June 2007 Archives
‘King of Queens’ star Leah Remini stars in a new series of online webisodes called ‘In the Motherhood’, views can also comment on the show, submit scripts for future episodes and decide which episodes go into production. The show is quite funny and has had quite a high level of success after it was plugged on the popular ‘Ellen’ talk show.
You Tube has announced plans to go mobile.
Is it just nerds and geeks who write stories about their favorite characters and shows? Fan Fiction is maybe on of the most underutilised elements that could be included in a cross platform production, take a look at this site to get a feel for it.
The independent feature film ‘Four Eyed Monsters’ was highlighted last year. It continues to be at the forefront of innovative ways of distribution, you can see it for free on ‘YouTube’, the screening is supported by film orientated social network site Sprout, who will donate $1 to the filmmakers for each new signing that comes via the MySpace screening.
Previously the film was the first independent feature to be played inside the virtual reality world of ‘Second Life’ as part of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Audience Award at SXSW.
The TIMES DAILY reports on the growing number of dead blogs, unlike this blog that merely became comatose for a long period, these ones are truly abandonned. People who kept a public online diary for 5 days.
I wonder how long they will survive? Your Hotmail account is dead after 3 months if you don't use it. Will service providers like Blogger eventually start deleting old blogs? What if an old blog is a valuable account of history or an important source of information?
Yet, should people think carefully before deleting a blog?
My first blog was titled 'Magic Rhythm' - I wrote it for about two years, it was all about music - something I have great passion for, I retired it (and deleted it) and began a more professional blog about media - which is my job. I kinda wish I hadn't pressed the delete button.
At FTI we have three comatose blogs.
1. Skribbel: a blog about animators doodles.
2. Animoronic: a blog about animation.
3. Peter Templeman: a local Director's account of being nominated for the 2007 Academy Awards.
...one of them probably has significantly more cultural value than the others.
COKE have a new campaign coming up which combines games, mobile phones and sugary drinks.
Check out this great article by Christy Dena at the Workbook Project about filmmaking that is outside of the film and embracing different platforms not in it;s distribution but it's creation.
Online video has always had one big question to answer... how will it make any money?
Rocketboom which is one of the most downloaded and watched internet based programs is about to try something new. At his blog creator Andrew Baron outlines that Rocketboom will now be having basic sponsorship introductions, one of the first up being video sharing site YouTube. Rocketboom will also now be available through through YouTube.
This is a remarkable change to Rocketboom's last advertising campaign that saw them create advertisements for a client and include them at the end of the show.
One of the key principles though is that until you have an audience - your not going to make any money to cover your costs. There are so many examples of this process from the band The Arctic Monkeys to popular blog sites.
The WASHINGTON TIMES reports on the changing trend of content for digital cinemas, often these venues are showing rock concerts, classical concerts and sporting events. More like a really big screen television than a traditional cinema screening.
Advertising Age reports on the new Chanel 4 (UK) program ‘Skins’ that built up a large online following before the first show was played, they allowed members of the online community to star in the trailer, create the logo and contribute music to the show. While the show ran a series of competitions that kept users involved.
Last year we reported on the mass of fake website linked to the TV show ‘Lost’, let’s take a look at this years hit show ‘Heroes’ and it’s 360 experience. There is the official site, and there is an Australian site, Ninth Wonders is a discussion site for the fictional comic book series in the show, While PrimeTech Paper is the company where fictional character Mr Bennet works, leading character Hiro has a blog (he’s stop posting since he traveled to the future), while the cheerleader Claire has a MySpace page, new character Hana also has a web page, that invites you to telephone PrimeTech Paper. If you go to the PrimeTech site, click on about us, go to the logo – it should turn red when you mouse over, click on this – a log on dialog box appears, you can log on as the fictional character Mr Bennet – his password is his daughter’s name – this should let you into his secret files. Read more here on Wikipedia and check out this interview with the show creators at WIRED.
Announcing, the Mini-sode, Sony is taking old seventies shows and cutting them down into shorter 5 minute episodes, so soon you can watch all 5 seasons of Charlie’s Angels in about 2 hours! In his book ‘Everything Bad is Good For You’, Steve Johnston argues that television storytelling is becoming more complex over time. This certainly backs up that argument.
YouTube has made many lip syncing stars, the first was probably the Chinese Backstreet Boys - they even appear in the background of the first episode of ‘Heroes’, now two British Boys are making it big, check out the work of Syncsta – they recently featured in an issue of British style bible ‘ID Magazine’.
The New York Times has an interesting story of how advertisers are not rushing to support mobile episodes of television shows; their story cites examples including ‘Smallville’, ‘Prison Break’ and ‘Borat’.
Spore is a new game from Will Wright the creator of ‘The Simms’ – we think this is going to be huge! You start as an amoeba and work your way up to a civilization.
PIXAR’s new advertising campaign for their upcoming film ‘Ratatouille’ is a little different; the short cinema advertisements encourage viewers to log on to the internet and watch a whole 10 minute sequence from the film. The clip has an introduction by the Director Brad Bird. The company has also proactively encouraged bloggers to imbed the footage in their own sites.
A new report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) shows that the uptake of digital free to air television has had dramatic growth in the last 12 months.
This video shows a cinema in the USA where they have a game of ‘pong’ on the big screen, and a movement sensor facing the audience, the audience has to coordinate themselves to sway left and right to control the baton.
Would this get you away from your TV and computer and back into the cinema?
One member of the FTI team joked that the Projectionist was probably really controlling the game from the Bio Box. I wonder how it would go when there was only 10 people in a screening?
Take a look at this video that gives a great explanation of what RSS is.
Still wondering why people live their life online through blogging, uploading films and photographs, well things are moving ahead at full steam – get ready for a big fast forward… in the USA there are now people living their entire life online through streamed video, take a look at Justin or Justine who are broadcasting 24-7.
This is like The Truman SHow or ED-TV come true.
There has been great debate this week online about the introduction of Google's Maps new Streetview function, as Mr Trivia points out this could be overstepping the line of private vs public - what if Mr or Miss Public is pictured doing something they really didn;t want the workd to know. What if theves could you this tool to get idea of the layout of buildings, where does it all end.
But what about people like Justin and Justine who choose to show us everything?
What if your boss asked you to wear a camera on your shoulder - just to keep tabs on you?
