remixable

DIY DAYS NYC 2012

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:56:39 GMT

DIY DAYS NYC comes to the New School on Saturday March 3rd for a full day of talks, workshops, networking and special set of open design experiences.

Tickets are FREE but space is limited. Registration is NOW OPEN.

***Full speaker list and program coming mid February. We are still looking for projects and speakers. Those interested please send a description of what you’d be interested in sharing to work [@] workbookproject [dot] com

WHEN
Saturday, March 3rd
9:30 registration opens
10:15am to 5:30pm talks, workshops & experiences
6pm to 7:30pm after party / social mixer

WHERE
The New School
66 W 12th St.
New York, NY 10011

WE COULD USE YOUR HELP

We’re looking for volunteers if you’re interested please drop us an email at work [@] workbookproject [dot] com with the subject “volunteer.” Thanks so much!

visit www.diydays.com for more info on past events and upcoming news surrounding DIY DAYS NYC 2012

Topics include

Prototyping the future – tapping technology to tell 21st Century stories
Story Architecture – a primer on how to tell immersive stories that move beyond a single screen
Measuring Engagement – a look at current and emerging ways to measure success
Experiential learning – where storytelling, collaboration, and technology combine to ignite the imaginations of students.
Transmedia and Activism – using storytelling to mobilize and effect social change.
Collaborative Writing – tapping a collaborative process to unlock richer storytelling.
Building Value - a look at collaborating with those formally known as the audience
What are you working on and what do you need? – attendees can take the mic and share what they are working on.
Your Digital Footprint – a look at the realities of data in the 21st Century.
Digital Literacy – a look at how to bridge the digital divide.

Open Design

Those who attend DIY DAYS will be given a unique opportunity to build a collaborative storyworld. The storyworld and the prototyping that is done throughout the day will be released under a creative commons license as well as being prepared as an experiential learning kit. This will be accomplished through a number of special collaborative exercises.

Wish for the Future – the second chapter in a participatory storytelling trilogy, Wish for the Future will provide attendees of DIY DAYS an opportunity to experience an open design process. From collaborative writing, to experience design, to rapid prototyping exercises – attendees will be able to step into an open design process that invites the imagination of many.

World Game – join the Buckminster Fuller Institute as they run a number of World Game simulations. In the 1960’s Buckminster Fuller proposed a “great logistics game” and “world peace game” (later shortened to simply, the “World Game”) that was intended to be a tool that would facilitate a comprehensive, anticipatory, design science approach to the problems of the world. The use of “world” in the title obviously refers to Fuller’s global perspective and his contention that we now need a systems approach that deals with the world as a whole, and not a piece meal approach that tackles our problems in what he called a “local focus hocus pocus” manner. The entire world is now the relevant unit of analysis, not the city, state or nation.
Read More

Time Machine Rooms – a collaboration with Story Pirates will enable a co-created storyworld that is lead by the imagination of elementary school children. The students will represent a voice from the future as well as prototyping a number of inventions from the future.

Writer’s Room – a writer’s room works throughout the day taking in variables from attendees that will impact the creation of an open storyworld that will fuel the end of the day performance.

Rapid Prototyping Room a partnership between Parsons and the Makerbot community will power a rapid prototyping room for those who attend DIY DAYS enabling them to turn ideas about the future into something tangible.

Occupy – step into an open design process around an official OWS conflict resolution application. From paper testing to conflict resolution role playing, participants will be invited into a collaborative design process.

Transmedia Talk 40: Snow Town

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:56:07 GMT

Mango Open Movie fundraiser halfway

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:53:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 39: Clockwork Watch

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:04:06 GMT

Stop SOPA! Stop BREIN! Stop BUMA-STEMRA! Stop GEMA! Stop HADOPI! Stop...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:36:00 GMT

I'm fully supporting the protests today against the SOPA bill that might get accepted in the USA. With Blender Foundation being established in the Netherlands, I would like to emphasize that similar ideas have either already been established or are being lobbied here and in other European countries.

If you know the abbreviations in the title; keep an eye at these organizations or bills, investigate it well and make up your mind. Your own country will have similar organizations claiming to stand up for rights of artists, but in fact serve the interests of copyright-trolls and wealthy corporations even more.

What's the digital world you want to live in? I don't know all answers, but for sure it shouldn't be the big corporations defining it alone. A wonderful American document begins with "We the people... ". Let's make that true in the 21st century as well.

Ton Roosendaal
Blender Foundation.

(Instead of blackening, i prefer to speak up today :)

Blender E-store expands

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:32:00 GMT

The Blender E-store still is the main income source for Blender Foundation, allowing to organize projects in Blender Institute and to hire people for work on Blender (currently 3 developers and myself full-time).

Customers expect from a modern internet store more services than we provided until now though; especially doing faster and more often shipments. To achieve this, we need to expand our product catalog to get a bit higher volumes per shipment.

Per January 1st 2012 we now rent a second small office and storage in the south of Netherlands (Budel) where our shop manager Anja Vugts-Verstappen will be handling the orders, shipping and daily shop support.

Summarized, changes will be:

Shipping at least 3 times per week (monday, wednesday, friday)
More choice in shipping speed (courier, or free shipping, T.B.A.)
Shop open for third party DVD training, we added BlenderCookie titles now.

http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/default_dvds.php

Publishers interested to resell via our e-store as well can contact me any time!

-Ton-
(ton at blender.org)

Mango Open Movie: fund raiser started!

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:38:00 GMT

Blender 2.61 Released

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:26:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 38: Storyworld Conference 2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:11:03 GMT

Download | Subscribe with RSS |Subscribe with iTunes

Lucas J.W. Johnson joins the Transmedia Talk crew for a review of StoryWorld Conference 2011.

Hosts:
Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker
Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media
Haley Moore
Robert Pratten from Transmedia Storyteller

Special Guests:

Lucas JW Johnson of Silverstring Media joins us for a recap of the first Storyworld Conference held in San Francisco this Halloween.

From This Episode:

Mickey’s Ten Commandments

ARGFest

ZoeTrap, an ARG created specifically for StoryWorld Conference

Dr. Henry Jenkins’ Confessions of an Aca-Fan

Intel’s Inside Experience

Carrie Cutforth-Young’s article on Canadian transmedia funding

Azrael’s Stop

Transmedia Talk 37: Robot Heart Stories at DIY Days LA

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:46:42 GMT

Download | Subscribe with RSS |Subscribe with iTunes

Janine Saunders, creative producer of Robot Heart Stories, talks with us about how Robot Heart Stories used transmedia strategies to engage underprivileged elementary students in collaborative learning.

Hosts:
Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker
Robert Pratten from Transmedia Storyteller
Haley Moore

(and Host Emeritus Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media)

About the Project

In Robot Heart Stories, two groups of students – one in Montreal (French speaking) and the other in LA (English speaking) – used their developing knowledge of math, science, history, geography and creative writing to get a stranded robot back to her home planet. The robot’s ten-day journey from Montreal to LA culminated in its arrival at DIY Days LA, where we sat down with Janine.

About Our Guest:

Janine Saunders is a creative producer who has worked on Collapsus, Pandemic 1.0, and produced the Workbook Project’s RADAR series. Working with Workbook Project founder Lance Weiler, she was the producer of Robot Heart Stories.

Blender Conference talks on youtube

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:38:00 GMT

Testbuild for upcoming release

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:36:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 36: Alison Norrington at DIY Days

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 35: Henry Jenkins at DIY Days LA

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:21:55 GMT

Transmedia Talk 34: SCA Reality

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:32:49 GMT

Blender 2.60a update

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:13:00 GMT

COWORKING SPACE AT 3RD WARD

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:57:46 GMT

New York-based creative professionals take note! Odds are, you’re familiar with 3rd Ward, the massive workspace in Bushwick full of all sorts of resources, supplies and classes for any creative project that interests you, from woodworking to filmmaking. And if not I just told you the gist of it, so there you go.

But aside from being a great place to learn, create, and promote all sorts of great DIY projects, their newest edition now also makes it a great place to work. Dubbed a “coworking space,” it’s a modern, bright, airy office designed for collaborating as well as solo work, full of shared desks, personal workstations, conference rooms, plenty of brand new iMacs, free wifi and printing, and of course, free coffee. All of it’s designed for any smart creative freelancer, startup or telecommuter who wants to have a place to get their work done while networking with other like-minded people. You can even meet clients and have business mail delivered there.

At the heart of all of this, though, is collaboration. The nice thing about 3rd Ward is that it provides the perfect environment for creativity: step inside and you’re surrounded by people in all sorts of different crafts from all sorts of different backgrounds, and everyone has ideas flowing. A graphic designer may not realize they can get inspiration from a welder until it happens, and these sorts of things happen all the time at 3rd Ward.

And of course, we wouldn’t recommend anything unless we’ve seen and experienced it ourselves; 3rd Ward has given Workbook Project a space to shoot at least one RADAR episode, and we also partnered with them for Inside Design as well.

Learn more about the new coworking space HERE.

Release Candidates for 2.60 available

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:59:00 GMT

4th Open Movie kick-off: Mango!

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:05:00 GMT

Call for screenshots and demo .blend files

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:42:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 33: ARGFest Special with JC Hutchins

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:04:35 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk, a podcast covering all things Story. Transmedia Talk is co-hosted by Nick Braccia, Dee Cook, and Haley Moore and looks to shed light on the topic of transmedia storytelling with commentary, interviews and tips on how storytelling is moving into the 21st century. Download | Subscribe with RSS |Subscribe with iTunes Author and transmedia creator J.C. Hutchins joins us as we recap ARGFest-o-Con 2011. Hosts: Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media Haley Moore (and Host Emeritus Robert Pratten from Transmedia Storyteller) Special Guests: J.C. Hutchins, author of Seventh Son and Personal Effects: Dark Art, and keynote speaker at ARGFest. From This Episode: ARGfest Keynote 2011: “Getting To Good” from J.C. Hutchins on Vimeo. JC’s podcast novel Seventh Son, and his transmedia novel Personal Effects: Dark Art with Jordan Weisman. We usually don’t link guests’ twitter feeds, but we’re linking JC’s here since we talked about it quite a bit on the show. The Darkest Puzzle, and Andrea Phillips’ response Awkward Hug’s game The Wisconsin Hustle opened ARGFest for attendees at the opening night cocktail party. JC’s and Violet Blue’s unboxing videos of a handmade scent kit, released earlier this year for Campfire’s experience for Game of Thrones. Our episode featuring Steve Coulson, about the Game of Thrones campaign the Maester’s Path. JC wrote animated videos for Smith and Tinker’s game Nanovor Video games from JC’s rundown include Mass Effect, Dragon Age, God of War, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, and Fable. Rob Jagnow of Lazy 8 Studios, who contributed to the Potato Sack ARG for Portal 2, is in pre-launch for his game Extrasolar Balance of Powers, an extended story from many of the creators of Perplex City, has been funded on Kickstarter. Zombies, Run! by Six to Start and Naomi Alderman, has now raised $50k of its $12k goal, with over a week left open on its campaign. The steampunk comic, theater and film experience Clockwork Watch, created by Yomi Ayeni, is still accepting backers on IndieGoGo. DIY DAYS LA will be held on the UCLA campus on October 28. Tickets are free. Story World Conference will be held in San Diego October 31-November 2.

Man-Child the passion behind the story

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:13:03 GMT

The following is a guest post by Koo.

I’m currently crowdfunding my first feature film, and rather than pitch it to you, I’ll first share this “multimedia lookbook” that I put together. My project, a youth basketball feature entitled Man-child, is participating at Independent Film Week in New York this week and I assembled this clip to help producers understand what I’m going for aesthetically with the film. It’s just a combination of clips from other films paired with a voiceover, but it should give you some idea of what I’ll be going for:

Okay, so how did I arrive at this point and why am I making this movie?

After co-directing the “urban western” web series The West Side with Zack Lieberman, we got an agent in LA and attempted to get a larger interactive project made in Hollywood. One lesson we learned in this process: you can spend a lot of time knocking on doors, taking meetings, and putting together pitches and assorted documents. When you set out to be a filmmaker and tell stories that you’re passionate about, however, these aren’t the activities to which you aspire. You’re not getting better as a storyteller because you’re not telling stories.

I knew coming out of that experience that I wanted to tell a story I was personally passionate about, and so I set about researching and writingthe script forMan-child.And if you’re going to crowdfund a film, it has to be a project in which you’re personally invested. Great example: Zak Forsman’s campaign to make a feature about his father. I grew up playing basketball in North Carolina and so the story of Man-childis definitely personal to me.

Why this is a story worth telling

Man-child takes place in the surprisingly high-stakes world of youth basketball. Sometimes referred to as grassroots basketball, the fascinating world (largely unseen by the general public) has been getting younger and younger in its corporatization. Middle schoolers are now nationally ranked and shoe companies sponsor teams and tournaments in an effort to be the first to discover the next Michael Jordan (and sign him to an unwritten contract).

In response to this, in 2009 the NCAA lowered the age limit on who can be considered an official basketball prospect to include 7th graders. They did this in an effort to protect kids from unregulated recruiting.

This world is compelling to me for a number of reasons. We’re talking about kids for whom the sky is the limit, but more often than not they have very little in their lives right now. Thus they (and their families) are more easily won over with offers of money, free shoes, and the other benefits that street agents, coaches, and other hangers-on offer them.

The fact is that the vast majority of talented teenagers will never make it as professional athletes, but it’s more than just a matter of athleticism: it comes down to the decisions they make. These are decisions that few of us have ever had to face, much less at such a young age. This is why I find the world of youth basketball to be so interesting from a dramatist’s perspective: big decisions for little kids.

Why I’m crowdfunding the film

First off, that part about knocking on doors — there’s nothing wrong with trying to get your film funded in a traditional manner. But as someone who’s spent 18 months sharing everything I possibly can about filmmaking on my website NoFilmSchool, I felt if I could get my readers behind the project that it could be a film that’s enabled by a community that actually wants to see the film, as opposed to an executive that thinks the film will be profitable. I want to make a basketball movie about real-world, quiet moments as opposed to big melodramatic set-pieces, and I didn’t feel the Powers That Be would be interested in making the film that I want to see.

Will we make it? I don’t know. The goal is an ambitious $115,000 — sports movies are logistically complex and expensive to make, unfortunately — and there are only a few short days left. Check out my campaign video if you’re interested and good luck with your own personal passion projects!

Koo co-wrote, directed, shot, and edited the “urban western” web series The West Side, which won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series. He is one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film and runs the website NoFilmSchool, which focuses on DIY filmmaking and independent creativity; Man-child will be his first feature.

Wiki documentation, major upgrade

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:03:00 GMT

Two 3D World CG 2011 awards for Blender

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:32:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 32: GoBZRK and the Future of Publishing

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:43:36 GMT

CONNECTED with Tiffany Shlain

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:47:26 GMT

We caught up with Tiffany Shlain as she prepares to release her newest feature, CONNECTED “An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology.” A DIY pioneer, Tiffany is always at the forefront of utilizing interesting and innovative ways to reach and engage audiences. Starting next week CONNECTED makes its way to screens nation wide after a successful festival run.

What made you decide to make the film CONNECTED?

Fifteen years ago, I founded The Webby Awards because I was fascinated by how the Internet was connecting people all over the world in new and unexpected ways. And being so interested in the ways things are connected, I it always struck me how so many of the conversations about the problems of our day were discussed as separate challenges. Whether the environment, women’s rights, poverty or social justice, it became more apparent to me that that when you perceive everything as connected, it radically shapes your perspective. The concept of interdependence has been around since the dawn of humanity, but the relatively recent component of the internet has added this new layer that connects us in a fresh way, almost giving the world a new type of central nervous system.

I am a filmmaker and so decided to craft a film that would tell the story of being connected in the 21^st century. I asked my father, Leonard Shlain, to be a co-writer on the project. My dad was a surgeon, but also a pioneer in writing about connections between science, consciousness, the human brain, art and civilization. His best-selling books included The Alphabet Versus the Goddess; Sex, Time, and Power; and Art & Physics. He was an incredible visionary, had a wonderful knowledge of history and I felt he would make an enormous contribution to the film. Just as we began production on CONNECTED, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. I quickly discovered that here I was writing about all these interrelationships and the one great connection I had overlooked was the emotional connection. That’s when I began the difficult process of rewriting the film to include my personal story of connection interwoven into the the bigger story of connection throughout history and where I think we are heading.

The subtitle of CONNECTED is “An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology.” What does the word “autoblogography” mean?

“Autoblogography” is a word we made up in order to convey that the film is autobiographical, but also has to do with technology. It also conveys the humor which is a major thread in the movie.

Is there a connection between CONNECTED and your last film THE TRIBE?

In my earlier film, THE TRIBE, I explored American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie Doll. I know, it sounds absurd. After all, what can the most successful doll on the planet show about being Jewish in American today? It turns out that Barbie was invented in 1959 by an American Jewish businesswoman named Ruth Handler. A Jewish woman created the ultimate shiksa. With THE TRIBE, I wove together archival footage, graphics, animation, humor, and even slam poetry that took audiences on a ride through the complex history of both Barbie and the Jewish people. By revealing all these unique connections, THE TRIBE explored the question of what it means to be an American Jew in the 21st century. CONNECTED employs much of the same collage visual style but explores what it means to be a human in 21st century.

Do you believe there are positives and negatives to technology?

My father loved quoting Sophocles, “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.” So, from the beginning of time, every new technology and advancement brought with them a complex mix of positive and negative repercussions as well as unintended consequences. CONNECTED addresses the potential of these new 21^st century technologies, the importance of harnessing their powers, but also covers the ramifications when these new technologies take over and even overwhelm our personal lives.

I’ve started practicing what I call “technology Shabbats” with my family. Every Friday at sundown, our whole family disconnects until Saturday night. No cell phones, no internet, no television, no Ipads. No multi-tasking. We disconnect completely. Or maybe I should say we connect completely – with ourselves and each other.

I am learning that turning off technology is just as powerful as turning it on and that our society needs both. Technology can be so enticing and overwhelming, but we also need to remember how important it is to be fully present with the people you love and also be alone and quiet. The potential of technology globally and personally is exponential, but we need to know where the off switch is and when to shut it down.

So what is the ultimate goal of your film?

The goal of CONNECTED is to launch a global conversation about what it means to be connected in the 21st century. I hope that the film will be the catalyst for this global conversation. In an effort to expand the power of the film, we’ve created a robust website, facebook page where we constantly add new articles about this topic and have created an educator’s kit including conversation cards, a film guide a curriculum for educators.

In the film you say, “For centuries we have declared our independence, perhaps it’s time we finally declare our interdependence.” What does it mean to declare our interdependence?

It’s time to shift perspective. In many ways we as a species are mirroring the way we each develop as a human on this earth. We come into the world completely dependent on our mother’s and parents. As we grow up, we evolve into independent adults, live on our own and get our own jobs and provide for our own families. But this independence then brings us to a new realization of how we are connected with family, friends and community. I think we, as a species are evolving to the point where we are entering this understanding of our interdependence. Who knows if all these tools we are creating for collaborating in new ways through the internet are leading us to this understanding, or the understanding is driving us to create these tools. Technology is just an extension of ourselves. It is not separate. Regardless of what’s propelling it, these living and thinking interdependently will actually change our consciousness and help make real transformation in the world around us.

So you are optimistic about our future?

When I do Q&A’s after screening CONNECTED, I am frequently asked, “What makes you so optimistic?” I respond by saying that I believe in humans and humanity and in our innate ability to change for the better. Look at the end of slavery and apartheid, the women’s rights and civil rights movements, and other political and social transformative movements in the last few hundred years, and you can see how we are indeed evolving. There are two things that make me optimistic. We as humans are curious and we have a deep desire to connect. These two things will make us move us forward to a better place.

You are also spearheading a new project called “Let it Ripple.” What is this and how does this connect to CONNECTED?

The ‘Let it Ripple’ project will pick up where CONNECTED leaves off. We are creating a series of six short films, all tied together by the general theme of connectedness. The first film is A Declaration of Interdependence. My husband, Ken Goldberg, co-writer Sawyer Steele, and I wrote A Declaration of Interdependence, which is based on the American Declaration of Independence. Our new declaration was then posted online on July 4^th and tweeted out via YouTube and we invited people from all over the world to submit video of themselves reading the declaration in their native language from their cell phone, laptop, whatever was handy. We also asked graphic designers and artists to interpret the words creatively and submit artwork. The submissions are blowing me away. It’s interdependence in action. The film will be made up entirely of these submissions, tied together by our animator, Stefan Nadelman, with music by one of my favorite sound artists Moby.

A Declaration of Interdependence will premiere on Interdependence Day which is September 12^th at a special event near Ground Zero in New York. Every time we get an entry, I get chills watching the videos. It is thrilling to see people from all over the world declare their interdependence. We are going to edit it all down into an inspiring 3 minute movie that will be posted on the web and we are going to provide this film for free and allow different organizations and non-profits to use the film by putting their own call to action at the end. We are open-sourcing the creation of the film and hope to open source how it is used.

By sharing these messages of connectedness and interdependence, I believe there will be a positive ripple effect; sparks that help turn what we’re talking about into action. It’s all about connection.

http://connectedthefilm.com/

CONNECTED opens in theaters in major cities beginning in mid-September.

*All dates below start one week runs

SF: Sept 16th SF Landmark Embarcadero
Berkeley Sept 16 Shattuck 10
Marin: Sept 16 Sequoia Theater
Santa Cruz: Sept 23 Nickelodeon
Portland: Sept 23rd Regal Fox Tower 10
LA: Sept 30 premieres at The Pacific Arclight Theater Hollywood
Seattle: Oct 7th Landmark Varsity 3
NYC: Oct 14th Angelika Theater
Denver: Oct 28th Landmark Chez Artiste

Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, artist, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. Tiffany’s films and work have received over 40 awards and distinctions. A celebrated thinker, she delivered the commencement address at University of California at Berkeley and is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. www.tiffanyshlain.com

Blender Conference: submission Suzanne Awards open

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:12:00 GMT

Blender Conference: submission Suzanne Awards open

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:12:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 31: Evan Jones, Suspending Disbelief in Interactive Stories

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:06:43 GMT

Siggraph 2011 Blend-in report!

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Blender 2.59 released

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:13:00 GMT

Wicked Solutions for a Wicked Problem

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 07:55:45 GMT

DIY DAYS is coming to LA on Oct 28th and we’re excited to share a new site we’ve been working on. http://www.diydays.com

When we started DIY DAYS back in 2008, the goal was to share information and creative process within a social environment. As we prepare for what will be our 9th event, we are excited to announce a number of new additions to DIY DAYS that will focus on action.

Wicked Solutions for a Wicked Problem (WS WP) will be a center piece of the event. A wicked problem within the educational space will be targeted. WS WP is a “think tank meets hackathon” that will combine design thinking, storytelling and co-creation in an effort to move from concept to working prototype within a 48 hour period. DIY DAYS LA will close with a presentation of the prototype to a live audience.

Robot Heart Stories is an experiential educational effort that will have students in two underprivileged schools, one in Montreal and one in Los Angeles, co-creating stories that will move a robot (connected plush toy with GPS capabilities) from Montreal to Los Angeles. The project kicks off Oct 17th at the FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINÉMA and concludes on the 28th at DIY DAYS LA. The journey will be documented and the children can check in with the robot’s progress as she attempts to find her way home. The student’s stories will be brought to life by designers, illustrators and animators and copies of the children’s work will be placed in an “actual rocket” that will be making its way into space this fall. The project mixes social gaming mechanics with creative writing while at the same time enabling the students to learn using math, science, history and geography.

SPEAKERS
In our first wave of speaker announcements we’re thrilled that Henry Jenkins, Tommy Pallotta and Christy Dena will be joining us. We’ll be sharing more speaker and program details in the coming weeks.

We are still looking for interesting people and projects. So if you know of someone or something that would be an amazing addition to the event please drop us a line at work@workbookproject.com with the subject “Diy Days LA.”

TICKETS
DIY DAYS LA is free and tickets will be available on a first come first serve basis. Starting on Sept 12th you’ll be able to get them from http://diydays.com

PARTNERS
We’re proud to partner with the UCLA Library as one of their Open Access Week events. Open Access Week is a global event, now in its 5th year, promoting Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. UCLA is giving us access to their amazing Charles E. Young Research Library which has recently been renovated.

CINEMA SPEAKEASY PRESENTS ‘SHOW & TELL”
In a special section of DIY DAYS we’ll be highlighting amazing innovative work. We’ve teamed with Cinema Speakeasy to put on a “show & tell” that will give creators of film, games, music, design projects, immersive experiences and anything else that deals with storytelling a space to show. Space is limited so make sure to contact us early. For more details check out http://diydays.com/2011/08/special-showcase

VOLUNTEERS
Last but definitely not least, we are looking for a few good women and men to help us put on the event. It’s a fun great way to meet people and network. Not to mention volunteers are what help to keep DIY DAYS free. It is the volunteers who share their time and talents that make DIY DAYS possible. We are in need of folks to help with logistics, tech, and documenting the event. If you’re interested you can find more details here http://diydays.com/volunteers

If it doesn’t spread it’s dead – part 2

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:09:47 GMT

In part two of the series Henry Jenkins and WorkBook Project founder Lance Weiler sit down for a conversation about participatory culture and how “if it doesn’t spread it’s dead.”

Training week in Blender Institute

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:10:00 GMT

Transmedia Talk 30: 2011 Half Year in Review with Michael Andersen

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:03:25 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk, a podcast covering all things Story. Transmedia Talk is co-hosted by Nick Braccia, Dee Cook, and Haley Moore and looks to shed light on the topic of transmedia storytelling with commentary, interviews and tips on how storytelling is moving into the 21st century. Download | Subscribe with RSS |Subscribe with iTunes Michael Andersen, managing editor of ARGNet, joins us to take a look back at the first half of 2011 in the Alternate Reality Game world. Hosts: Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media Haley Moore (and Host Emeritus Robert Pratten from Transmedia Storyteller) Special Guest: Michael Andersen from ARGN From This Episode: Andersen’s article 2011 Year in Review: Puzzling Through Half a Year Wired.com’s Decode games and puzzles section. Transmedia Talk host Dee Cook is an associate editor at ARGN. Ian Bogost’s Cow Clicker ARG The Awl’s Rick Paulas recounts the conclusion of the Jejune Institute game. 5 Wits in Boston produced the interactive experience Tomb, which is now closed. They currently offer two interactive experiences, 20,000 Leagues and Espionage. The city-wide experience Accomplice in NYC, Hollywood, and London. The free-roaming San Francisco experience Message from Z. The QR code driven game Time Trip LA. The Jejune Institute spinoff Elsewhere Philatelic Society. The Toynbee Plaques in Philadelphia. Kcymaerxthaere, historical markers from another world. Pittsburgh’s mysterious protractors Aram Bartholl’s wall-embedded USB project Dead Drops. Haley Moore’s writeup and Lazy 8 Studios’ Gamasutra article on the Portal 2 Potato Sack ARG. Note: Ten indie game studios released games in the Potato Sack. The Game of Thrones extended campaign The Maester’s Path. The Crash of the Elysium, Punchdrunk’s Doctor Who experience for children. 42 Entertainment’s game Test Subjects Needed for 5 Gum. Area/Code’s 2007 ARG ‘Primacy’ for the CBS drama Numb3rs centered around a casual puzzle game Chain Factor, which was later developed into the popular iPhone app Drop 7. Earlier this year, Area/Code was acquired and became Zynga New York. Patrick Carman’s extended book project Dark Eden launched its App today. The Australian tv drama SLiDE The Thomas Dolby game A Map of The Floating City

If it doesn’t spread it’s dead

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:01:45 GMT

Henry Jenkins and WorkBook Project founder Lance Weiler sit down for a conversation about participatory culture and how “if it doesn’t spread it’s dead.”

NEW BREED – A Conversation on Transmedia – Part 1 from The Sabi Company on Vimeo.

Kristi Barnett’s experience with the Twitter production, Karen Barley

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:37:33 GMT

Karen Barley is a horror story told on Twitter with tweets linking out to YouTube videos and photos. It’s the creative brainchild of Kristi Barnett and during its three week run in July earned some impressive stats for a low-budget independent production including almost 700 followers on Twitter and over 5000 words in press coverage plus a spot on BBC TV.

In this article Robert Pratten interviews Kristi about the project’s development and delivery.

RP: You’re a “traditional” movie scriptwriter by trade Kristi so what made you want to write a transmedia story?

KB: I wanted to get one of my stories produced. I’d been writing for 3 years with at that time, not even a short made. I just bit the bullet and decided that using social media would be a cheaper and more immediate way to get an audience for a story. I wasn’t actually consciously looking at transmedia itself but rather the idea of using Twitter as a story tool. I knew no one had tried to tell a story over twitter as a character using other media like videos, photos, weblinks etc. I love twitter and am constantly on it so it seemed natural to me that Twitter could be used in this way. And it is a writer’s medium when you think about it; every tweet is a piece of writing.

RP: How many people were involved in the project from crew to cast?

KB: The total number of people directly involved was 10. The actual crew on the shoot days including cast and myself was 5. So it was micro-budget guerilla film making. I had myself as Writer, Director and Producer; I funded almost all of it. I quickly got in contact with Tim Clague whom I’d met at various screenwriting festivals and after looking at his work in different types of media I asked if he’d be a consultant on the project and story. He gave me some great advice on how to proceed and how to gain an audience and gave me the encouragement to continue and use the story I had. He ended up being an Associate Producer. I then moved quickly into looking for an Assistant Director. Someone that I knew would be creative and technically aware and who also loved the idea of different media. I asked Danny Tate of JellyFish Media to jump on board. He also served as Editor and Sound Designer and was instrumental in making the trailer and behind the scenes video diary (coming soon).

At the same time I was looking for my actors. So I got myself a casting assistant and casting co-coordinator; Matthew Turner and Mark Vella respectively. Then over two days I cast for the two main characters. Gemma Giddings and Benjamin O’Mahony were the actors I chose. They were great and could improvise off script and understand the scenes very quickly and were very intuitive with the camera, as they’d be shooting themselves. They loved the idea of what I was trying to achieve and I think and hope that it was a challenge for them; something very different to what they’d ever done in that they were shooting small video vignettes that only made sense if you read the tweets that went with it. The other actor was David McClelland whom I knew from my writers group. He’s also a technology writer and presenter so he loved the idea straight away. He played Bossman. I also had a Sound assistant, Elise Neola May and a Website Consultant in Anton Russell.

RP: Tell us about the timescales for the project in terms of developing & writing the story, implementing the experience (video production, pre-written tweets, photos) and the live execution.

KB: I came up with the concept of using twitter with a live character about middle of 2010. I finally pulled out my finger and started writing the script in Dec 2010 and finished the final draft in about March 2011; (86 pages). At the same time I was already organising pre production with Tim and Danny. As soon as I was happy with the story and how we were going to roll it out, I started auditioning in April. I cast it in May and we started the 2.5 day shoot in the middle of June. Danny immediately started on converting the files, editing them and then spontaneously and brilliantly made a pre story trailer. I spent two days with him telling him what I wanted but left him to his own devices and so I’d say he worked on all the videos and trailer (and most of the video diary) in 3 weeks. The story went live at the end of June and rolled out for 3 weeks as live finishing on July 16^th 2011. So all in all and between me and everyone else having other jobs and working odd hours, the project took 7 months.

RP: How many tweets, videos and tweets did you have per day (or per week) and for how long did the whole story take to unfold?

KB: I kind of just wrote the script as individual tweets. You can see an excerpt of what the script looked like here: SCRIPT EXCERPT As you can see it wasn’t quite like a normal script. I just guessed that each line would be 140 characters (I decided to not use Tweetdeck’s Deck.ly system because I wanted the experience to be as direct as possible; with as little navigation away from the immediate twitter app). I think the total amount of tweets over the 3 week period was approximately between 500 and 600 tweets. That’s not counting the mentions and retweets she did. There were originally 32 videos planned at an allowance of about 1-2mins in length. The length was important because no one tweets long videos; I didn’t want to take up people’s time. They would want to quickly click on the link and watch a short clip to get the plot then move on. We actually ended up adding a few extra videos that I shot myself and some of the videos ended up being less than a minute. All in all the running time of all the videos combined was about 25 minutes. These videos mainly came out during the weekends which are the bulk of where the story plot points take place. You can see that not every day had a video or even a photo. I actually got very aware that I should’ve had a few more bits of media to make up for it and ended up improvising with some of my own personal photos! But I think the tweets themselves were engaging enough, which is where my writing skills come in (hopefully)!

RP: How did you decide which platforms to tell the story across? For example, how did you develop the story and decide which content would be presented textually on Twitter and which content would be a photo or video.

KB: Because the main concept was a character on twitter that people would follow, the idea that her tweets tell the bulk of the story was already part and parcel of how twitter works. I actually don’t think people utilize twitter as much as they can. As such, most people follow someone specifically to read a tweet. Anything else that gets tweeted; e.g. a photo or video or link is a bonus and perhaps not always clicked on. So straight away I decided to market Karen Barley as a movie over twitter rather than trying to get people to believe she actually existed as a real person. That way most people who started following her would know that they are supposed to read the tweets. At the same time as I was writing the script I knew that people would be expecting a certain level of videos to come out but as I didn’t have much money or time or special effects; I had to choose moments in the script that were easier to film and also pushed the story forward. So a lot of the videos at the beginning were character development videos; to get you used to what these two people are like. They were easy to film but essential if people were to form their own opinions on Darren and Karen and hopefully to empathise. The weekends in the story were where most of the videos occurred. They started off as character building videos then gradually they started providing essential plot points and the necessary creepiness. I built the tweets so you knew that each weekend she was supposed to go into the woods and people knew that something may happen to her then. So I was essentially trying to hold people’s attention over these weeks by alluding to the things to come. I would give out her birthday in the tweets in a way that told people they should be around on that date (16^th July). But one of my hardest challenges as a writer was to rationalize to the audience why on earth she’d be filming and then actually tweeting this stuff in the first place. I had to give each video a hint of rationalization. So you would have Darren question why she’s filming; you would have Karen’s sense of loneliness play out in the tweets so people knew that she was using twitter for emotional support. And of course her eventual paranoia into what her boyfriend was doing made her want to film as evidence. The actors were great in improvising in the scenes; they would pretend that they were unaware the camera was still on e.g. they did it in a believable way.

I developed the story knowing that hopefully; people on twitter would be using 3^rd party apps like Tweetdeck or Twitter mobile on their phones etc. There’s so many. So I was very conscious of how the sound comes out of a PC speaker and a phone as opposed to headphones; (although please do listen to the videos on headphones because it rocks). I wanted the videos to pop out from the apps so chose YouTube which most 3^rd party clients had inbuilt players for and Yfrog which I tested on various apps and saw the photos loaded within the app and was more stable than other photo clients for loading times.

I just didn’t want to give any excuse for people to navigate away from their twitter client, because once that happens you may lose your audience due to slow internet browsers and loading times.

In terms of photos; there was about 37 of them in the end and they were the sort of photos most people would tweet; seemingly mundane stuff like eating a pizza or Darren dancing in his underwear. In the forest there were quite a few location establishing shots of Croham Hurst. Part of the story was that her boss had told her document evidence of the history of the area so it gave me a good excuse to have her want to tweet that she’d found bones for example. They were there to provide a visual to a tweet that I assumed the audience would be interested in. So if she tweets, Darren has scratches all over him then I used a photo cos you’d want to see that. I think I should’ve taken a few more than I did for the days that were just tweets.

RP: Before you went live, what was your biggest worry?

KB: From a purely personal level I was afraid I’d not have enough gumption to finish what I’d started. Or something would happen where I wouldn’t be able to continue with the shoot. I have a lot of anxiety in general so this just amplified everything. But I forced myself to continue. I was also worried that my story might not be interesting enough to hold people’s attention as tweets; but Tim gave me great confidence to stick with it. Just before we went live I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to actually garner any interest in the project publicity wise. I saw that more people (initially) were joining her Facebook profile than the twitter profile and I worried they wouldn’t understand what was going on, because let’s face it; the Facebook audience is different to Twitter. I worried that her profile would be deleted by Facebook for being a character so quickly started an actual fanpage for her which in hindsight is what I should’ve done all along for Facebook. On Twitter there was the concern that people would miss most of the tweets and would they want to go back and look at the older tweets and videos? But at the end of the day I just told myself that this hasn’t been done before so I’m learning too and it’s an experiment to see how people follow a story on these social networks as much as anything else. I just did the best I could to make things easy for the audience.

RP: What was the most challenging aspect of the project in terms of its live delivery?

KB: This is the part where I want to tell everyone it was easy and fun to get the story out but in reality it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. If I had to pinpoint THE most challenging aspect, it was in fact the part that I and my website consultant believed would be the easiest: An archive website with all her tweets that was supposed to be updated. I wanted a landing page so people could go there instead of scrolling through her twitter page (and I knew not many people would actually watch the story from the actual twitter website) but we quickly realised there are no widgets that show every single tweet. They only show a few and there’s no scroll feature to keep showing more. The closest we got was Blender which in fact turned out to be very helpful in using the cut and pastes from that. So I dismissed that and decided to create a webpage that I would personally update every day by cutting and pasting her tweets. Well we chose Wordpress to do this and unfortunately it just did not like the formatting that Twitter had. No matter how hard we tried it would publish the site and overwrite the way we set it out. It looked awful. I went to Tripod and found a nice template that allowed for multimedia and best of all it took all the cut and pastes perfectly and kept the formatting. Then suddenly their servers crashed, got slow and stopped saving the pages correctly. I spent up to 2 hours doing a job that should’ve taken 10mins, every night. Even now the saved page is not the same as the final published site you see but it was honestly the best website amongst many free website builders for this job. http://karenbarley.tripod.com/tweets/

Followed very closely in the “I’m going to rip my hair out” stakes was the scheduling of the tweets. I have a full time job where I can’t have my phone on or use a PC (in a TV studio). So there was no way I could tweet live for Karen. I decided to use Tweetdeck as they have a “Set location” feature (even if you’re not there!) and the tweets come out in minutes rather than 5 minute chunks like others. This was essential because she tweets like a normal person, i.e. a burst of tweets to get across what she’s trying to say. So I couldn’t wait for 5 minutes for her next tweet to come out. At the most I scheduled them in 2 minute gaps. Of course you could have two different twitter accounts in Tweetdeck so I could schedule from my own @Pale_Jewel and Karen’s. Well all I’m going to say is for this particular project, Tweetdeck let me down and it’s such a shame as I really do believe their scheduler is the best for transmedia style projects involving Twitter. I can’t even say what went wrong other than the fact that they released a new Adobe Air update overnight and co-incidentally, I lost all my scheduled tweets for the penultimate day of the story and her account was temporarily “lost”. There was also a loss of ability to recreate her Tweetdeck account. Well that was the moment I almost stopped the story as a live event. I was saved though as I did end up using Hootsuite for the last 2 days in conjunction with Conductrr – which was actually pivotal in releasing the videos from unlisted to public to YouTube automatically (and which no other scheduler can do as far as I know). On a minor point, the Twitter-to-Facebook profile app also failed and I used Smart Tweets in the end. I keep telling myself that such big problems are a result of sort of being a pioneer in this level of story release. But actually, these few websites and Twitter-specific applications stated all along they could do these things and when I used them to their utmost limit they appeared to have failed. Having said that… there are so many different ways to use Twitter to tell a story, it doesn’t have to be a live event with a live character. But fair enough it still came out and no one was any wiser to the problems and they still enjoyed it which I’m very proud of.

RP: What kinds of reaction have you had from the audience? I’m thinking in terms of the ease with which they could follow the story, whether there were too many or not enough tweets, whether they wanted more or fewer videos and so on.

KB: I think the level of tweets were about right. I tried to make it like any person would tweet. I tweet quite a lot myself but even then when I look at my tweeting behavior it would be a few in the morning and little bit in the afternoon and most of them in the evening. Karen had a fulltime job. She didn’t like the people in her workplace but she worked hard and probably wouldn’t have been constantly tweeting throughout the day. I just hoped that people would understand although she’s a character, she’s being played as live hence the lack of tweets during her working day.

I think I should have had at least one video per day as well as photos. There were a few days with no media just tweets, which I kind of became very aware of, but budget and hence time did not allow me to shoot more footage. Having said that, I never got anyone tweeting saying “this is boring” or “where’s the videos”. But 3 weeks was long enough as a story to develop the characters and get the audience feeling for them. Any longer than 3 or 4 weeks and I think this format would’ve suffered as people would definitely be asking what the hell’s happening?

I had to build up the tension as any movie would but in a slow burning way. I chose to do this in order for story/character development to take place and to quite frankly give us more time to build the audience. I’m not a marketing/PR guru and didn’t have over a year to plant posters and make fake websites and fake news reports building up interest for Karen. I had about 2 months at the most to get her that audience and even while the last week was happening she still had people following. So to have this style of story happen any quicker than 3 weeks would’ve not felt right for the audience members. In fact between Facebook and Twitter she ended up having just over 1000 people. Those were the people that stayed with her throughout the 3 weeks. That’s 1000 people who at some point engaged and watched the clips and some of the tweets. More audience than I’ve ever had as a writer. She had loads more follow but they dropped off, probably because they didn’t realise she was a character and wondered why her tweets were just a tad strange. I have to say just while we’re here that the comments I got and reactions I got to the story after it finished was fantastic. You can see some of them here.

RP: Do you have any feeling for the demographics of the people that followed the experience? I’m wondering if you found there were more men than women or more younger people than older?

KB: I really don’t know how to gauge the statistics of the audience at this stage other than to physically go through each Twitter follower and Facebook friend and make assumptions. I felt as though gender wise there was an even balance. I had females and males interacting and replying to her and loving the story. I thought that horror was a male genre so perhaps the transmedia attracted some of the female audience. Once again I’d be guessing but the Twitter followers seemed to be mid 20’s upwards. The Facebook friends, well many of them were word of mouth friends from my own friends and were a wide range of ages. They did not interact as much as twitter followers. But I knew some were reading the tweets at least because I’d get a few “likes” etc. The audience for Facebook as I explained is a different dynamic and that’s mainly because of Facebook’s tendency to siphon out news and information from your friends. Basically, you won’t see everything a friend posts on their wall because there’s a setting in Facebook that stops that from happening and not everyone knows how to turn it off. I knew that but I feel that each transmedia project should try and incorporate every platform in the hope it will reach an audience.

RP: Would you have liked to have built in more opportunities for audience participation?

KB: Yes. I actually thought of ways to make the interaction better but it would’ve taken so much more planning, time and money. I wanted to shoot alternative scenes with the actors and alternative endings. Then guide the audience into choosing what Karen and Darren should do via the tweets. Then based on the majority I would choose a scene. Like one of those “Pick a Path” books. I also thought about running another Twitter account from the perspective of Darren or even the Other Darren at the same time. My God, I don’t want to think how I would’ve made that happen, lol. Maybe someone else can have a go. J

RP: What advice would you give other writers about writing for Twitter?

KB: As I mentioned Twitter is a great writer’s medium – more so than any other social networking site just because we are always writing our tweets. And we tend to add a bit of flourish to the tweets so whether intentional or not we are being creative on Twitter. I wanted to incorporate the multimedia aspect by using the video and photo uploading features as well as ability to post links. I think if you can find something to write about on Twitter that will capture people’s imagination then people will follow – even if it’s just a blog or diary. Why not make a documentary-style blog using Twitter? “Diarize” what’s happening to your character and post videos as well. Can you imagine Borat being a Twitter character first of all? I can. These are some of the ways that Twitter can work creatively. If you want to market and promote a 60min story that is just one video and you’re bypassing distributers to get your audience, you can do that too. It does take a lot of promotional work but as I said to the BBC, there is an audience online waiting to be entertained so why not use it.

RP: What’s next for you?

As always I’m writing and trying to finish a sci-fi feature screenplay (with elements of horror of course) . That was put on hold for Karen Barley.

And I’ve just had my first ever piece of writing produced by someone else. It was a short for Virgin Media Shorts called Superheroes Anonymous. We’re hoping that it will make it through to the finals so that we can get funding and get CuckoO produced – a short I won an award for and we have a great team really passionate about getting it made. I’m also slugging away at promoting my writing and trying to sell my work. I’d love to repackage Karen Barley in a way that will appeal to distributers and producers so I may look into putting a kit together with the media on it and perhaps rewrite the script as a feature for a “found footage” type film. It’s all in my head these ideas and I’m just so glad and happy that Karen Barley and transmedia gave me my first opportunity to get one of these ideas out of my mind.

Sintel's music and song win Jerry Goldsmith awards

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:21:00 GMT

RADAR NYC 7.21.11 – feat. Diana Eng

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:17:59 GMT

Photo by Ricardo Louis via Diana Eng

This week, we bring back the blog with help from Diana Eng (RADAR ep 31 – Fairytale Fashion), and she made it easy for me, since I’m already a huge fan of most of her choices. She’s been quite busy lately, with her amazing line and increasing popularity in the fashion world, including her new collection of Laser Lace Tees and Tops. You can also check out her shop, as well as read up on her inspiration on her own blog.

WATCH

nyan.cat

How long can you nyan for? This very well could be the last thing the Internet ever needs, as it combines the holy trifecta of cats, adorableness, and utter randomness. Based off of PRguitarman’s original Pop Tart Cat .gif (I suppose toast is healthier?) times how long you can, well, nyan. It’s so addictive, though, that you can nyan for hours on end if you allow it. Added bonuses here include putting the site into different languages such as Japanese (makes sense), Nyan (exactly what you’d expect) and Catalan, giving double meaning to the .cat domain name. We may think it’s cute now, but once cats successfully conquer the Internet, the rest of the world will surely follow. So cute though!

Unleash the fury of NYAN HERE.

LISTEN

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps

This was Diana’s pick, but I have to interject here—this isn’t just one of my all time favorite songs, but possibly my all time favorite music video, and a big part of my inspiration for wanting to get into filming bands. A ballad off their definitely-classic-by-now debut LP Fever to Tell, it showed that the (at the time) rising buzz band Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and more specifically, lead singer Karen O) could do more than thrash and screech, but also create one of the most touching songs of the last decade.

You can buy the album HERE

READ

Tina Fey – Bossypants

Tina Fey is just one of those people who do pretty much everything right—30 Rock is still the funniest thing on TV after like, what, 5 seasons? Then there’s Date Night and Baby Mama, and the fact that after she left Saturday Night Live the only time people talk about the show is when they mention how far downhill it’s gone since then. So clearly she’s some kind of sorceress and we should all be terrified. Or you can read her hilarious book and hopefully absorb some of its power. If nothing else, reading it on the subway is sure to piss off the disgruntled former frat bros who still insist, “women aren’t funny.” Tina Fey just happens to be at the top of a long list of women who prove them wrong.

You can pick up a copy HERE

Talk To Me

Talk To Me is a new exhibit at MoMA that examines the ways humans interact with objects. Every day we interact with things like computers and increasingly smarter phones, which in turn, interact with us. Talk To Me offers a look at the history and future of these interaction, going back to products from the 1960s and looking forward with some products in development. A lot goes into it—visual design, interface, information. In keeping with the theme, the organizers encourage communication and feedback from the visitors, ranging from suggestions from designers to visitor interaction using cell phones. Be sure to check out the blog as well.

Talk To Me
July 24–November 7
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
EVENT INFO

Thingiverse and Ponoko

Diana has picked a couple of nice blogs for you to check out, specifically if you like, well, things and stuff. Thingiverse is a blog co-founded by fellow RADAR contributor Bre Pettis of Makerbot (RADAR ep 19), focusing on digital designs from ordinary people and realizing them through the use of machines like laser cutters and digital printers. In a similar vein is Ponoko, which is sort of like a digital Etsy (or rather, a more-digital Etsy), exploring the art of digital making even further.

The 9th Dot

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:31:57 GMT

The following is a guest post by Kim Lessing.

Just about five years ago, Glen Trotiner, a filmmaker who’s had every job from p.a. to producer, and his buddy, Jeff Hephner, a television actor, were in bar in the East Village drunk talking about two of their favorite subjects: conspiracy theories, and fixing the world’s problems.

Somehow, that night, the two discussions became linked and a story that needed to be told began to unfold:

It began with one of their favorite conspiracy theories. Just before he died, in 1943, the 87 year-old reclusive inventor, Nikola Tesla, who had given the world alternating current, radio, radar, and x-rays, claimed to have invented a device that could produce energy from a free and unlimited source, and distribute it without wires or cables.

The device was never publicly demonstrated.

The conspiracy theory claims the device was removed from the inventor’s lab by Government Agents on the night the inventor died, and has been suppressed by the authorities for all these years.

Their story would begin almost seventy years later as two roommates, Jeff, a conspiracy theorist, and Sam, a debunker, go out in search of the one remaining surviving witness to the events of the night of Tesla’s death.

Just as the premise for The 9th Dot was hatching, Jake Wasserman, an ambitious and talented high school student, came to work for Glen as a production assistant. Jake is one of those kids born with a camera in his hands. Glen recognized his potential and immediately took Jake under his wing.

With Jake’s input on the script, The 9th Dot began to take shape (the title comes from the nine dot puzzle, developed by Disney, that tests for thinking outside the box).

The search for an actor to play Sam ended during a difficult film shoot in Maine. Ariel Shafir, who was coincidently, (or not so coincidently) playing conspiracy theorist in that very movie, read an early draft of the 9th Dot and came aboard to play Sam.

It seemed then that the project was ready for take off. Unfortunately shooting was put on hold when Glen went off to Romania to work on the movie Blood Creek.

Luckily, right after Glen returned, he learned Titan-TV, was looking for web content that could be launched into episodic material. Titian, read and loved the script and suggested it be conceived as a web-blog. Each episode would be a short segment of the investigation. The audience would be participating in real time, blogging along with Sam.

Just as the scripts were finished, however, Titan-TV stopped making original content. A disappointing blow, but like any good story, it didn’t end there.

The gang went ahead with shooting. They shot at locations all over New York City, including the New Yorker Hotel, where Tesla had died, Bryant Park, where Samuel Morse had once first shown the world the dots and dashes of Morse code at the very first New York Worlds Fair, and The Engineers Club, where Tesla had once belonged.

Soon, Jake took on the daunting task on editing, and furthered his role as a valuable collaborator. He singlehandedly created a unique look for the episodes, alternating between the handheld investigative footage with carefully crafted animations.

The finished product looks and feels like nothing ever done before; a true demonstration to the powerful content that can be created when passion meets craft.

CBS interactive saw the first three episodes and offered to pick up the series.

But then CBS Interactive was folded into CNET, so the series lacked an outlet once again.

At that point it became clear that if the project would never meet it’s full potential waiting around for the networks.

Five years after the bar stool meeting, the show is finally ready to launch, on August 1st, on it’s very own homegrown website (www.the9thdot.com).

A preview of the investigation is already up on the site, ready to watch. Self-made and self-promoted, it’s been a labor of love for all concerned and its birth is testament to power of interactive story telling in every sense of the world.

In the same way the character Jeff distrusts corporations, the 9th Dot’s creative team Glen, Jake, Jeff and Ariel want The 9th Dot and its followers to speak for themselves,

The cost of energy is still a global problem. The price of gas is still too high. And Tesla’s invention is still missing. There is much to be considered, and discussed and there is problem solving to be done. The 9th Dot is the place to listen and be heard. Above all else, we want to hear from you.

www.the9thdot.com

http://twitter.com/#!/the9thdot

http://www.arch-entertainment.com

remixable

DIY DAYS NYC 2012

Tickets are FREE but space is limited. Registration is NOW OPEN.

WE COULD USE YOUR HELP

Topics include

Open Design

Transmedia Talk 40: Snow Town

Mango Open Movie fundraiser halfway

Transmedia Talk 39: Clockwork Watch

Stop SOPA! Stop BREIN! Stop BUMA-STEMRA! Stop GEMA! Stop HADOPI! Stop...

Blender E-store expands

Mango Open Movie: fund raiser started!

Blender 2.61 Released

Transmedia Talk 38: Storyworld Conference 2011

Transmedia Talk 37: Robot Heart Stories at DIY Days LA

Blender Conference talks on youtube

Testbuild for upcoming release

Transmedia Talk 36: Alison Norrington at DIY Days

Transmedia Talk 35: Henry Jenkins at DIY Days LA

Transmedia Talk 34: SCA Reality

Blender 2.60a update

COWORKING SPACE AT 3RD WARD

Release Candidates for 2.60 available

4th Open Movie kick-off: Mango!

Call for screenshots and demo .blend files

Transmedia Talk 33: ARGFest Special with JC Hutchins

Man-Child the passion behind the story

Wiki documentation, major upgrade

Two 3D World CG 2011 awards for Blender

Transmedia Talk 32: GoBZRK and the Future of Publishing

CONNECTED with Tiffany Shlain

Blender Conference: submission Suzanne Awards open

Blender Conference: submission Suzanne Awards open

Transmedia Talk 31: Evan Jones, Suspending Disbelief in Interactive Stories

Siggraph 2011 Blend-in report!

Blender 2.59 released

Wicked Solutions for a Wicked Problem

If it doesn’t spread it’s dead – part 2

Training week in Blender Institute

Transmedia Talk 30: 2011 Half Year in Review with Michael Andersen

If it doesn’t spread it’s dead

Kristi Barnett’s experience with the Twitter production, Karen Barley

Sintel's music and song win Jerry Goldsmith awards

RADAR NYC 7.21.11 – feat. Diana Eng

nyan.cat

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps

Tina Fey – Bossypants

Talk To Me

Talk To Me July 24–November 7 Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019 EVENT INFO

Thingiverse and Ponoko

The 9th Dot

Talk To Me
July 24–November 7
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
EVENT INFO