Kevin Whitcher
Beautiful irony on Tuesday evening. As mentioned in yesterday’s piece on the Capital One Cup game against Southampton, myself and my son were guests of Huawei, Arsenal’s mobile phone manufacturing partners. Part of the agreement was that we’d make a movie and take some pictures to showcase their flagship handset the Ascend P7 Arsenal Edition. I handed this particular task over to my 12-year-old son as he enjoys the wonders of technology, and frankly, picks this stuff up a bit quicker than his old man. There will be some more films over the course of the next month or so. He’s under orders to try and make them interesting! His first effort is on this very page, or can be viewed on youtube here. He had a 30 minute crash course in iMovie to edit the footage, so forgive him if he is a little way short of Steven Spielberg just at the moment.
Anyway, promotion of the handset aside, the most amusing moment was when we were watching the game and he was filming a bit of the action. Now technically, filming and the taking of photos is against the rules of admission at Arsenal. But come on, how many people take a snap or shoot a bit of the action with their phones or digital cameras? And here we were taking footage on behalf of a company that are doubtless paying Arsenal a significant sum of money to increase Huawei’s brand awareness in the country and take on the bigger players in the android market. But no. At one point out races a female steward in her late 50s, evidently enjoying the power, who shouts from the aisle, pointing at my boy in the midst of filming – “Excuse Me! No!”
I had to inwardly chuckle. There were people all around us filming and taking pics at various points in the game, so this is obviously hardly a strict policy. Perhaps she was impressed by the image on the handset’s screen or something, which was admittedly very sharp. However, my thought on this rule is what exactly Arsenal think someone is going to do with footage or photos taken on a mobile phone? You can watch the whole game shot professionally by the club themselves for nothing online simply by giving Arsenal your email address less than 24 hours after its been played. So is someone going to make a fortune selling their mobile phone captured footage illegally online? Will they be selling DVDs of their footage in the pub? I mean, seriously?
If someone comes in with a 12 inch telephoto lens that can take photos to match the quality of those used by the press snappers behind the goal, then fair enough. There is the potential for abuse there by selling images without having paid the appropriate licensing fees. But a smartphone? Come on Arsenal, get real. Time for someone upstairs to have a quiet word with stadium management or whoever oversees the stewards, and give those in dayglo with the power trips one less reason to get excited. I am sure Huawei would concur…
Before the weekend, we’ll set up a gallery page to put up the photos taken before and during the game on Tuesday with the Ascend P7 so you can all see what a nice piece of kit it is. I’ll do a link to it in tomorrow’s piece on the site.
