remixable

New Breed LA: Elements of Casting [vid]

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:00:37 GMT

For the community of working-class filmmakers at New Breed a constantly evolving creative process of telling our stories is the one thing we can count on in these changing times. Embarking on journeys through deeper methods of collaboration & engaging with fans across various platforms is certainly exciting – but one thing is for certain, the creative needs to be the driving force behind any and all approaches in order to preserve the integrity of the story (and the core reason we make our art).

In this series we begin at the beginning and explore what perhaps drew us all into making movies in the first place: the mystery of the creative process. What follows are short documentaries with creative tips, techniques, learning lessons & personal experiences from a handful of artists we encountered at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2010.

Episode Four is titled: “Elements of Casting.” Featured in this episode are rare insights from producer Ted Hope. Check back on every Monday and Thursday for the remainder of the series.

WorkBook Project Award 2010 Winner

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:57:35 GMT

This past winter we continued a tradition that started with the From Here to Awesome experiment, a “day and date” festival concept that helped 22 films reach theaters, living rooms and viewer’s computers in 2008. The WorkBook Project Discovery and Distribution Award gives a filmmaker an amazing prize consisting of a week long theatrical run in LA with social media, street team and PR support. A run where the filmmaker keeps the box office and we help to pull together the independent community in an effort to drive awareness around the film.

Over a 100 films were submitted and today we’re thrilled to announce that One Hundred Mornings is the winner of the 2010 WBPAward for film. The theatrical release will kick off Sept 16th at the Downtown Independent Theater.

About the film

Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide out in a lakeside cabin hoping to survive the crisis. As resources run low and external threats increase, they forge an uneasy alliance with their self-sufficient hippie neighbour. With no news from the outside world they can’t know how long they must endure living in such close quarters, and with such limited supplies.

Unspoken animosity fills the air, and a suspected affair is driving a wedge between them all. Poorly equipped to cope in a world without technology and saddled with completely conflicting worldviews, everything begins to disintegrate. Finally, each of them faces a critical decision they never thought they’d have to make. For more information on the film visit www.onehundredmornings.com

SPECIAL THANKS to all those who submitted their films, to our peer and industry jury (Ted Hope, Scott Macaulay and Anne Thompson) and to our partners! 20 other films received a digital distro package thanks to IndieFlix that will help to place them on various digital, VOD, and distribution platforms. And CineFist and Cinema Speakeasy will be helping on the ground in LA.

RADAR NYC 7.29.10

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:20:39 GMT

LOOK Before I Die – The Website Inspired by the pending death of the Polaroid camera, K.S. Rivers and Nicole Kenney (RADAR 028 – Before I Die) sought to discover what people value most in their lives. They traveled the world, met hundreds of people, and snapped a Polaroid of them as they answered one simple question: What do you want to do before you die? The answers ranged everywhere from silly (“Before I die, I want to fly!!!”) to introspective (“Before I die I want to learn to trust myself”), which raises the question of what people value in life, and how they view themselves and their worlds. The website, www.beforeidieiwantto.org, explains the motivation behind this project, which is not just to create visual account of people’s responses, but to actually inspire people to go out and accomplish what they say they want to do before they die. Rivers and Kenney believe that having people write down their goals and be constantly reminded of them on this website will motivate them to take action. All of the responses had their own unique charm, but perhaps the most inspirational and poignant were those from patients currently in the hospital, whose stakes for this question are much higher. But no matter how young, old, healthy or sick we are, and regardless of whether or now Rivers and Kenny actually asked us the question, it’s something worth thinking about in our own lives. LISTEN Dragon Turtle – Almanac Dragon Turtle recently released their debut album, Almanac. Check out their myspace to find out more about them, and to listen to the free MP3: “Island of Broken Glass,” which is featured in an upcoming Radar season 3 episode. Think Panda Bear meets Washed Out meets Toro Y Moi meets a tiny bit of Steely Dan (specifically, “Do It Again”). Or you can just listen and decide for yourself. Listen / Purchase – Dragon Turtle music READ The Transmedia Equation pt2 For anyone interested in learning more about transmedia (and what it even is, exactly), this article is worth reading. Our own Lance Weiler (co-founder of RADAR and founder of WBP), who many consider to be the go-to for new media/ transmedia ideas, is the focus of this article, as he discusses his process, his many current projects, and his plans for the future. Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood” and Business Week called him “One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood.” Yet according to Lance, this was not necessarily his ultimate goal. “A lot of the things I’m involved with are trial and error,” he says. Well, whatever his method is, it’s working. Read the article: The Transmedia Equation – Part 2 GO Poetry Brothel Poets and Writers Magazine Summer Party Remember our Poetry Brothel episode (RADAR 020 – Poetry Brothel)? Well now they’re having a party, and you’re invited! Imagine a poetry reading, but more intimate. Much more intimate. As in, baring your souls one-on-one with a stranger intimate. So is this poetry or a party? Or seven minutes in heaven? According to co-founder Tennessee Pink, the poetry is the party. Intrigued? Come to the Lightship Frying Pan in Chelsea on Monday, August 2, from 6-9 PM to hear readings, mingle with authors and agents, exchange books, win free stuff, and maybe even bare your soul a little. Monday August 2nd, 6 – 9p Lightship Frying Pan Pier 66 Maritime @ W 26th st Event Info FOLLOW Vasilios Sfinarolakis – Gulf Oil Spill Vasilios Sfinarolakis, a colleague and photographer on many of our projects, captures the most important current events with his camera. Check out his beautifully moving (literally and figuratively) photos of events around the country, and be sure to check back for updates of his coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill. Vas’s Website

Before I Die – RADAR S3 ep 28 [vid]

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:05:50 GMT

Before I Die is a rare form of Interactive Art, started by K.S. Rives and Nicole Kenney, creating life, out of death. Using a Polaroid camera, Rives and Kenney have traveled far and wide asking people what they would like to do before they die, and snapping their photo as they answer. Rives and Kenny found that asking an age-old question inspired people to reach for a goal they set from themselves. The project soon moved online enabling people from all around the globe to take their own photo, post it and share what they wanted to do before they die.

Elan Lee: The “Rolling Stone” Interview, Part II

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:35:04 GMT

Elan Lee wants you to convert part of your life into the storytelling experience

Thanks to a fortuitous mix of chance and invention, Elan Lee has found himself to be one of the few recognizable names in the transmedia business. With four separate companies (Fourth Wall Studios, edoc laundry, 42 Entertainment, and the “not worth mentioning” collaboration with Jordan Weisman called Myriad Mobile), a handful of patents, and a certain amount of reckless (or naive) experimentation, his projects have helped to define – or redefine – cross platform storytelling in the 21st century.

Last time we talked philosophy. This time we’re down to brass tacks: what works, what doesn’t, and what you do when you’re in the right place at the right time.

[This dude is dropping some serious insights - read closely, and between the lines - and you, Dear Reader, are better off hearing it straight from him. And he's a talker.]

Holy crap! Steven Spielberg walked into my office!

Phoebe: As a maker of ARGs, what are you selling?

Elan Lee: At first, when I personally started this whole crazy thing, it was not even a marketing effort. I can talk about where the first one came from, if that helps?

So, I was doing game design at Microsoft, and one day Steven Spielberg walked into my office…cause… Holy crap! Steven Spielberg walked into my office! And he basically said, ‘So, hey, your boss just bought the rights to my movie A.I. (A.I. Artificial Intelligence).’ And, the sort of fill-in-the-blank part there was that my boss really wants to get into Hollywood, and he bought anything with Steven Spielberg’s name on it. And he had signed us up to do a fighting game, and a racing game, and a gladiatorial combat game, and all of that sort of fell in my lap. And it was like, you get to build all these great games!

I went and watched the movie… Actually, even before watching the movie, we built those games. We actually built an A.I. fighting game for the Xbox, a racing game for the Xbox, and a gladiatorial combat game for the Xbox. And the problem with all those games was that an audience isn’t going to know how those fit together. They’re not gonna understand how the characters kind of move from one game, to the next game, to the next, especially with a franchise where some of them may not have even seen the movie.

So we thought, what we really need is just kind of like, the glue between those properties. So we thought, what if we built a game that didn’t actually live on any platform, it just sorta lived everywhere. And characters could call you, and characters could send you email, and the characters that you saw in one game could hop out of that game into the real world for a while, and you’d play along with them. And then they’d hop into the next game, and that’s episode two. Episode three they’re gonna hop back out into the real world, play with you, and then episode four they jump into the next Xbox game. So we built that, and we called it The Beast, because we didn’t know what else to call it and we thought it would be cool.

No one’s gonna buy these things

Then we saw the movie A.I., and… I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie A.I., but umm, you don’t exactly… It’s a movie about a fake boy who really wants the love of his mom and would do anything to be real, but at the end we realize he can’t actually be real and his heart is broken and he’s buried at the bottom of the sea forever… No one walks out of that movie thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to play the Xbox game!’ right? You’re screwed. So me and my team walked out of the movie and just thought, ‘Oh, we’re so f**ked!’ We have nothing.

So we went back to Redmond and we canceled all the games. We just killed them that day cause we thought, ‘We have no chance, no one’s gonna buy these things.’ But as we’re slashing these games, we kinda realize ‘But that other thing, the glue, that’s still kinda cool. That actually has emotional resonance, and actually fits in really well with the movie, because it’s all about people’s real lives. And their passions and their hatreds and their conflict, and, it’s just gritty and real and awesome.’ And so we thought, ‘Well, we own the rights anyway, so let’s just release that, even though it’s not promoting any of our games.’ Even though it’s not carrying characters from one piece to the next. We built it anyway, so we might as well just launch it. And so we did. And it wasn’t meant to be promotion for the movie… it was meant as a clue for these other Xbox games, which no longer existed. So we had no agenda. I mean, absolutely no agenda.

And after about a month of running it, we kinda realized – this is really powerful. We’re onto something here. And so I went to my boss and said, ‘I wanna build more of these. This is cool, we’ve just entertained millions of people in a way that no one has ever entertained them before.’ And he said, “How much money did it make?” And we said, “Well, it didn’t make any money. It wasn’t supposed to.” And he said, “Well, go build an Xbox game, then.” And I thought…this job kinda blows. So I resigned from Microsoft, and started a company to build more of these things. And that’s even worse, cause now I wanna build these things that make no money…

Twelve hours later, Microsoft called…

Phoebe: What made you think you could form a company on the basis of this model when you knew…?

Elan Lee: Absolute naivete. I was so dumb. I just thought, this is really cool. This feels like more compelling storytelling than anything I’ve ever done. And I wanna just build them. And I can worry about the realities of… probably that I’m going to starve to death doing so. So, me and some friends literally started a company – we each put in a little bit of cash, and spent about twelve hours freaking out because now none of us have any income and we have no clients, and… Holy crap! What do we do now? And twelve hours later, Microsoft called and they said, ‘So, we’ve got Halo 2 coming out, and you guys are the only ones who know anything about the game (cause we were some of the original designers of Halo 1), and how do you feel about marketing it using that crazy A.I. thing you did?’ And we thought, ‘Uhh…Awesome! Okay!’

Phoebe: When you say twelve hours, do you mean literally twelve hours?

Elan Lee: Yes. It was a very tense twelve hours. … It was the silver platter. It was like, ‘Hey, how would you like to do exactly what you set out to do, and make money doing it?’

It was total wild west

Once we realized that there was money in marketing, and that in fact it was the only revenue we could come up with, then we just went full steam ahead with that. And we said, ‘Alright, let’s become a marketing company. And that will let us fund a lot of this research on someone else’s dime. Cause it really was research at that point. I mean, there were no rules. It was total wild west. Who knows what the hell is gonna work? …

So, 42 Entertainment was built as a marketing company. And to answer your question, ‘What were we selling?’ We were absolutely selling promotional materials. We could walk into most marketing firms, most giant studios, and say, ‘Your revenue model is dying. People are learning how to skip commercials, they pay no attention to billboards anymore, they have absolutely no tolerance for banner ads and every day that gets worse. But we just finished two projects in a row that had unprecedented numbers…’ It was a really easy business. I mean, it was such a compelling case that we could make to say, ‘We have a mechanism by which you can entertain someone in a new way.’

If you fast-forward that about seven years, now it’s impossible to launch a movie, or a TV show, or a rock album, or a videogame without an ARG. Everyone’s doing it. Or, at least, what they call ARGs. Because the traditional stuff doesn’t work, and it’s only the tent-pole projects that a company is willing to put so much marketing money into. Those things work, but everything else needs some edge, it needs some hook. And the irony of the whole situation is that ARGs are no longer an edge or a hook. They’re just commonplace now.

“ARGs” is such a stupid term that no one knows what it means

Phoebe: Well, commonplace, I think, to a certain subculture. A certain niche of people that are technologically proficient… I mean, even though I have a media-engaged background, I have never accidentally come across the rabbit hole for an ARG.

Elan Lee: Fair enough. Nor have I. In fact, I’ve never actually played one. So… (He laughs.)

Most marketing companies, at this point, will call whatever it is they’re doing an ARG. Because what they’re doing is basically saying ‘Let’s do traditional marketing, plus a Twitter account. Let’s do traditional marketing, plus a weird interactive website with a flash game on it.’ And they’re calling that stuff ARGs because “ARGs” is such a stupid term that no one knows what it means. So that stuff I think is actually commonplace – the things that they’re calling ARGs I think are commonplace, and most people at least know they exist. Every movie that comes out, you at least know how to find the website, if you wanted to. And if you were to go there, there would be some embedded flash experience, or there would be a link to a Twitter account, or a link to some other weird thing if they’re more elaborate.

An actual ARG, in the sense of what I Love Bees was, or in the sense of what A.I. was, and the few that we did after that…those are not nearly as commonplace. And those are – very much to your point – entertaining the hell out of that same group of hardcore geeks over and over again…

There is no upside to trading time for money

Which is exactly why I resigned from the company. I woke up one morning and realized two very important things: one is that I’m really good at entertaining the hell out of that small group of people, and two is that there is no upside to trading time for money. In other words, I only make money if I put time into this. And the moment I stop putting time into this, I stop making money. And that’s a service industry. That’s not a happy moment for me. I’m very uncomfortable with that.

And so I started–with some friends–Fourth Wall Studios because I wanted to change that. I wanted to not only entertain the same million people over and over again, but I also wanted to build things with permanence to them, so that even once I stopped pouring time into them, they would continue to generate revenue.

And so now what I’m selling – this is the longest answer to your question ever – so now what I’m selling is a true media experience with built in revenue models, established revenue models. We’ve got some that have microtransactions, we’ve got some that we’re building actual TV shows so those have ad sponsored revenue models built in. People already know these. We’ve got some with text messaging revenue models. We’ve got a book coming out that’s got a built in revenue model. All of those things, what we’re essentially selling to the user is…it’s everything you know, but the coolest version of it you’ve ever seen. Here’s a book! You know how to buy a book…here’s the coolest book you’ve ever seen. Here’s a TV show. You know how to watch commercials in a TV show, but it’s the coolest TV show you’ve ever seen. That’s the new proposition: it’s what you’re used to, plus.

It’s just a psychological manipulation

Phoebe: Now I guess what you’re doing with Fourth Wall is a slightly different take on embedding a business model into the delivery of your story, which is clearly a huge evolution from what you were doing with 42. Most of us, when we think about funding an “interactive experience” (for lack of a better term), the introduction of a new business model is often a hard sell. Especially because people in the media industry are trying so many different things and so many of those things are failing miserably.

Elan Lee: Yeah.

Phoebe: And so you go back and look at the marketing model that 42 was using, and you go, ‘OK, but still every marketing person is asking me about ROI and “Engagement”.’ And if I’m only selling the same story, or a different story to the same market, even if those people are fully engaged – which they may be – it doesn’t necessarily translate to selling products.

Elan Lee: There’s a few answers to that. First, let me put my 42 hat on for a second and answer that specific one. Whenever we took on a new client at 42, we would ask one very important question, which is: ‘What are you guys gonna use to judge the success of this project?’ Not, ‘What does success mean?’ but, ‘What do you think?’ And oftentimes, they would answer, ‘Oh, we just want column inches. We just want reporters all over this.’ And so we would tailor things to accomplish that very specific goal. Or they would say, ‘We want to sell movie tickets.’ OK, so we’re gonna tailor that. So, there’s tricks you can use to do exactly that, even if you don’t have a lot of players, you can tailor it to get a sh*t-load of press, or you can tailor it to get massive traffic to a website, even if it’s the same people over and over again, right? You can encourage repeat behavior… So that was one thing that we’d be really clear on: ‘What do you want to get out of this?’ And we’re gonna give you that. And we were very successful at that because it’s just a psychological manipulation…(He laughs.)

It’s not the game that has to be entertaining, it’s the players

The second thing is… Have you ever seen that inverse pyramid of the players?

So, the goal there, what we were always able to say which I think was actually really true, is: If you can build the game that has three core functions – one super hardcore thing that’s gonna keep the players engaged…and it’s gonna be hard and complicated and geeky, and all that’s actually good, cause those are the guys that are going to keep coming back. If you can build one medium engagement thing, so that you can play ten minutes a day–a flash game is a great example of that–then you’re gonna keep that middle group occupied. And, if you can build something that only takes ten seconds, like a really awesome website, something super spooky happens when you’re visiting, or you call a phone number. Then you’re going to get that upper crowd.

When it works right. When all those things are powering each other, what happens is, you get the bottom group entertaining the top. So, the core players are entertaining the medium players, the medium players are entertaining the really casual people. Cause they’re watching, like ‘Oh my god, these guys are going out in hurricanes and answering payphones!’ And you have all that insanity. And what happens is that triangle grows, because people from the top, every once in a while they trickle down to the middle. And people at the middle level start to trickle down to the bottom level. And that bottom level grows when there’s more core players doing more and more and more, the whole triangle grows because now there’s more to be entertained by. And although it looks like a triangle, it’s actually a circle. And if you build it the right way, you can get the player–nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd–you can get these guys to generate the viral spread for you. Because it’s not the game that has to be entertaining, it’s the players that have to be entertaining.

You don’t have to teach your customers how to spend money

Phoebe: So, back to Fourth Wall…and rather than selling somebody else’s product, selling your own original IP [Intellectual Property] in new forms… It sounds like you’ve already experimented with a number of different models, so what have been the most successful? Where do you wanna go?

Elan Lee: The two that have been the most successful so far is actually edoc [that's edoc laundry] clothing company – selling shirts, or clothes, makes a lot of money – and Cathy’s Book makes a lot of money. And I think the reason those two make a lot of money is because they’re established revenue models. If you have to teach someone how to spend money, that’s a loooooong road. So, using those established mechanisms is really good.

We have a lot of other mechanisms. One of the projects that we’re starting to develop right now – actually, the one I’m most excited about – which I can’t say too much about… is… how do I phrase this without totally screwing myself over? OK. (He pauses.) There’s a way that we all behave online. Nope, that’s a bad way to say it… OK. (Another pause.)

Here’s a statement: Marketers spend billions of dollars every year to make television commercials to get you to look at a product. Another statement is: Marketers spend a nearly equal amount to build banner ads to get people to redirect their behavior to a certain URL. To move their eyeballs to a certain URL. I think those are both true statements. OK. We have an experimental revenue model that I’m very excited about, because what it does is it makes part of gameplay moving your eyeballs to very specific websites, over and over and over again. And because that has such tremendous value, I think it’s a revenue model that you don’t have to teach. That you don’t have to teach your customers how to spend money. They just do it. And that has incredible value to marketers.

Let’s call that chocolate and peanut butter

I realize how nebulous I’m being about that, but if you look at it in that very abstract way, there’s something kinda beautiful about that, right? There’s value in people looking at your thing online, and the game is built out of things online, so let’s call that chocolate and peanut butter and put those things together, and build something where everyone wins.

Phoebe: So, if I can summarize: You’re talking about building a revenue model that is based on existing behaviors?

Elan Lee: Correct.

Phoebe: You’ve also had an opportunity with Fourth Wall to explore your own IP, instead of leveraging existing IP. And it seems like you’ve had a lot of opportunity to experiment with different media. Can you talk a bit about that?

Elan Lee: None of those have launched yet. However, we have started the process of writing and selling scripts in Hollywood. Some are television shows, some are webisodes, and some are feature length films. They’re all properties that we wrote in-house. And they’re all properties that have the interactive components baked into the DNA of the property. So, while it is possible to just sit back and watch a TV show…cause that’s not massively broken, and enough people know how to do it.

Lean forward and live in that world

All of the interactive components are an extension of that same experience across your cell phone, across your email address, across your facebook page. And rather than the interactive elements feeling like a marketing thing that was slapped on afterwards, what we’re trying to build – and what’s so exciting – is… When you participate in passive media, when you watch a TV show and watch a movie, you are sitting back. It’s a lean-back experience. And our claim is, in addition to that, the opportunity to then lean forward and live in that world – so that, when you decide to lean back again and watch the characters, they’re just continuing where you left off. My assertion is that that is the future of entertainment.

And getting to work with media where they let us play with that, and fund massive projects geared to not entertain that same million people who look for those marketing projects, but instead geared towards the 30 million people that are going to watch a TV show and then hopefully say, ‘Oh, there’s more? I wanna see what the more is, I wanna see what else there is.’ That’s a much more fun sandbox to get to play in. So, that’s what I’m excited about right now.

I’m sooo happy American Idol exists

Phoebe: Do you think that shows like American Idol, which are scratching surface of some type of audience interactivity – do you think that’s going to help with educating an audience so that they can deal with a cross-device experience?

Elan Lee: Yeah. For sure. I’m sooo happy American Idol exists. And I’m soo happy it’s doing as well as it is. Well, I guess it’s sort of declining a little but…what a run, right? I think that they showed…they took the first and hardest step in this process. They said, ‘For a massive audience, they are not gonna be scared to interact. And we’re gonna teach them over the course of many years how to do it. And we’re gonna reward them along the way, and we’re gonna introduce conflict along the way, and we’re gonna make it part of the experience. Part of the experience of American Idol is picking up another device – a computer or a phone and doing something. And we’re not gonna punish you for that, we’re not gonna make it complicated. We’re gonna make it fun and easy. And that’s the hardest damn step. And they did such a phenomenal job at it! Now, what’s even more exciting is what comes next.

You can just do it. Just do it today, this afternoon.

Phoebe: If I want to grow up and become a “transmedia designer”, what do I do? What’s the path for that?

Elan Lee: Right. Well, the shortest path is build one. What’s really cool about all this stuff is, you can just build one. If you’ve got a microphone and basic HTML skills, or a friend who has basic HTML skills, you can build one.

I think we’re in this phase that I call ‘wild experimentation,’ and no one has any idea what’s gonna work. There are certain lessons out there, but there are no rules. Everything is worth trying. And it’s rapid prototyping, and it’s rapid failure, and it’s wild experimentation. And for anyone who wants to grow up and be a ‘transmedia designer’…there’s no growing up involved. You can just do it. Just do it today, this afternoon. And those lessons that you learn there are what transmedia houses are looking for. Anyone who’s got any experience in this at all is what they’re looking for. But in success, and even in moderate success, people come to you and say, ‘That was awesome! What’s next? What are you going to build next? And can you slap this onto my product? And here’s some development money, and can you build it bigger and better and involve this thing instead?’ There’s quite a boom in this industry right now, because no one’s good at it. And there’s huge potential.

You get to convert part of your life into the storytelling experience

Phoebe: What’s been interesting for me in watching the development of this whole, quote-unquote transmedia environment, has been the role of academia and the media itself shaping the way people understand what it is. I mean even the term “transmedia” is not… I mean, did you coin that term?

Elan Lee: (Shakes his head.)

Phoebe: Right. So, the definitions have influenced what people expect. For example, there seems to be a set of conventions that go along with an Alternate Reality Game. And even within this frame of wild experimentation, it appears that what people are looking for is something formulaic… What do you think of when you think of an Alternate Reality Game? What does “transmedia” mean to you? Or does it have any meaning?

Elan Lee: I think that all it really means is that you get to convert part of your life into the storytelling experience. And the best ones are the ones where you get to define what part of your life that is. I don’t think there’s any formula about what it has to include or what it shouldn’t include. I’m such a huge fan of making people feel like superheroes. I just think that’s the key to everything. And so, if you can get someone to invite your story into their life, and what they’re gonna get in return is to feel like a superhero for doing so…that’s the ultimate transmedia experience. And I hate to define it more than that. I really think that’s the core of it.

Phoebe: More like transcendental media?

Elan Lee: Yeah! That’s a great way to look at it. (He laughs.) Yeah. I mean…I’ve had small experiences watching TV or movies, where I felt like a superhero just voyeuristically, but it wears off immediately. You know where the border of that TV is, and I know if I look to the left it’s not the TV anymore. That’s the wall of my apartment, and that’s the not having that experience anymore. And so transmedia is one where we say, well, the border doesn’t have to be there, the border is wherever I want it to be. And I really believe that’s the future of entertainment.

[But wait! There's more. Next time we'll cover Elan's take on creativity, and what makes him more successful at this than you.]

PULSE – UnItv.me

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:06:55 GMT

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show? According to UnItv, entertaining yourself doesn’t have to be so passive. An adventure in local news broadcasting, UnItv is a live, interactive television broadcast, ripe with viewer submitted content. The anchors spontaneously discuss user proposals in the narrative of news, weather, and pop culture reports to bridge the gap between improv comedy shows, television, and technology. Viewers are encouraged to submit material via text, chat, email, and even over the phone, bridging the gap between the private and public audience space. UnItv emboldens audience members to voice their own concerns, likes, and dislikes in a public forum, to create a platform of viewer expression in television. To participate, click on “submit now” at .

Watch past UnItv.me episodes here
To participate go to “submit now”

New Breed LA: Planning for Discoveries [vid]

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:50:13 GMT

Episode Three is titled: “Planning for Discoveries.” Featured in this episode are Trieste Kelly Dunn & Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on every Monday and Thursday for the remainder of the series.

New Breed LA: Planning for Discoveries [vid]

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:50:13 GMT

EVENT: Transmedia Next

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:20:21 GMT

I’m often asked about transmedia and how my company Seize the Media is using it in the projects that we’re developing or producing. Besides being an excellent story R&D tool, transmedia also offers a wide range of benefits for those wishing to tell stories in the digital age. It’s a given that media consumption is changing and much has been written about an entertainment industry that finds itself smack in the center of a major transition. And while transmedia might not be for every storyteller, there are things that can be learned from the process of adapting and designing a story that travels beyond one device, platform or medium that can apply to anyone. For instance transmedia can create new opportunities to fund, develop, write, produce and / or distribute the stories you wish to tell.

This coming fall I’ll be part of an exciting training program called Transmedia Next which takes place in London on September 8, 9, & 10th. Over the course of three intensive days we’ll share an approach that my company has been employing on various films, TV, and games that we’ve produced. The event is funded by EU Media and will be open to those in Europe. We’ll be working with a small group of people as we pull back the curtain and share our process. Space is limited so if you’re interested you best hurry. There are also a number of scholarships for those based in the UK thanks to support from Skillset.

For more info on Transmedia Next and to see how you can attend visit www.transmedianext.com

EVENT: Transmedia Next

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:20:21 GMT

For more info on Transmedia Next and to see how you can attend visit www.transmedianext.com

New Breed LA: Nothing You Have to Have [vid]

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:42:44 GMT

Episode One is titled: “Nothing You Have to Have.” Featured in this episode are Julius Onah, Jeff Malmberg,Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on every Monday and Thursday for the remainder of the series.

New Breed LA: Engineering Serendipity [vid]

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:42:33 GMT

Episode Two is titled: “Engineering Serendipity.” Featured in this episode are Jeff Malmberg, Trieste Kelly Dunn & Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on every Monday and Thursday for the remainder of the series.

PULSE – Boogie

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:18:02 GMT

PHOTOGRAPHER

BOOGIE

Boogie is a Serbian born photographer who emigrated to the United States in 1998. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. With an effortless but honest “shoot first, ask later” approach and nimble timing, he captures the moments that transform a split second opportunity into a decisive photograph.

Boogie has the grace of a documentarian and little heed for comfort zones. In characteristically gritty black and white film, he catalogues poverty, civil war, and urban decay. He arrests us with the bleaker aspects of the human condition and the social taboos we may often ignore.

Rather than gloss over his subject, he pulls the viewer in. Unflinching and fearless in style, his photographic presence poses a sharp contrast to the vulnerability and intimacy of the portraits he creates.

At its lighter moments, his work points to the wry visual coincidences of cities with millions of people, places, and things– taking cues from found text, discarded trash, or birds in flight.

Seeing his work is a glimpse into nearly a decade and a half on the fringes of life happening all around us. You can check out more of his work at www.artcoup.com, where you can also find information about his five published books.

Auto-tune The News – RADAR S3 ep 27 [vid]

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:17:42 GMT

Started by Michael, Evan, Andrew and Sarah Gregory, Auto-Tune the News takes video clips of Politicians, Pundits, and Newscasters. The dialog of the clips is then Auto-Tuned transforming spoken word into singing. The goal of the project, is to not only add some humor to these normally dry, antiseptic broadcasts, but to make the information delivered fun and understandable to a younger generation, dare we call them, the Auto-Tune generation. In a time when technology can be manipulated to make the impossible a reality, as well as becoming an industry main-stay, this new form of audio filtering can make the worst of singers stay in key, but it can even make CNN fun.

Relevant sites:

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho

Credits:

CREATED by Lance Weiler & Alex Johnson
DIRECTOR Josh Cramer
DP Lance Kaplan
EDITOR Jawad Metni
SERIES PRODUCER Josh Cramer
SEGMENT PRODUCER Janine Saunders
TITLE SEQUENCE Jordan Gray
POST PRODUCTION House of Trim
ADDITIONAL MUSIC by:
Javelin “Vibrationz”
The Gregory Brothers

RADAR NYC 7.23.10

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:32:10 GMT

WATCH

Auto-Tune The News – Ep10 Turtles

There’s a good chance that if you’ve ever used the internet to procrastinate/look at YouTube/link your friends to ridiculous videos, you’ve seen “Auto-Tune the News.” The concept is simple: take the day’s freshest, most serious news, T-Pain the voices, and add some funky background music. The result: hilarious. The brains behind the zany wigs, blue screens, and manic beats are The Gregory Brothers and Sarah Gregory. Check out the latest RADAR episode for some behind-the-scenes action of ATTN making Ep10 – Turtles, or just shoot over to their YouTube page. Just don’t forget to subscribe. Turtles:

Watch more videos from Auto-Tune The News
www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho

LISTEN

Tall Firs

We like Tall Firs and their indie rock jamming, even using one of their tracks in season 3 of RADAR. The trio sounds like a compilation of 90s-era Dinosaur Jr., live Neil Young, and aggressive Galaxies 500, but don’t take our word for it – Head to their Myspace to hear what’s up. We recommend “Axemen” or “Hairdo.”

Listen / Purchase – Tall Firs music

READ

Red Light Properties – Chapter 18

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been following Dan Goldman’s work since we featured his Red Light Properties series (RADAR Ep22 – Red Light Properties). The unique webcomic experience is still going strong, with a new chapter prepped for launch on July 27th. The online graphic novel follows a group of ghostbusting realty agents in Miami who turnover previously-haunted houses well-below market value. The self-proclaimed tropical-horror‘s most unique aspect has got to be its delivery; instead of one massive JPG or PDF shoved onto your screen, the comic unfolds panel-by-panel, one word-bubble at a time, all at the pace of your mouse clicks. Catch up with the eighteen previous chapters now.
Chapter 18 – view here.

NY International Independent Film & Video Festival

In case you didn’t know, the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival is one of the largest indie festivals in the world. Greats such as Abel Ferrara, Andy Garcia, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Walken, Daryl Hannah, Guy Pearce, George Clooney, and Willem Dafoe have all done work in the festival and the NYIIFVF also accepts submissions from all over the world. If that sort of gravity doesn’t already attract you to the event, our own Daniela Croci has a film entered in the festival, Everything Is as It Seems. Scope the fest’s website for info on film schedules, locations, and tickets. Watch Daniela’s short:

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm
VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS
181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

@Urbanfarming

We’ve showcased sustainability pieces here at RADAR a couple times before, most notably, the Waterpod project (RADAR 017 – Waterpod). Well, some of the guys and girls behind that awesome art satellite have a website and a Twitter dedicated to appropriate technology and green living. Yes, both are definitely worth bookmarking/ following for updates on all things efficient, useful, and green.

Urban Farming’s twitter

RADAR NYC 7.23.10

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:32:10 GMT

WATCH

Auto-Tune The News – Ep10 Turtles

Watch more videos from Auto-Tune The News
www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho

LISTEN

Tall Firs

Listen / Purchase – Tall Firs music

READ

Red Light Properties – Chapter 18

NY International Independent Film & Video Festival

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm
VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS
181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

@Urbanfarming

Urban Farming’s twitter

Collaborative Music Production

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:38:46 GMT

Launched this week is the latest innovation from Finland – the country that brought us Linux and Wreckamovie – a community-based music production service called AudioDraft.

AudioDraft allows musicians to record and upload music not necessarily as complete pieces but as tracks (or stems as would be the jargon) for each individual instrument or vocal. This means a singer in Finland can work with a guitarist in Germany and a drummer in America. They each record their part, upload to the site and then the three stems can be mixed and saved as would be done with any other digital mixing program: think of AudioDraft as a cloud-based ProTools or Adobe Audition.

What could be amazing about the service is that bands are able to allow fans to mix their own tracks. Don’t like that damn bass? Think the sax solo should be louder and the drums drop out? Mix it yourself. It could be a fantastic way to build community around music artists with each fan able to tweek the original work to suit their taste.

There’s little reason why AudioDraft could not be used for film production with sound effects designers and composers uploading their work from different parts of the world. Right now this isn’t possible because there’s no picture sync but it doesn’t take much imagination to see it working in the future.

Of particular interest to indie filmmakers and others is the other service offered by AudioDraft – the work-for-hire competition model that allows musicians to submit work for payment: think 99Designs for audio work. Three competitions are running at the time of writing with prize money between $1000 and $400. One of which is a competition to create the theme music for webseries part of my Lowlifes transmedia project

Definitely worth checking out.

Collaborative Music Production

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:01:44 GMT

Launched this week is the latest innovation from Finland – the country that brought us Linux and Wreckamovie – a community-based music production service called AudioDraft.

Definitely worth checking out.

New Breed LA: Engineering Serendipity [vid]

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:03:39 GMT

Episode Two is titled: “Engineering Serendipity.” Featured in this episode are Jeff Malmberg, Trieste Kelly Dunn & Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on Friday and then every Tuesday and Friday for the remainder of the series.

Auto-tune The News – RADAR S3 ep 27 [vid]

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:54:41 GMT

Relevant sites:

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho

Credits:

PULSE – Boogie

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:16:45 GMT

At its lighter moments, his work points to the wry visual coincidences of cities with millions of people, places, and things– taking cues from found text, discarded trash, or birds in flight.

Independent Film in the Classroom

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:53:49 GMT

Today’s post is from guest writer Jessica King — a filmmaker and teacher whose goal is to tell stories that are at once familiar, uncomfortable, demented, and exhilarating. In this vein, she and her partner, Julie, are currently writing & producing a feature-length thriller for director Phil Holbrook and have been tapped to adapt a naughty memoir by author Kevin Keck.

Independent Film in the Classroom

Recently Ted Hope wondered whether viewing more independent film might make kids smarter. He pondered why there isn’t more of a concerted effort to teach young people about independent film, asking, “isn’t it in our interest to encourage deeper appreciation of the art and craft we have given our lives to?”

As a high school Film Studies teacher for the last 8 years, I can’t go so far as to say teaching students about independent film will make them smarter, but I’d argue that it can make them more intelligent movie viewers. The same is true for teaching them to watch classics, like Citizen Kane or Night of the Hunter. Or foreign films, like All About My Mother or Band of Outsiders or In the Mood for Love.

The trick is that you have to teach them how to watch films first, how to understand the unique language of film. Young people today are used to the language that Hollywood speaks: big explosions, big emotions, big stars. If you want to challenge that, you need to get to the root of film language first.

Before I delve into how to teach film language, I’d like to address a very common problem in terms of students learning about and being exposed to film in a high school setting. Film Studies courses are typically offered as English electives. Most English teachers are barely trained to teach English in a meaningful way (university teaching programs don’t usually focus on the technical aspects of reading or writing – diction, detail, imagery, syntax, tone), let alone film. Instead, English teachers are often talented, enthusiastic people who LOVE literature, which means that they want to talk about themes and characters and feelings, but not about how a text creates meaning and establishes purpose. As a result, many teachers who end up in Film Studies teach film as an extension of literature, showcasing them as visual novels. I find this extremely problematic. My film curriculum, on the other hand, considers, from its core, film as a distinct artistic medium.

In any Film Studies course offered at the high school level, the first thing I must do is disabuse my students of the notion that they are going to spend the next 9 months watching The Hangover and How High. I do this by starting with a brief history of film. As soon as I say the word “history,” they know that Bad Boys II is probably not going to be on the agenda. I spend about two weeks covering the major technological and business developments in film. Through both lecture and video, we uncover the Lumiere Brothers and their Cinematographe, Edison and his Kinetoscope, the invention of sound and color, as well as the significant developments of the Hollywood studio system from the early silents through The Code and the subsequent rating system. My primary goal in the beginning of the course is to get my students to understand that a) film is an expensive and technologically driven business and b) old films had technological and cultural limitations and, therefore, one’s expectations should be adjusted accordingly when watching.

The rest of the first semester is devoted to understanding how films tell stories both in terms of narrative structure and film language. First we look at the difference between classical narrative and non-classical-narrative film, noting, of course, that non-narrative doesn’t necessarily mean that the narrative elements aren’t in place, but that they may not be presented in the traditional manner. For this unit, I’ve compared Stage Coach with Memento and Bringing Up Baby with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This initial comparison helps students immensely in terms of understanding that some films require a little bit of work to piece together. They eventually find that as long as they know what the narrative elements are, they have a chance of putting together a very satisfying puzzle.

Next, we delve into hard-core formalistic study. I do a unit on mise-en-scene. Although this term can be problematic, I start with the traditional (and narrow) definition, which basically encompasses set-design, costumes, props, etc; then I expand the definition to include framing, composition, etc. This leads to my next section, cinematography (black and white first, and then color), and, finally, editing.

In each of these units, I try to teach without overwhelming the students. However, you’d be surprised at how much they can absorb. For instance, in the cinematography unit, we start by learning about shots, angles, lighting techniques, framing devices, etc. Then we watch a film where many of those things are particularly notable. I often like to start with something by Orson Welles, as he was such a master of technique. I’ve shown Citizen Kane, A Touch of Evil, and The Lady from Shanghai. My students don’t love these films, which is fine because we’re not there to like or not like the films. They do learn, however, that lighting, framing, and camera angles are powerful communicative tools that affect mood and establish themes.

This intense, semester-long focus on film language both excites and bothers my students. It excites them because it makes them feel smart; it bothers them because they start seeing it EVERYWHERE. They constantly come to class saying that they are annoying their friends and family by pointing out various camera angles or discussing how the slow-paced edits are intensifying the suspense and manipulating the audience’s emotions. And this tells me that I’m doing my job.

When second semester hits, we take a much broader focus. Now that the students understand how films convey meaning, we ask the question, “To what purpose?” I generally frame second semester within the guise of Commerce vs. Art. We cover the invention of the blockbuster film by learning about the New Hollywood films of the 1970’s and the arrival of Jaws. We look at the business of Hollywood, film genre, auteur theory, independent films, foreign films, and documentaries.

Perhaps one of my favorite units of the year is the independent film unit, in part because it addresses a major elephant in the classroom. I teach in an urban school, traditionally one of the most ethnically diverse in Chicago. I am often one of maybe 3 or 4 other white people in the room. Movies, on the other hand, are very WHITE, as the film industry, both in Hollywood and the indie world, is dominated by white men. This is not a political rant; it’s just an observation. While I try to choose films with more ethnically diverse casting all year long, it isn’t easy – the reasons for this would require an entire essay to itself.

When I get to the independent film unit, I frame each film within the lens of spectatorship. We begin by exploring simple questions about our viewing practices:
Why do you watch films?
Who do you identify with in most films?
What happens when you see people that you identify with portrayed in a positive way vs. a negative way?
Who is often left out of our cultural productions, and what are the implications?

In answering these questions, a very simple fact emerges: most of my students rarely, if ever, are exposed to films that feature characters whose appearance or lives in any way resemble their own. As a result, they believe that movies are not meant to represent them and, on a deeper level, that they are not meant to be represented. They also believe that movies are only meant for escapism and entertainment. After uncovering these ideas, I show them examples that combat those notions.

We watch three independent films from within the past year or so (I like to keep this unit and my Hollywood unit very current). Over the years, I’ve included such films as Ballast, Chop Shop, Amreeka, Raising Victor Vargas, Real Women Have Curves, Talk to Me, George Washington, and Waitress, and I’ve seen amazing results. The students are immediately drawn into these worlds. Although some resist these movies because of the slow pacing or lack of fiery explosions, the majority perk up. They’re seeing something rare: black people, brown people, women people, young people, immigrants, or poor people who look or act or sound like them or other people in their lives. They’re seeing stories worth thinking about because the story is primary. This matters.

By the end of the school-year, most of my students report that they no longer enjoy Hollywood films the way they used to. They ask for lists of films or directors to keep exploring, and they thank me for opening their eyes to a world of film, and a way of understanding film, that they’d never known existed.

Independent Film in the Classroom

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:53:49 GMT

Independent Film in the Classroom

New Breed LA: Nothing you have to have [vid]

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:44:35 GMT

Episode One is titled: “Nothing You Have to Have.” Featured in this episode are Julius Onah, Jeff Malmberg,Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on Friday and then every Tuesday and Friday for the remainder of the series.

RADAR NYC 7.15.10

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:44:35 GMT

LATEST RADAR EPISODE

RADAR Ep26 – Hidden Oras

“Hidden Oras began as a live drawing project within various music clubs in Japan before moving to NYC. Shantell Martin an artist and VeeJay armed with her projector, and trusty digital drawing tablet, turns members of the audience into living art. When an audience member steps up against the projector wall Shantell creates a unique and original drawing that engulfs them. Fusing technology and art at every turn, Hidden Oras is just the first step of many towards the next wave of Live Art.

www.shantellmartin.com

WATCH

Shantell Martin at PSFK conference

Shantell Martin (RADAR 026 – Hidden Oras) spoke at this year’s PSFK conference, discussing not only her process, but the tools she uses to keep herself in touch with her “creative seed”. Throughout the day, we as New Yorkers keep ourselves busy with emails and appointments, worrying about the guy you don’t trust next to you on the train, keeping us from nurturing our inner artist. By “checking in” with ourselves, stepping out of our head and focusing on our hearts and souls, to let them speak for themselves once in a while.

LISTEN

There Will Be Fireworks

Check out the new video for Ash Wednesday by There Will be Fireworks, a yet to be released song, in a video shot by They Shoot Video, Don’t They. “They” are a Viennese video blog, who feature “artists that can be vaguely described by the blurred out term indie”. There Will Be Fireworks are featured in the upcoming episode of RADAR season 3.

Listen / Purchase – There Will Be Fireworks music

READ

The Pekar Project

On a solemn note, this week we remember Harvey Pekar, best known for his American Splendor comic series, who passed away early on Monday, July 12th. Pekar’s first ongoing online web series, The Pekar Project, is hosted by Smithmag.com, a comic’s collective who has touched the RADAR family in many ways. Harvey Pekars’s graphic novel, The Quitter was also illustrated by Next-Door Neighbor’s editor, Dean Haspiel. RADAR sends out a big hug to the many folks who were touched by Pekar and to Smithmag.com’s Comics Editor, Jeff Newelt, who co-founded The Pekar Project and has worked with RADAR to make so much possible – we are so sorry for the loss of Jeff’s dear friend. Please check out The Pekar Project, as it’s a great service to Pekar and everything he stood for.

Art Show – “PAINTINGS”

Jay Shells (RADAR 025 – Subway Etiquette) made a big splash with his Subway Etiquette project, getting him national attention, as well as the respect and appreciation of annoyed commuters citywide. This Friday, at the 21 Ludlow Gallery, you can see some of Jay’s other work on display alongside Gray Edgerton, Timothy Mearini, Charles Martin, Eddie Ochoa, Fedele Spadafore and Nicole Wilson, at the Paintings exhibit, from 7-10 PM, at 21 Ludlow St on the Lower East Side.

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p
21Ludlow
21 Ludlow St. New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

@URDB

Follow this twitter from URDB (RADAR 04 - URDB) for the most up to date world records from the bizarre to hilarious to just plan old f***ing genius.

URBD twitter

RADAR NYC 7.15.10

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:44:35 GMT

LATEST RADAR EPISODE

RADAR Ep26 – Hidden Oras

WATCH

Shantell Martin at PSFK conference

LISTEN

There Will Be Fireworks

Listen / Purchase – There Will Be Fireworks music

READ

The Pekar Project

Art Show – “PAINTINGS”

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p
21Ludlow
21 Ludlow St. New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

@URDB

Follow this twitter from URDB (RADAR 04 - URDB) for the most up to date world records from the bizarre to hilarious to just plan old f***ing genius.

URBD twitter

Blender at Siggraph 2010

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:22:00 GMT

Hidden Oras – RADAR S3 ep 26 [vid]

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:42:06 GMT

Hidden Oras began as a live drawing project within various music clubs in Japan before moving to NYC. Shantell Martin an artist and VeeJay armed with her projector, and trusty digital drawing tablet, turns members of the audience into living art. When an audience member steps up against the projector wall Shantell creates a unique and original drawing that engulfs them. Fusing technology and art at every turn, Hidden Oras is just the first step of many towards the next wave of Live Art.

Relevant sites:

www.shantellmartin.com/

Credits:

CREATED by Lance Weiler & Alex Johnson
DIRECTOR Josh Cramer
DP Doug Emmett
EDITOR Jawad Metni
SERIES PRODUCER Josh Cramer
SEGMENT PRODUCER Janine Saunders
TITLE SEQUENCE Jordan Gray
POST PRODUCTION House of Trim
ADDITIONAL MUSIC by:
Roger O’Donnell “Endlessly”
Runaway “The Poltergeist”
Taigaa “This Is Called Lonely Brass”

Hidden Oras – RADAR S3 ep 26 [vid]

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:42:06 GMT

Relevant sites:

www.shantellmartin.com/

Credits:

Recycling Shipping Containers for Homes and Studios

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:25:08 GMT

First in the series, entitled “Surf, Live, Paint” profiles Andrea Shapiro and her architect Maziar Behrooz, who after designing the home, moved onto her private art studio, deciding upon surplus shipping containers mounted atop a cement foundation. In addition to a noticeably innovative choice to use the containers, the environmentally functional aspect of the project is that normally those very containers would remain at loading docks, to most likely never to move again. Some twenty-one thousand of these containers arrive in US docks each and every day. Granted some will be placed on chassis and travel to a second destination, however the containers that unload at the docks will remain. Considered a waste of time and money, they will not be shipped empty from whence they came, instead they will remain at the docks, hopefully awating a new purpose. MB Architecture is that purpose. Behrooz, based in East Hampton, has been at the forefront of sustainable design, most recently winning the 2009 AIA Peconic Design Award for the “Container Studio”. His firm, MB Architecture, recognized around the world, currently has 6 homes currently under construction in the New York area.

Recycling Shipping Containers for Homes and Studios

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:25:08 GMT

Hard Knocks of Crowdsourcing: Don’t Throttle Participation

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:02:32 GMT

Today, I am going to share a parable of net-native design for those interested in learning from the mistakes of others.

A few weeks ago, I launched the site and resources for my distributed object project, Sew By Numbers. Basically, I made a template that anyone could print out on a sheet of inkjet fabric, and if you followed the instructions on the sheet, you’d end up with a little doll. Because the whole thing is printed on the fabric, the doll’s and features can be easily customized without changing the template. It is basically papercraft, for fabric.

I had always planned to include a crowdsourcing element in Sew By Numbers, but since this was something I did in my spare time, I didn’t think I would get anyone interested customizing dolls without talking to them one on one.

And so, I published a blank template, with the half-hearted suggestion that people could design on them if they wanted to. The blank template had some flaws. The parts weren’t clearly labeled, and because constructing the doll involved flipping pieces over, it was almost assured that an arm or a foot would be backward if you didn’t know exactly where to place your graphics. The blank was really designed for testing, and to make “sketch dolls” that artists could draw on after assembling them.

There was also an artist template, with all of these flaws fixed, but at the time I was simply passing it around by email to a small group of artists, and had held off making it publically available, so I could tweak it if I felt like it.

Turns out I was wrong. About an hour after the project was mentioned to Aaron, an excellent character artist I’d never met, he finished a really excellent doll design on the publically available template – the one with all the design flaws. The result was usable, but needed hours of tweaking to add bleeds and fix one of those upside-down legs.

To fix it, I did three things – first, I made the proper template available at a short URL on our web site. Second, I emailed it to Aaron directly. Third, after talking to him a bit, I did all the necessary testing and tweaking for his design myself. I didn’t want the miscommunication to discourage an interested and talented person from making more designs in the future. The result looks great:

The lesson we can take from this snafu is – if you are going to get content from the crowd, make as many of your own resources as possible available to everyone. Don’t limit the average participant to working with substandard tools. This is doubly important for early adopters, who are more skilled, focused, and passionate about contributing than later participants.

It should also be mentioned that Aaron was a friend of a friend, not a complete stranger. It makes me think that crowdsourcing strategies might be useful even in smaller groups – basically, for anyone who you don’t speak to personally, your public presence is going to be your connection to them.

Luckily, this is not a post-mortem of my project. SBN looks to be proceeding apace – even in the early stages, it’s gotten the nod from Thingiverse, and Andrea demoed it at foo camp. I was even filmed putting together one of the alpha dolls for a documentary short about the Dallas Makerspace. So far, the process of making internet dolls has been fun and rewarding – as long as it’s done with the right tools.

Hard Knocks of Crowdsourcing: Don’t Throttle Participation

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:47:20 GMT

Today, I am going to share a parable of net-native design for those interested in learning from the mistakes of others.

Subway Etiquette – RADAR S3 ep 25 [vid]

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:02:42 GMT

Jay Shells is the man behind Subway Etiquette, a new project that uses silk screen signs, which look identical to official transit signs, to speak not just to New Yorkers but all commuters, asking for a simple thing: Respect. Jay’s signs request that the reader does not do things like eat messy foods, preach their own religious beliefs or cut their toenails while riding the subway. What seems to be common sense is actually happening at every turn – bothering everyone around them. However our own concern with politeness keeps us from speaking up. We follow Jay from his silk screening studio in The New School, through the stairwells and tunnels of the New York Subway System, posting signs that hopefully remind us all to be a little more courteous.

Relevant sites:

http://www.jayshells.com

Credits:

CREATED by Lance Weiler & Alex Johnson
DIRECTOR Josh Cramer
DP Jeremy Saulnier
EDITOR Jawad Metni
SERIES PRODUCER Josh Cramer
SEGMENT PRODUCER Janine Saunders
TITLE SEQUENCE Jordan Gray
POST PRODUCTION House of Trim
ADDITIONAL MUSIC by:
Hermitude “Slychain”
Cassettes Won’t Listen “Two Kids”
Liquid Todd “Psycho Social”

RADAR NYC 7.9.10

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:40:43 GMT

LATEST RADAR EPISODE

RADAR Ep25 – Subway Etiquette

RADAR Season 3 Launches with Ep 25 – Subway Etiquette. Find more of Jay Shell’s work here.
“Jay Shells is the man behind Subway Etiquette, a new project that uses silk screen signs, which look identical to official transit signs, to speak not just to New Yorkers but all commuters, asking for a simple thing: Respect. Jay’s signs request that the reader does not do things like eat messy foods, preach their own religious beliefs or cut their toenails while riding the subway. What seems to be common sense is actually happening at every turn – bothering everyone around them. However our own concern with politeness keeps us from speaking up. We follow Jay from his silk screening studio in The New School, through the stairwells and tunnels of the New York Subway System, posting signs that hopefully remind us all to be a little more courteous.”

WATCH

WBPLabs – Inspired By Design

If you’ve ever found RADAR adding a little too much art to your diet and not enough architecture, construction, or inventive design, you’re going to want to check out Labs’ brand new series, Inspired by Design. Yes, you’ve caught us rooting for the home team, but we can’t help but showcase the new site’s intuitive look into the world of homes as creativity. Each episode visits a different environment – beachfront, lakeside and urban – and explores new architecture that elevates the everyday. If you dig the way we do things here at RADAR, definitely give them a look. More episodes here.

LISTEN

Gregory and The Hawk

Harps, guitars, and a voice, oh my. Gregory in the Hawk aka Meredith Godreau is one talented singer-songwriter. We’re pretty big fans of the New York native and her peculiar brand of folk music. While Godreau hasn’t released anything since 2008’s Moenie and Kitchi, we’re hopeful that changes soon and you should be too. In the meantime, check out her artful Beyonce cover down below.

Listen / Purchase – Gregory and the Hawk music

READ

Found Magazine

The explanatory paragraph on Found Magazine’s website reads “We collect found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles – anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life. Anything goes…” As it turns out, that’s the must accurate, succinct description for a site that turns one person’s “trash” into the internet’s treasure. Chock full of sweet, charming, heartbreaking, honest, and emotional discovered items, the site is a must-bookmark. In other words, just like Post Secret without all the melodrama.

Small Black and Beach Fossils – Music

Let’s be honest, this ridiculous-sounding “chill-wave” label is going to stick. In case you haven’t heard the recent-ish blogism, chill-wave is the all-encompassing genre of lo-fi, catchy, down-tempo, fuzzed-out, noise-pop, usually associated with small bedroom bands from Brooklyn. Whew, that was a lot of hyphens. Anyways, two of the genre’s (and indie music in general) best acts are Small Black and Beach Fossils and if you’re lucky enough to be in NYC on July 14th, you get to see ‘em both play live at the Mecury Lounge. Not sold yet? Listen to Small Black’s “Despicable Dogs” (RADAR Season 3) or Beach Fossil’s “Vacation” at their respective Myspaces. Myspi?

Saturday July 14th, 9:30pm
Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston St., New York, NY 10002
Event Info

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Bambi Killers

We devoted an entire Radar episode trying to explain just what exactly the Bambi Killer are. Though we still can’t sum them up one sentence, their blog offers a whole bunch of insight and understanding into their horror rock cabaret. Check it out if you’re a fan of Glenn Danzig, Marilyn Monroe, show tunes, fake blood, alien invasions, or performance art.

Bambi Killers Blog

RADAR NYC 7.9.10

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:40:43 GMT

LATEST RADAR EPISODE

RADAR Ep25 – Subway Etiquette

WATCH

WBPLabs – Inspired By Design

LISTEN

Gregory and The Hawk

Listen / Purchase – Gregory and the Hawk music

READ

Found Magazine

Small Black and Beach Fossils – Music

Saturday July 14th, 9:30pm
Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston St., New York, NY 10002
Event Info

FOLLOW

Bambi Killers

Bambi Killers Blog

JOB: 2D/3D Compositing Specialist at MOD Productions

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:24:46 GMT

MOD Productions (in Sydney) is looking for a 2D/3D Compositing Specialist to assist with R&D work on an adhoc consulting basis (initially 1 day). Must have current experience with Nuke and at least 2 years experience with Keylight and Rotopaint....

Transmedia Storytelling: Getting Started

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:38:33 GMT

Having decided that you want to get into transmedia and write a transmedia story, where do you start?

Well, I’d recommend that you start with what you know and branch out from there. But knowing where and how to branch out means considering the type of experience you want to create.

There are five questions to ask yourself (shown in Figure 1):

What is the story I want to tell?
How will I deliver the story?
What kind of audience participation do I want or need?
How will audience participation affect the story over time?
How much is based in the real world vs a fictional world?

Figure 1: Transmedia Storytelling: Getting Started

The more audience participation you want or need, the more you’ll tend towards writing the storyworld before the story. Figure 2 illustrates what I mean by story and storyworld.

Think of a “story” as one implementation of the world of the story among many potential implementations. I guess you might think of story as one plot line and associated characters from a world of many plots, subplots, and characters and so on – I’ve called this a single “narrative space”. Figure 3 illustrates how an author might take a single narrative space (one story) and develop it into additional narrative spaces (new stories).

Figure 2: Story vs Storyworld

Figure 3: Narrative Spaces

When thinking about delivering the story, put aside the specifics of particular platforms (just for now) and think about the experience in terms of:

the narrative spaces you want to cover (location, characters, time – see above)
the number and relative timing of the platforms (sequential, parallel, simultaneous, non-linear)
the extent and type of audience involvement (passive, active, interactive, collaborative) .

There’s a lot to consider here so let’s tackle it as a two-stage process:

Step 1: decide the narrative space, number of platforms and their timing
Step 2: decide the extent of audience involvement.

Step 1: Narrative Space and Relative Timing of Platforms

Figure 4 shows a “typical” Hollywood transmedia project. It’s a series of single-platform deliverables – a book, a movie, a game. In many ways the platforms are independent except that they often cover different narrative spaces: prequel, sequel, flashback which may dictate a release order or schedule. In any case there’s no apparent audience interactivity between the platforms.

Figure 4: Transmedia Franchise

By contrast, an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) might cover a single narrative space across multiple platforms – each alone insufficient to carry the complete story but like jigsaw puzzle pieces they must be assembled to complete the picture (well… you know… story).

Figure 5: Portmanteau Transmedia

These different types to transmedia can be represented by the diagram in Figure 6. Of course it’s also possible to combine different types of transmedia as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 6: Types of Transmedia

Figure 7: Mixed Transmedia Types

Step 2: Audience Involvement

Audience involvement in the story often bothers indie filmmakers. It’s not just that the indie wants to tell his story without interference; it’s also the fear that amateur involvement will sully the final result. And for those who have tried involving audiences there’s concerns about the effort of “community management” – the time and trouble to guide, motivate, appeal and appease.

It’s not only indie filmmakers that worry about how to tell their story and yet still find room for audience participation. Talk to game designers about audience (i.e. player) interaction and story and they’ll tell you that the more control you give to players (audiences), the less control is retained by the author. In fact the problem is even more pronounced in MMOs where virtual world guru Richard Bartle says “Virtual world designers can’t add story, they can only add content. Content provides experiences that can be made by those who come through or observe them into story.” So at its most open-ended, the virtual world (or transmedia experience) creates a world with lots of actionable content and choices but no plot?

This player-author struggle is tackled by games like Fallout3 and Red Dead Redemption (which are console games, not MMOs) by offering players the choice to explore (create their own stories) or tackle quests (follow the author’s story). Cut-scenes of course offer the most extreme authorial control.

It’s clear that transmedia experiences can borrow from the lessons of games and virtual worlds – creating a storyworld into which the author places a mix of story and content with opportunities for sit-forward and sit-back participation.

Looking further into audience participation I discovered the “storytelling cube” (Figure 8 ) first presented at the 2002 Game Developers Conference by Raph Koster and Rich Vogel to describe how narrative is explored in online virtual worlds. It applies particularly well to ARGs. The three axes are control, impact and context:

Control: How much freedom does the audience have to create their own experience and how much control will you have as the author?
Impact: What long-lasting impact will the audience have on the evolution of the experience?
Context: How much of the experience is based in a fictional world and how much exists in “real life”?

Figure 8 Storytelling Cube (Raph Koster & Rich Vogel)

There’s no right or wrong position to be inside this cube: it’s up to you to decide based on experience, preference and resources. At one extreme you might have an entirely fictional world, tightly controlled by the author with no audience interaction and at the other you could have an experience based around real-world places & events in which the audience is free to completely change how the story evolves and is experienced. And of course the two can be mixed and there’s a lot of space in between.

To be continued….

Transmedia Storytelling: Getting Started

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:38:33 GMT

Having decided that you want to get into transmedia and write a transmedia story, where do you start?

Well, I’d recommend that you start with what you know and branch out from there. But knowing where and how to branch out means considering the type of experience you want to create.

There are five questions to ask yourself (shown in Figure 1):

What is the story I want to tell?
How will I deliver the story?
What kind of audience participation do I want or need?
How will audience participation affect the story over time?
How much is based in the real world vs a fictional world?

Figure 1: Transmedia Storytelling: Getting Started

The more audience participation you want or need, the more you’ll tend towards writing the storyworld before the story. Figure 2 illustrates what I mean by story and storyworld.

Figure 2: Story vs Storyworld

Figure 3: Narrative Spaces

When thinking about delivering the story, put aside the specifics of particular platforms (just for now) and think about the experience in terms of:

the narrative spaces you want to cover (location, characters, time – see above)
the number and relative timing of the platforms (sequential, parallel, simultaneous, non-linear)
the extent and type of audience involvement (passive, active, interactive, collaborative) .

There’s a lot to consider here so let’s tackle it as a two-stage process:

Step 1: decide the narrative space, number of platforms and their timing
Step 2: decide the extent of audience involvement.

Step 1: Narrative Space and Relative Timing of Platforms

Figure 4: Transmedia Franchise

Figure 5: Portmanteau Transmedia

These different types to transmedia can be represented by the diagram in Figure 6. Of course it’s also possible to combine different types of transmedia as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 6: Types of Transmedia

Figure 7: Mixed Transmedia Types

Step 2: Audience Involvement

Control: How much freedom does the audience have to create their own experience and how much control will you have as the author?
Impact: What long-lasting impact will the audience have on the evolution of the experience?
Context: How much of the experience is based in a fictional world and how much exists in “real life”?

Figure 8 Storytelling Cube (Raph Koster & Rich Vogel)

To be continued….

Subway Etiquette – RADAR S3 ep 25 [vid]

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:27:54 GMT

Relevant sites:

http://www.jayshells.com

Credits:

CREATED & PRODUCED by Lance Weiler & Alex Johnson
DIRECTOR Josh Cramer
DP Jeremy Saulnier
EDITOR Jawad Metni
SERIES PRODUCER Josh Cramer
SEGMENT PRODUCER Janine Saunders
TITLE SEQUENCE Jordan Gray
POST PRODUCTION House of Trim
ADDITIONAL MUSIC by:
Hermitude “Slychain”
Cassettes Won’t Listen “Two Kids”
Liquid Todd “Psycho Social”

remixable

New Breed LA: Elements of Casting [vid]

WorkBook Project Award 2010 Winner

RADAR NYC 7.29.10

Before I Die – RADAR S3 ep 28 [vid]

Elan Lee: The “Rolling Stone” Interview, Part II

Elan Lee wants you to convert part of your life into the storytelling experience

Holy crap! Steven Spielberg walked into my office!

No one’s gonna buy these things

Twelve hours later, Microsoft called…

It was total wild west

“ARGs” is such a stupid term that no one knows what it means

There is no upside to trading time for money

It’s just a psychological manipulation

It’s not the game that has to be entertaining, it’s the players

You don’t have to teach your customers how to spend money

Let’s call that chocolate and peanut butter

Lean forward and live in that world

I’m sooo happy American Idol exists

You can just do it. Just do it today, this afternoon.

You get to convert part of your life into the storytelling experience

PULSE – UnItv.me

New Breed LA: Planning for Discoveries [vid]

New Breed LA: Planning for Discoveries [vid]

EVENT: Transmedia Next

EVENT: Transmedia Next

New Breed LA: Nothing You Have to Have [vid]

New Breed LA: Engineering Serendipity [vid]

PULSE – Boogie

BOOGIE

Auto-tune The News – RADAR S3 ep 27 [vid]

Relevant sites:

Credits:

RADAR NYC 7.23.10

Auto-Tune The News – Ep10 Turtles

Tall Firs

Red Light Properties – Chapter 18

NY International Independent Film & Video Festival

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS 181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York Event Info FOLLOW

@Urbanfarming

RADAR NYC 7.23.10

Auto-Tune The News – Ep10 Turtles

Tall Firs

Red Light Properties – Chapter 18

NY International Independent Film & Video Festival

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS 181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York Event Info FOLLOW

@Urbanfarming

Collaborative Music Production

Collaborative Music Production

New Breed LA: Engineering Serendipity [vid]

Auto-tune The News – RADAR S3 ep 27 [vid]

Relevant sites:

Credits:

PULSE – Boogie

Independent Film in the Classroom

Independent Film in the Classroom

New Breed LA: Nothing you have to have [vid]

RADAR NYC 7.15.10

RADAR Ep26 – Hidden Oras

Shantell Martin at PSFK conference

There Will Be Fireworks

The Pekar Project

Art Show – “PAINTINGS”

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p 21Ludlow 21 Ludlow St. New York Event Info FOLLOW

@URDB

RADAR NYC 7.15.10

RADAR Ep26 – Hidden Oras

Shantell Martin at PSFK conference

There Will Be Fireworks

The Pekar Project

Art Show – “PAINTINGS”

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p 21Ludlow 21 Ludlow St. New York Event Info FOLLOW

@URDB

Blender at Siggraph 2010

Hidden Oras – RADAR S3 ep 26 [vid]

Relevant sites:

Credits:

Hidden Oras – RADAR S3 ep 26 [vid]

Relevant sites:

Credits:

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm
VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS
181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

Saturday July 24th – 2 pm
VILLAGE EAST CINEMAS
181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p
21Ludlow
21 Ludlow St. New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

Friday July 16th – 7p to 10p
21Ludlow
21 Ludlow St. New York
Event Info

FOLLOW

Saturday July 14th, 9:30pm
Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston St., New York, NY 10002
Event Info

FOLLOW

Saturday July 14th, 9:30pm
Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston St., New York, NY 10002
Event Info

FOLLOW