March 2006 Archives

When people talk about effective Cross Platform media, it is often overseas examples that are offered. There are great examples however closer to home. On ABC-TV tonight I was watching 'Four Corners' and Liz Jackson's intriguing story on the Cronulla Beach Riots of 2005. It's a story that grabbed my attention, I even sacrificed an episode of 'Desperate Housewives' to tune in. I was interested for several reasons, firstly I was in Sydney the week before the riots and heard the building media and community discussion over the situation. Secondly, I was at an event in Perth many years ago when people protested against Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party. Being at an event and then seeing it depicted later on the evening news opened my eyes to the effect news reporting can have. The images shown on the nightly news were vastly different to what I had experienced that morning. A slightly different telling of a story, that was more action packed, more violent and much more gripping to watch. After this day I have always watched the news with larger and larger pinches of salt. Growing distrust of the media is one of the reasons that the internet, blogs and citizen journalism has grown in popularity. We put greater and greater faith into the things we find ourselves, over the things that are given to us. I was intrigued to see what Liz Jackson's report would reveal about the events in Cronulla and was absorbed in her report. Then it ended, the voice over at the end of the program prompted me, 'If you'd like to join on online discussions please go to www...' I never do this, talking politics in a chat room is not my thing, plus 'Media Watch' is coming on. But there was more, the announcer continued, '...and watch videos of extended interviews" Now, that I could be into, I was wrapped up in the story, now I can see more, something extra, I was hooked. Its been pointed out several times, cross platform media is not about placing the same content on several different platforms. It is about placing connected content on different platforms. It is unlikely that I would download 30 minutes of the soap opera 'Home and Away' onto my mobile phone. For one the download would take forever, secondly it would cost a lot, thirdly I probably don't have time to watch 30 minutes of 'Home and Away'. I might however download something that was special or exclusive; the moment a character revealed a secret, what went on in the other room to the main action, a second storyline perhaps. Four Corners is on the right track, but for the people running television stations there must be a concern in an announcer prompting action that directs us away from the television. Imagine if a voice over said, 'Turn off now, lower our ratings, go to your computer instead.' You can view the Four Corners page here.

A report in THE GUARDIAN cites a Yahoo Survey that claims people in Britain are spending more time on the net than watching television.

One of the biggest challenges for developing stories, films or animations that can be used on multiple platforms is thinking about how the different mediums effect the look and use-ability of a product. At first glance it may seem as simple as taking an existing product and simply supplying it for a different format, a big screen movie for your I-POD or a television show on your mobile phone.

Over the last few months the British newspaper THE OBSERVER has been publishing a chapter of a novel each week, a serialized work from author Ronan Bennett with illustrations from innovative artist Marc Quinn.

Serialized novels were common place in days gone by, Dickens works like 'The Pickwick Papers' were eagerly devoured by a waiting audience and the discussions of what might happen next, or just happened filled Victorian era dinner parties.

In a time when book sales are falling, newspaper readership is falling, and the use of the internet is rising, what a great concept this is. Will people reading chapters of Zugzwang online, stop and buy a copy of the print publication? Will the story have better sales when released as a print book due to its expose through newspapers and the internet?

In Australia the serialized drama is our most common form of visual storytelling, whether it be a pure soap like 'Neighbours' or a prime drama like 'The Secret Life of Us' or 'Sea Change', they all rely on us tuning in next week to see more. 'Neighbours' and 'Home and Away' have reigned for a long time, 'Neighbours' has been on for nearly 21 years, 'Home and Away' is in it's 18th year. A collection of new drama shows have fallen by the wayside, 'Echo Point', 'Richmond Hill', 'Skirts', 'Family and Friends', 'Medivac', 'The Surgeon', 'The Alice' - I'll stop now, it's a long list.

What if we were to take the methodology of Ronan Bennet's 'Zugzwang' and applied it to visual mediums. Could a new drama start in incremental parts, a little bit on the web, a little on the mobile phone, a short 5 minutes between regular shows, 60 seconds dropped in the middle of a commercial break, 3 minutes before the feature at a cinema - could an audience build slowly, over time, in short increments? Media that slowly seeps into surroundings?

TV Reviewer and internet guru John Naughton has published an interesting article predicting the end of television as we know it. I like the beginning of this article, he highlights the changes the internet has brought to our daily lives in the last 10 years. If we are trying to think a head to what television and the internet will be in 10 more years it really shows the level of change that involved. Naughton suggests that television is set to suffer as younger viewers are tuning in less and less, fair assumptions based on last weeks OFCOM figures that showed that less and less young people in Britain were watching.