There has been a lot of murmur around Felicia Day rolling her eyes as she said the word “transmedia” in her SXSW keynote speech on Monday, and what that frustration coming from a highly respected online creator might mean for those of us who do transmedia as a passion, or for a living.

In a panel later that day with Craig Engler from SyFy.com, Riese: Kingdom Falling creator Ryan Copple, and Mercury Men creator Chris Preksta, she laid out some of her reasons for disliking the word.

Honestly, after listening to her talk, I think Day outed herself as a transmedia person by expressing distaste for the term – and for the traditional marketing people who have mistakenly taken “transmedia” to mean franchising or merchandising.  She gave a very long explanation of her views (too long to write down) and they basically line up with the discussions we’ve been having in the Transmedia Artists Guild for over a year.

What does it mean for people who create things like Perplex City if all a producer sees there is a trading card game?  For Cathy’s Book if a publisher only sees another novelty book-plus?  For Pandemic 1.0 if marketers only see a really neat trade show booth?

The question is whether we should try to snatch the word “transmedia” from the jaws of marketer douchebaggery, or let it get torn to shreds and come up with other terms for a medium-spanning experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Tim O’Reilly did an informal keynote at SXSW on Friday, in which he talked about the switch from the term “free software” to the term “open source.”  The shift occurred as O’Reilly talked with people about the mythology of their community and gradually altered how they identified their projects and themselves.

Likewise with the term “maker” – which manages to include crafters, coders, roboticists, chemists, and tinkerers while leaving out people who don’t invent or produce, and making creation a source of pride.  The transmedia world still doesn’t have anything nearly so specific or evocative that includes puppetmasters, distributed literature authors, and immersive game designers, but excludes people who release a tv series with its own breakfast cereal.

I’ve been trying to think about what makes the things we do special.  Ok, let’s take a basic idea.  We’re not working in one medium, we’re working in multiple media.  So multimedia.

Ok, that’s…good but it’s really 1990.  But the media part is good.  Let’s keep that.  What about…cross media?

Ok, cross media is pretty good, but some people treat that as system of content delivery, or a strategy for choosing marketing hooks.  What we’re talking about are cohesive projects that exist over all their parts in different media.   We need something that says “big, overarching, pervasive” something that transports you from one medium to another…transcends…transforms…trans…

Transmedia.

Crap.

Anybody got any better ideas?  Let’s hear em in the comments.

The lovely Glennis McMurray (RADAR Ep2 - I Eat Pandas) shared a bit of her world with us by curating AND writing this weeks edition of RADAR NYC. Glennis is co-founder of I Eat Pandas, Founder of G.L.O.C (Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy), can be found on numerous stages, and all over the internets. Last time I saw Glennis was at the URDB Christmas event breaking the world record for the longest musical chairs interlude clocking in at 04:53.90 min/sec. And so, without further ado…

Space Unicorn – Parry Gripp

Nerd trifecta alert! Parry Gripp, unicorns, and space! Parry Gripp, lead singer of Nerf Herder, called for Space Unicorn drawings to accompany his latest meme and the result is a highly watchable, totally danceable and pretty darn adorable video. My one regret in life is that I didn’t submit a drawing. Well, that and the perm disaster of ‘94.

Tony! Toni! Toné! – “If I Had No Loot”

Da da da day, hey! Long before Cee-Lo told that money-grubbing ex what was what in “F*ck You”, there was a funky boy band by the name of Tony! Toni! Toné! (The third Toné had acute accent.  Heyoooo.) and I, for one, have had this song on repeat as of late. The Tony/i/é trio called out the moochers in “If I Had No Loot,” providing the world with not only the best song of all time (I said it), but a song with a message. And that message?  No one in this band is named Tony (i/é). Nailed it!

Julie Klausner’s – I Don’t Care About Your Band

Are you a lady? Were you, are you, or will you one day be in your twenties? Have you yet realized how much your twenties sucked BALLS (sometimes literally)? Then Julie Klausner’s book, I Don’t Care About Your Band is for you! She lays her poor decisions on the table like a sassy deck of sex cards and makes you feel a little less awful about being such an idiot in the second decade of your life.  Empowering and hilarious and soon to be an HBO hit starring Lizzy Caplan!

You can buy the book HERE

In The Pony Palace / FOOTBALL

I am really looking forward to Half Straddle’s “In The Pony Palace/FOOTBALL”. So much so that I’m going to be at every performance! That’s how much I love this show! OK, full disclosure: I’m in the show.  Kristina Satter’s play about living for a feeling and being on a team features a marching band and live mashups by Chris Giarmo. (Lady Gaga meets the Stones, what the what?!) Tickets:
http://www.thebushwickstarr.org/

Side note: Jon Friedman’s The Rejection Show is always a great time.
Monday the 14th they take on lurv (or lack thereof) with the Valentine’s Day Heartbreak Haven.
http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=3395105

Catalogliving + @Caissie

I am obsessed with Molly Erdman’s Catalog Living.  Gary and Elaine’s delightfully droll catalog life leaves me hungry for more, eaten off Crate & Barrel plates on a West Elm table.

Follow the hilarious Caissie St.Onge – @Caissie – on Twitter.  She’s why twitter was invittered.

(via www.fuckedinparkslope.com)

Marc Horowitz Advice of Strangers

Now, we suggested a few weeks ago that you follow Marc Horowitz (RADAR ep18 – Google Maps Road Trip) in his latest project, The Advice of Strangers. For the month of November, he put up his daily decisions to a poll for his followers to vote on, everything from who to vote for in the election to how he should indulge in an egg roll. If you didn’t check it out, here’s your chance to see what you missed. The response was quite overwhelming, some of the polls getting more than a thousand votes. And even though the polls are all closed now, he’s still posting a few updates. And if you have been following along, it’s definitely been cool to see it all unfold.

The Advice of Strangers website

Reading Rainbow – Prism Eyes LP

Reading Rainbow (RADAR ep38 – Weathervane) is a blast of reverb-happy, jangly guitars and catchy male-female vocal harmonies. And now they have an album out! Prism Eyes, their new LP, is a fast-paced, yet dreamy, adventure through a series of different genres and eras of music, including lo-fi garage rock, shoegaze, surf rock, and even a bit of 60s pop. What ties it all together is the high production values that really do create a wall of sound. This Philadelphia duo is definitely a band to follow in 2011.

Check the album out HERE

Tanya Fischer (Bambi Killers) interview

By night Tanya Fischer is part of the blood-drenched punk rock/performance art group Bambi Killers (RADAR ep12 – Bambi Killers), but in prime time she plays the character Zoey on the show The Defenders. It’s forgivable if you couldn’t recognize her without the blood. Here’s an interview where she talks about finding time to balance both gigs, as well as her film debut in “The Assassination of a High School President.” She also describes Bruce Willis as “a cool cat.” I like anyone who can work that phrase into an interview. Check it out!

Read Interview HERE
http://www.bambikillersnyc.com/blog/

Bear Hands at Bowery Ballroom

Bear Hands (RADAR ep37 – Dickchicken) recently released their energetic debut album, Burning Bush Supper Club, and now they’re coming home to New York. On Dec 17, they’re playing at the famous Bowery Ballroom, with opening bands Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and The Tony Castles. Get your tickets before the show sells out!

Friday, Dec 17 – 8:00 p.m.
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancey St.
New York, NY 10002
$13-$15
EVENT INFO

FOLLOW

Fucked In Park Slope

I’ll start with a personal anecdote: I was walking down 5th Ave in Park Slope, behind a family about to cross the street, only to have a car run a red light in front of them. The father flips out, screaming obscenities and starts kicking the car, and then kicks another car, in front of his kids, with his wife egging him on.

It was then when I realized that maybe Park Slope isn’t quite as quaint as I originally thought. And that’s what this blog is for. Fucked in Park Slope is written by residents of this pretty, gentrified and allegedly family-friendly neighborhood, where they rant, rave, and snarkily report the daily happenings. Honestly, if you’ve ever gotten frustrated by the G train, this blog is for you.

fuckedinparkslope.com

(Painting by Jay Shells and Ben Hollingsworth)

This week, we asked Jay Shells (RADAR ep 25 – Subway Etiquette) to curate this week’s installment of RADAR NYC. He obliged us with some submissions that give us a peek inside a subway artist’s head, including a blog on New York subway art, a humorous book on racism and culture, and a beautiful video of fingerboarding.

Hermes Fingerskate

Everyone who went to high school in the last decade remembers fingerboards, right? Those little skateboards you could do tiny-sized ollies and shove-its with? I’m betting not that many people ever got that good at it. But while the rest of our ADD-addled brains moved on to 5 or 6 more things, Alexis Milant mastered the art of it. And directing, apparently! This video is surprisingly well made, with impressive lighting and editing that gives it production values you just don’t see on Youtube. But more important than that, it’s just really cool to watch.

Alexis Milant’s website

Fitz and the Tantrums – MoneyGrabber

First of all, Fitz and the Tantrums is either the most awesome or awful band name ever, depending on your view of puns (I would say awesome, personally). Once you get past that and watch the video for MoneyGrabber, you’ll see that there’s a lot more to them than just a cool name. As one (unusually perceptive) Youtube commenter puts it, “did Motown and Bowie have a lovechild?” Really, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Prepare to have this, and the rest of their songs, in your head all day.

You can find their album and a free download of MoneyGrabber here

ego trip’s Big Book of Racism!

Oh, this is sure to offend some sensitive folks. Proclaiming “we just hate everybody,” Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism promises to take down literally every group imaginable. And while the book’s five authors of color clearly want to make their readers laugh, there is a serious message in it all: racism is indeed everywhere in our culture, and rather than hiding from it, we should put it all out there and make fun of it. We can learn a lot about other people—and ourselves as well.

You can buy the book HERE

Jay Shells and Benjamin Hollingsworth at Gallery Bar

(Kenny Scharf’s new mural)

On December 17, Jay Shells will be joining Benjamin Hollingsworth at Gallery Bar for a show with all new paintings. This will be a chance to see some of his non-subway related work, and hey, a chance to have some drinks at nice bar surrounded by beautiful artwork. Hard to pass that up. And while you’re in the area, be sure to see Kenny Scharf’s new mural on the Hole Wall at Houston and Bowery while it’s still up.

Friday Dec 21 · 6:00 p.m.
Gallery Bar
120 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002
EVENT INFO

FOLLOW

Subway Art, Animal NY, Changethethought

This week, Jay offers us 3 blogs worth checking out. Changethethought is designer Christopher Cox’s portfolio-turned-resource for all sorts of creative minds. Animal New York is a culture blog for snarky, creative New Yorkers who like reading about street art just as much as they like making fun of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy and his bad trip to the city. And the Subway Art Blog is definitely a website that would appeal to the average New York commuter just as much as it would appeal to the creator of Subway Etiquette signs—a look at various bits of random art that pops up in the world’s most complex subway system. On that note, now is a good time to follow @jayshells on Twitter as well.

Changethethought
Animal New York
Subway Art Blog
Jay Shells’ Twitter, Tumblr

WBPLabs has partnered up with 3rd Ward for our latest series, Inside Design (to be released). 3rd Ward is a member-based art and design center for creative professionals in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Workbook Project is a big fan of 3rd Ward as it’s an innovative business space that is fueling the creative community.

As part of our partnership, 3rd Ward has offered Workbook Project readers an exclusive membership promotion. Unlimited Membership offers access to resources that would otherwise be too costly for many artists and designers: a wood/metal shop, a media lab, photo studios, jewelry studio, private & collaborative workspace, and over 100 education classes — all under one roof. Please take advantage of this generous offer and also spread the word. Share this promo code with your friends, family and colleagues. And if you don’t plan on becoming a member, do yourself a favor and check out the website for upcoming events and monthly classes.

Exclusive Offer:
Workbook Project readers who sign up for Unlimited Membership get their first month FREE (a $359 value). Schedule a tour and claim your free month today at: http://www.3rdward.com/takeatour/wp
PROMO CODE: OPENCREATE

I spoke with Jessica Tom, 3rd Ward’s Marketing Director, about 3rd Ward, how it’s facilitating the emerging creative class, and what’s to come.

What is the main concept and intention of 3rd Ward?

Give creative people the resources they need so they can take risks and make things the world has never seen. When you don’t have to worry about space, tools, knowledge, etc… the world is at your fingertips. Without physical limitations, you can realize your creative potential and more.

How is this concept of community / shared workspace and artist development facilitating the local creative community?

It is low-cost, high-inspiration. Don’t know how to use After Effects? Take a class. Need to shoot your new jewelry line? Book a photo studio. Need some legs for your table? Ask your new friend in the metal shop. By sharing tools, knowledge and space, creative people can seamlessly cross media boundaries, learn faster and grow stronger. More and more creative people are moving to freelance. 3rd Ward gives them structure and endless possibilities to create and collaborate.

How has 3rd Ward been able to sustain and grow into a thriving business?

We’ve been able to grow by listening to our members. We’d just be a building with some expensive stuff inside were it not for our people. They are very vocal about what works for them, and we respond in kind. Ultimately, what’s best for their businesses — whether we’re talking about out photographers, set designers, fabricators, hackers, or whatever — is best for our business. We succeed as a creative workspace if they succeed as creators.

We’ve grown by offering the best possible experience to our members — through our comprehensive facilities and classes, but also by creating a truly warm and supportive environment. Together, that creates pretty fertile ground for pretty amazing work!

What’s the future of 3rd Ward? What’s the future of creative workspaces?

We’re building out our 2nd floor to include a bigger wood shop, more photo studios, and more learning spaces. We’re also developing a “3rd Ward Member-Made” brand of furniture that we’d like to sell at stores across the country (if you’re a buyer, contact us!).

The creative workspaces of tomorrow will likely have some aspect of sharing. There’s less waste, less money spent, and more opportunities for collaboration. Also, being successful now depends on how well you’re able to draw upon different disciplines. People wear more hats now because budgets are tight and companies must do more with less. Knowing how to use Photoshop is like knowing how to use scissors and glue. Everyone needs to be a marketer. If you’re a set designer, you might do some 3D modeling, but you’re much more marketable who if you can build the set, choreograph, film, edit, and write the copy on the fliers!

3rd Ward is a pretty unique place and there’s no where in the world quite like it. It’d be interesting to see more place like us. They’d be competition, but I believe a rising tide raises all ships.

Eclectic Method – 8 Bit Mixtape

Eclectic Method – 8 Bit Mixtape from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

If you haven’t heard of Eclectic Method (RADAR EP 7), well, chances are you’ve encountered their work without even realizing who was behind it. The group, formed in 2002 by Jonny Wilson, Ian Edgar and Geoff Gamlen, is one of the central pioneers of the art of audio/visual remixing. They’re not DJ’s. They’re not VJ’s. They are, in many ways, both, and so much more. Self-dubbed as “DVJ’s,” the group is often asked which aspect of their craft is most important, and which comes first: the audio or the visuals. They believe that both are equally important, and that they couldn’t possibly have one without the other and still call themselves Eclectic Method. Since their start nearly a decade ago, they have mixed U2 videos with Beastie Boys, and Kill Bill fight scenes with Dave Chappelle’s standup, all before the concept of a “mashup” had ever entered the mainstream. Check out one of their newer videos, 8 Bit Mixtape, where they mix classic video game video and their theme songs. I was blown away when I saw this. Who knew that someone could take the primitive digital beeps from Sega and spin it into a hot dance mix, with an awesome video, equipped with dancing Tetris blocks, to go with it? I don’t want to give too much away, but they somehow managed to work in The Notorious B.I.G. in a very clever way. That’s all I’m saying. Check it out for yourself. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’d rather dance to this video than sit in the basement and play Donkey Kong any day.

Auto-Tune the News #13 ft. Weezer

Remember the Gregory Brothers (RADAR EP 27)? From Turtles to the Antoine Dodson Bed Intruder Song, we’re sure you’ve heard of them by now. They just released a new video, this time expanding their level of collaboration from just within their group to include the well-known indie-rock band, Weezer. This adds a new layer to the Auto-Tune the News videos, and maybe this will be a recurring theme, bringing in different well-known artists to add a unique spin on each video, or maybe this is just a one-time experiment. Either way, we’re pretty into their newest installment.

Brooklyn Bitches on a Budget

If you’re like me, a recent college graduate who just moved to Brooklyn, then you’re probably pinching pennies, living paycheck to paycheck, just tryina’ get by. But there’s hope for us yet! This awesome blog, Brooklyn Bitches on a Budget, gives advice to people who are trying to live exciting, fulfilled lives in this great city we call home, but don’t necessarily have the funds to live extravagantly, in the conventional sense, that is. The blog outlines cool DIY projects (ranging everywhere from interior decorating to circle scarf-making), how-to’s (like free vacations, getting in shape, and decorating your fire escape), and various unique recipes for at-home meals and treats. The best part about this site is that it is in no way limited to those who reside in Brooklyn (after careful examination of the blog, I’m convinced that the creators decided on the title merely for catchy alliteration’s sake). Not only are the DIY projects accessible to anyone anywhere on a budget (or not on a budget, for that matter, for those willing), but there’s also a section of the blog devoted to outlining activities and attractions specific to various New York neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs (“neighborhood on a budget”). Reading this has inspired me not only to explore the little-known jewels in my own new neighborhood, but to discover different places all around New York, a city with which I’ve been familiar (or so I thought) since birth. And what better way to get to know your city than doing so for free?

Brooklyn Bitches on a Budget

Crafts in Chelsea III

The {NewNew} partners with PS 11 to bring you CRAFTS IN CHELSEA III on Saturday, October 16 from 9-5pm. This event is held on 21st street between 8th and 9th avenue and will occur rain or shine. This event spotlights over 100 of the best local New York artists and craftspeople vending their own unique jewelry, pottery, clothing, fine art and other handmade goods. Visitors to the fair will enjoy the opportunity to converse with artists about their creative processes while shopping for one of a kind items. This event is run in conjunction with PS 11’s annual FALL FESTIVAL – an indoor event that includes food, arts and crafts, bouncy castles, games and a petting zoo for New York City children. Last year this event drew record crowds and helped to fund arts programs for the students of PS 11.

From the site:
“A fall handmade street fair of the finest handmade arts and crafts the New York Metro are has to offer. From elegant jewelry to unique upcycled handbags, to cutting edge fashions, artwork, and more! All handmade within the New York Tri-state region.”

Sat, October 16, 10am – 5pm
21st street between 8th and 9th avenue, NYC

Event Info

It Gets Better Project

Inspired by the recent tragic spike in LGBT youth suicides, advice columnist Dan Savage and his partner Terry created the “It Gets Better Project,” a campaign intended to reach out to teenagers and send the message that life really gets better after high school, and to tough it out until then. The project is incredibly inspirational and moving, and anyone who wants to can be involved. The first video is a talking-heads piece featuring Dan and his partner, exposing very personal accounts of how difficult it was for them growing up as homosexual kids, but how, once they finally got past adolescence, life was better, even wonderful. The couple encourages people to send in videos of their own, giving their own personal accounts and advice. This collaborative, communal approach is wonderful, and, most importantly, will hopefully achieve what it set out to do. Savage believes that something like this is necessary in a YouTube-ruled society, where most of these kids don’t have flesh-and-blood role models to help them through these tough times, but they do have computers. If you’re as moved by this as we are, send in a video! Or if you have nothing to contribute, check out the YouTube channel frequently, as new videos are added all the time.

Link – It Gets Better YouTube Channel

HOTEL (creepy interactive story/game)

There’s something pretty slick and trippy about HOTEL, the latest interactive Flash-based story from our friends over at SubmarineChannel. The story, now ten chapters deep, starts off some in sort of disjointed, Lynchian world, where each click of your mouse propels you deeper into the rabbit hole. With a story that sucks you in like HOTEL, just make sure you have some time on your hands when you check it out.

Play HOTEL

Lymbyc Systym – Narita Music Video

We’ve featured tunes from the Lymbyc Systym before, so we wanted to share their nifty video for “Narita,” a track off their Field Studies EP. The song is half hazy shoegaze, half Ben-Gibbard-inspired instrumental chugging, but the real treat is the video; it juxtaposes the schizophrenic music with shots of wildlife interspersed with urban sprawl. Even though it’s shot on video, the quick clip is a whole lot of cool.

Visit their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thelymbycsystym

Gregory Brothers – Wired Interview

If you have a pulse and a connection to the internet (you’re reading this, right?), you’ve heard the Gregory Brothers. The four-piece comedic troupe – that includes one woman – may not be famous by name, but you’ve definitely seen their videos. They’re the brains behind Auto-Tune the News (RADAR Ep27) and recent meme-cash-ins “Bed Intruder” and the “Double Rainbow” song. The group recently sat down with Wired to dish on everything from their process to making unintentional singers famous. We highly recommend it.

Read Wired Interview

Story Pirates: Create-a-Show

The Story Pirates (RADAR Ep30) Twitter bio really does sum them up best: “Kids write stories = We act them out = Kids write more.” For the unfamiliar, the Story Pirates are an improve group that perform for children, acting on the suggestions and reactions from the tikes in the audience. This month, the seven-person cast will put on musical numbers at the Downtown Community Center in Tribeca. Sounds like a good time even if you aren’t a parent or under twelve…

Sept 12th 2pm
Downtown Community Center
120 Warren St (between Greenwich and West St)
$18; Workshop and Show: $30
Event Info

FOLLOW

@beatonna

Hark! A Vagrant is a cool little webcomic by Kate Beaton. Her latest entries have been a series of riffing on old Nancy Drew book covers and we’ve got to say, we’re fans. Check out the wit on display both on her website and on her Twitter. We know you’ll dig it too.

Hark! A Vargrant – http://www.harkavagrant.com/
Kate Beaton Twitter – http://twitter.com/beatonna

The WorkBook Project, Slamdance, Cinema Speakeasy, CineFist and the Downtown Independent are pleased to announce a collaboratively curated short film program, in support of the WorkBook Project Discovery and Distribution Award winner One Hundred Mornings.

LOCATION:

Downtown Independent Theatre
251 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
www.downtownindependent.com
(213) 617-1033

Tickets available now: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producerevent/124646

SHORTS PROGRAM:

**Shorts play nightly at 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM, unless otherwise specified.

Thu 16 Sep
Opening night for One Hundred Mornings: No Short

Fri 17 Sep: CineFist presents
Unawakening
Dir. by Jack Daniel Stanley (in attendance)
TRT 8.5 min.
Synopsis: Haunted by visions of murder and a macabre woodland burial, a man with a troubled marriage must distinguish reality from hallucination in this thrilling Hitchcock/Poe homage.

Sat 18 Sep: Cinema Speakeasy presents
Kitty Kitty
Dir. by Michael Medaglia (in attendance)
TRT 11 min.
Synopsis: Val’s boyfriend has been acting strange lately. She knows he is changing, but into what? A short film about love, romance, and brain parasites.

Sun 19 Sep: Slamdance & Cal Arts present
Dos, Por Favor
Dir. by Fabian Euresti (in attendance)
TRT 11 min.
Synopsis: A man gets out of prison and arrives at an impasse in life. Before he can move forward, he must re-examine his past. ‘Dos, Por Favor’ examines the choices one makes in life, by questioning whether one has a choice at all.

Mon 20 Sep: Downtown Independent presents
Look Not at the Mountains
Dir. by the Younesi Brothers (in attendance)
TRT 18 min.
Synopsis: In 1904, a team of hunters are led through the deserts of Africa by a mad Colonialist zealot.

Tue 21 Sep: Slamdance & Cinema Speakeasy present
Some of an Equation
Dir. by Burke Roberts (in attendance)
TRT 7 min.
Synopsis: A film in one continuous shot exploring just how very bad things can go in only a few minutes.

Wed 22 Sep: CineFist presents
O2
Dir. by Tim Hyten (in attendance)
TRT 7 min.
Synopsis: In deep space with a crippled oxygen supply, a three person crew grapples with the notion that life support will only allow two to survive the trip to a neighboring freighter.

About One Hundred Mornings:
(85 mins, Ireland, written and directed by Conor Horgan)
Awards include: Slamdance Special Mention, IFTA for Best Cinematography
Synopsis: Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide out in a lakeside cabin hoping to survive the crisis. As resources run low and external threats increase, each of them faces a critical decision they never thought they’d have to make.
www.onehundredmornings.com

About The Workbook Project Discovery and Distribution Award:
The WorkBook Project Discovery and Distribution Award is part of an expanded WBP initiative to provide tangible options for those working in film, music, games, design and software to fund, create, distribute and sustain. The award opens new channels and modes of distribution currently unavailable in the traditional system and established festival circuit. Pooling distribution channels, making them accessible, and spotlighting a featured filmmaker with theatrical run and packaged PR through secured resources, the WBP Award displaces a limited bottleneck system with an open-source, sustainability model. In addition to the winner, The WBP awarded another 20 selected filmmakers with an exclusive digital distribution access package provided by WBP Award partner IndieFlix that will place them on Hulu, iTunes, Netfilx, and variety of other outlets.
www.workbookproject.com/award

I was lucky to get the chance last week to sit down with Connor Horgan, Writer and Director of the Workbook Project Discovery and Distribution Award winning film, One Hundred Mornings. He talked about making the film, the challenged he faced, some of his upcoming projects (shark hunting, anyone?), being “chuffed,” and some very useful advice for anyone aspiring to make films, which can be helpful for anyone trying to follow their artistic dreams, be they film, writing, shark-hunting, what have you.

How did you come up with the idea for this film?
Conor: I had been reading a lot about some of the challenges that are looming and in the middle of all that, I went to a talk given by Margaret Atwood and she recommended a book called A Short History of Progress by a Canadian author called Ronald Wright, and I read that and a couple of other things, and they really just opened my eyes and blew my mind a little about how reliant we are on all of this easily available power. And I saw how in New Orleans after Katrina, how quickly the whole fabric of society can just fall down, and I found this a really compelling subject, so when the chance came to make a low budget film, or as Americans like to say, and “indie film,” it seemed like an ideal topic to explore. And if I’m going to make a film about a world in which all the lights have gone out and where there’s no power and society is breaking down, I was really interested in making as realistic a version of that world as possible, and that was an achievable thing to do on a very low budget. In this world where if you want to know what’s happening over the next hill, you have to climb the hill and look over it. There are no phones, no other forms of communication, so the world that people would live in and the series of events would be very small, and that serves the scale of the film as well.

Along those lines, what was the motivation for the small cast, the very few locations, and the very little dialog in the film?
Conor: Taking those in order, with the small cast, I liked the idea of a small group of people who are forced by circumstances to live together when they weren’t getting along terribly well, and also who displayed the characteristics that many of us come up with when faced with a looming crisis. Like some people go straight into denial, some have an unrealistic amount of optimism, some sort of hope that someone else will sort it out. I thought that to have this small group of people who obviously have pre-existing relationships, that was something that appealed to me. It’s not just the four people in the house; there are other people around, people who pass through, who play very significant parts in the story. But I wanted really to concentrate on the human cost, the human reactions to how we deal with the circumstances of our actions, in good ways and not so good ways, in helpful ways and not so helpful ways. I felt that having a basic cast of four people would allow me to play with that in hopefully what would be a good way. The house, the one location, as I said before, it was very fitting for the world that I wanted to create, where a lot of the action would take place in or around one location. I knew that if most of us end up in this kind of societal breakdown, we probably would hold up in one single place and see what that would be like. If you look up post apocalyptic things, a lot of people think that if the world breaks down there will just be no rules and no societal constraints and I’ll be able to do whatever the hell I want and it’ll actually be fun, but if you do any kind of reading or thinking about what that world would actually be like, it would be incredibly dull at times and very tense, and not necessarily exciting in the way that people would expect, and I wanted to get that across in the film.

What about the dialog?
Conor: Partially, as a filmmaker, it always appeals to me to show more than to tell. But I also thought that as relationships between the four main characters of the house deteriorated, they’d be talking to each other at the bare minimum, the way that people become defensive or guarded as they become increasingly isolated. And as I look at the way our society is at the moment, we tend to become quite splintered, isolated, rather than all coming together and working together, everyone is becoming more separate, and that was replicated in the house. The more that was happening, the less they were saying. The more the story was progressing, they were saying as little as possible, almost to conserve energy. When I was writing the script, I was trying to tell the story as visually as I could, and I probably cut about half the dialog in the course of writing the script, and when it actually came to shooting it, I probably cut about a third of what was left, so I was really quite ruthless with paring it down to the absolute minimum that was needed. I was trying to make the physicality of the actors and their actions tell the story as much as possible.

How much of the setting, the feeling, the dissonance and the distance of the people and the community, or lack thereof, is true to the way that people of Irish culture would react, or the way that humans in general would react, or was this just a thematic choice on your part?
Conor: I never really saw this as being culturally specific. A few people have said to me, “This doesn’t feel like an Irish movie,” and to me, I don’t know entirely what an Irish movie would feel like, but it’s not what I set out to make. I wanted to make something that was absolutely human and just to try and bring it down to very basic human reactions. Some of those reactions were not the most noble reactions either, and that’s something I worked on with the cast. I remember saying to all of them in rehearsals that there are no heroes and no villains in the film. For each of these characters, there are good reasons for what they do, and they’re very understandable reasons given the circumstances. Now, how they play off and how they affect the other characters is the other characters’ problem. I didn’t want to have these clear heroes and villains. I wanted everyone to actually be human, and actually not to judge all of the characters and what they do, but just to understand it.

Why did you choose to have the circumstances in the film world, i.e. how they ended up that way, nonspecific?
Conor: Probably the most important reason is that the film is about how we as humans deal with the consequences of our actions, rather than the causes of that. We’re just saying that these are the ways we can deal with the consequences, rightly or wrongly, and that became interesting to me. Another reason is that any time I’ve seen a post-apocalyptic movie, they probably spend the first half of the movie explaining what happened, how it happened and why it happened, and then if you’re of a particular mindset, you then spend the rest of the film arguing in your head with the filmmaker about how that particular scenario might be, and that was not something that interested me. I’m not saying, “Oh, if you don’t look out, this might happen!” There is any number of things that might happen or might not, and if you want to know what they are, just look in the newspapers.

(Director of Photography Suzie Lavelle and Conor Horgan)

Can you talk about production a little bit? How long did it take to make, how much shooting time, were you living on set, etc.
Conor: We shot over 20 days, 4 or 5 day weeks, which is ridiculously small. We weren’t living on the set, but the set was hugely, hugely important. It was a pre-existing wooden cabin on the shores of Lough Dan, which is about a thousand feet up, just outside Dublin. A very particularly beautiful part of the country and also very isolated, which was very important in building this world, and I actually had to go back a little in writing the script, when we started to look at the location and at what that location needed to do, suddenly it became the hardest working location in Ireland. We had to get somewhere that had nice big windows, and most Irish cottages don’t have nice big windows because of the cold and wet and damp over here. We had to get somewhere that was big enough that we could get enough visual variety with a number of interior scenes without using the same shot over and over again. It had to be away from any street lights, any industrial noises, even any livestock. It had to have that kind of strong sense of isolation and that there’s nothing else happening out there. If there had been tractors on the road or something, it would have completely destroyed the illusion of the world that we were creating. It took about eight months of some fairly serious location hunting before we found it.

How did you find it?
Conor: I had a brilliant location manager who kept showing me place after place after place. He showed me one place at the top of a hill and I thought it wasn’t great and the estate agent told us that they had a holiday estate at the bottom of the hill, but were we sure we wanted to go down because it was a very steep hill, but we went down and I looked, and instantly, this was the place. It had so much atmosphere, so much potential. When I brought the actors there, one of the great pleasures was to bring the actors down and show them the locations, and just seeing their faces, it was as if the place had been built for the script. It was kind of perfect. I lived in a little bed and breakfast at the top of this hill, this hill that became rapidly christened “the hill of death,” because it was so steep and kind of burned out one of our trucks and we had to climb up with the truck. I was at the top of the hill, they were down the road, and everyone involved with the film was staying kind of thereabouts, and by halfway through the first week it kind of felt like we were living in the world of the movie. I really think that you can feel it when you see the movie, when you see the actors. It feels like they’re there.

It does. So what other films, and directors or writers, have influenced you in general? And for this film specifically?
Conor: In general, it’s quite hard to say because there have been so many films that I’ve loved. There’s one film I saw that I actually wrote a blog about for Lance for the Workbook Project. I saw a film called Zed when I was about 11 years old, and it was about the injustices of the military dictatorship in Greece in the 1970s, and it was the first time I saw a film that had me tossing and turning at night. Not because I was scared by it, but because I was just infuriated. It was the first time I ever realized that films could evoke such strong feelings in me, or in people, as well as just entertainment, that films could just be really thought-provoking. That was probably as big an influence on me as any film I’ve seen. The effect it’s had on me has stayed with me ever since. I was really interested in trying to make something that was really thought-provoking, that would be challenging in some way, that would challenge people. I’ve had people come up to me six weeks after seeing the movie, telling me that my film has been haunting them. A specific film I found inspiring for this is The Time of the Wolf by Michale Haneke, because it deals with a similar type of situation. It’s different in that it’s a road movie. It’s about a mother with two kids on the road in France, trying to find shelter during a societal breakdown. That was something that certainly was very inspiring for me. Because it’s my first film, you can almost say that every movie I’ve ever seen kind of inspired me, although that’s not entirely true. So many things that I’ve responded to over the years I’ve find inspiring towards making this particular film.

Is this the first film that you’ve made?
Conor: It’s the first feature film, yeah.

How did you start making films, and what was your first gig or first short film that you made? How did you work your way up?
Conor: Well I started as a photographer quite a number of years ago, and moved into advertising, and some people in advertising thought that I might be able to direct TV commercials and it turned out that they were right, and I directed TV commercials for a couple of years, and I did a couple of promos and things like that. Around 2001/ 2002, I started losing interest in that rapidly. There’s only so much you can learn from TV commercials, and you’re not really the master of your own destiny in any sense. And ultimately it’s not storytelling for it’s own sake, it’s for the sake of selling more products. Once I did that and knew I could do that, I really wanted to do something that was a proper story, told for the sake of the story and for no other reason. The first film that I made was called The Last Time. It’s actually on my website, it’s 12 minutes. It’s basically the story of a middle-aged woman who’s going out, looking to get laid, in her mid-50’s. People found that to be an interesting topic and an interesting story and the script seemed to work well, and it just kind of worked. We won a couple of really good awards, and picked up a nationwide release in Ireland with the feature film The Banger Sisters. It probably did as well as a short film coming out of Ireland can do. Halfway through the first day of shooting that, I realized that this is what I want to be doing, I don’t want to be making ads anymore. This is absolutely where I want to be and the kind of thing I want to be doing. So that’s really what I’ve been doing. And since then I’ve written quite a lot. I’ve written a number of feature film scripts which are un-produced, but all of which hopefully have made me a better writer and helped me write the script for One Hundred Mornings better than I would have been able to otherwise. I’ve made a number of experimental films. I made a film about happiness where I went around the country and interviewed nearly 400 people and asked them what made them happy, and I turned that into a 25-minute film. I did a similar one about fear. I went to Paupa New Guinea with an Irish conceptual artist and went out hunting sharks with her in canoes. She was looking for sharks to make art with. And a couple of other documentaries and other things along those lines. I’m working on another feature script which will hopefully be my second film. I’m making a documentary about one of the greatest drag acts and political activists in Ireland, and I’m directing my first show in Dublin in about two weeks, so I’m keeping busy.

What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?
Conor: So many younger filmmakers come to me now, and they know that I’ve made ads, and they think, “Well if I just go into that world, and I learn to play with all the toys and make lots of money, then whenever it suits me, I’ll just go off and make feature films.” And while some people do do that, the vast majority of people who do that end up making ads, and not doing what they really want to do. So as far as my advice to aspiring filmmakers, if you want to make a particular kind of film, make that particular kind of film. Don’t be side tracked. Don’t go into something else just for the money. Because certainly in my experience, advertising is littered with the still breathing corpses of many writer/directors who would much rather be doing something other than what they’re currently doing, and they’ve just gone in there and they weren’t able to get back out again. They got stuck and they fell in love with the money.

So you’ve just won the WorkBook Project Discovery and Distribution Award. Congratulations.
Conor: Thanks. We’re incredibly chuffed. Do you need that word translated?

Yes.
Conor: “Chuffed” is the Anglo Saxon version of “delighted.”

Great! So how do you anticipate a Los Angeles audience receiving this film?
Conor: I have no idea actually. That’s a very good question. I imagine it’s going to be the same as it’s been received in other parts of the world. In some ways it’s kind of odd, because I thought when I was making the film that if I had a model in my head it would have been a French movie, but halfway through the film I was talking to two of the actors and I said, “you know, we’re making a Western here,” and we were kind of laughing. You know, there’s a sheriff and a frontier-type kind of community. So that might possibly explain why American film festivals have absolutely taken the film to heart. Every week we have another two or three American festivals that want to screen the film. As I said, it’s a challenging film. It’s not a sort of sit back and let it wash over you kind of film. One of my friends here, and Irish filmmaker, said something that I really appreciate, that it’s the type of film where you have to lean forward a bit. You have to lean into it. I was very touched by that, because that’s really the kind of film I wanted to make, where if people would lean into it, if they would engage with it, it would be worth that effort.

What’s the distinction between making a short film and a feature? Do you see that as a good model to start making films? Can you briefly describe what that process has been, from going from short film to feature?
Conor: I’m sort of unusual in the sense that I made one dramatic short, and then went to a feature. I’ve had a lot of experience, but I’ve only made two dramatic pieces in my life: one short and one feature film. I think making shorts is a fantastic way towards working towards features, as long as people making shorts want to making them. When I made my short, I made it with this voice in the back of my mind, saying, “I might never get the chance to make another film. This could be it. This has got to be the best short I could possibly make, given the circumstances, given the resources. I might never find the money to make another short.” It wasn’t about making something that was a calling card for something else. It had to be made absolutely the best it could possibly be, because if I never get another chance… That’s the way I looked at the feature as well, and hopefully I’ll be able to make another feature and another after that, but each one of them I want to make as though this is it. It better be good, because it might be the last one I ever make.