Peopleprint Media

The Beehive Arts Trail attracted over 700 visitors to the exhibitions and art activities in Rochdale town centre over the two days of the Feel Good Festival.  A drawing made by over 216 people of all ages reached 42 foot in length and 7ft high. Artist Emrys Morgan said “We had a fantastic response from the public who were delighted at the idea of turning empty shop spaces into temporary galleries.  Artists are hoping to take on this space to hold further exhibitions as the response from the public was so positive.”

The Art Trail comprised of:

5 venues, over 1000 works of art, 700 visitors and possibly the largest drawing in Britain 42 foot long and 7 foot high!

Many people expressed their appreciation with comments such as “should be open permanently for local artists”  ”This sort of thing breathes life back into the town”  ”About time we had something interesting instead of dull shops”  ”Very happily surprised, good on you Rochdale!” “Eye catching, great work, stopped me in my tracks”  ”Thanks for offering something different for the people in our town!”

Here’s the video!

Congratulations to Emrys Morgan and all the volunteers who worked so hard to make the Trail a huge success!

I have now been at Peopleprint for around 9 months and its still going great! I have never met so many different and diverse people in such a short space of time and the amount of volunteers that are craving to get through the door is ten to the dozen!

Over the last few months I have done so much I struggle to remember it all, from creating DVD covers and sleeves to filming the local gym sessions in the community centre. Recently, me and Dawn have been mainly concentrating on a video Peopleprint produced for the Art Award scheme at Oldham Coliseum. Dawn did all of the major editing while I spent time creating motion graphics, editing photos and a whole list of other things that would be added to the footage.

We also put together a media team using the regular volunteers from Peopleprint, with the idea of going out into the community to film local events and people. So far we have filmed local gym classes, and had a few meetings with Community Centres to do short films showing what they have to offer. The media group is on-going.

I have also been lucky enough to have some one on one training with Rich (from Lets Go Global) on Final Cut Pro. He also explained some of the problems we were having at the time which was extremely helpful!

All in all i think that taking this year out and working in industry has been very successful so far and will not doubt continue to be. I would definitely recommend anybody thinking of contacting Peopleprint for a placement or to volunteer to do so without hesitation, you will love it!

How did you hear about us?

I heard about Peopleprint whilst searching for a placement in my second year of university at Huddersfield. I researched them on the Internet and found that they were the sort of organisation that I would like to get involved with.

How long is your volunteer placement?

My placement at Peopleprint lasts for a year. I have been here for four months now and have enjoyed every minute.

What type of things do you do as a volunteer?

I get many jobs as a volunteer, from admin to designing, not one day is the same. So far I have designed and created a range of CD and DVD covers for different videos produced by Peopleprint. I have helped create the interactive annual report for this year using Keynote (another application I haven’t used before). I have helped Dawn by editing sound for her monthly podcasts, edited footage and created titles using Final Cut Pro and Motion for video projects. I also went out into Rochdale to film a local event using the camera and accessories. I also spend some time entertaining the two dogs in the office when I need a break for five minutes.

Is Peopleprint what you expected?

Peopleprint is better than I expected because I am gaining brilliant experience in a wide range of areas that I didn’t think I would be able to cover on my university course.

What do you enjoy the most?

I enjoy the laid back attitude of Peopleprint. Even though we complete mountains of work each week, it doesn’t feel like there is any pressure, which makes it a comfortable environment to work in. I also love meeting all the characters that come into the studio everyday.

What are you hoping to learn at Peopleprint?

I am hoping to learn, and feel I am learning about how to use new software, such as Final Cut Pro, Motion etc. Programme’s of which I hadn’t even heard of before coming to Peopleprint. I also would like to carry on learning about sound editing, filming using the HD camera, and how to make podcasts.

Would you recommend Peopleprint to other volunteers?

I would definitely recommend Peopleprint to others because even though it’s a voluntary place to come, it’s worth it with what you get back in knowledge. I enjoy coming to Peopleprint everyday wondering what job I’m going to get and who is going to walk into the day with what story, it’s interesting, fun, and just a friendly place to come.

First of all may we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Below this post are links to our newsletter as well as our very latest festive podcast. We hope you enjoy both of them and look forward to seeing you all in 2010.

Creative Network Newsletter Dec 09

Have a wonderful Christmas and creative New Year!

“Peopleprint exists to promote opportunities for self-expression and communication by artists, individuals and communities through creative participation and training in the visual arts and media”.

Peopleprint Community Media is led by Christine Talboys-Smith and Dawn Pierson, with the generous support of numerous volunteers, placement students and a board of directors from diverse creative backgrounds. Since its establishment in Rochdale in 1984, Peopleprint has actively adopted new technology and provided training support to local users. Initially, this was a basic darkroom and screen printing press. Today, Peopleprint offers video/audio production and much more!

Core work & open door policy

Over the past year, we have continued to encourage people to access facilities and volunteer. All volunteers have been encouraged to learn new skills, gain confidence and help each other. The volunteer team have created a number of short local videos/audio and contributed to the everyday running of the workshop.

Live25 and World Community Arts Day

To celebrate Peopleprint’s 25th anniversary and world community arts day, we delivered our most innovative project to date. We re-created the Beatles satellite performance of “All you need is love”, for our largest global internet broadcast. Peopleprint’s team of volunteers and young musicians, were delighted that 9,000 people and organisations, watched live across the globe! In Scotland one arts organisation even had a huge screen for the local town to watch! 22,000 people have since viewed the video, and live internet broadcasting will become core to our future work.

The project worked as a vehicle to forge new links with similar organisations around the globe. We shared a broadcast hand over with Homely Planet radio in Northern Ireland. They also recorded a special poem and song with their volunteers for us and we sent volunteers poems to Ireland for their broadcast. The innovative nature of the project attracted many new volunteers to Peopleprint and we were also delighted that many people from the past 25 years got in touch and volunteered their time to the event. We also continued our relationship with Lets Go Global TV who assisted us with the internet link up.

Well done for putting together the Peopleprint birthday bash. It was a great night and you both should be really proud of what you achieved.

I’ve just watched the video on the Peopleprint site and it has come out really good thanks again for letting us joining your 25th birthday celebrations and hopefully we can work together again in the near future All the best Lee (trumpet)

Great! Thanks for involving all our lot! Here’s to much expansion, publicity and growth in the future. Coming here, we felt very at home and welcome.

Sandbrook Photography Project

To celebrate National Parenting week we worked in partnership with Sandbrook Children’s Centre on a digital photo project. 750 photos were taken of parents and children. The photographs were merged into an 8’ x 4’ canvas photo montage which is now on permanent display in the children’s centre. Four work experience placements developed photoshop skills and edited artwork for inclusion in the montage.

Thank you!, it is now on the wall and looks really good, I am sure
our parents will be pleased with it.

Marie Clayton – Parent Empowerment Worker

The Flock of Dreams

In partnership with Rochdale Youth Service and Link4Life Arts Development Team we participated in Rochdale’s bird sculpture project. We delivered creative workshops with Kirkholt Junior Youth Club who created the ‘blue bird of dreams.’ The project was to enable to young people to express their hopes and dreams for the future. We also used two of our freelance artists to work with 2 other groups. Sarah had been volunteering for us for the past year and we saw this as a great opportunity for her to be mentored by freelance artist Christopher Rainham.

In addition we created a documentary “The Flock of Dreams.” We filmed each group taking part in the project across the Borough. The celebratory video will be shown at local events and also used on the youth service bus fleet to inspire young people to actively take part in projects in the community.

Snog, Marry, Avoid!

This was a 10 week project working with a girls group focusing on sexual health. Using arts media based workshops, the girls explored issues around body image and attraction. They created surveys for young men to respond to and we used social networking sites such as twitter and facebook, to receive ‘live answers’ during the workshops. The project culminated in the girls re-creating the popular programme “Snog, Marry, Avoid!” using audio and video skills. Our volunteers also worked on the video and graphics. A DVD was created to be watched by other young people. This project was delivered in partnership with Rochdale Youth Service & Teenage Pregnancy Unit.

Creative Network and Podcasts

Volunteers at have continued to learn audio broadcast skills in producing the podcasts, which are now on The Rochdale Observer website and Link4Life Cultural Trust website.  We were also delighted to be invited by Ofcom to speak at the Future of Local Media event in September! Interview skills have been very popular this year and our volunteers have enjoyed contacting well known names as they’ve gained confidence. Justin was thrilled to interview comedian Dave Spikey and more recently A-ha at the MEN Arena.

Without coming to Peopleprint I would never have got the chance to meet my favourite band. I can’t believe I was sat back stage with them at the MEN Arena! I know I can follow my dreams now, I can do it!

Justin, volunteer

Statistics

Peopleprint has worked with many individuals over the year which has resulted in successful projects, videos and podcasts being completed. Many of the individuals that came in to work with us ended up spending much more time than they anticipated. We have a large number that come in at least every month to use the facilities and sometimes even just for a chat. Adding up all the numbers we have concluded that we have had 1246 interventions with individuals over the past year. We have also contributed to 437 sessions with local groups. Peopleprint’s digital audience figures over the past year rose to a massive 47,700 views, 23,068 of which were views of the Live25 broadcast.

World Community Arts Day 2010

Building on the relationships established via Live25 we will be taking part in WCAD on 17th Feb next year. We’re hoping to link up again with similar organisations in other countries, which will give our volunteers an opportunity to share with participants accross the globe. We are currently testing googlewave which allows us to type in different languages. Our volunteers are currently discussing ideas for this years theme!

We would like to say a huge thank you to our volunteers and supporters for all their hard work over the past year!  We can’t wait to start on new projects in 2010. Peopleprint Community Media is part funded by The Tudor Trust and Link4Life

Well after many years of saying we will, we finally have. As our region ‘gets set for digital’, we have made our digital footprint even bigger. Welcome to what will become the first of many blogs. This blog aims to tell you what we have been up to over the week and also letting you know about anything we think is intresting so welcome.