Star-stuck...

As much as I enjoy filming, a lot of my videos of late are leaning towards the cult of celebrity and showbiz news. Not that I have a major issue with this in terms of feeding an audience that which they demand; but I'm in a better comfort zone if I'm actually creating content that might educate as oppose to simply peddling an already alarmingly excessive public fascination with all things celebrity...

Having had to recently interview music artist Alesha Dixon for the revived Ikonz magazine format, now rebranded as IkonzWorld - as no doubt a homage to the HeatWorld entertainment portal - I seem to have lit an old mental spark of intrigue with the world of showbiz, this after a personal three-year hiatus from the industry.
I've since, however, completed a number of print and video interviews with artists promoting comedy and theatre shows for I Am Birmingham. Then there's the short X Factor audition film and the very brief and unstructured Britain's Got Talent piece along with a book signing of former X Factor related band One Direction. The number of hits these videos have received clearly illustrates their popularity in comparison to more Birmingham-centric and locally focused videos featured on the site.

I think it's a good thing to be able to generate hits and impressions for the website and the videos in their standalone capacities as it directs a potential audience to other areas of the I Am Birmingham hub. However, I am finding the time sensitive nature of much of the entertainment content means the community-related videos, such as the recent St. Patrick's Day piece, are resting on the back burner and creating a bit of a backlog. Also, despite the satisfaction I gain from viewing a completely finished piece online, I am definitely more impressed with the effort that goes into the video when I know it opens a window on subject matter that hasn't already been gutted and churned out by the big ol' press and PR machine.

I have more recently filmed a number of social charity events including Birmingham Twestival and a charity abseil down the city's Mailbox building, both raising money for Birmingham Children's Hospital, and have also documented March's Birmingham Social Media Cafe event.

Hopefully, these films will readdress the balance in terms of the direction of content for IAB. I'd still like to include showbiz features but might aim to take a more original approach, different to what I currently effectively view as regurjitated video press releases.