The keynote today was from Scott Higgins, a film historian from Wesleyan University, New England. He gave a fascinating talk on the importance of colour as part of a film narrative, using illustrations from the history of film – including an example from the beginnings of cinema (The Sealed Room, 1909), the age of technicolor from the 1930s to the 1950s and a brief mention of contempory techniques for post-production alteration of colour composition.

After coffee we were told about plans for a media portal, which the producers hope will enable a market place in reusable video and film – anything from commercially produced material from organisations such as the BBC to film produced by individual teachers. Unfortunately the supplied laptop failed the presenters and they were unable to show us a demo!

The third session of the day was from Gerald Cannon of Dublin City University who talked about their very impressive integrated system for recording everything and everyone within their Nursing Studies school. The system comprises of 36 cameras linked to various capture stations which also link to a central video server. Recording is controlled using touchscreens by the staff and students and so doesn’t require intervention from a technician. Video is encoded as MPEG 2 and 4 and is fully retrievable as each user has a personal account on the video server. The system is used for reflection on nursing practice, peer to peer assessment and also delivery of pre-prepared material. The system did sound fairly expensive though so a pressing need would probably have to exist before such an investment could be made.

The conference ended with closing remarks from Chris O’Hagan, who’s message was essentially that we must use our imaginations and try to raise the ‘lowest common denimonator’. And finally the handover to Lillehammer, Norway for DIVERSE 2007!

This final instalment is a bit rushed as I’m off to catch a plane back to London, so I might come back and add to this later.

Cheers,

Kris.