December 2007 Archives

I've noticed a few articles in the last week about the growing us of comic books in business scenarios.  

At ADVERTISING AGE there is an article about US business switching on to comics as a place to place advertisements.

Meanwhile at SEND 2 PRESS they discuss the prevelance of manga in Japan and how it has been used for everything from HR Manuals to corporate communication strategies.

ADVERTISING AGE also points out the comics can be xmedia'd into a video format quite easily, a bit like those dodgy old Spderman cartoons.

The real base skills here however is effective storytelling, and the ability to visualise complex material and challenges.

I posted the other day about the interactive photography project 'The Whale Hunt', over at Buzz Machine Jeff Jarvis has a more indepth report about Jonathan Harris and his project. 

The SYDNEY MORNING HERALD has an article about Foxtel using advocates to build hype around new shows.   In the USA around 10% of a marketing budget for a product may be spent on swaying the influentials - the people who tell the other people.   FOXTEL has used the approach to build audiences for it's new show 'The Gossip Girl'.

We've seen similar approaches in Australia before, earlier this year Channel 9 allowed people to see the first episode of 'Sea Patrol' in advance online, hoping the reactions of the people who logged on would generate buzz ahead of the shows launch.

FOXTELS approach takes it one step further though, they are targeting the influentials, the people who form opinions and influence other people.    The people who have enough friends to invite around to  a opening night house party for a new TV show.

In the SMH article others are quick to dismiss this as an effective approach for marketing television in the free to air world because of it's reliance on making big numbers quickly to guarantee the success of a show.   BUT this is the model that needs to change in the new media world.

For a television show to be success there are two models of program development, firstly you can do the big bang approach, start big and get a big audience.   That plane crashed in Episode 1 of 'Lost' for precisely this reason.   A nuclear bomb went off in Jericho.   The new BBC soapie set in Manly is going to start with a murder.   Alternatively you can stick with a show for a period of time and allow it to develop.   Everyone is chasing 'The Chaser' at the moment. It’s a ratings powerhouse and it's on the ABC - strangely commercial networks were never chasing the same team as CNNN four years ago.   The ABC stuck with the Chaser boys and let them grow.

So if your going to let a show grow, the media world is all set for you - you just have to change everything in your programming mentality.   You have to show a new show several times in it's first week, give me lots of chances to tune in.   You have to let me know a new show is on, give me lots of notice - I'm busy and not really paying attention.   I need a countdown - 5 days to the new Jimmy Smits show.    I need a chance to catch up if I decide I did want to watch the show after all - 5 weeks into it's run - so give me a marathon of episodes on a Saturday afternoon.    Re-play the show on your Digital channel or time shifted channel a few hours or days later.   Before Season Two starts - replay Season one late at night.    Basically give me lots of chances to engage.   

If your working in that world - which Foxtel and to a lesser extent Channel 7 are, the use of advocates makes so much more sense.    

There are lots of books recently on this topic, 'The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell, 'The Influentials' by John Berry and Ed Keller or 'Cool Hunting' by Peter Gloor and Scott Cooper.   There a good read if you want to delve further.        

If your an addict of the social networking site 'Facebook' you'll appreciate the deep imact of this news.  

Facebook has finally changed it's status update function by removing the requirment of the word 'is'.   Previously when Facebookers updated their status they has to start the sentace with 'is'.   For example 'Graeme is cooking dinner', 'Graeme is going to Brazil', 'Graeme is in the palour with the pistol'.    Now their are so many new possabilities, now you can wonder, beg, think, ponder, dream....

What does this have to do with new media or filmmaking?   Admittedly very little.   But everyone knows about my Facebook adiction right.    There have been a few responses from the local community already, Screen Events Manager Liz Sideris is managing fine without the is, but Chris Barraud is wondering where the 'is' went, local actor Wyatt Nixon Lloyd 'is' overjoyed that the 'is' is no more, but documentary filmmaker bRitt Arthur thinks the removal of the 'is' may be controvertial, Matt Hodginson however has in a zen like move just proclaimed that he just simply 'is'.

Graeme is currently on holiday.

Photographer Jonathan Harris recently traveled with a family if Inupiat Eskimos on a subsistence whale hunt, over his weeklong journey he took over 3000 photographs.    Through his interactive flash based site you can manipulate and search through the masses of photos, drilling down through all 3000 images to find something that interests you.

Digital technology allows us to make masses of materials - we know have more photos, more footage and more sound than ever before.   One skill is the ability to edit your work and cull the superfluous.   Alternatively you can make the masses of material a feature like Jonathan Harris has.

How would you feel about a film that was presented just as the masses of takes and elements and it was up to you to figure it out and construct the work, figure out the narrative yourself?     

Over at READ-WRITE-WEB there is a great article by Alex Iskold about the rise of hyper local information.   If you've never comes across the discussions focusing on this phenomenon this is a great place to start. 

DROWING IN INFORMATION
As we drown in the ‘The Age of Information’ we can find more and more information about particular people, places and events.    The challenge as always been in managing and organising the masses of information.   While tagging has allowed for a different methodology geo-tagging linking a photo or video or story to its latitude and longitude opens up a whole new world.   Imagine if everyone who ever lived in a house loaded up their home movies and photos and linked them to the physical location.   The history of a particular space is exposed.         

FILMS FOR A SMALL AUDIENCE
We often here that the future of film is in mass global audiences and our key to open the door is the unique qualities of our locale.   Sure this is true, W.A. looks amazing if your not here everyday – just as I think Iceland looks spectacular.   Yet there is another way to look at this, as hyper-local information increases we know more about our local audience, and filmmaking gets cheaper and cheaper.   Will we soon be making films for tight select groups of people? 

Some would argue that many filmmakers already do this.   (but joke’s aside)

Yet there are films for small audiences, corporate film often falls into this category.   Large corporations might make their quarterly report into a visual format.   When I worked at Crown Entertainment Centre in Melbourne they used to produce an internal thrice weekly news bulletin – The Crown News.   Video Blogging is often for a small audience.

Will hyperlocal geo-tagged information show us some select small markets?   What happens when you know there are 57 young guys interested in snowboarding in Mount Lawley, who also drinks at the Flying Scotsman and like rap music – is that a Market of the fragmented future?

A SIDE COMMENT
If you have predictive texting on your mobile phone and you’re not careful your phone may call the ‘Scotsman’ the ‘Pantsman’.    This has caused many trendy young filmmakers to send an SMS asking their friends to ‘Meet them at the Pants Man’.   This has lead to the popular drinking spot rapidly being given a new informal name.     

If your struggling to understand what a blog is or how they work, this is the perfect video.

In TIME Bill Tancer reflects on thie growing practice of surfing online while watching television - admitidly nothing new in this observation - just a mainstream media catch up  

The growing pracice of media multi-tasking that results in new mental state of the viewer, the constant partial attention syndrome and creates challeges for the makers of television.   How do you link the dual usage of the mediums and create a product that syncronises them together?   Shows like 'Australian Idol' and 'Dancing with the Stars' just ask us to vote, that novemty wil lsoon wear off, if it hasn't already.   True interactivity and cross platform delviery will need to be far more complex, involving the viewer in multiple narative streams or allowing them to interact live with the program.   Maybe the next generation of quiz show will just have contestants linked by their PC-cam to the studio - live from your loungeroom.

I remember a few years ago when Tim Beeson and I went to the AEAF festival in Sydney we stayed at my brothers house, my brother Dave and his partner both work in computing, they have wireless broadband, and laptops galore.   As we sat watching TV, and four of us surfing on the internet simulteneously, sending stuff to one and other,  we commented on this becoming the norm in the future.

The challenge though will be to make a program that keeps televison in the centre of the action, rather than a peripheral device at the centre of the room.  

This article at NEWS.COM highlights recent research that reveals that most Australians have up to 10 online virtual profiles of themselves - creating a fragmented online personality.

I thought I would do a personal count to see how fragmented I may be;

Email Addresses - 8 comprising 7 business and 1 personal, but they fileter through to just two actual in-boxes, work and home.

Social Networking - 3 Facebook, MySpace, Linked In.

Virtual World - 2 Habo and Second Life (rarely accessed)

Content Sharing - 3 YouTube, Odeo and Flickr

Blogs - 7 This one, the other one on the FTI site called Training Wheels,  personal bog (sleeping), Scribbel blog (dead- left over from 2006 action learning), three course related blogs.

so 23 online versions of me, I I think I've been fairly honest with the facts on all of them, how do you compare? 

This Australia based site is a little different to other content sharing sites, it  allows you to upload your creative content whether it be  film, video, animation ,writing, photography whatever.   As well as the usual other users comments, it also boasts some more experienced industry practicioners on hand to give feedback on your work.

Thanks to Kate Vyvyan for highlighting this one.

It's a questions that has been asked many times, a few weeks ago we highlighted the discussion that occurred at FTI on this topic when Christy Dena presented her seminar on Filmmaking in the Cross Platform World.   In a recent article by Paul Arendt in THE GUARDIAN has sparked some debate on both their site and the ARTICULATE site here in Australia.