OPINION
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Taking it to the Regions
Audio Media consulting editor Jim Evans rounds up the international headlines that caught his attention this month.
opening of BBC Cymru Wales’ Roath Lock studios in Cardiff Bay in 2012. Programmes such as Casualty, the Welsh-language drama Pobol y Cwm and children’s drama Wizards vs Aliens are made there. Pinewood will lease the
GOOD NEWS FROM WALES The Pinewood Studios organisation is to set up a new facility in Cardiff. Pinewood Studios Wales will be based at the former Energy Centre building in Wentloog and will form part of the company’s global network. The Welsh government hopes the 180,000sqft complex will generate an estimated £90 million for the economy. First Minister Carwyn
Jones states: “Attracting such an iconic global brand as Pinewood is wonderful news for Wales. This high-profile investment is of significant economic value to Wales while the partnership between the Welsh government and Pinewood offers a priceless opportunity to promote Wales as a world-class location for film and TV production.” Pinewood and Shepperton
Studios have created more than 1,500 films in more than 75 years, including the James Bond franchise and the Carry On series. Wales has already established a name for itself in television and drama production since the official
18 April 2014
Cardiff building for a minimum of five years from the Welsh government. However, it is not the first attempt to create a movie studio complex in Wales. In 2008, the multi-million pound Dragon International Studios in Rhondda Cynon Taf – nicknamed Valleywood – was partly mothballed after promising to put Wales at the heart of the UK film industry. Only one film, Ironclad, was shot at the site. Let’s hope the Pinewood project prospers.
PLASA HEADS FOR BRUSSELS & SCOTLAND PLASA Events has announced that two new PLASA Focus events will take place in Europe during 2014. The first of these – and the first PLASA Focus to be staged in mainland Europe – will take place this summer, when PLASA Focus: Brussels open its doors in the heart of Belgium’s capital city on 1-2 July.
Having introduced the successful PLASA Focus event model in Leeds, UK, in 2009 and subsequently in various cities across North America, PLASA has long
been aware of the market’s desire for more of this type of event in Europe. The Benelux region was one of the first to be considered for a regional market focus. Christopher Toulmin,
director of PLASA Events, comments: “We have proved over recent years not only that our Focus model really works, but that there is a great desire among the industry for access to more of these affordable, intimate, educational events which allow exhibitors a chance to really engage with a regional market, in a very accessible way.” The Focus event in Brussels
marks the start of a three-year initiative to expand the reach of the PLASA Focus brand in Europe, creating more opportunities for the PLASA community to meet regional audiences, in particular those customers that do not otherwise visit major international trade shows. The second launch event will take place in Scotland towards the end of 2014. We will be there.
IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TASTE We’ve all been either the perpetrator or victim of music snobbery, but new research has shown that it’s not all about taste – in fact, some people are biologically incapable of registering any emotional response to music. A global research team, headed up by scientists at the University of
Barcelona, has found that between one and five percent of people experience “specific musical anhedonia”. Thousands of university students in Spain completed a questionnaire, indicating how strongly they agreed or disagreed with various statements, such as “when I share music with someone I feel a special connection with that person”, and “I can’t help humming or singing along to music that I like”. Thirty participants
identified as having low, medium, or high sensitivity to music were then selected to listen to a range of music chosen by their peers – from Vivaldi to Simon & Garfunkel – while researchers recorded their reactions using physiological indicators of emotion: heart rate and sweating. Music-lovers showed an increase in both heart rate and skin conductance, the “anhedonic group” had no such response. Josep Marco-Pollarés, author of the study, says: “It would not be surprising to find people who respond to one genre and not to another – we all have the experience of people who love opera and hate hip hop – but the study reveals that there are people that do not respond to any music. “All the participants in the
three groups had the same sensitivity to reward for other kinds of stimuli – food, sex,
money – and none of them suffered from amusia [a disorder affecting musical perception and recognition].”
WELCOME BACK Woodworm Studios in rural Oxfordshire has refurbished and reopened for business. The original creative home to Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, and an early incarnation of Radiohead, among others, Woodworm Studios is under new management, which has upgraded the entire equipment collection and technical installation for the two-building facility. We wish them well.
FINAL WORDS The recent Prolight + Sound extravaganza in Frankfurt was – as reported elsewhere in Audio Media – witness to a mega load of new product releases. And these were accompanied by the usual PR blurbs and releases. Certainly, there were some interesting new products on show, but perhaps the PR people err on the over-kill. Iconic, unique, ideal, award-winning, game- changing, next generation are just a few of the regular adjectives and descriptions of new bits of kit. But what took this year’s proverbial biscuit has to be the loudspeaker that, according to the PR, is “soon to be legendary”. Thanks for the advance news – we wait with baited breath.
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