Bear71 is an amazing project from Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison. Produced by the NFB, the project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Bear71 is a heartbreaking tale of a grizzly bear who after years of of being documented by wireless motion sensored trail cams is struck and killed by a train.
I co-created the installation as well as assisted with extending the social narrative of the project.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be headed to the Sundance Film Festival with a new project entitled Pandemic 1.0 This marks the first step in a rolling release of a new storyworld that I’ve been building. It is part of what I’ve been calling a storytelling R&D (research and development) process.
Pandemic 1.0 Lance Weiler (U.S.A.)
Pandemic 1.0 is a transmedia storytelling experience that spans film, mobile, online, real-world, social gaming and data visualization. Over the course of the festival the story will unfold enabling viewers / players to step into the shoes of our protagonists. The story experience starts when a mysterious sleep virus begins to affect the adults in a small rural town, the youth soon find themselves cut off from civilization and fighting for their lives. Will they survive? Can you survive?
I recently directed an episode of RADAR a series that focuses on innovation and storytelling. To see more of the streamy nominated series visit www.babelgum.com/radar
The Summer issue of Filmmaker Mag is now on newsstands. For my Culture Hacker column I look at how transmedia can be used for R&D around stories.
It’s tempting to get distracted. It happens to filmmakers all the time. Concern over gear, building audiences, developing social media strategies, new tools, new services. The promise of transmedia (the ability for a story to live beyond a single screen, device or medium) offers such rich storytelling potential. But for some it will become yet another distraction. Case in point: After a recent speaking engagement I was approached by a group of filmmakers. Some were trying to figure out the value of transmedia while others said with a sense of pride that they’d designed the perfect transmedia experience, as if it was something to check off a list. There was the Web component, a mobile series, a game and an app, not to mention an assortment of social media accounts thrown into the mix. It was if by adding more to their project they’d be guaranteed an audience in a media-saturated world.
Now don’t get me a wrong, I’m a strong proponent of filmmakers embracing emerging creative opportunities. But when I posed a simple question asking what the filmmakers with the perfect transmedia strategy were trying to say there was a moment of pause. I wasn’t asking about the plot or characters. I was looking for the passion behind the project. What was it that the filmmakers needed to say? What was their story really about? Interestingly, that simple question became paralyzing.
I’ve been there. I’m guilty of it. After all, most films are underdeveloped. It’s easy to fold to the pressure of what seems like a limited window of opportunity. The gut-wrenching feeling of “it’s either now or never!” But after finishing my last project I made a promise to myself that I would let the next one grow organically. By doing so I discovered that I could use transmedia as a way to develop the stories I wished to tell.
Transmedia is so much more than marketing and promotion. Of course, transmedia can benefit a project during a release or before, when a filmmaker attempts to build an audience. It also has value with regards to how a project can be funded and packaged. But let’s put that aside for a moment and focus on the creative side.
I recently wrote a piece for Filmmaker Magazine about designing mobile apps that extend storytelling and build audiences. Here’s a section from the story…
artwork Jordan Grey
Where Data Meets Storytelling
Mobile apps offer not only a direct channel to audiences but they carry your story to places where the audience will consume it. As stories travel they can harvest a variety of data such as: GPS coordinates, viewer preferences and/or contact info. This data can be filtered and used in a variety of ways to enhance a story. For instance, media (video, audio, photos) can be released to viewers when they reach a certain location, data can be used to connect audience members who share similar interests around a story, and characters can contact players directly via SMS, e-mail or even phone calls.
With my newest feature/transmedia project HiM, my company Seize the Media, which specializes in story architecture (design and delivery of stories), is hard at work on a series of mobile applications and web browser-based extensions. Our efforts are focused on an area known as Contextual Storytelling – the use of data to enhance and customize the delivery of story elements and social entertainment experiences to audiences.
Pandemic is a transmedia property that resides within the storyworld of HiM. The game enables players to step into the shoes of the protagonist as they are forced to scavenge for food and encouraged to search for other survivors. One core feature of the game enables the player to create a 360-degree panoramic view of a space. By standing and snapping pictures in a circle, users can capture any space and place it within the game world. In a sense the Pandemic app creates a crowdsourced type MMO (massive multiplayer online game) that enables players to virtualize the real world around them.
I’d missed out on seeing the short at Sundance but signed up to receive a ticket once it became available online. I received the following email tonight.
When I went to the site it mentioned that 3,785 tickets we’re available. Found myself wondering if limited viewing was due to tech limitations of the server or if it was a play on creating a demand based on scarcity. Either way it is an interesting way to release a short. It gave the feeling of something special in a connected world that’s become all about the “right now.” But at its core it was the story that carried the experience. Hats off to Jonez for making a heartfelt piece of branded content that took me some place and didn’t bother to shove a brand or a sale down my throat. I really hope that this type of branded content becomes the norm – subtle with art, craft and engaging storytelling.
MIT’s Futures of Entertainment conference is held each fall. I had the privilege of speaking at the event in 2008. It’s an amazing mix of people from various sides of the industry. This past year the conference had a number of excellent transmedia focused panels. In the following panel the team behind Purefold give an inside look at the project.
From MITs site
Drawing together members of Ag8, creative collaborators, and representatives from a major brand sponsor, this panel will examine the project from a variety of perspectives. Exploring the motivations for building a transmedia project around Blade Runner, the panel looks at the potential transmedia might offer for revitalizing older properties. It explores the roles different stakeholders play in the conception and design of a project, as well as the challenges of meeting varying desires and ambitions. The panel considers whether some genres are better suited for transmedia properties than others, and looks at how to extend existing properties with substantial fan bases, considering questions of co-creation and fan/audience production.
Moderator: Geoffrey Long – Gambit-MIT
Panelists include: David Bausola – Co-founder of Ag8; Tom Himpe – Co-founder of Ag8; Mauricio Mota – Chief Storytelling Officer, co-founder The Alchemists; C3 Consulting Practitioner; Leo Sa – Petrobras
More than a decade ago it was “search” that was driving innovation and large investments in both infrastructure and talent. When Google first started indexing unique URLs in 1998 there were already 26 million. Two years later the amount of indexed pages had crossed the billion mark. Flash forward to this winter and the amount of unique URLs exceeds 1 trillion.
We are swimming in a sea of data. On average Americans wade through 34 gigs of information a day according to a recent report by researchers at the University of California, San Diego. The ability to “filter” this information will drive future innovation. How people are posting, commenting and clicking will greatly impact the ways films are created, curated and shared over the next decade.
The desire to tap into social data is evident in recent deals that have Google, Microsoft and Yahoo lining up to access Twitter’s feed in an effort to improve their own traditional search results. The fact that three leaders in search are interested in something as small as 140 characters of information points to the value of social streams. From breaking news instantly, in many cases before traditional outlets, the power of word of mouth threatens to devalue massive ad spends by the studios; the ability of people to connect and communicate in real time through handheld devices is challenging many established industries while at the same time enabling a new form of social curation.