</center><p></p><p>Check out the official site.</p><p>You can also head on over to Tugg to try and get a screening sorted out near where you live.</p><p>Source</p></blockquote>
via liveforfilms.com
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Help Investigate 'The Killing' Online
via mashable.com
Read the full post by Christina Warren on mashable.com
"...As season 2 opens, lead detective Sarah Linden is still trying to solve the case. At AMCtv.com, users can interact with the case file, read official case documents, look at crime scene photos and view documents about the various suspects in the case.
The interactive case file will continue to be updated throughout the season, changing and updating based on what happens in the show...."
Lee Hirsch Thanks Tribeca for Launching Bully, TribecaFilm.com
<p></p> <p><div class="imageCaption">'+caption+'</div> </p></blockquote>
via tribecafilm.com
Visit the TribecaFilm.com site to learn you can help, with links to Lee Hirsch's site, a Toolkit, and a DEMAND it link so you can see it in your town.
http://www.tribecafilm.com/news-features/Lee_Hirsch_Thanks_Tribeca_for_Launch....T3boanjHY21
Friday, March 30, 2012
How To Grow While Staying Insanely Creative, The Aardman Way | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce
via fastcocreate.com
Excerpt from an excellent interview:
"ENSURE THAT FINDING AND DEVELOPING THE BEST IDEAS STAYS AT THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING YOU DO
An early break for Sproxton and Lord was making animated shorts for BBC Children’s Television. Their first successful character was a stop-frame animated plasticine character called Morph. The launch of British TV station Channel 4 back in 1982 proved an important catalyst when it began commissioning animation for a grown-up audience, and the pair began experimenting with animating recorded conversations of real people--a groundbreaking technique. Aardman’s subsequent Lip Sync series for Channel 4 included Creature Comforts--the Oscar-winning short made by Nick Park, creator of Wallace & Gromit, who joined Aardman in 1985.
"In the early days we had an accountant who’d say 'Just do the best work you can and the money will look after itself,' and that’s broadly how it still works today," Sproxton continues. "Though as a business we’re much larger in scale now, we’re not big and corporate--that’s just not us. We’re not just finance-driven. We’re about trying to get the best out of people, getting everyone to muck in, recognizing that everyone’s creative and encouraging them to be so. It’s all about coming up with the best creative ideas."
full post here:
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680299/how-to-grow-while-staying-insanely-creati...
BBC News - Robert Redford on the state of journalism, politics and film
<blockquote class='posterous_long_quote'> </blockquote>
via bbc.co.uk
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Excellent Post by Christine Weitbrecht » Direct Global Distribution Models for a Global World / What the TV Industry Can Learn from Hollywood
<blockquote class='posterous_long_quote'><div class="post_title"><div class="calendar"><p class="date">25</p> <p class="month">Mar</p> </div> <div class="post_info"> <h1>Direct Global Distribution Models for a Global World / What the TV Industry Can Learn from Hollywood</h1> <span class="author">Posted by Christine </span> <span class="category">Published in Business Opportunities, Distribution, Entertainment Trends, International, Television, Uncategorized</span></div> </div> <div class="post_content"> <p><em>[NB: While I'm talking specifically about the (US) TV industry in this post, the principle of direct global distribution to reach the global audience is applicable for pretty much any medium that can be digitized.]</em></p> <p>In this blog, I have again and again referred to a variety of trends that currently impact entertainment consumption around the world immensely. I will not go into detail on each of these because I have done so before, but I will compile them in a quick re-cap so we’re all on the same page:<span></span></p> <ul> <li>Audiences around the world become increasingly inter-connected across national borders</li> <li>Consumption itself has become global: audiences around the world watch the same movies, the same TV shows, read the same books, and play the same computer games</li> <li>Consumption has also become inherently social: Fueled by social media and the interactivity of the internet, we can now discuss our favorite and most hated products with consumers around the world</li> <li>At the same time, entertainment content (and many other products) have become extremely niche and focused on a particular segment of the audience</li> <li>Entertainment experiences in particular have become a shared experience on a global scale; e.g. awaiting the opening of a movie, the publishing of a book and/or its sequel, the sale of a new computer game</li> <li>Piracy is escalating</li> <li>A growing amount of people around the world speaks either English, Spanish, or Mandarin</li> <li>The internet offers a (technically) globally accessible space without the need of linear, 24-hour programming</li> <li>The internet becomes available to a rapidly increasing number of people everyday, particularly in Asia</li> <li>Companies like Amazon, PayPal, and Apple have set up global electronic payment structures</li> <li>Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have created powerful user-profiling mechanisms that allow for carefully targeted advertising</li> <li>While domestic cinema attendance is gradually dropping in the US, international cinema attendance has been increasing steadily, along with international box office revenues (particularly for Hollywood studios)</li> <li>Fans and fandoms are using the interconnectedness of the internet to organize on a global scale and to become even more vocal about themselves and their fan objects..."</li> </ul> <p></p></div></blockquote>
Excerpt & you can read the full post here:
http://christineweitbrecht.com/?p=373&goback=%2Egde_135781_member_103384278
Fascinating Argument by Erik Kain: Five Economic Lessons Of The Hunger Games - Forbes
via forbes.com
Fascinating article by Erik Kain:
"The film version of Suzanne Collins’s first novel, The Hunger Games, topped $155 million at the box office its opening weekend, making it the third highest debut of all time.
Obviously the economics of the film itself are working out just as planned, and everyone involved in the project can rest assured that the second and third books will be similarly adapted for the silver screen.
But the economics of Panem itself are another matter entirely. The future dystopian society built on the ashes of what was once the United States looks remarkably different from our own world. A high-tech, wealthy Rome 2.0 sits at the epicenter of twelve (actually thirteen) Districts which supply the Capitol City with its resources and wealth, from energy needs to food to electronics, and even “peace keepers.”
Spoilers for the entire series may be included in the following post..."
1. Markets Are More Efficient Than Command Economies
2. Globalism Only Works If You Ditch The Extraction Model
3. Economic Inequality Is Bad For Business
4. War Drains Economic Resources
5. Technology Can Be Used For Good Or Evil
Another record for “The Hunger Games”: Mobile ticket sales — Mobile Technology News
via gigaom.com
By Kevin C. Tofel Mar. 26, 2012
"Over this past weekend, “The Hunger Games” set the highest opening weekend for a non-sequel, raking in an estimated $155 million at the box office. That’s a ton of tickets and a chunk of them were sold online and on smartphones. Fandango, one of the first movie ticket sales sites, shared data from the weekend as “The Hunger Games” pushed its platform to new heights.
According to Fandango, its service accounted for 22 percent of all tickets for “The Hunger Games” this weekend. That tops the prior record-holder, 2011′s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” at 19 percent of all ticket sales. Over the weekend, Fandango peaked at 17 ticket sales per second for “The Hunger Games” and on Sunday morning, the movie still accounted for 90 percent of all Fandango sales...."
Christy Dena on Transmedia: Do You Go Both Ways? (Excerpt) - Meanland: Reading in an age of change
<blockquote class='posterous_long_quote'> <h2> Do You Go Both Ways? </h2> <div class="more"> Posted at Friday 16 Mar by <strong> By Christy Dena</strong>. </div> <p>"Transmedia doesn’t mean what you think it does. You may have heard of this term “transmedia,” it is one of the buzzwords that has spread through the literature, film, TV, and gaming industries in the last few years. I have. I have lived and breathed it for years, even before it was called transmedia. I’ve given hundreds of talks around the world about what it apparently is and could be. I wrote the first PhD on Transmedia Practice, where I argued it cannot be defined by an end point – projects that involve the continuation of a narrative across more than two media for instance – and instead it represents a change in the way people create.</p> <p>I therefore concentrated my education efforts on the “how to,” sharing what is needed to write and design transmedia projects. What comes into play with this too is the difficulty in working across different departments within a company, and across companies. Companies that have carved their place in the world by specialising in one artform or industry. You’re a novelist, and there are publishers, or you’re a dancer, who works in a dance company. Each of these industries has their own production processes, jargon, artistic and commercial goals, relationship with their audience, as well as politics.</p> <p>And so I spoke about this new kind of practitioner, one that creates projects that..."</p></blockquote>
via meanland.com.au
Read Christy's full post here:
Lionsgate Retracts Its Claws: “Hunger Is Not a Game” Campaign Safe from Litigation | Leaky News
via leakynews.com
POSTED ON MARCH 24, 2012 BY MELISSA
Lionsgate said in a LA Times article tonight that it has no intention of pursuing any legal action against the organizations, including The HPA’s Imagine Better Project, involved in the “Hunger is Not a Game” campaign.
The company said its only concern was confusion about a breach of exclusive deals Lionsgate had made with hunger-fighting organizations to use materials from the film:
A Lionsgate spokeswoman said the company supported anti-hunger initiatives and had simply been concerned about the effort because it could conflict with an exclusive deal the studio had made with several other anti-hunger groups; that deal gave two other groups rights to marketing material during the theatrical release of the film..."
The Miracle Mile Paradox ARG by Transmedia LA — Kickstarter
via kickstarter.com
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Rexford Higgs, in the video above, is just one of many characters with which you will be able to interact as if they were real people in The Miracle Mile Paradox, an alternate reality game (ARG) set in a historic neighborhood of Los Angeles. The game will run for 14 weeks this summer and will be playable both online and in real life for free!
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Rexford Higgs, in the video above, is just one of many characters with which you will be able to interact as if they were real people in The Miracle Mile Paradox, an alternate reality game (ARG) set in a historic neighborhood of Los Angeles. The game will run for 14 weeks this summer and will be playable both online and in real life for free!
– LARPs can change the world- According to Norway's new Minster of Development – Imagonem
<blockquote class='posterous_long_quote'><div class="post-info"><span title="2012-03-27T20:35:44+00:00" class="date published time">27. mars 2012</span> By <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">olepeder</span></span> <span class="post-comments">4 kommentarer</span> </div> <div class="entry-content"> <h3>At least according to Norway’s new Minister of International Development, Heikki Holmås.</h3> <div class="wp-caption alignright" style="">
<p class="wp-caption-text">Minister of Development Heikki Holmås (39) with the Norwegian edition of D&D Basic. Photo: Imagonem/Ole Peder Giæver.</p></div> <p>- I started playing with Ian Livingstone’s The Forest of Doom when I was 15, the minister from western Norway says.</p> <p>From the series of Fighting Fantasy books, the leap wasn’t long to Dungeons & Dragons.</p> <p>With his cousin and a group of English speaking players, the new minister from the Norwegian party Sosialistisk Venstreparti (“Socialist Left”) started playing the Red Box. Soon, they moved on to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.</p> <p>Holmås was a founding member of the RPG convention RegnCon in the Norwegian city of Bergen, which he led from 1992-1993.</p></div></blockquote>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Minister of Development Heikki Holmås (39) with the Norwegian edition of D&D Basic. Photo: Imagonem/Ole Peder Giæver.</p></div> <p>- I started playing with Ian Livingstone’s The Forest of Doom when I was 15, the minister from western Norway says.</p> <p>From the series of Fighting Fantasy books, the leap wasn’t long to Dungeons & Dragons.</p> <p>With his cousin and a group of English speaking players, the new minister from the Norwegian party Sosialistisk Venstreparti (“Socialist Left”) started playing the Red Box. Soon, they moved on to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.</p> <p>Holmås was a founding member of the RPG convention RegnCon in the Norwegian city of Bergen, which he led from 1992-1993.</p></div></blockquote>via imagonem.org
Excerpt from the interview (crazy!):
"O. - Once I played a eunuch in a Harem. He was captured as a child, and desperately wanted to escape captivity. He also wanted to, how I should put it; regain his manhood by the use of magic.
The minister also participated in the historical LARP 1942, set in a village in the western part of Norway during the Second World War.
H.- It was great. It was insane… I played a member of the Farmer’s Party who’d gone over to the National Socialist party of Norway. He was a carpenter and a collaborator, building an airport for the Germans, Holmås recalls.
He was very impressed by the effort of the organizers.
H.- It was an incredible staging of 1942. We had people dressed like German soldiers, driving around in amphibious vehicles. It was totally… it was an amazing LARP. I’ve never before or since felt such a total feeling of isolation in society. Isolation, and the despair that grabs you when you realized that your German masters didn’t give a shit.
The minister also sees a political potential in role playing games.
H.- RPGs can be extremely relevant in putting people in situations they’re unfamiliar with. Save the Children have their refugee games. I have friends in Bergen who’ve run human rights-RPGs. But you have to be professional. You create real emotions when you play role playing games, real emotions that stick, he says.
H.- That’s kind of the slightly scary aspect of role playing games, which has to be considered. At the same time, it’s what makes it possible for RPGs to change the world. LARP can change the world, because it lets people understand that humans under pressure may act differently than in the normal life, when you’re safe.
The minister of Development has taken note of a Norwegian LARP-project in Palestine later this year.
H.- I don’t know all the details, but there’s no doubt that you can put Israelis into the situation of the Palestinians and vice versa in a way that fosters understanding and builds bridges. Those things are an important aspect of role playing games which makes it possible to use them politically to create change..."
Editors and HTML5: Klynt, 3WDOC and Popcorn Maker - The Fourth BitThe Fourth Bit
<blockquote class='posterous_long_quote'><div>
</div> <div> <div class="post-372 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-sin-categoria"> <h1 class="entry-title">Editors and HTML5: Klynt, 3WDOC and Popcorn Maker</h1> <div class="entry-meta"> <span class="author vcard">Eva Domínguez</span> | 27/03/2012 </div> <div class="entry-content"> <p>"Since Steve Jobs ruled out the idea of <strong>Flash</strong> for the iPad, the <strong>HTML5</strong> standard has gained momentum, as nothing created with Flash can be seen on this tablet. Right now, Flash continues to be the most consolidated, comfortable and versatile option when it comes to creating interactive contents. But, as we saw in the i-docs symposium in Bristol, it may not be for much longer. At the symposium were representatives from <strong>content editors </strong>Popcorn Maker, Klynt, and 3WDOC. The debate was very illustrative.</p> <p><span></span>Why talk about the HTML5 standard, about Flash, about programming in a symposium about <strong>interactive documentaries</strong>? Because in the digital world the technology moulds the content. The narrative possibilities will sooner or later clash with the technological ones. The distance between what is imagined and what is produced is marked by the latter.</p> <p>If you have a budget that stretches to custom-made development, there are few limits, but in most cases the creators need already existing tools to complete their stories. In other words, they seek editors for interactive contents, among them <strong>Popcorn Maker</strong>, <strong>Klynt</strong>, and <strong>3WDOC..."</strong>.</p></div></div></div></blockquote>
</div> <div> <div class="post-372 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-sin-categoria"> <h1 class="entry-title">Editors and HTML5: Klynt, 3WDOC and Popcorn Maker</h1> <div class="entry-meta"> <span class="author vcard">Eva Domínguez</span> | 27/03/2012 </div> <div class="entry-content"> <p>"Since Steve Jobs ruled out the idea of <strong>Flash</strong> for the iPad, the <strong>HTML5</strong> standard has gained momentum, as nothing created with Flash can be seen on this tablet. Right now, Flash continues to be the most consolidated, comfortable and versatile option when it comes to creating interactive contents. But, as we saw in the i-docs symposium in Bristol, it may not be for much longer. At the symposium were representatives from <strong>content editors </strong>Popcorn Maker, Klynt, and 3WDOC. The debate was very illustrative.</p> <p><span></span>Why talk about the HTML5 standard, about Flash, about programming in a symposium about <strong>interactive documentaries</strong>? Because in the digital world the technology moulds the content. The narrative possibilities will sooner or later clash with the technological ones. The distance between what is imagined and what is produced is marked by the latter.</p> <p>If you have a budget that stretches to custom-made development, there are few limits, but in most cases the creators need already existing tools to complete their stories. In other words, they seek editors for interactive contents, among them <strong>Popcorn Maker</strong>, <strong>Klynt</strong>, and <strong>3WDOC..."</strong>.</p></div></div></div></blockquote> Great panel & presentation from Eva Dominguez at iDocs Bristol. Thanks, Eva, for archiving the discussion. Terrific!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Internet-Based Theater Company Lives Between Cyberspace and the Stage
Excerpt:
"A small Philadelphia-based company called New Paradise Laboratories is re-creating theater for the connected generation. It’s incorporating social networks like Facebook, Skype and Chatroulette into the production and presentation of shows, pulling theater into the virtual space.
This innovative experience takes audiences through a rabbit hole on a visually stimulating online adventure. Stories evolve on social networks with multimedia components from YouTube and Sound Cloud. It can be hard to decipher what’s real and what’s fiction.
Before shows open on stage, the audience gets to interact with characters on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts. The theater company works with actors to develop the fictional characters on social media accounts.
“A few years ago, we realized there was a whole audience of people that weren’t really participating in theater but they really heavily influenced by the Internet. They grew up online,” said Katy Otto, NPL’s activity coordinator. “NPL had a lot of interest in making theater that would appeal to these people.”
For the production Fatebook, the company’s theater experience begins on social media. The New Paradise Laboratories..."
via mashable.com
Excerpt from Joann Pan's post on mashable.com
full post here:
Love this post from Daily Crowdsource on Five Crowdfunding Platforms for Niche Audiences
Most people that have heard about crowdfunding probably did so because of a KickStarter, Rockethub, or IndieGoGo campaign. But there are other crowdfunding platforms and communities online that, while not as big, are not only active but thriving online. Welcome to the world of crowdfunding niche projects for niche audiences.
There are several crowdfunding platforms for niche audiences worth knowing.
One is Sporty Funder, a platform created with sports in mind which allows athletes, clubs and event organizers to ask the community for funding with their sports-related projects.
Takeashine is a platform designed to help underprivileged students raise funds for their college educations.Right now, the platform is seeking funds to help five particular young students achieve their dreams of obtaining higher education.
Emphas.is is a platform dedicated to raise funds for photojournalism projects. It allows photojournalists to pitch their stories to the community, and it allows the users to finance those stories they feel is deserving of in-depth coverage. One example of a project fully funded by the Emphas.is community is Portraying the Arctic, where one photojournalist will travel to the arctic region and document the changes the native population is facing.
From out of the arctic, and back onto your couch, we have 8-Bit Funding. By targeting gamers on their platform, 8-Bit Funding allows indie game developers to directly pitch their projects at those that will be later playing their games, making them the ideal investors for game development.
And then there is My Witty Games, a French crowdfunding platform created for board games projects. It allows its users to invest in board game projects as well as permitting them to discuss and edit them.
As you can see, as you browse these sites, having a focused crowd can be a boon to fundraising, and getting people to organize around their passions is not only practical but exciting way to create community.
What's your favorite niche platform? Let us know what other crazy niche platforms you find out there on the Internet in the comments below.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
i-Docs 2011: short documentary | i-docs - Just found this!
A short video with some of the highlights from the 2011 symposium, including Nick Cohen (BBC) Siobhan O’Flynn (University of Toronto) and Florian Thalhofer’s (Korsakow creator) brilliant keynote:
via i-docs.org
Friday, March 16, 2012
At Weyland Industries, we’re in the business of Building Better Worlds
Nice...
"ABOUT WEYLAND CORP.
CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF BUILDING BETTER WORLDS.
At Weyland Industries we apply science, technology and our unparalleled global network of resources to the pursuit of Building Better Worlds.
Everyday Weyland biologists, military scientists, chemical engineers, geologists, mechanics, pilots and more work across our solar system to advance human interests and life. As they labor, new planets, natural resources, industries, modes of transportation, and medical advancements emerge and evolve before our eyes.
As the largest company on the planet we have taken it upon ourself to constantly explore, expand, and discover what lies beyond our own heavens.
50 years ago our founder Sir Peter Weyland set out to change the world. Now, the company he created so many years ago works tirelessly with the same unlimited ambition to improve the world he changed.
Worlds have risen and worlds have fallen. That’s why at Weyland Industries we’re in the business of Building Better Worlds."
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Danah Boyd on Attention Philanthropy, The Power of Youth & How Invisible Children Orchestrated Kony 2012
Now, check out this network graph of the tweets:
The initial tweets that came out came from seemingly disconnected youth living in Midwestern and Southern towns who frequently refer to Christian values in their bios. In other words, these tweets appear to be coming from communities that Invisible Children had already activated prior to launching Kony 2012. Not only did they then each turn on, but they spread the messages to their friends. This allowed the conversation to "pop" and then spread. The one profile that does have a lot of cluster is the Invisible Children profile, highlighting how their audience was indeed ready to respond to them. But you also see tight clusters that were geographically disparate, which bridged from the organization and then spread in their local community with a level of intense density. With this kind of graph structure, it's not surprising that it quickly became a trending topic on Twitter. And then, it could easily spread. Attention begets attention.
Read Danah Boyd's analysis of how Invisible Children strategized their online campaign here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danah-boyd/post_3126_b_1345782.html
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Cool! 'Face Your Farmer' has an IndieGoGo Campaign!
via indiegogo.com
From the site:
"Our Story
We are creating the story together with you.
'Face Your Farmer' connects people in cities to those in rural areas who are our Farmers. We strive to build communities without borders and remove the veil of mystery that separates people from farms.
In this age we face seemingly insurmountable problems with food security, food freedom and awareness around how food gets from farm to table. With a dwindling oil supply, local economies are becoming a necessity. We explore this new economic reality.
'Face Your Farmer' chronicles the journey of an organic farmer and a farm shy tech enthusiast across 5 Canadian provinces and countless rural and urban communities. We will bridge this gap through education, advocacy and fun! If we can get it funded, the tour can be expanded!
Share our adventures with us and get involved as we prepare to 'Face Your Farmers'..."
more deets on IndieGoGo
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
I'm Totally In: The Walking Dead Facebook Game Preview | Scott Johson on ComicBook.com
"During last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, there were a couple advertisements for a new Walking Dead social game that is coming to Facebook. The Walking Dead Social Game was recently announced by AMC and RockYou. Eyes Wide Games is the studio that developed the game in conjunction with AMC and RockYou.In the game, players will be able to have their own adventures. The main object of The Walking Dead Social Game is for players to keep themselves and their fellow survivors alive by fighting off walkers (zombies). Players will also need to scavenge for resources and establish camps (which will be based on settings from the actual show). Each player will be able to control his own unique party of survivors, which can include his friends but there are also opportunities for the player to interact with the TV characters...."
via comicbook.com
Read Scott Johnson's full post here:
http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/03/12/the-walking-dead-facebook-game-preview/
9 things Lady Gaga can teach us about community management | Econsultancy
via econsultancy.com
Excerpt from a long fascinating piece by Vikki Chowney & well worth reading the whole post here:
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/9262-9-things-lady-gaga-can-teach-us-about-co...
"This week, Lady Gaga became the first person to exceed 20m followers on Twitter.
These are huge numbers, but volume rarely means anything on its own. The interesting point here is that this community really are her 'followers' - in namesake and in the way they respond to her.
They are more loyal than a brand could ever dream of, but there are some lessons that we can all take on board and implement when trying to build a community either online or off.
1. Look at existing behaviour and run with it
One of the biggest mistakes brands make when entering into the world of social media is a lack of response. Whether we’re talking about social customer service, or just engaging with people who love your brand, it’s very hard to do either well without there being some kind of interaction.
One of the things Gaga’s fans do regularly is to send her artwork, which she took note of, and responded by encouraging them to do so – with regular messages continuing this effort – and herself highlighting the best work.
All this leads to a stronger, more loyal relationship with her fans, since their efforts aren’t falling on deaf ears..."
Transmedia Storytelling around the World: Christy Dena | Transmedia Storytelling Berlin
29.02.2012Gepostet von Patrick Möller in Interviews | 0 Kommentare und 4 Reaktionen
Transmedia Storytelling around the World: Christy Dena
In this week transmedia designer Christy Dena had to answer our questions about “Why Transmedia?”
In 2009 Christy Dena submitted her PhD titled “Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments”. You can find it online here for further research. Now she is running her own company called Universe Creation 101, where she develops creative projects and entertainment services, as well as consulting on cross/transmedia projects. On the blog You Suck at Transmedia she is sharing the real war stories, fun and sincere reflections, and the frustrating and downright bad stuff. You can also follow her on twitter, but don’t forget to read her answer to our questions here
As a researcher and creator of meaningful playful stories – why transmedia?
To be honest, I think in the beginning it was psychological. I was working on a short story for print, and decided to expand it so it continued on the web, with the chatbots. I had/have a love of both illuminated books and interactivity (especially character-based interactions), and this was a way to bring together my two loves. After years of keeping all my different interests so very separate, I felt I was becoming whole. I also love working on things that involve the writing of the map – carving out a path through things that haven’t been done before. And so I’ll always find new ways to create that challenge for myself (like my latest project, AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS).
Dena's full interview with Patrick Moller can be read here:
http://www.transmedia-storytelling-berlin.de/2012/02/transmedia-storytelling-...
Gaming is driving social change but we need more players | by Georgina Stevens | Excerpt via Guardian Sustainable Business | guardian.co.uk
Games can be used to engage people with important social and environmental issues. Photograph: Waltraud Grubitzsch/EPAEvery day 11 million people plough virtual fields and 30 million people catapult angry birds at smug pigs; in all we spend three billion hours each week playing games. Many companies and NGOs have spotted this and have started to 'gamify' their employee and customer engagement programmes.
Barack Obama has also cottoned on; he has a games adviser at the White House and convened a meeting late last year with some of his key agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the department of energy, Nasa and the army, to discuss the potential for games to address national problems.
The idea that games can help to engage and even solve important issues is not new. Last year Foldit gamers successfully worked out the structure of a protein that helps viruses like HIV multiply. And there are plenty of organisations dedicated to supporting development of "games with purpose", "social impact games" or "serious" games, such as not for profit Games for Change. And plenty of studios too, including the feisty Molleindustria which makes simple flash games about a range of issues, including Phone Story, about the dark side of phone production (very quickly banned on the app store) and a game about Macdonald's where you are in charge of the whole supply chain, from farming and abattoirs to managing the restaurant. Enlightening and uncomfortable.
via guardian.co.uk
full article on the GuardianUK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/computer-games-drive-soci...
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Whoa! Marvel and Aurasma Show Off New Line Of Augmented Reality Comics at SXSW| TechCrunch
By Josh Constine:
Excerpt:
"Today at SXSW, Marvel announced a partnership with Autonomy’s Aurasma platform to lets users watch video trailers of books they see in stores, as well as 3D animation, recaps, and other augmented reality extras by holding their phones up to comics. That means 3D super heroes will soon be stepping out of your print books. Marvel will release free iOS and Android apps to power the augmented reality experiences as part of its Marvel ReEvolution revamp.
New lines of “Marvel Infinite Comics” written especially for digital are also on the way.
via techcrunch.com
read the full post with more pics here:
Awesome! Meet Quantic Dream's Kara: The Next Generation Of Video Game Development | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce
By: KC IfeanyiExcerpt:
Quantic Dream’s stunning tech demo Kara showcases the future of full-performance capturing through the eyes of a life-seeking robot.
"In what could easily pass as a scene from a Philip K. Dick adaptation, Kara is a postulation of where the line between mankind and machine blurs in a technologically advanced world imagined countless times in sci-fi fiction and film.
But during the seven minutes that depict the eponymous robot being assembled, only to face termination for believing she’s real, viewers aren’t witnessing standard CG or animation techniques--they’re getting a glimpse of the future of full-performance capturing. French video game developer Quantic Dream released the demo for Kara not as a trailer for a possible game, but as a PlayStation 3-run prototype to showcase how far the technology behind it has advanced.
While motion capture has been used in the video game industry for years,..."
via fastcocreate.com
read the full article on fastcocreate.com here:
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680106/meet-kara-the-next-generation-of-video-ga...
Super Cool! Khan Academy Enters Next Era With iPad App | Fast Company
Khan Academy Enters Next Era With iPad App
BY Gregory Ferenstein |Offline learning is the latest tool for the unorthodox education organization. Here's how that and other new features will power Khan Academy's new app.
Khan Academy, the wildly popular YouTube lecture series, is slated to launch its iPad app any minute now in Apple's store. The enhanced version of Khan Academy will include time-syncing between devices--no Internet connection required--an interactive transcript of the lectures for easy searching, and a handy scrubber for moving between parts of the lectures. Perhaps more importantly, now that more schools have begun adopting Khan's lectures for their own classrooms, the free iPad app could possibly replace or supplement textbooks, saving cash-strapped schools and students a lot of money.
via fastcompany.com
read the full article here:
Bang, bang, you're dead: how Grand Theft Auto stole Hollywood's thunder (Excerpt via The Guardian UK)
"The fastest-selling cultural product in history was created by people you've probably never heard of. While this year's Oscars honoured films in which the movie business sweetly congratulates itself on its own birth – The Artist, Hugo – the most dollar-hoovering entertainment release ever is not a film, still less an album; it's a video game. Coming out last autumn, Modern Warfare 3 – a blockbuster military shooter made by a Californian game studio called Infinity Ward – took just 16 days to gross $1bn, beating by one day the previous record set by a film about blue people in space. And it wasn't a freak accident. Global annual sales of video games now dwarf cinema box-office and recorded music: in 2010, games grossed $56bn, film tickets $32bn and music $23bn. (The film industry as a whole still made more, at $87bn.) Even social games on Facebook are enormous business: Zynga, the firm behind Farmville andWords With Friends, is responsible for 12% of Facebook's revenue. Hollywood is old-school now. And one company in particular has played a pivotal role in this media revolution over the past decade: Rockstar Games. Rockstar's banner Grand Theft Auto series has sold a total of 117m copies. And it's a cute irony of cultural globalisation that the most convincing digital simulation of New York yet made was built by a gang of Scots. In 2008, the $1bn-grossing video game Grand Theft Auto IV recreated in spectacular fidelity Manhattan and its environs as the setting for the adventures of Niko Bellic, an eastern European migrant intent on upward social mobility in the criminal underworld. Later this year, Grand Theft Auto V – whose recently released teaser trailer has, like that for a hotly anticipated film, already attracted millions of views and countless pages of badly spelled fan speculation on the internet – will move the action to a virtual Los Angeles. Yet all the main episodes in this monster fun franchise are created in the UK by Rockstar North, an Edinburgh-based studio that began as a plucky startup in the bedroom-coding home-computer revolution of the 1980s...." Read the full article here: ↬ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/09/grand-theft-auto-bang-bang-y...
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, set among drug and prostitution gangs in LA, became the most notorious game yet of the series. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Lance Ulanoff reports from SXSW: KONY 2012 Achieved Its Goal, Say Documentarians at SXSW
Even at SXSW in Austin, Texas, KONY 2012 is the topic of conversation. It was the elephant in the room during a panel on social documentary filmmaking and social media. Fortunately, the panelists addressed the elephant — more than once.
KONY 2012 is the massively viral YouTube video, directed and narrated by director Jason Russell who founded Invisible Children, that shines the spotlight on Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who has been abducting children and turning them into soldiers and sex slaves. In the space of a few days, the video has become an international sensation, garnering almost 70 million views on YouTube and even triggering a response from the Ugandan government, which now plans to capture Kony. It has also drawn some criticism for potentially oversimplifying the issues, possibly encouraging “slacktivism” and turning Kony into a celebrity.
The panel’s assembled documentarians, though, chose to address the effectiveness of KONY 2012 as social documentary.
Ontario community manager and panel moderator Meghan Warby said the documentary was stripping away the politics to get to the actual conflict in Uganda.
Dorothy Engelman, who currently runs GetINvolved.Ca in Canada, spent 20 years as a producer and documentary maker. She recognizes that KONY 2012 used celebrity because that’s how you reach everyday people.
via mashable.com
Read Ulanoff's full story here:
Love this: Introducing The Curator's Code: A Standard for Honoring Attribution of Discovery Across the Web | Brain Pickings
Introducing The Curator’s Code: A Standard for Honoring Attribution of Discovery Across the Web
by Maria PopovaKeeping the whimsical rabbit hole of the Internet open by honoring discovery.
Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.” ~ Ray Bradbury
You are a mashup of what you let into your life.” ~ Austin Kleon
Chance favors the connected mind.” ~ Steven Johnson
As both a consumer and curator of information, I spend a great deal of time thinking about the architecture of knowledge. Over the past year, I’ve grown increasingly concerned about a fundamental disconnect in the “information economy”: In an age of information overload, information discovery — the service of brining to the public’s attention that which is interesting, meaningful, important, and otherwise worthy of our time and thought — is a form of creative and intellectual labor, and one of increasing importance and urgency. A form of authorship, if you will. Yet we don’t have a standardized system for honoring discovery the way we honor other forms of authorship and other modalities of creative and intellectual investment, from literary citations to Creative Commons image rights.
Until today.
I’m thrilled to introduce The Curator’s Code — a movement to honor and standardize attribution of discovery across the web.
read Maria Popova's full post - I'm signing today
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/09/curators-code/
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Blog post worth reading: Creative Commons- via Shared Story Worlds
Excerpt:
"SSWs present some very interesting opportunities (and challenges) from a copyright perspective. As soon as you allow the remixing of content in your SSW, whether it’s content you created or submitted content you published, you have to decide what kind of legal license framework you want. Ideally, this will be shaped by your goals for the SSW and the kind of experience you want to create for audiences. And, ideally, you’ll seek legal guidance from an attorney.
Some creatives want to maximize collaboration and remixing of content, so they construct legal frameworks that support this kind of SSW. Others prefer a more conservative approach (e.g., the SSW owner retains complete control over all content) with select invitations for audiences to contribute being issued in very managed and controlled ways.
Whatever you decide, default copyright is both country- and state/province-specific, so you’ll need to get appropriate legal advice on what applies to you and your SSW.
However, there is an increasingly popular, optional and additional legal license you can apply to your SSW if it makes sense for you: Creative Commons (CC).
CC is a non-profit providing a variety of free licenses that give the public additional rights above and beyond default copyright. Creative Commons has done the homework of crafting legal licenses tailored to work with the default copyright laws in many countries.
To be clear, a CC license does not replace default copyright. Rather, it grants additional rights above and beyond copyright, smoothing the road to collaboration. Many people erroneously think all CC content is free to use or conflicts with commercial endeavors. In reality, CC licenses can be used in a variety of ways, both commercially and non-commercially, and, depending on the CC license you choose, you can select just how many rights are granted to the public...."
L'Odyssée de Cartier: A Diamond-Encrusted Stab at Branded Storytelling | Sparrow Hall - Transmedia Storyteller, New Media Producer & Brand Director
L'Odyssee de Cartier - Branded Storytelling / Branded Entertainment
Here’s to Cartier for taking a bold step into the realm of branded storytelling.
Now all they need is a script.A brief analysis:
via sparrowhall.com
Sparrow Hall gives a great breakdown of pros & cons on his site:
http://www.sparrowhall.com/blog/lodyssee-de-cartier-a-diamond-encrusted-stab-...
Jigar Mehta on When the documentary is not a film: Tales from launching a web-native collaborative project | i-docs
When the documentary is not a film: Tales from launching a web-native collaborative project
March 6, 2012
Guest post by Jigar Mehta, i-Docs 2012 keynote speaker on Thursday 22 March.
On January 25th 2012, the one-year anniversary of the start of the Egyptian revolution, we launched 18DaysinEgypt.com. No red carpet, no world premiere. It was a moment that we had spent many months building towards, but the site was not our final product. The launch was the beginning of our documentary about the revolution. Our audience is our collaborator.
18 Days in Egypt is an interactive documentary project that tells the story of the ongoing Egyptian uprising, using the personal media created by Egyptians in the crucible of the revolution. We want Egyptians to tell this story together, with their footage, their photos, their e-mails, their texts, even their Tweets and Facebook status updates, all created during the last year in Egypt, particularly but not limited to the first 18 days of the uprising, January 25th to February 11th, 2011.
Not a blank canvas
When we opened the project on January 25th, we did not want participants to see a blank website waiting for the first person to tell their story. We wanted them to see an active community that encouraged them to join in the conversation and contribute to the larger story. Our approach was to start with a small group of beta users two weeks before launch to populate the site. Not only were these users populating the site with content; they were helping to set the tone for the larger community.
One of the keys to the early success of pre-populating the site was our fellows program. We have used part of our funding to hire 6 young Egyptian journalists and students to work with us as field producers. They act as the bridge between the online platform we developed and the reality of Egypt, helping others use the site but also sourcing stories from those who don’t have access to the Internet. They help digitally divided Egyptians get their stories onto the site.
via i-docs.org
read the full post on the i-Docs site:
http://i-docs.org/2012/03/06/when-the-documentary-is-not-a-film-tales-from-la...
Can't wait for the conference!
Red Redemptions - Fate of the World: Tipping Point - environmental policy gaming
Description from the site:
"About Fate of the World
Fate of the World is a PC strategy game that simulates the real social and environmental impact of global climate change over the next 200 years. The science, the politics, the destruction — it’s all real, and it’s scary.
Your mission: Solve the crisis. But, like life, it won’t be easy. You’ll have to work through natural disasters, foreign diplomacy, clandestine operations, technological breakthroughs, and somehow satisfy the food and energy needs of a growing world population. Will you help the planet or become an agent of destruction?.."
According to the Guardian UK the game has been downloaded over 1 million times. Nice.
Teaching History 2012: The Titanic: Live-Tweeted to Mark 100 Year Anniversary - @TitanicRealTime
This latest project is the work of The History Press, one of the UK’s largest local and specialist history publishers, and the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic is one of its biggest campaigns for 2012.
“We’re very keen on embracing digital outlets to optimize our content,” says Christian Bace, Marketing Executive at The History Press. “To this end, we have created our very first iPad app too, which is due to be released on March 15th.”
So, in addition to the Titanic Twitter account, you’ll also be able to delve deep into the famous ship, with Titanic: Her Journey, collating the knowledge of the world’s foremost Titanic experts in an interactive app.
via thenextweb.com
March 6, 2012
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