remixable - posts tagged 'social media'

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.

The Power of User Generated Content

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:12:28 GMT

At SXSW I watched Nick Poole (founder of the infamous 4chan) introduce his new project Canvas. This isn’t as edgy as his previous meme factory. Canvas provides basic tools for users to post and alter pictures. Think of it like a message board where users have conversations through constantly evolving images. A long thread starting with a picture of Dos Equis’s “The Most Interesting Man in the World” can end randomly with him as Rebecca Black and the caption: “It’s not always Friday. But when it is…Saturday comes next.”

The success of Canvas hinges on growing a community of people excited to create remixes. With just viewers, there won’t be user generated content to entertain visitors. So, Nick makes sure the collaborative process is fun/easy and doesn’t focus on attracting professional quality design work. Without high standards more lurkers will become contributors.

Now more than ever, everyone from artists to storytellers should learn how to hone the power of UGC to build their internet presence. Facebook is the second most popular site in the world-Twitter, Youtube, Yelp, Fanfiction.net, and many other successful destinations wouldn’t exist without non-professionals.

Here are some different ways to get people to create user generated content:

View more presentations from Peter Katz.

What is your experience with user generated content?

Transmedia Talk 28 – Game of Thrones and the Maester’s Path

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:19:45 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 Steve Coulson of Campfire talks with us about The Maester’s Path, a sensory storytelling campaign for the HBO series Game of Thrones. Hosts: Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media Haley Moore (and Host Emeritus Robert Pratten from Transmedia Storyteller) Special Guest: Steve Coulson from Campfire From This Episode: The Maester’s Path, Campfire’s sensory and puzzle experience for the show. The comprehensive making-of campaign Making Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones armor designer Simon Brindle showcases his workin a short video for Game of Thrones: The Artisans. Fans attempt to fix Adrianne Palicki’s costume for her role in the new Wonder Woman series. Michael Andersen walks readers through the Maester’s Path experience at ARGNet Writer JC Hutchins opens his Maesters Path scent box with care and irrepressible enthusiasm. Campfire partner GetGlue The binaural experience of the Inn at the Crossroads Campfire partner Luxurious Animals The virtual environment The Wall

Tech/Stories:An Interview With Henrik Werdelin

Tue, 03 May 2011 08:16:54 GMT

At SXSW I attended the Scandinavia Tech Summit, a panel covering technology and media. Henrik Werdelin (@werdelin) was one panelist who stood out with his unique understanding of tech startups.

As disruptive technology is forcing the entertainment industry to either evolve or die, more creators should talk to smart people like Henrik.

Below is our interview.

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Henrik Werdelin. I am the managing partner at Prehype. We are a group of product developers who bridge the world between entrepreneurship and corporations by spinning new digital startups out of big companies and then selling them back to them. My background has always been around experience design and innovation; from running the product development for MTV International over startups like Joost and Hotpotato to working in venture capital.

What were your highlights from SXSW?
One big moment was the when I experienced first hand the power of social promotion as I stood next to Gary Vaynerchuk when he announced the location of his yearly SXSW wine flashmob. It was incredible to see a room filling from 5 people to over 300 in under 20 minutes. It made me think about how much impact our new social tools have. Normally when we do products and get e.g. 10.000 signups, we feel its only a marginal win. However, seeing 300 people poring into a room within such a short time was quite humbling.

Based on your background in experience design and innovation, how would you tell a transmedia story?
I know it might sound like a bad answer, but I think it very much depends on what the story is. New media are just tools that you can use to tell stories in a new – and often more engaging way. I feel too many media companies try to add new media components to their storytelling just to add those tools – and not because they add value to the story. They also often forget to fully understand how a users daily flow is – and then mold their use of technology around peoples behavior – instead of assuming that they can move people across different new mediums.

Who do feel are the most innovative storytellers and what can creators learn from them?
I think good storytellers – are good storytellers. Most of the more innovative ones uses new technology too add impact to their narrative. That can be from clever use of social media to establish suspense (like the blairwitch project), to simple game shows that adds user participation via sms (think American Idol), over CNN’s way to include their viewers via iReporter and finally people who use digital tools to tell a story. (like the guys who did http://pleaserobme.com/). However, clearly the game developers have managed to engage users in self-made storytelling and that is where I think we will see the most innovation come from.

Favorite books and blogs?
- The Singularity is Near
- Hellohenrik.com
- Influences
- The Paradox of Choice
- A mind of its own

How would you make social games more social?
Move more of the gameplay outside the web and into real life.

Can film studios learn anything from startups?
I think everyone can learn from startups. A few lessons;
- Its hard to judge your own ideas in a board room. Therefore, find methods where you can produce components cheap enough to test it against real users and then build on it if it turns out to be successful.
- Identify if your incentive structure is aligned with your objectives. E.g. if you dont think your teams take enough risk, you probably have a structure where only playing it safe is compensated
- Think less – do more…

Will Netflix keep winning in an increasingly competitive market?
Yes. By being restrictive in their deal structures – studios have up to now prevented a healthy industry of innovative distribution partners

What are going to be the next major trends in the entertainment industry?
Gaming seems to be one of those industries that keep taking market share from the traditional entertainment industry. I think we will see more innovation from the game world. The last sprint was social gaming – but I think this form of entertainment that engage users will see more growth. Finally I think the user generated trend will continue also. As the barrier to entry into the entertainment industry goes down you will see a raise of independent overnight sensations.

My Favorite App at SXSW

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:23:41 GMT

There are many apps on your smart phone. How many do you really use? Me: Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Huffington Post, Lastfm, and Google maps. My 100 other ones collect dust because they don’t solve a problem or are a bad imitation. At SXSW I discovered an unique app called iTouru: remember listening to an audio tour at a museum, now imagine if the entire world had an audio tour. These stories could provide new perspectives for a city. Below is my interview with Andrew Dever, Founder & CEO of iTour. You can follow him @andrewdever.

What is iTouru?

iTourU is a new iPhone App that lets anyone create, discover and share what we call ‘Pocket Tours’, which have ’stops’ that are tagged to a map and include audio, text and photos about that location.

These Pocket Tours can be about absolutely anything, making iTourU a platform for creativity and real world adventure.

How did you come up with the idea?

The idea came to me when a friend sent me a satirical tour she had made about a renaissance exhibition. She’d recorded it in mp3 and sent it to friends on Facebook. It was pretty popular, and I thought it would be cool to make it possible for anyone to easily create personal niche tours and share them from their phone. It was simply irresistible to me that with audio you could actually see and touch the world around you (rather than watch a video or read about it on your device).

So that’s what we did: built a platform for creativity and real world adventure.

Who did you make this for?

Good question. In the long-term we believe anyone could use it. You just have to be interested in the world around you. It’s like YouTube but instead of video it’s location based audio (and other multi-media). So it’s not limited to traditional “audio tours” of museums. Your Pocket Tours can be about anything!

At the moment we’re really trying to find creative, inspiring and insightful ‘publishers’ and help them create and share amazing Pocket Tours. We’re learning new ways it could be used everyday!

What has been your favorite tours so far?

My personal favorite is the “Keep Austin Weird” tour by Howie Richey. We’ve also been working with quite a few publishers in San Francisco and there’s so many good tours about to be released!

Which cities have the most traction?

We’re only a baby now – we launched at SxSW and spent the week before that in Austin. There’s over 30 tours available there and counting! Over the next six months we’ll be seeding content in many of the best cities around the world.

What’s your advice to someone making a tour?

You’re only limited by your own imagination. Be adventurous, find locations that mean something to you and share your creativity, insight and inspiration!

Do you think storytellers will create a narrative around locations?

Absolutely. It’s like watching a movie in true 3D!

What’s your long term vision for iTouru?

Simple. We want to truly reinvent how people tour the world and build things that make the real world more inspiring, insightful and adventurous.

We have some BIG ideas around how to do that, stay tuned!

You can follow us @itourukombi, visit our blog and download our iPhone App here!

The Revolution will be Streamed Live… from an iPhone

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:00:07 GMT

Reporters from the major news stations have been blocked from covering a violent protest in a foreign land, but this doesn’t mean an international audience can’t watch the chaos ensue. Rioters armed with the newest smart phones are streaming these events live to the Internet. And this time, CNN is trying to catch up. This is the future of journalism.

Right now, the process of streaming live video via mobile devices is far from perfect: it’s slow, unreliable, and tends to have low picture quality. Once the technology improves, however, endless channels of this footage can reach the masses. Like a TV director, viewers will be able to switch between multiple perspectives from different mobile broadcasts covering one event. Instead of the bulky camcorders of the past, small lightweight Androids and iPhones will be able to stream this content in real time.

Potentially, people will be able to rely more on civilians to deliver news, and less on professional journalists. Image quality from phones are improving, and eventually these bystanders will shoot live video in high definition. Also, TV networks have a limited budget for expensive camcorders and professional crew. On the other hand, hundreds of bystanders equipped with phones typically have the ability to cover more ground. When something newsworthy happens in public, anyone carrying a cell is there before the press.

In addition, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can create communities around the streaming content. Viewers will be able to comment about what’s happening around the world at any moment. This audience can rely on popular web personalities who will act as curators and commentators for the live news. Each unique perspective will attract their own niche audience that CNN or Fox News may ignore.

Eventually, the hunger for instant, live news will not be served by big news corporations with costly equipment and star reporters- but by millions of ordinary people with the newest smart phones. And with this technology, who knows? The next Anderson Cooper just might be you.

Transmedia Talk at SXSW 2011 – Roundtable Discussion on Pervasive Entertainment

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:17:58 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk, a new 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. In this special edition from SXSW 2011, Robert Pratten hosts a roundtable discussion with transmedia practitioners from different disciplines. download Or Subscribe iTunes NB: If you’d like to give us feedback, recommend yourself as a guest or suggest topics to cover – please email us at talk@workbookproject.com or Tweet away with the hashtag #tmediatalk Hosts Robert Pratten from TransmediaStoryteller.com Haley Moore Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Special Guests Adrian Hon, Co-Founder and Chief Creative at Six to Start Marcus Romer, Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre in the UK Rachel Clarke, Head of Engagement Intelligence at Momentum London

Transmedia Talk at SXSW 2011 – Interview with Brian David Johnson, Intel Futurist

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:30:28 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk, a new 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. In this special edition from SXSW 2011, Robert Pratten talks about our multi-screen future with Brian David Johnson. download Or Subscribe iTunes NB: If you’d like to give us feedback, recommend yourself as a guest or suggest topics to cover – please email us at talk@workbookproject.com or Tweet away with the hashtag #tmediatalk Hosts Robert Pratten from TransmediaStoryteller.com Haley Moore Dee Cook from Dog Tale Media Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Special Guest Brian David Johnson, Intel Futurist and author of the book Screen Futures

Transmedia Talk Podcast – Episode 16

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:20:52 GMT

Transmedia Talk Podcast – Episode 14

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:19:38 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk a new podcast covering all things story. Transmedia Talk is co-hosted by Nick Braccia and Robert Pratten 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 Or Subscribe iTunes NB: If you’d like to give us feedback, recommend yourself as a guest or suggest topics to cover – please email us at talk@workbookproject.com or Tweet away with the hashtag #tmediatalk Hosts.. and Guests for this week Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Robert Pratten from TransmediaStoryteller.com Dee Cook from Dogtail Media Haley Moore The panelists discuss their early & current experiences with developing and executing transmedia projects. Good discussion about the thrill of interactivity and designing ARGs. Running Time 00:00 Introductions 00:40 Getting started in transmedia (Rob’s story) 04:40 The Lowlifes transmedia project : Objectives & narrative design 16:40 Developing the interactive game for Lowlifes 29:00 Haley Moore discusses The Sketchbook Project 41:00 Dee Cook discusses her work with DogTail Media 44:45 The market for ARGs in 2011 46:00 Changing nature of ARG and developing for different audience segments

How to Improve Engagement with your Webisodes

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:02:55 GMT

Why do some web producers release their webisodes weekly when they have evergreen content? That is, if their series of web videos are not tied to current events, why not release them all at once?

One answer might be that the release schedule is tied to the production schedule – episodes are being produced one week and released the next. But why not release them two weeks apart or wait until enough episodes have been produced to release all at once or daily? Why not four hours apart or on demand?

My point is only that there should be some reasoning behind the scheduling and not just because TV has scheduled weekly content.

You see, if TV has taught us one thing about audiences, it’s that they don’t like to be kept waiting. They don’t like to wait while the commercial plays, they don’t like to wait while the episode downloads and they don’t like to wait week-to-week. Many people record several episodes of a series before the viewing or they’ll buy the complete series on DVD. But of course audiences come to TV and the web with different expectations so why copy the TV model online if you don’t have to?

Re-thinking your web series

This blog post looks at how you might optimize the release schedule for your webisodes. Core to my approach is understanding how you want the audience to engage with your story and then designing an integrated experience that consequently determines how the video will be released. There is no initial assumption that the schedule should be weekly or any other time period.

There is, I suppose, an assumption that most web series will have more than just the videos: there’s usually a website, a blog, a forum, a mailing list, a Facebook page or some other mechanism that represents an opportunity to inform the audience of a new release and provide them with a backchannel. These additional non-video platforms are what makes your web series “an experience” rather than a series of videos. Even a single YouTube channel with the comments and likes enabled creates a participatory experience. Whatever the implementation, it is the experience that builds, empowers and engages your audience – it multiplies the draw of the video.

Here’s a short list of considerations for determining the time interval between episodes with the key objective being to maintain engagement between episodes (i.e. you want audiences to watch the next episode):

production limitations & opportunities
distribution limitations & opportunities
business model limitations & opportunities
strength of story episode to episode (the narrative hook)
length of each episode (longer webisodes might benefit from longer periods between episodes to avoid overload)
audience expectations and headroom (giving too much to consume between releases may lead to abandoned subscriptions).

Mind The Gap: Is the Narrative Strong Enough to Bridge the Delay?

Figure 1 illustrates how we’d like audience to move from episode to episode. In this example there’s enough interest or engagement to have them come back for more.

Figure 1: Audience follows episode to episode

Unfortunately there are a number of failure scenarios if the period between each release is wrong. In Figure 2, the audience abandons the web series because the content isn’t strong enough to have them come back – there’s not enough pull to bridge the gap.

In Figure 3, the audience is asked to work too hard to keep up and soon they find they’re overwhelmed with content for the given schedule.

Figure 2: Abandons

Figure 3: Overload

In both these failure scenarios one solution is to adjusted or fine-tune the schedule – if that’s possible. As I mentioned earlier, there may be reasons why you’re stuck with the schedule.

Figure 4: Release schedule adjusted

Using Transmedia Storytelling to Maintain Engagement

Web series can be expensive to produce and the number of episodes is as likely to be determined by budget as anything else. This could mean you don’t have enough webisodes to span the schedule you’d like or you need to maintain engagement between webisodes because the schedule is fixed.

Figure 5 shows how narrative spread to secondary, less expensive, media can be used to stitch together the web series – providing a mid-episode fix of story for those eager for more. The trick here is in the storytelling: to have the webisode and secondary media satisfying in their own right and hence consuming all media is optional which hence alleviates the chance of overload. Implied in the notion of “secondary media” is that it may indeed not stand alone and should be consumed as additional exploratory content (e.g. another optional layer).

Figure 5: Transmedia Storytelling applied to web video series

Figure 6 in contrast shows two equal media platforms both scheduled for episodic release but appealing to different audience sub-segments or consumption habits: e.g. media 1 is consumed while at work and media 2 consumed on the commute.

Here, each media has its own (intervening?) release schedule with additional narrative hooks and branches to take the audience to the next episode in the same media or to alternative media.

Figure 6: Native Episodic Transmedia Storytelling

Finally of course, additional secondary media might be added to two primary media platforms – as shown in Figure 7

Figure 7: Multi-layered Transmedia Story.

Allow Audience to Go with the Flow

So far I’ve assumed that all audience members are to be treated equally. But why not reward engaged followers with either additional content or early “pre-release” content? And if you do, does it matter that they might share with others ahead of the “proper” release?

I believe that when you have someone that’s engaged you should allow them to ride the engagement out and see where it takes them. This means allowing them to request additional content on demand ahead of the release schedule which I further believe has the potential to turn engaged audiences to advocates – hence recruiting more audience.

YouTube’s “Unlisted” video option is perfect for this: casual viewers won’t see or find the video before it’s made public but engaged audiences can be sent the link.

Transmedia Example

My Lowlifes project has three primary media: novella, webisodes and blog. I determined that it should be scheduled to be released two days apart over a period of 15 days or so. I felt that daily would lead to content overload and at three days the whole release would drag on too long.

One approach would have been to alternate the media – novella chapter on day 1, video on day 2, blog on day 3 and so on. But this would have incorrectly implied a sequence or priority to the media platforms that I was keen to avoid.

Consequently, at the same time content is made public, subscribers receive an email with links to the three media episodes plus the ability to request additional content from anywhere within the series. This would allow someone who was really into the videos, for example, to watch them all in one sitting by simply requesting them.

It’s not a problem for me if someone grabs all the videos and posts them all on their own blog because my objective is to get them seen. It’s evergreen content and within 3 weeks it would all be available in any case.

For Lowlifes, the scheduling and on-demand requests for content is made possible by a service called Conducttr -a pervasive entertainment platform from my company TransmediaStoryteller.com and will soon be available for all members of our Community.

Take-away

In summary then, if you assume that the audience always has something better to do with their time and money, it will absolutely focus your mind on maintaining engagement between webisodes and this will:

determine the optimum release schedule where you have the flexibility to choose it
highlight the need for a transmedia experience around an inflexible release schedule
provoke a discussion about whether you should allow content on demand for the most engaged audience members.

Transmedia Talk Podcast – Episode 5

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:50:23 GMT

Welcome to Transmedia Talk a new podcast covering all things story. Transmedia Talk is co-hosted by Nick Braccia and Robert Pratten 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. In a temporary departure from our usual format while Robert has been in the UK, we present the first of two interviews from leading practitioners in the UK. In this podcast Mike Dicks, Senior Policy Exec at PACT (kind of the UK equivalent to the US’ producers guild) talks about transmedia, Dr Who, Canvas/YouView, getting your work financed and selling your finished product. download Or Subscribe iTunes NB: If you’d like to give us feedback, recommend yourself as a guest or suggest topics to cover – please email us at talk@workbookproject.com or Tweet away with the hashtag #tmediatalk Hosts Nick Braccia from Culture Hacker Robert Pratten from TransmediaStoryteller.com Guests Mike Dicks, PACT

What a Filmmaker Learned From Farmville And Other Social Games

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:34:34 GMT

Social games are rapidly becoming one of the most successful forms of entertainment:

Disney purchased Playdom for up to $763.2 million and Club Penguin for $700 million.

EA purchased Playfish for $400 million.

The research form Next Up for pre-IPO trading service SharesPost estimates Zynga is worth three billion dollars.

Why are they thriving (even in a recession):

Social games are accessible throughout the day over multiple platforms.

You are rewarded with digital prizes the more you play.

Players act as evangelists marketing the game all over social networks to recruit new users.

Creators of TV shows and movies can now use similar techniques to have a stronger relationship with their fans. Emerging web start ups are making that possible. Miso injects interactivity into the TV and film viewing experience by utilizing a smart phone, laptop, or tablet as a duel screen with supplemental content. SCVNGR is an user generated location based scavenger hunt for your smart phone.

SCVNGR can create challenges based on a elements from a story e.g. a player is asked trivia from True Blood and if they get the answer correct they are given a clue to find their next location in their city. Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D and Dexter made SCVNGR a part of their marketing campaign by creating scavenger hunts around the San Diego Comic Con. To reach fans where they shop, scavenger hunts can be sponsored e.g. visit Best Buy and purchase a product marked with QR code to get your next clue. People can expand the experience to new locations by creating scavenger hunts revolving around fan fiction.

This keeps fans connected to a story no matter where they are located.

Players receive points and badges in Miso for checking into their favorite shows and movies like Four Square for content. Miso has a list of their highest ranking watchers; this competition keeps an audience coming back to a program to be number 1. By rewarding their engagement over time, I think this can transform casual viewers into hardcore fans.

Users on Miso can share what they are watching on Facebook and Twitter, their friends can now start following that show and converting more fans. They can also recruit them directly on Miso. This sustains and builds a fanbase.

Many games have been inspired by films/TV shows to create more compelling narratives e.g. Grand Theft Auto. Now Hollywood can learn from social games to keep fans connected to their stories.

What else can filmmakers and TV show creators learn from social games?

What a Filmmaker Learned From Farmville And Other Social Games

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:34:34 GMT

Social games are rapidly becoming one of the most successful forms of entertainment:

Disney purchased Playdom for up to $763.2 million and Club Penguin for $700 million.

EA purchased Playfish for $400 million.

The research form Next Up for pre-IPO trading service SharesPost estimates Zynga is worth three billion dollars.

Why are they thriving (even in a recession):

Social games are accessible throughout the day over multiple platforms.

You are rewarded with digital prizes the more you play.

Players act as evangelists marketing the game all over social networks to recruit new users.

This keeps fans connected to a story no matter where they are located.

Many games have been inspired by films/TV shows to create more compelling narratives e.g. Grand Theft Auto. Now Hollywood can learn from social games to keep fans connected to their stories.

What else can filmmakers and TV show creators learn from social games?

A Content Strategy For Audience Engagement

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:29:46 GMT

When audiences connect well to your content, they go through three stages of engagement: Discovery, Experience and Exploration as shown in below.

The key to a successful content strategy is understanding (a) that there are these stages of engagement (b) what content is required for each stage and (c) what the goals are for each stage.

Failure to appreciate or acknowledge that there are these stages of engagement typically results in audiences being expected to do too much work too soon – which most won’t do – and hence the content fails at the Discovery stage and the real experience never begins. Or, expositional-type content that belongs in Exploration is offered as Experience content and hence fails to engage because it doesn’t tell a story.

Ignoring these stages is like expecting a kiss from a stranger before flirting with them or expecting to run off and get married after only the first date. Maybe in Vegas, but usually not anywhere else.

With transmedia, one media may act as Discovery content for another. For example, the comic book serving as Discovery content for a movie or, in the example of the Xbox game Alan Wake, six webisodes act as Discovery content for the game. However, it’s important to remember that each media also has its own Discovery>Experience>Exploration stages as shown in below.

This is particularly important for indies who may think that creating a comic book for their movie will result automatically in an audience for their movie. It won’t. The comic book first has to be discovered and experienced and it’s only if the content is good enough will the reader begin exploring and “discover” the movie.

Note that I’m fond of encouraging an iterative approach to creating transmedia projects but here I’m also proposing a recursive approach: each and every piece of content should attempt to lure, convince and deliver.

Engaging the Five Senses

The next illustration uses the metaphor of sensory engagement to illustrate how audiences connect to your content. The concept is that audiences are at first suspicious of new content and that if we are to draw them in and lead them to the highest level of engagement – contributing to the canon – then we must resolves their reservations and satisfy their needs at each stage.

Smell and teasers

The first sensory stage is smell. The audience approaches tentatively and sniffs: is there a whiff of the familiar?

We are creatures of habit because evolution has shown it serves us well. Repeating past satisfying experiences is a successful strategy for survival in the wild and with entertainment it’s a good indicator too.

The audience needs to be reassured that your content is worth its time and attention. You need to reduce the perceived risk by communicating “trustworthyness”, “coolness”, “quality”, ”appropriateness” – whatever values are sought by the audience for this type of project.

To communicate the correct values, I’ve created a content class called “Teasers”. Of course the “teaser” is familiar to indie filmmakers – a 30 second or less video intended to bait the trap; not to explain or reveal too much but only to temp further engagement. In this model however, I’ve broadened the teaser into a full content category to include all content that can be digested with the minimal amount of attention.

The figure shows the five content classes I’ve defined for each stage of engagement: Teaser, Trailer, Target, Participation and Collaboration.

Note that I had to create a name for the “target content” to avoid confusion with all the other content! Because of the recursive nature of this approach, any content might be at one time the target content and another time Discovery content.

Note too that because of the need to communicate quickly, visual clues from pictures, photos and web design are going to dominate the Teaser content class. But it’s also the headlines you communicate: well-known cast or crew, one-line quotes from reviewers and so on.

Taste and trailers

If your project smells familiar then the audience can progress to a more specific, personal question: will I like it?

The teaser has convinced the audience your project is something they might like, but what can you tell them to reassure them it’s worth their additional time and (possibly) money?

The movie trailer is a commercial. Its intention is to convince the audience that this movie is for them. In this model I’ve expanded the trailer to a class for all content that persuades. By which I mean content that removes the barrier between Discovery and Experience: it’s the barrier between the known – the Teaser and Trailer content – and the unknown – the target content.

This barrier is represented by toll gate 2 – TG2.

Tollgates

In this model, tollgates are barriers between one stage and another.

TG1 is tollgate 1. It’s the barrier that prevents audiences knowing that your project exists. TG1 can be breached by search engine optimization (SEO), recommendations, links and anything that puts your content on the map. But the first audience encounter should be with your Teaser content.

Tollgate 2 requires a little more explanation.

Think of TG2 as a wall that the audience must climb. The first tollgate image below shows how the project and business model will unavoidably create barriers to your content – some unintentional, some intentional.

Content that you provide in Discovery helps the audience scale the wall – as shown in below. In this example, price creates a barrier to entry that of course can only be scaled by the audience paying the fee. However, the tollgate is far higher than solely the price and the audience will only part with its money once the perception of the tollgate is lower than the payment. Stated simply, buyers rarely make decisions not to purchase based on price – it’s all those other barriers that have to be overcome first: value, suitability, risk, convenience, context and so on.

Touch and sight

It’s only when the audience touches the target content that it can see it for what it is. If your Discovery content has done its job then the audience’ expectations will be met or exceeded. But if you have deceived or misled them then they’ll be disappointed.

There is nothing more you can do at this point. The target content is what it is. This is what the audience came for and it has to deliver.

After – though sometimes during- the Experience comes the Exploration. The tollgate TG3 is the barrier to be climbed to have the audience increase its willing engagement. Sometimes there can be confusion and this will lead to unwilling engagement: the audience experiences the content but doesn’t quite “get it” and hence searches for an explanation or for help. In these situations of unwilling engagement, a high barrier at TG3 will lead to resentment.

Ordinarily we want the audience to engage further so reducing the height of TG3 should be a priority: make content easy to find and easy to access; signpost what content should follow the target content.

Listening and Participation

Although content in the participation stage may be available before the Experience, its goal is to aid exploration – not to tease or persuade (even though audiences might use it for reassurance to lower TG2).

Having experienced the target content – either in part or in full – the audience now listens for affirmation. They ask questions to themselves and to others and seek content that answers their questions or fulfils their desire for more.

Good content stimulates debate. Audiences want to discuss and share their experiences with others. They’ll also want to extend the experience and will search for add-ons or new target content.

Some audience members will want to show their affiliation to the content by buying merchandise or embedding widgets; they’ll want to encourage their friends to try the target content.

Content in this Exploration category is intended to reward and empower the advocate and to educate: it provides additional understanding and value to the target content. In this regard it may be acceptable to have “expositional” content such as character biographies, backstories and so on.

Collaboration

In this engagement model the ultimate audience engagement is collaboration or contribution. Not everyone in the audience will progress to this stage and some authors may think this undesirable.

Collaboration is not that same as participation. Participation might be passive (reading additional content and exploring the world) or active – voting, sharing, commenting, discussing, Tweeting and so on. Collaboration is adding to the storyworld: writing fan fiction, creating videos or illustrations. It’s providing new content that you, as author, are free to embrace or reject.

Between participation and collaboration is tollgate 4 – it’s a barrier created by the audience’ perceived lack of time and skills, fear of ridicule and lack of information about how to contribute to the world. You can lower this barrier by providing tools, methods, encouragement and a supportive environment.

How To Use The 5-Senese Engagement Model

The premise with this approach is that a transmedia storyworld maybe too vast to expect an audience to jump right in. They have to be teased and led like Hansel and Gretel by a trail of breadcrumbs. Imagine your world to be a huge cavern – if you blindfold your audience and then first open their eyes once they’re inside, the vastness is overwhelming – it’s a new and scary place. Your audience needs orientation. They have to be guided through an entrance tunnel and see the cavern open up before their eyes and at their own pace. The more complex the world, the more handholding you need to do.

There’s also the issue of the time, energy and cost required to digest a whole storyworld. Far better to give the audience smaller snacks at first until their appetite grows for larger, more time-consuming content.

Note that this content strategy is for audience engagement. When combined with the platform selection methodology, start first with revenue-generating target content and see how it might be prioritized by platform. Then use this engagement model to understand the relationship between the platforms and to identify additional content to aid Discovery and Exploration.

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.

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….

DIYDays NYC Michael Margolis [vid]

Tue, 25 May 2010 01:56:27 GMT

Michael Margolis of GetStoried gave a presentation on personal branding to a packed room at DIYDays NYC. The following vid captures the presentation – please excuse the camera mic.

THE REAL YOU: PERSONAL BRANDING, SOCIAL MEDIA & STORYTELLING

Hello, is this microphone on? As an artist or creative, it’s easy to talk about your passions. Sure, everybody has a story to tell. Yet getting others to see, care, and believe in the same things you do is a different story. How can you market your truth in way that’s still relevant and genuine? This session introduces a new ego mindset for social media with brand frameworks that will encourage people to embrace and buying into your work.

For more on Michael:
www.getstoried.com
@getstoried

special thanks to Raffi and his team for documenting the day!

DIYDays NYC Michael Margolis [vid]

Tue, 25 May 2010 01:56:27 GMT

Michael Margolis of GetStoried gave a presentation on personal branding to a packed room at DIYDays NYC. The following vid captures the presentation – please excuse the camera mic.

THE REAL YOU: PERSONAL BRANDING, SOCIAL MEDIA & STORYTELLING

For more on Michael:
www.getstoried.com
@getstoried

special thanks to Raffi and his team for documenting the day!

Evolutionary Entertainment: A 5-stage Development Process for Transmedia Projects

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:22:09 GMT

The key to creating a great transmedia project is to see it as a living, breathing, evolving entity. Even though my preference is always to plan rather than wing it, trying to find all the pieces of the puzzle from the start can be exhausting, demoralizing and may later prove to be misplaced. Right now all media and entertainment experiences are built on shifting sands: better not to be locked in to one particular set of ideas if you don’t have to be.

The figure below expands on the transmedia business model to incorporate the idea of “evolutionary entertainment” – that is, entertainment that evolves. It evolves with time, technology, audience preferences, financing and your story. Adopting this approach will keep you open to new opportunities.

Evolutionary Approach to Transmedia Entertainment

Not only do I suggest that the “live” transmedia project evolves but also that it’s possible to use this evolutionary approach to development.

Five Stage Development Process

I’ve identified five key elements to a transmedia project:

The story
The audience
The (technical/media) platforms
The business model
The execution

The goal is to get all five working in harmony together – supporting and reinforcing each other.

Rather than try to tackle all five considerations in a single swoop, allow your ideas to evolve through multiple iterations – start with a small concept, run it through the all the stages and see what comes out. Now start again, this time taking the outputs from each stage and feeding them into the other stages.

Developing the project in this way makes the process manageable and ensures you think carefully about what you plan to do.

5-Stage Transmedia Development Process

Each of the five stages warrants its own blog post but for now I’ll stick to explaining the process. Also, I know that ideas can come from many angles but I’m going to assume here it starts with an idea for a story.

Stage 1: Story

Start with the story basics: characters, plot, premise, theme, genre and location.

Stage 2: Audience

Who does this story appeal to? Try to identify as many audience segments as you can ranging from fans of this genre to those who will agree with the premise; those who will identify with the themes, characters, genre etc.

Now iterate back to the Story. What might you add to the story to increase its appeal to these audiences?

(There’s an excellent post related to identifying your audience at Dennis Peter’s blog)

Stage 3: Platforms

By “platforms” I mean the combination of media plus technology. So YouTube and iTunes would be two different platforms even if they can both deliver video. A printed book and The Kindle would be two different platforms. A cinema, a living room and an outdoor public are all different platforms.

Almost any technology, medium and place can be used to convey your story but think about your audience again – what’s their lifestyle? Where and how do they hang out? If you’ve got a story appealing to single-parent families is it likely they’re going to attend live events? Maybe if it’s during the day and they can bring their babies but most likely not in the evenings – they have problems with babysisters, cash and free time. Which platforms will appeal to this audience?

Think of your project as a lifestyle choice: it needs to slip into your audience’ lives with the minimum amount of friction.

Now iterate back to the story. What might you do with the story to have it play out better across these platforms?

Stage 4: Business Model

How are you going to pay for this project? You have three main choices:

Free
Premium (only available for sale)
Freemium (mix of free and paid).

Look at the platforms you’ve chosen for your audience – which of them supports free and which supports paid? Look again at your audience – what do they buy and what don’t they buy? Do you platforms and audience support your business model?

Consider the CwF+RtB=$$ equation – which parts of your content can be pirated (shown in the diagram below as “infinite” availability to all) and which parts are “scarce” (not easily or can’t be copied). What content can be easily copied but some audience members might pay on a platform that offers convenience and immediacy (for more on this see Ross Pruden’s excellent blog).

Offering Audiences Reasons to Buy

Now iterate back to the story but this time think about the timing of the story delivery. By this I mean how will the story be released to the audience on the platforms you’ve identified- a free book chapter a week over 12 weeks simultaneous with a paid Kindle version? A free feature film followed by a paid comic book?

How can you develop your story and platforms to better suit the business model?

Stage 5: Execution

Finally look at the resources you have. If you’re an indie you’ll likely have more time than cash – how can you use that to your advantage? How much cash do you actually need to get going on the Transmedia Business Model? What favors can you pull in?

To answer these questions, consider this equation: outcome = probability x impact. It’s usually used to measure risk – how likely are bad things to happen and if they do happen, what’s their impact. But you can use it to make informed choices about the steps you take to implement your project.

For example, you may feel that a feature film has the highest impact – on your career and/or your audience – but what’s the probability of getting it made? Only you can answer that because you know what resources you have available (money, crew, kit etc). If the probability is low – because, say, you need to get a studio to green light the project – then you might think it better to do something with a higher probability of success even if there’s potentially lower impact.

Ultimately you’ll likely have a range of things to implement – a “portfolio of opportunities” – that get you started with some quick wins and lay the foundations of longer term, higher impact successes.

Now iterate through the five stages again and keep honing and refining.

As I said at the start, don’t feel you need all the answers from the get-go. After a few passes through the five stages, start thinking about implementation and give it a go. Then, in the light of that early experience go back to the development process and evolve.

Creative extensions to the stories I tell

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:54:47 GMT

I find myself baffled at times by the lack of willingness to experiment. Where is the innovation? We find ourselves at an amazing time, one in which storytelling has vast possibilities thanks in part to advancements in technology. Yet many confuse this opportunity with what they literally see others doing or what bubbles up in various press coverage. Social media hype clouds the true creative potential. In fact in many ways the types of transmedia I find myself drawn to are all about story and have little to do with promotion and marketing. Now some of that becomes a natural byproduct but it isn’t what’s driving the story I’m telling. If I can build an audience along the way – why wouldn’t I? In fact they’re more than an audience to me they’re collaborators. Of course some will be passive viewers but others will be active participants.

The technology that we use to design, delivery and tell engaging stories with; is more than just a twitter, blog or facebook account for a character. It isn’t just about documenting the behind the scenes of a film or TV project that we’re making. Not that there’s anything wrong with documentation of a process in many ways that’s what makes the WorkBook Project possible. But for me It’s about creative choices that effect a vast world where the characters and stories we tell live. Where a scene can play through time and space. It can resolve itself on a mobile device, in a dark theater or in someone’s living room. The technology that we use is merely another creative tool no different than a lens or a camera.

There are some amazing projects that embrace technology and data sets. Data is something that touches all of our lives and it is a language that we all will find ourselves learning whether we like it or not. In many ways data is boring but it can also become a beautiful moving piece of art. For instance We Feel Fine jumps to mind. The project is emotional and tells a collective story that connects people all over the world. I could argue that it is as beautiful as some of the foreign films I love. It is an amazing piece of art yet informative and touching all at the same time.

Now Transmedia isn’t for all stories. In fact for some it could be considered a distraction especially if you try to shoehorn it into a project. But that’s because the language for telling stories across multiple devices and screens is relatively a new form. Like writing a good script it takes time to develop a rich storyworld one where you feel a connection to the characters, engage in the story and escape into the world that surrounds you.

One area that I’ve been focusing over the last year is within the mobile app space. The following column from Filmmaker Mag explains some of the reasons why.

It’s a known fact that the film industry has no shortage of middlemen. The path between filmmaker and audience is littered with them – some good, some bad. But the promise of a direct connection to an audience has become the currency of the future. These days it seems as if everyone is trying to find a way to capitalize on fostering stronger relationships with audiences. Much of these efforts are focused after the film is finished when it comes time to promote and market the work. Although some filmmakers are including audience development in their initial business plans, many are still only working to build awareness around traditional elements such as theatrical, DVD and VOD.

Are we missing a window of opportunity by limiting ourselves to formats, running times and traditional markets?

Consider the Following:

* To date, Apple has shipped more than 70 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices and it’s projected that within the next two years they’ll have more than 200 million in the market.

* More than 140,000 applications have been created for the iPhone and iPod.

* Each day, 60,000 Android devices ship.

* The fledging Android Market has more than 10,000 apps.

These stats are just one part of a growing mobile device market, which is currently expanding due to a new generation of tablets. Apple’s iPad and a slew of other computer and handset manufacturers have tablets entering the market over the next few months. Larger screens, faster processors, wireless connectivity and the ability to run various browser and mobile-based applications will all be here soon. We don’t know yet if this generation of tablets will resonate with consumers but, as we have seen in the past, devices do have the ability to influence user behavior and consumption. The iPod revitalized the value of a music track and now the publishing industry is hoping the iPad can do the same for books and zines.

READ MORE

Followers

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:56:35 GMT

Here is my interview with Scott Kirsner, who is the author of Friend, Fans & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age. Scott spoke on various panels at SXSW.

What did you take away from SXSW this year?

SXSW is always great. I tell filmmakers that it’s the best annual event for figuring out how film and technology work together, and how new online dynamics are changing the way people will consume video. As far as what I took away, I did sessions at SXSW with the videoblogger/Internet artist Ze Frank and Gary Hustwit, who makes documentaries like “Helvetica” and “Objectified.” Both of them really underscored for me that if you do something you’re interested in (or even obsessed about), do it well, and let people get involved (giving them ways to participate and support you), there really is a viable way to be an independent artist in these digital times…without being a shameless self-promoter.

How should film schools adapt to a new media landscape?

I think they ought to be encouraging students to think about making new forms of content that take advantage of technological possibilities: short-form stuff that’s linked in new ways, that connects to location, that engages the viewer in different ways than feature-length, cinematically-exhibited films do. What can you make that lives in Facebook, that spreads via Twitter? Does there need to be a boundary between film and games? I’d like to see more film schools encouraging students to ask those kinds of questions.

When you wrote Fans, Friends And Followers what information did you find surprising?

Mostly, how experimental you have to be to figure out a strategy that works for you to build an audience. A remix contest may work for someone, but not someone else. You need to let a thousand flowers bloom.

Will creators have to spend more money on marketing as the web becomes crowded with new entertainment?

Well, spending lots of money on marketing, whether it’s billboards along every major highway or a Super Bowl ad, is a pretty time-tested way to get people to be aware of your product. But I actually think the online world gives creators more opportunities to organically build word-of-mouth about what they’re doing, rather than buying awareness. And when you do buy stuff, like ads on Facebook or Google, you can do it in a targeted, inexpensive way, without needing to hire an ad agency. That’s really revolutionary for individual creators.

How can artists do more to recognize fans who actually buy their content?

Well, crediting or thanking them is one way. Integrating them into the content somehow is another. M dot Strange incorporated images of some of his fans into his debut feature, “We Are the Strange,” and Jill Sobule sings about some of the donors who made her 2009 album “California Years” possible.

Is content still king or have aggregators taken its crown?

I am a believer in democracy, not monarchy. I think great work will always be recognized, will always find an audience, and that there will be ways for its creators to earn a living. People vote with their dollars, and they are still purchasing books, CDs, movie tickets, movie downloads, videogames, etc. And I’m hopeful that content and aggregators can coexist peacefully.

If you were going to be a financier in the entertainment industry what would be the best investment and why?

Well, I’m really interested in companies like JibJab Media or Next New Networks that have been trying to create new kinds of studio models… What would the next Disney or Paramount look like? What would the production costs be? What kinds of stories would you be telling, and how can the audience be involved in new ways? That said, there have been some failures already in that arena— but I also believe we’ll eventually see some successes.

My Vision (guesses) for the Future

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:43:47 GMT

These predictions are based on my experience at SXSW:

1.The film and music industry will create casual games for Facebook. It will be an effective way to organize fan communities, sell them digital goods, merchandise, tickets to new media events, and introduce them to similar films and music they might like.

2.Apple, Amazon, and Netflix will compete against each other as film buyers to have exclusive rights to hot titles at the Sundance Film Festival.

3.Tastemakers who curate music and film content will actually get paid for their service.

4.Film studios will do more to reach out to Silicon Valley and fund/acquire their own web startups.

5.More entertainment created specifically for the web will be optioned to become TV shows or films.

6.Most film schools will teach 3D film production.

7.With a growing audience excited to watch everything in 3D, including ads, more TV shows are going be produced.

8.Major corporations will create platforms that support entertainment and finance the creation of content. They can own their TV network online versus paying for ads to place on another network.

9.Film studios will hire community managers and some will volunteer to manage fan communities for a movie even after a flick has left theaters.

My Vision (guesses) for the Future

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:21:01 GMT

These predictions are based on my experience at SXSW:

2.Apple, Amazon, and Netflix will compete against each other as film buyers to have exclusive rights to hot titles at the Sundance Film Festival.

3.Tastemakers who curate music and film content will actually get paid for their service.

4.Film studios will do more to reach out to Silicon Valley and fund/acquire their own web startups.

5.More entertainment created specifically for the web will be optioned to become TV shows or films.

6.Most film schools will teach 3D film production.

7.With a growing audience excited to watch everything in 3D, including ads, more TV shows are going be produced.

8.Major corporations will create platforms that support entertainment and finance the creation of content. They can own their TV network online versus paying for ads to place on another network.

9.Film studios will hire community managers and some will volunteer to manage fan communities for a movie even after a flick has left theaters.

EVENT: Join the Conversation at Columbia

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:17:10 GMT

On March 27th The Conversation comes to Columbia University. Started in 2008, The Conversation is a look at the future of filmmaking and how advancements in technology are enabling new opportunities for filmmakers. The program for March 27th is extensive and will bring together a number of innovative thinkers in the space. For more information visit www.theconversationspot.com

We had a chance to sit down with Scott Kirsner to discuss The Conversation.

Five questions about the Conversation

WorkBook Project: Can you explain why the Conversation and why now?

Scott Kirsner: We did the first Conversation event in the Bay Area, back in late 2008. There was lots of interest in doing an East Coast version, but it was tough to find the right venue, until Ira Deutchman at Columbia got involved and suggested we do it there. The time seemed right to bring people together to talk about digital distribution, social media, and all of the ways that the Internet and new technologies are changing the business of film and visual storytelling, creating all kinds of new opportunities (and also challenges, if you’re wedded to the traditional ways of doing things.)

2008 speakers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis of JibJab

WBP: What are some of the innovations that you’re seeing in the space that excite you most?

SK: I’m personally really interested right now in the way new set-top boxes like Roku and Boxee are making it possible for anyone to create channels and deliver digital content to viewers’ televisions. That seems like it could have a really positive democratizing effect on the media landscape. I’m also interested in the experiments people are doing with episodic video on the Internet, trying to find business models that will support it, whether it’s sponsorship, advertising, selling merchandise, or eventually collecting the series on a DVD.

WBP: In your opinion what are the most pressing issues today for filmmakers or others working in the digital content space?

SK: There are three big issues, I think: what are the new forms and formats that are emerging, and how can you tell compelling stories within them; how can you continually expand your audience, and connect with audience members in meaningful ways; and how can you generate a solid financial return on what you’re doing?

WBP: What are some of the topics of discussion for the Conversation?

Using Twitter effectively as a filmmaker…creating content especially for the Internet…talking about films that have actually done well in digital channels…and Peter Broderick is doing a workshop about how to carve up the rights to your film (DVD, TV, digital, theatrical, etc.) to generate the most revenue.

WBP: What do you hope comes out of the Conversation?

SK: Well, as with the last one, I hope there’s a lot of spontaneous things that happen on the day of the event that we haven’t planned in advance. We have these opportunities to lead lunch discussion groups, so you can literally just jump up and declare that you want to talk about promoting your film at festivals, or getting lots of YouTube views, or whatever — and have a group coalesce around that. Another big goal for The Conversation is to bring together people who’ve actually been pioneers in lots of different areas, so they can share their stories about what has worked well for them — and what hasn’t. I think this event, like the DIY Days gatherings that you run, and like The Workbook Project itself, is really about giving people the information and tools to be smarter pioneers, and smarter businesspeople in this new environment we’re in.