This’ll be the last post of 2011. See you in the new year for more fun and japes.

I’m not just posting this because I think the idea of sticking Dappy on CiB is somehow amusing (although I do) but because there are a few agencies around Birmingham who work behind the scenes on big music releases, it just doesn’t get pointed out very often.

I know Clusta work for Polydor and Universal Music Group (the artwork for Jarvis Cocker’s last album was very Clusta). There was that Paul Normansell artwork for The Killers a couple of years back too. There are probably a fair few more I know nothing about.

Marketing Birmingham have a new vid for selling the city. It was put together by Fullrange and, among others, features Birmingham Royal Ballet, Clusta and Made Media

WeVee launched last week, having been shown off all over the place since ArtsFest in Sept last year. It’s an online tool described on the intro video:

WeVee gives you the chance to explore the past, create your very own short mash-ups from archive film clips, edit them to music and share them online

Here’s an example of the sort of thing, put together by the folks at Clusta:

I was given access to it a couple of weeks back but, truth be told, I’ve not had much of a chance to have a poke around it until now. I’ve just had a play for 10 minutes (it’s that kind of rigour that CiB is known for) and my initial thoughts are that it’s good… as far as it goes.

Thumbs ups – It’s beautifully made, reasonably intuitive (for what’s potentially a very complicated thing) and there are some good clips, including some stuff that’s apparently never been seen before.

Thumbs downs – It’s hard to search through the archive clips (and the video pop-ups when selecting clips got on my wick), I can’t add my own stuff into the mix, the help section consists of 5 videos when perhaps a little user self-help forum might be nicer and the minimum clip size is too big for what I wanted to do in the vid I was messing about with. Also, you can’t overlay audio from one clip over that from another (which forces you to make quite jumpy edits). Ah, and I’ve just spotted that the raw archive footage can’t be embedded on other sites unless you make it into a WeVee of its own. Still, let’s bear in mind the about page‘s caveat that ‘this is just the start’.

What’s odd about WeVee is how it’s being pitched. As a way to give the public access to the country’s film and video archive I’d say it falls well short by being far too locked down:

• I have to use WeVee to edit the clips
• I can only use content provided by WeVee – I can’t add in my own audio or video
• Once I’ve made something, WeVee keeps hold of it – I can’t download it or put it on other video services like YouTube, etc (although you can embed clips elsewhere)

If it was meant to be an online video library of archive footage it would have been commissioned and designed as one. It’s not though – it’s got other features built in. However, as online video editing tools go, JayCut beats WeVee hands down by letting me edit anything I want. Kaltura‘s worth a mention too as advanced video editing tools go.

WeVee’s a tool for educational use really, it’s just that no-one seems to be saying that. A press release (PDF) says that:

WeVee is targeted particularly at 14 – 25 year olds, an audience typically hard-to-reach with a regional history brief

WeVee’s nice and is a credit to Clusta and Television Junction who’ve built the thing and I imagine it’ll be a slick kinda educational tool (as well as looking great on the everyone’s showreels). It just threw me at first by claiming to be different to what it is.

The Vaults showcases many artists and photographers work on its walls and Clusta have designed the bar and restaurant menus to complement this. Several Birmingham photographers including Matt Cannon, Paul Ward and Emma Clarke have all taken up on this opportunity and we are now looking for two more photographers to feature their work.

Interested? Contact edwina@clusta.com no later than Friday 13th February.

Artism is an independent organisation aiming to create a book bursting with artists/graphic designers work which will be sold to raise money for the National Autistic Society charity through the use of Art

From Birmingham Clusta and Z3/Design Studio are both submitting work, possibly a few more are too. Artism are looking for sponsorship, if anyone’s interested.

Mezzetty was established in 1999 by Martin Donnelly from Birmingham.

Mezza V4 showcases simple Photography combined with Graphik Design and Typography

Martin Donnelly is from Clusta.