Innovative Interactivity (II) | Behind the scenes of “Goa hippy tribe”

Behind the scenes of “Goa hippy tribe”

By Tracy Boyer Clark ⋅ August 21, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Goa hippy tribe

Last January I took you behind the scenes of “Africa to Australia,” a multimedia site by SBS Online. Their latest project “Goa hippy tribe” is another Flash-heavy, video-rich site that incorporates Facebook connect to personalize the experience.

I was hesitant to blog about this site though due to the nudity and open dialogue about drug use, but then I realized that this is actually a great vehicle to discuss rationale behind telling these types of stories. So, I invite you to read the following Q&A with Darius Devas (Director), Nick Doherty (Managing Editor, TV Online) and Matt Smith (Designer and Developer), then I’d love to hear your thoughts on the site in the comments below.

1. How did this story come about? Why did you feel it was important to share the story of this tribe?

Darius D: What made it so interesting for me was how the tribe had all spontaneously reunited on Facebook in 2009 which sparked the idea to have a reunion. The fact that they had all gone to Goa to escape the west and civilisation and then all these years later, Facebook the ultimate symbol of modern culture was what brought them all back together was just so fascinating and then to be able to realise the project through Facebook, the same thing that brought them together again, made for such an incredible project.

Nick D: Goa Hippy Tribe continues SBS’s R&D into new forms of factual storytelling. Following the online-only documentary Africa to Australia and a couple of multiplatform projects, Immigration Nation and Go Back to Where You Came From, it was really, from the broadcaster’s point of view, an experiment into whether we could build audience for a documentary through social media and then migrate it back to the network. The traditional broadcast model in reverse, really. It is vital that SBS continues trying to reach audiences on whichever platform they prefer.

via innovativeinteractivity.com

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales