Motionhouse’s outdoor dance spectacular Cascade, The City Sings, featuring the new anthem for the mac by Helen Ottaway, and a host of other things to take part in.

But the fun stuff doesn’t stop there. Once mac is open, there’ll be a steady stream of events and interesting goings on to keep you going back to Cannon Hill Park for more.

On the performance side of things, there’s Motionhouse’s multimedia dance Scattered, comedian Daniel Kitson’s 66a Church Road,  “return” by spoken-word artist Polarbear. In the visual arts and events spectrum there’s a discussion on the invention of the balti, an exhibition charting the history of sampad, and a debate on social media and globalisation.

And don’t forget there’s a programme of events for families, learning opportunities and the cinema.

For full listings and updates, be sure to check the mac website here.

From Marc Reeves on the Birmingham Post editor’s blog:

In three weeks’ time, the last daily edition of the printed version of the Birmingham Post will roll off our presses in Erdington, marking the end of a publishing tradition that stretches back more than 150 years

Roy Greenslade rounds up the changes:

The Birmingham Post, as forecast in the summer, is to go weekly; the Birmingham Mail will become an overnight, morning title; both editors are leaving; and there will be about 80 redundancies across the group

There are plans to put the titles on a more even keel, but this isn’t good news and sympathies go to those who’ll be affected.

While we’re on the subject of the Post, they had the most fantastic front-page story this morning:

Birmingham council’s £100,000 communications chief Debra Davis attacks own department

Bearing in mind that Ms Davis has been running the department for the past two-and-a-half years, there are many questions that spring to mind – many of them articulated by ‘DiliGent’ in the piece’s 4th comment. Worth a read.

Creative Republic’s next event is an informal get-together at Bluu on Summer Row on 20 January from 6pm onwards.

It’s an opportunity to get together with other creatives, to share what you’re doing and find out what they’re up to, as well as meeting Creative Republic board members who’d love to know what you want from a membership organisation.

There’s more info on the Creative Republic site.

More bad jobs news. Channel 4 have announed that the 4Talent Networks teams, including those at the Birmingham hub, ‘won’t be around‘ in 2009.

We’re told that:

under new management channel4.com/4talent will at least continue

but whether they can maintain the impeccable standards set by Nick Carson, Helen Byrne and Catherine Bray is another matter.

A potentially fascinating opportunity for someone, this:

We, the Waverley Youth Panel (which consists of 15 young people from years 7 to 8) who want to make our school an exciting place for pupils and staff, and to allow them all to be active learners together. We will be working with our teachers to help them set up our Bright Space/Waverley Change school programme. Our initial ideas are to employ/commission one creative person or even an organisation to work with us to ‘find our voice’ and to support us in finding out what is already in our school and how we all want to use it. We also want to continue to draw on the strengths our school and community

If anyone wants to get involved then further details (incl contact info) are on the Arts News item.

Some bad news – according to The Guardian “BBC Resources’ Birmingham and Bristol bases will be closed”.

Mark Thomas, the BBC Resources chief executive, has apparently emailed staff to explain that jobs will be lost across the corporation’s commercial post-production and studios arm and that the Birmingham premises are no longer commercially viable.

As the BBC Resources website says:

BBC Post Production Birmingham is home to some of the best Drama, Magazine and Contemporary Factual programmes on television. From ‘Doctors’ and ‘The Afternoon Plays’ to ‘Coast, ‘Countryfile’, ‘Gardeners World’ ‘Don’t Die Young’, ‘The Sky At Night’, ‘Indian Food Made Easy’, and ‘To Buy Or Not To Buy’

(Via Simon Howes)

Starting 1 November and continuing every Saturday until Christmas, Moor Street Markets will set up in the foyer area of Moor Street Station.  The emphasis will be on handmade, small gift items.  Here’s the flyer and some blurb:

Originally started in Summer 2006 by designers Claire and Kelly, the Moor Street Station Markets won the station industry awards but disappeared after the following Christmas. Now they are brought back to you by Moseley Arts Market Coordinator Jamie Lewis, initially for the 2008 Christmas period and most likey for special events throughout the next year. At Moor Street Station Market the emphasis will be on smaller affordable art, craft, jewellery and fashion with wide appeal

I like the way this has been done.  No need for a flashy website or owt, just a simple (free) blog to stick some info on.

Oh, and stalls are still available and they cost a tenner.  See the website for info.

Lazily copied & pasted from the press release:

Birmingham City Council has launched an ‘X Factor’ style hunt to find the city’s top undiscovered talent, offering them a chance to perform in front of many of the city’s most influential creative industry and media figures.

Entertainers of all genres, whether magicians, dancers, circus acts, singers, groups or comedians, are being invited to take part, with the winner claiming an exclusive performance spot at the 2008 Creative
City Awards Ceremony, being held on November 29th at the ICC

Auditions will be held at The Custard Factory at the end of October. The successful candidates will be judged by the creative and events teams behind the Creative City Awards.

For more information, or to enter the competition, please send a short e-mail introducing yourself and your act to ed.king@bcguk.com, or alternatively call Ed at BIG CAT Group on (0121) 200 0910.

Thoughts?  Anyone going to have a go?

**UPDATE** – actually, from the looks of the comment by Ed below, it looks like this isn’t happening.  Or something’s happening but in a different format.

Eight Eyed Sea Bass’s blog has news of the company’s work on a few films.  Firstly they’ve authored the DVD for a feature film called The Mandrake Root from Simon Wood (ex-UB40 manager and founder of Brumiewood)’s European Drama Network.

They also mention that they’re working on a couple of feature films in preference to companies from London, although details of the projects can’t be divulged just now.

So yes, that’s all well and good.  However my favourite thing on their blog is a short entry for a computer animation competition – you can read about the background to it on the blog and watch it here:

Robotochan_15s (HD) by EESB

Typical.  I write a post about the Fierce Earth blog and what happens?  A few hours later Helga Henry, managing director of Fierce Earth, uses that same blog to make a couple of key announcements – the biggest of which is that:

at present I think it’s fair to say that there will not be a Fierce Festival in 2009 but that we will aim to produce 2-3 large scale ambitious public projects throughout ‘09, one of which may be at the festival time. Our partners too, may still want to programme audacious and risky work in May and June, and we will certainly be working with them as usual to promote performances if they do.

We’d like to deliver a bigger, more ambitious programme, and it may take some time to sort that out.

So it’s not all bad and a reflection of their ambitions more than anything.  It’s worth reading the whole post for more about the whys and wherefores but, as Helga says, watch the blog for developments.

There’s also information about Fierce’s Creative Learning work and the announcement that:

We’re considering announcing a call for projects and inviting ideas for innovative and exciting creative learning projects with people who would be willing to partner Fierce Earth

So if that sounds like something you’d be interested in then that’s another reason to watch that space.

Bit late notice this one but The Rainbow have a licence appeal hearing on Wednesday. As I understand it they’re having issues adding the Rainbow Warehouse to the licence for the Rainbow itself.

Email your support to kent[at]rootyfrooty.co.uk. Now, please.

Not sure what to say? Maybe something along the lines of:

Kent

I would like to give my support to you in your Premises Licence appeal. In my experience events run at your venues have always been organised to the highest standards and have helped to promote the licensing objectives. Your venues also help to bring some much needed vibrancy to this area of Birmingham.

The Rainbow and the Rainbow Warehouse host music and film and we’re lucky to have them so please give em a hand.