Posts Tagged ‘XML’

XMedia 2012: Pitching @ The Lab

Posted: April 14, 2012 in Digital Media, Future TV, Social Media, Television, XMediaLab 2012
Tags: , , , , ,
0

XMediaLab Perth 2012 aims to explore how new digital technology impacts and enables storytelling. After a hugely interesting conference day, ”What’s Your Story?“, this weekend sees 16 teams pitch digital projects to a group of international mentors for advice, development and the potential of two $20,000 XML development awards. 

The projects being pitched at the XMedia Lab this weekend include: an animated character world and web-series for teens; a virtual tour of a cancer-care facility in development; an app to facilitate work from intellectually disabled artists; an AR storytelling experience to promote sustainable living; a multiplatform real-time polling app; a location-specific social history project; a participatory multiplatform play; a TV and online project on parenting; an education-by-stealth avatar-based community to engage young people with the arts; a crowd-funded hip-hop cancer awareness documentary and community; and an online mafia fiction story.

I’m here with a team from FORM pitching One Road: a content-rich digital journey and archive repatriation project to extend the reach and impact of the remarkable, award-winning Canning Stock Route project and Yiwarra Kuju exhibition. The teams now have one-to-one sessions with the international mentors, who then vote on the two XML Perth Development Awards, one from Screenwest and the other from DCA.

XMediaLab: What’s your story? Part 4: Jaunique Sealey, John de Margheriti, Jeroen Elfferich and Helen Papagiannis

Posted: April 13, 2012 in Digital Media, Future TV, Social Media, XMediaLab 2012
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

XML Perth 2012 aims to explore how new digital technology impacts and enables storytelling.  My notes from the last sessions of the conference…

The final part of the conference kicked-off with Jaunique Sealey, digital and social media strategist.  Sealey comments that social media allows artists to ‘own’ their audience, taking them with them through their portfolio of work. But she warns: “there is no such thing as social media strategy without free content”, as this forms the basis of the conversation within these communities.  Sealey suggests producing “good deed content”: something so valuable that the audience feels it is a “good deed” to share it.  Video is “the king of content” in the social media space.

Sealey comments that you should define your audience first, and produce for them specifically.  She warns you do not want to sell your product (push messaging) through social media, you want to tell the story of your product instead.  Sealey used the example of “Double Fine Adventure” that understood and targeted their audience so specifically and authentically, that they raised some $3.3m on KickStarter (with the goal of $400k).

In summary, Sealey urged the audience to: find your audience; find your stories, build your following.  And follow the life-cycle of social media:  Listen -> Create -> Present -> Broadcast -> Measure -> Adapt -> and start the cycle again…

Next up was John de Margheriti of the Australian Game Development Industry.  He was followed by Jeroen Elfferich, a specialist in synchronous social interactive entertainment, talking about second-screen. “The biggest thing to happen to TV since colour”, Elfferich comments that this revolution is changing TV from a passive pastime to an interactive experience.  Elfferich stated that the average 25-year-old now consumes 9 hours of media every day, over 6 hours.  This means that 50% of the time they are consuming two streams of media at once.  Elfferich believes that less than 1% of media is currently being produced with this concurrent, social consumption trend in mind.  And he comments that activity in the social space is now informing what is broadcast as final programming (from twitter feeds and polls, to real-time voting, to narrative developments).  Audience understanding of this real-time live feedback loop produces massive consumer loyalty.

Elfferich concluded that when thinking about second-screen, producers need to remember the “5 M’s”: mass (audience scale), meaning (do something with the feedback generated by users), multi-platform (think about devices and distribution methods), moment (makes the interaction more powerful and meaningful for audiences) and monetize.  He warns that you must not: treat second-screen as Ceefax/Teletext, as just checking-in, try to gamify the un-gamifiable, over-do it…and do not let the servers crash!  And he urged producers to make sure that second-screen is: synchronous and in real-time with broadcast; a call-to-action; rewards interaction and creates feedback loops; offer pre- and post-show experiences; and embraces the potential for second-screen to become the first!

And the last speaker of the day was augmented reality (AR) specialist Helen Papagiannis. PhD Researcher at the Future Cinema Lab, York University (Toronto), Papagiannis explores the potential for AR in storytelling as a creative visual medium, with a focus on aesthetics, content development and narrative.  She believes the potential of AR across industries is that it enables users to move back and forward in time to “experience” stories. Papagiannis remarked that empathy is a really interesting mechanism in AR storytelling, as it allows users to see the world as a character.  Papagiannis then referred to technological developments which will allow users to sense environments: developments with haptic tactile technologies which allow touch-feedback (some happening at the Magic Vision Lab at the University of South Australia); and cameras that recognize specific AR markers and pump scents into AR goggles.

Like other speakers, Papagiannis referred to the importance of play in AR narratives. And finally, she commented on her own approach to AR development: project what is needed and what could be possible technically in the future.  Imagine impossible things.  And collaborate.

XMediaLab: What’s your story? Part 2: Rajesh Rao, Jason Manley, Shinta Dhanuwatdoyo and Samuel Seow

Posted: April 13, 2012 in Digital Media, Future TV, Social Media, XMediaLab 2012
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

XML Perth 2012 aims to explore how new digital technology impacts and enables storytelling.  My thoughts from the second part of the conference…

Rajesh Rao founded India’s first games company, Dhruva Interactive, in 1997 and is acknowledged as a pioneer of the games industry in India.  Rao described the scale of the market in India: 600 million Indians are below the age of 25.  India’s population is growing at 7-9% per annum, boosting “the great Indian middle class” with high disposable income (to 700 million people in the next 10-15 years).  Education is pushing computer ownership.  India has the fastest growing mobile market in the world: 900m mobile subscribers with the cheapest subscription and call costs worldwide.  And growth in 3G and 4G are pushing music, video and app uptake and production.  As voice calls are so cheap, telecommunication companies are investing heavily in higher-value content production.

The potential for content, and gaming particularly, is absolutely huge in this market.  As a result, Rao has seen this sector grow from one company in 1997 to over 110 game companies currently. The number of casual gamers in India is undergoing apex growth: some 5-10 million in 2008, rising to a predicted minimum of 120 million in 2015 (8x growth expected between 2010 and 2015).

Indian entertainment is now dominated by indigenous content.  Whilst it is an English speaking outward-looking nation, Rao believes consumers want non-imported Indian-produced content.  And he believes that due to social factors and infrastructures, the gaming fortune lies at the bottom of the pyramid: semi-urban and rural audiences.  And gamification of education is huge in India, allowing a new generation of consumers to discover gaming for entertainment.  Rao concluded that international content producers should begin looking to take advantage of this huge new market.

Next up was Jason Manley: President of www.theartdepartment.org, the online college of art and entertainment development. His talk focused on problem-solving or “strategic intuition”.

Next was an introduction to the unique digital landscape of Indonesia, from digital entrepreneur Shinta Dhanuwatdoyo.  Similar to Rao, she described a huge fast-growing market: a population of 237m people with 200m SIM cards, including 60m mobile internet users.  As broadband penetration improves, internet users are expected to triple by 2015.  Indonesia is now the No. 1 market in Asia for Twitter and Blackberry (affordable due to activity-only charging), and the No. 2 global market for Facebook.  Indonesia is another young population with 43% below the age of 20.  And niche content for this group is now driving hardware purchase (mobile handsets not defined by brand, but by content – “a soccer phone” or “a music phone”).  Relative to income and online access, Indonesia is experiencing a boom in ecommerce.  About 24% of the country’s online population now spending 10% of money disposable income online (growing towards the Asia-Pacific average of 35% of population).

And then IP specialist Samuel Seow led a (surprisingly entertaining) discussion on copyright.  In short, Seow clarified that while ideas are infinitely copy-able, a unique form of an idea can be protected.  He urged creatives to ensure copyright in their work through: 1) true originality; 2) recording in a non-transient, permanent material form; 3) separating existence from function (names must be protected by trademarking); 4) having a connecting factor to a WTO country (giving international protection); and 5) understanding different categories of work and underlying rights (including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound, TV broadcast, published editions).

XMediaLab: What’s your story? Part 1: Leah Hoyer, Warren Coleman, Linda Aronson

Posted: April 13, 2012 in Digital Media, Film, Future TV, Social Media, XMediaLab 2012
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

XMediaLab Perth 2012 aims to explore how new digital technology impacts and enables storytelling.  Here are my thoughts from the first part of the conference… 

Former Director of Development for Disney and current Creative Producer at the Levity Group Leah Hoyer started the day with a talk entitled “Forward Thinking, Back to Basics”.  She focused on the fact the fundamentals of storytelling have not changed.  In short, the way characters interact with their world creates the story.  And although stories are no longer told on just one platform, or from just one perspective, producers should not to rely too heavily on new technologies to deliver the experience.

Hoyer then encouraged producers to focus heavily on early character development, as this leads to more rounded, motivated and interactive transmedia experiences.  She clarified that while the user often embodies the main character that does not mean that this character is the user. Hoyer feels this misunderstanding often produces underdeveloped central characters in interactive storytelling.  In addition, she comments that secondary characters (in a linear storytelling sense) provide a often neglected opportunity to ‘dive deep’ into new worlds to vastly extend the storytelling experience and scale.  Unlike linear storytelling, this doesn’t dilute the original experience, it just moves it on to new spaces and new audiences.  And she concluded by repeating her core message: media has changed, the fundamental rules of storytelling have not.

Next up: Warren Coleman, the co-writer/director on Academy Award-winning animated feature “Happy Feet”. He began by highlighting the impact of in-production audience testing: the opportunity to understand whether key moments of storytelling connection are working and having impact. Coleman then discussed the relationship between story and play. Unlike more traditional media construction, “the paint is still wet right to the very end in the digital pipeline” and Coleman believes a playful approach to production will create a dynamic and believable story.

As a former actor, Coleman brings performance to writing partnerships. Coleman encouraged the XMediaLab delegates to perform their work – “go behind the line” – from the start.  In his experience of animation, this hugely aids the director in visualizing the story and helps to fix narrative flaws long before costly production or talent engagement.  But having built a script based on play, when starting to work with talent/actors Coleman warns against becoming rigid, and encouraged an improvisation and playful approach throughout production.

Coleman then discussed degrading ‘perfect’ animated experience – adding in camera dolly-shake to long animated shots, for example.  Flaws help the audience to buy into a created experience, making it more real for them.  Coleman comments that digital creatives working in totally constructed environments should use tools to make it look like you are not using any tools at all.  Again, play becomes not only a crucial part of story development, but also story delivery.

Next up: Linda Aronson, author of “The 21st Century Screenplay”, talking about parallel, or non-linear and ensemble, narrative.  Unlike novel fiction, Aronson believes a film audience is unforgiving and will not tolerate slow starts, diversions or inauthentic elements.  She believes this is because our brains react differently to written and visual story.  A film audience is engaging emotionally, to the extent of ‘mirroring’ or visceral engagement with the story.  In her session, Aronson explored how playing with structure alone presents huge opportunity in feature narrative: complex non-linear narratives can pull together stories that would not survive linear telling.

XMedia Lab: Jiao Cha Vol1

Posted: April 13, 2012 in Digital Media, XMediaLab 2012
Tags: , , ,
0

As part of the XMediaLab ‘What’s your story?’ taking place this weekend, Jiao Cha Vol.1 kicks off a series of exchange events between XMediaLab Perth and Chinese digital artists.  ”Jiao Cha” is Chinese for “intersect” and refers to the opportunities for cultural exchange, innovation and interdisciplinary approach in digital art.  A special digital art program has been curated by Yang Lei, Exhibition Director at the newly opened China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts. The event takes place at the Perth Big Screen in the Cultural Square from 6pm on Friday 13th April 2012.