Trinket Creative

The BIG event!

2010-05-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Last night saw our big event with Media Talent Bank, and it was a huge success! We managed to pull in over 45 visitors and wide range of exhibitors.

There were jewellery designers, film producers, graphics and print designers, photographers and much more.. The event was held at the studio venues in the city centre, which proved to be a brilliant space and really looked after us well. The only tiny issue we had was transporting everything there! But we did overcome this with some good old fashioned strength.

The evening went really well, no major problems just a few little hiccups that could be expected but overall we managed it well. There was such a range of work on show from students to graduates and freelancers, even members with 20 plus years of experience, which meant everyone got something out the occassion.

Fingers crossed, all being well we can prove that taking the site offline is a much needed process in order to showcase people's work and get a feel for what they actually do and Media Talent Bank will hold more events like this in the future.

To see more of the exhibitors check out: www.mediatalentbank.com as there are profiles of them all up there!

2010-05-08T05:06:00.001-07:00

The Venue for MTB's exhibition

2010-05-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

So on Wednesday we took a trip down to Orange Studios in Birmingham City Centre go over the final arrangements ready for Monday's exhibition and networking evening. Since then we have been putting plans together for where all the exhibitors will be situated within the venue.

The exhibitors include photography, illustration, graphic design, animation, film and jewellery and so there is lots to see, as well as the opportunity to network with professionals within the creative industry. We look set for it to be a great evening.

There is a great space to walk around the stands and to explore all that will be available on the evening!

2010-05-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Peter Horricks

Communicate Conference

2010-05-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

Team Trinket went on a little road trip to London last week, to the 'Social Media in a Corporate Context' conference held by Communicate Magazine.

We were asked along by one of our lecturers, Jon Hickman in order to cover the day live, so to speak. Using social media tools such as Twitter, Youtube, AudioBoo and Posterous we uploaded content throughout the day. Our efforts were a great success and the debates carried on online a long time after everyone had gone home.

We had some great feedback from Andrew Thomas, the publisher from the magazine who said the we had achieved the objectives and managed to get people involved across all spectrums that couldn't make the day.

The day for us was really quite interesting, not only to experience a corporate conference alone but also hearing high profile speakers such as Peter Horricks - Head of Global and International News at the BBC discuss social media generally and the advantages and disadvantages of using it in a corporate sense as well as why he is encouraging his employees to use it.

Overall, was a triumph for us and the profile of Media Talent Bank from our live streaming from the day, a lot of our members are interested in social media so hopefully they got a lot out of it too!

Check out the day's work here: http://communicateconference2010.posterous.com/

Media Talent Bank networking event May 10th

2010-04-22T14:05:00.001-07:00

Hello all, thought I would give the blog a little update on how things are going.

We have now announced our big event for Media Talent Bank. This is a creative networking evening taking place at Orange Studios on May 10th. After a few days of venue hunting it came down to a tough choice between Orange and the Old Library at the Custard Factory, but in the end we agreed on Orange. With it's built in theatre we can't wait to screen the selection of short films and animations we already have confirmed, plus they have a great rooftop garden - so fingers crossed for a perfect summer evening!

Along with screening Mucky Duck's short film 'Trainer', we've also had lot's of amazing submissions from creative talent in and around Birmingham - will be announcing the full list of exhibitors nearer the time, as there's still time to send us your submissions! Photographers, designers, animators, illustrators, filmmakers... if you're interested in exhibiting get in touch at trinketcreative@googlemail.com

In other news we'll be in London next Wednesday for Communicate Magazine's Social Media in Corporate Context conference. We'll be live blogging throughout the day, posting up photos, audio snippets and updates for anyone who can't make it down. So if you want to keep up with that, we'll be tweeting off Trinket Creative and Media Talent Bank, while posting everything through to our posterous blog for the day, which will all be found here > http://communicateconference2010.posterous.com

And that's all for now, will be sure to post up some pictures from our London trip, exciting!

Alex

2010-04-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a week it was for Trinket Creative from Monday 22nd March!

Alex has already filled you in about the workshop so I hope what I say doesn't repeat it too much but this is a mini update on that jam-packed week!

On Monday, we held our first workshop for Media Talent Bank which was a great success. The theme of the workshop was social media because we felt this was a topical subject amongst all creative students. Time and time again, we are told by our lecturers we need to be using social media to network and make relevant contacts and many students are doing this already however, there are some that are either still unsure or just don’t understand it at all.

This is where our workshop played its part in giving the students an opportunity to ask the questions they have about social media, hear some advice and guidance from professionals as well as learn more about what Media Talent bank can offer them.

The professionals we invited to the event were social media savvy and respected individuals from the Birmingham’s online scene which included; blogger and photographer Pete Ashton, PR Account Executive Simon Partington, Wolverhampton Homes Communications Manager Kate Hughes, Pesky People Director Alison Smith and ‘Digbeth is Good’ blogger Nicky Getgood.

Throughout the afternoon, we encouraged people to tweet about the workshop using the #MTBworkshop hashtag.

The feedback we got from the students and guest speakers was really positive and it was great that Pete and one of the students blogged about the workshop afterwards which hopefully has spread the word about Media Talent Bank online.

Buzzing from the workshop, we met on Wednesday to discuss our next event which will be a networking evening. Until this point, we had put all our time and effort into the workshop so had little time to spend planning anything and subsequently agreed that we would have to put it back by a week. This will allow us to spend more time on making it a quality event which will involve members of Media Talent Bank showcasing their work for professionals to come and see.

So since the meeting, we have all been off doing our own bits of research for venues as well as collating contact lists for MTB members and professionals to get in touch with. We even managed to fit a night out to attend BrumTwestival, a social gathering of tweeters across Birmingham which was a chance to relax as well as meet new people and tell them about Trinket Creative and our project.

And to finish the week off on a high, we received a piece of online coverage for the workshop from Behind the Spin.... they are also keen for us to write a feature article about the workshop which will give us an opportunity to go into more depth about social media as well as Media Talent Bank. The university also published our press release both on the School of Media and BCU homepage which was great to have their support.

Hopefully, there will be more coverage to follow and that we will also gain some before the networking event to raise further awareness of Media Talent Bank!

As for now, we are all enjoying our mini easter breaks but it won't be long before we are back, working hard as the networking event requires more planning and preparation than the workshop but we are looking forward to the challenge.

Happy Easter!

Social Media Workshop with Media Talent Bank

2010-03-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

Last Monday we held our first workshop for Media Talent Bank. The workshop theme was Social Media, with Pete Ashton as our key guest speaker to inform us on ways to use social media and how he has used it within the creative scene in Birmingham. We also invited along Nicky Getgood who writes the blog Digbeth is Good, Simon Partington from Kinetic PR, Kate Hughes from Wolverhampton Homes and Alison Smith from Pesky People, to give their input on the use of social media. The workshop was a great success and as it was the first one, we aimed it at students studying creative degrees at Birmingham City University and due to the great feedback we received from the day, we hope that after our project Media Taloent Bank will be able to carry on in this direction.
To read a full write up of the day head over to Media Talent Bank.

Mucky Duck Media were there again to document the day - we'll get the video up as soon as it's ready!

Progress so far...

2010-02-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Well, a lot has been happening over the last couple of weeks that we thought we should fill you in on. We had our meeting with Sara from Media Talent Bank to pitch our ideas and have the official handover. It went really well and she seemed to support the majority of our ideas which is a definite bonus as this is something we were quite concerned about.

Sara also gave us our budget for the project and this will cover the costs for the changes to the website, as well as the events we are hoping to hold in conjunction with re-launching the website.

From this we went away and put together a budget forecast and Jaime and Alex are meeting with Sara again on Wednesday to go through it.

We were a little unsure of what we needed to include and so we all did some research so we could get some rough estimates of where the money would be needed/spent. Alex met with Matt from MTB to go through the changes we want to make to the website and the feasibility of us being able to do it in time, within our specific budget. It turns out that our ideas are a little too ambitious and will be too expensive for us to afford. And so from this we are going to prioritise the changes we really want to make to the website because we want to make sure we have enough money to spend on the events.

As the offline aspect of Media Talent Bank is very important to the success of the website and how it functions, we want to spend more of the money on ensuring these events are a success. They will also be a taster of what is to come in the future with MTB even when our project is finished.

As you know, we want to hold a workshop mid March where there will be a chance for individuals to join and practice their skills. At the moment we are hoping to have two workshops going on at the same time but for different specialisms - all these details will be decided on Wednesday so watch this space for further information! The next event will be a networking evening which we will combine with the re-launch of the website. Professionals and students will be invited so they can integrate and learn more about the purpose of MTB. We are hoping to hold this towards the end of April.

We had the idea to hold another event at the beginning of May and when we were thinking of how to organise this we met with Caroline Officer at BCU who asked us to collaborate with an event she wants to hold on behalf of the Production Hub (which she has set up herself). Caroline's idea for the event is to use it as a networking day where professionals will attend but it is also a chance to showcase some of the third years work. Our responsibility will be to help organise and set up the event which is a great opportunity for our project but will also be brilliant coverage for MTB as there will be a lot of people from industry attending.

The event has been confirmed to take place on Thursday 6th May and plans are already underway so we will keep you posted on the work so far.

Caroline has been a massive help advising us on various aspects of the budget and organising the events which has been invaluable and will help us to really make the most of this opportunity to transform MTB.

This whole process has been opening up many opportunities and no doubt by the next time we fill you in on the latest news, the plans will have changed yet again. It is really great to experience the professional environment and how our original plans have developed into something so much better.

We are all really excited about how the project is going and it is very busy busy...but in a good way.

I think that is just about all for now, enough to keep us going for a while anyway!

Jen

Mucky Duck Media's Scriptwriters event

2010-02-08T05:39:00.000-08:00

So Saturday was a day out for Trinket Creative! We attended the Scriptwriters event organised by Mucky Duck Media and supported by ourselves. The aim of the day was to find a script for Mucky Duck’s short film project and for us, it was to observe how the day was structured and how useful these types of events are for those who came.

And overall... it was a great success!

Seven scriptwriters attended the workshop from 10-4pm which involved Arzhang Pehzman in the morning talking to the writers about pivotal moments in their scripts. He also set them tasks to summarise their scripts in a paragraph and then in a caption line to help them when pitching their scripts in the afternoon. The scriptwriters even had the chance to pitch one another’s scripts which made everyone familiar with the stories and characters.

We took a break for lunch around 12.30pm and headed over to the local pub for some food which was a nice change of atmosphere where everyone could have a relaxed chat about their love for writing scripts.

After lunch, it was time for the pitches! Andy Conway from Script Writers forum joined us and Catherine Edwards from Script to sit on the panel as well as Mucky Duck Media’s producer Alex Carruthers and director Adam Tyers. Everyone sat in on each other’s and supported everyone’s ideas by asking constructive questions.

Even though we are not involved with any television production or scriptwriting, it was really interesting to hear people’s scripts and follow their stories. We also got the opportunity to talk to the scriptwriters after the pitches to discuss how they felt the day went. It was great to hear that everyone enjoyed themselves and found the workshop really useful because they were actually being tested rather than being talked at. This is something to bear in mind for when we organise our own workshops and when looking for guest speakers who can offer that little bit more.

But like we have said, a very successful day and thank you to Mucky Duck Media again for giving us the opportunity to get involved. We also don’t envy them in having to decide in a final script as they were all great and offered something different.

A thoroughly enjoyable day that has given us some ideas for our own workshops!

It's all systems go from here!

2010-02-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hello...

So, as Alex said we are getting to grips with the design stage for our new business structure, Trinket Creative...

Tomorrow is our first event for Media Talent Bank, it is a competition/workshop for up and coming Scriptwriters in Birmingham, and we have teamed up with MuckyDuckMedia! The competition is to help them find the best script possible, and start their all Birmingham based collaboration!

The day is going to consist of a workshop with the scriptwriters, who are bringing their submitted treatments along, and develop them throughout the morning. Then in the afternoon take part in a dragon's den type pitch and finally the winning script will be chosen!

As part of Media Talent Bank we want to create a template of how the site can run alongside networking events, workshops and professional collaboration.

We will keep you posted on how the day goes and upload footage and photos shortly so you can see the kind of things we want to host for you, as part of MTB.

Sooooo will update tomorrow.. fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!

Oooo and check out MuckyDuckMedia's blog:

www.muckyduckmedia.blogspot.com

Jaime

Just a quickie...

2010-02-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while since we last posted, but we've been busy busy! You'll be able to find us under the new name of Trinket Creative, we're working on our logo and website so will be keeping you fully updated.
In the meantime, we're now on Twitter, so start following for all our 140 character snippets!

twitter.com/trinketcreative

Tomorrow we'll be hosting the script writers workshop together with Script and Mucky Duck Media, which Jaime will be blogging about shortly.

That's all from me for now,
Alex

Working the Birmingham Creative Scene...

2009-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

As Jen has said our project has done a slight U-turn but for a much more exciting path, taking on Media Talent Bank will give us more scope to be creative. The background work has already been done and established so we can really use our research to make sure, that we make the site usable and appealing to our market. It also means our time can be spent on making it work rather than building the project, so overall its has been a great find.

One of the main things our research has brought to our attention, is that other similar projects and even Media Talent Bank, have lacked in PR and advertising amongst the target market. Through our research we have also found that networking seems to be a key way, to access the creative industries and get to know the different sectors. We have been trying to get into this scene by attending some networking evenings, with the opportunity to get some feedback on our idea.

I attended the RTS 'Breaking Into Broadcasting' talk at the University of Birmingham, where professionals from radio and television spoke about the best ways to get into the industry, and how they themselves got into the jobs they are in now. Many of the professionals spoke about student and graduate opportunities and how they like to see up to date CV's and portfolios of work. They said that one of the biggest turn-offs of a CV would be someone who had left uni and not carried on producing their own work. This I felt was an important point, as we originally proposed that our project would directly benefit students and graduates by aiding them in producing their own work, and finding relevant creatives to work with. This is an aspect of the site that could work really well, as it is something that Media Talent Bank don't currently do and a way we can evolve the site into something new.

I spoke to the panel and approached them on what they thought of the site, they gave some good constructive criticism in terms of, that they wouldn't necessarily use it for looking for students CV's as they get sent so many but they would be interested in the events and networking evenings and putting up work placement and job opportunities. This was an invaluable experience for me, as I learnt a great deal by speaking to the professionals in a professional context but also learning about their part of the industry, that I know nothing about.

We then went to the 'Producers Forum' re-launch event at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth, we wanted to go along for two reasons, networking and seeing how they constructed the re-launch. We didn't meet too many people as it was more of a formal event for producers in Birmingham, and not really for students. However, Dave from Media Talent Bank was there also and came to be a good opportunity to have a shared interest when we met for our meeting.

When we met with Dave and Sara from Media Talent Bank, they used the Producers Forum and the Animation Forum as examples of similar concepts that had really worked and got off the ground, which was also interesting as we now know more about them as models for analysis.

The event itself was good and it was good chance to have a look at the venue in the context we would use it. They had cupcakes which we loved! food, drinks and other than that there was some professional music provided and guest speakers. Overall, a great opportunity to have a drink and discuss ideas together!

Soooo this is our scouting the scene so far, will update with further progress. If anyone has any networking opportunities they think would be interesting please let us know.. and of course a final plug for our questionnaire..

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=vpcuc5mju70wi91663181

Thanks,

Jaime

2009-12-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

Here is the link for the Media Talent Bank website: http://www.mediatalentbank.co.uk

Have a look and let us know what you think!

2009-12-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Things keep getting better and better for us! Over the last week, we have had a meeting with Media Talent Bank who asked us to take on the website and implement our ideas to the website. Originally we were unsure whether to take it on because we weren't sure if it would fulfil our assignment brief, but after speaking to our tutor Julie, we realised it would really benefit us to do it and now it means we have a real client we will be working for.

The website already exists and so we do not have the problem of starting a website from scratch. As well as this, Media Talent Bank want us to have most of the control on the website so we will be able to create extra features. The main aim of this is to get more people onto the site and so there will be a massive PR push throughout. We spoke to Media Talent Bank about the event we want to hold and they have funding which can go towards it. The event will be a re-launch and we discussed with Media Talent Bank about doing little networking evenings in the the run-up, varying from various sectors of the creative industry which will hope to generate more traffic to the site.

From our very positive meeting, we went away to draw up a new proposal with our aims and objectives for the project. We put forward most of our ideas that we had initially set for our website. Media Talent Bank will get back to us with ones we can and cannot do, although for some of them we will need to pitch our ideas to them so let's hope it goes well!

We hope to take over the website in January, so before then we have time to continue with our research. We have been sending out various questionnaires asking whether people would use a site like this and what they want from it etc. as well as continuing with the professional context and market research.

So things are looking good and we are all very excited to get the ball rolling. We have lots of creative ideas for the PR and alterations/additions to make to the site!

I think that is about all to report from our eventful week, so let's wait and see what is to come....bye for now x

A change in direction?!?

2009-11-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Since our last post, our project has progressed a lot... where to begin?!?

Firstly, we created an online questionnaire which is up and running. We are getting some very positive feedback so far and some interesting comments for us to consider.

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=vpcuc5mju70wi91663181

After this stage, Jen and myself met to research funding opportunities and decide which would be most appropriate for us to apply for. We also emailed some contacts we have in the PR industry to ask for their advice on funding. (We are still waiting to hear back from anyone)

Alongside this, we also emailed lecturers we felt would be beneficial to speak to about our project in terms of their expertise; this included Jon Hickman, a social media and web specialist. We wanted to hear his thoughts on the online network feature of the website and Alex (our web designer) in particular was interested in the feasibility of building the website and its features we propose in the time given for us to complete the project.

Jon was very helpful and told us about a similar website; Media Talent Bank. It is an online website with very similar features to ours and is funded by the university and created by Screen Media Lab. With none of us having heard of this website, Jon suggested we get in contact with the producers of it to discuss how the website was created and the challenges they came up against to educate our own project.

We took on Jon’s advice and got in touch with Screen Media Lab to arrange a meeting. We got a very prompt reply saying they were more than happy to meet and discuss Media Talent Bank. They also proposed a very interesting and exciting opportunity that may result in a change of direction for a project... the opportunity to manage Media Talent Bank for the duration of our project.

However, nothing is set in stone yet! We are meeting with Screen Media Lab tomorrow at 2pm so we shall see what comes of that and kick a few ideas around!

Will keep you updated on that...

With this potential change in the project, we have put the funding research on hold for the moment until we are clearer about the direction we are heading in. But we have started to put together a critical path analysis which will help us to determine what it is that our project involves and the stages in which it occurs.

Hello!!

2009-11-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

Hello, and welcome to our blog - Creative Cluster!!

We are a collective of third year students at Birmingham City University, we are all studying Media and Communications BA Hons and as part of our final year work we need to produce a production project. This is where our blog comes in.. we have decided to blog about our journey and the highs and lows that come with it!!

THE IDEA....

We propose to create an online hub where students and graduates can connect with one another on a professional basis but also be part of a scheme to showcase their work, which will run in Birmingham giving creative students the opportunity to keep updating their portfolios.

We want the site to be like a social networking site for the Creative Industries in the Midlands, where students, graduates and professionals can network freely together. We eventually want to hub to become a space where students and graduates from all specialisms pro-actively produce work together, keeping their CVs and portfolios up to date. We will then hold quarterly events to showcase this work, however this is the future of the scheme. Our first major product from the website will be the launch.. but there will be more information on this as we go on.

So what have we been doing so far? We have been setting out our agenda from now and up to Christmas, and held several informal meetings where we have managed to distribute jobs between ourselves.

Our first formal meeting was held on Monday 2nd November: We sectioned out our market research and who was going to be looking at each area...

Alex would look at similar websites, how they function and the visual design and I am going to look at these websites also but look more into what organisations run them, who they target and how they are funded etc..

Sarah and Jenny are both looking at the potential income, costs, code of conduct and funding opportunities and sponsorship.

We also met with our tutor Julia O'Hare on 11th November to discuss the idea and make sure we were working in the right direction.

So, this is the beginning and hopefully whoever reads this will enjoy our journey and look forward to joining us when we are up and running!... as part of our audience research we are putting together questionnaires which we will post up here and if you could fill one out that would be great!

Thanks,

Jaime

(Managing Director)

welcome.

2009-11-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is OUR creative cluster :)