January 2008 Archives

JJ Abrams ('Alias', 'Lost', MI3') has a new film opening around the world today, and Australia will be one of the first places it can be seen.   'Cloverfield' is a film titled you may only have begun hearing in the last few weeks though as the film used a clever marketing campaign to build interest.   Shunning the conventions of advertising, all it's marketing was surrounded in mystery, not even naming the movie.  

Read more about it at the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD or at WIKIPEDIA

Can't wait to until tonight to go and see the movie.

SOme of the early reviews are coming out from an early critics screening in Sydney, Read news from 'THE GUARDIAN'   

Director Michel Gondry's latest film 'Be Kind ReWind' has been described as the least surreal thing he's ever done.   The French director was behind some of the quirkiest short films and oddly stylish video clips for bjork, Massive Attack and Daft Punkbefore he moved into the feature film area with 'Human Nature', 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and 'The Science of Sleep'.   

His new film comes with a cross platform project of a different kind.   It has it's own art instillation at a New York Gallery.

It's not the first time an art exhibition has been used for a film, Australian film '10 Canoes' also had an accompanying art exhbition.

The Australian Centre for Visual Technology has developed a new peice of software called Video Trace.   This intuative program allows you to create 3D models by tracing over video footage- move the film firward a few frames and adjust the model to match, it fills in the blank spots and within a few moves an impressive model is created.

If your a 3D animator or interested in visual effects this is worth a look.  

The art of the mash up is one of the key components of the new media landscape, people combining different pieces of material, creating new works and new meanings.

An interesting clip has appeared on YouTube, a deconstruction of The Beatles recording of Seargent Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band, seperated back to it's individual pieces, a guitar track, vocals, additional guitars and orchestration.   It's not remixed, it been un-mixed, deconstructed.    Now it will be very easy for it to be put together in different configurations.

It's a stragely compeling thing to listen to, as if you were standing in a recording studio with John Lennon and Paul McCartney listening to the track bleed through the headphones as they record the vocals.

In November we posted a link to a story about webisodes, FTI Member Justine Smith provides this guest post in response to the article.  

I think the article is focussing on points which are not completely relevant. What they are referring to, I think is the re-packaging of material and putting a price on this for creative development. If you want to understand more about this have a look at the current negotiations in Hollywood between the Writers’ Guild and studio execs. Hollywood is on hold waiting for this to be resolved. The Directors’ Guild of America are coming in behind the Writers’ as their agreements are also up for negotiation soon.

But if we’re talking purely content generated for on-line viewing I have a lot to offer. I was recently a participant in the Portable Screen Academy in Melbourne which is directly exploring this territory.

The first point is: People are already making money from creating webisodes.

{Have a look at this surprise hit story of a one-off http://www.catfish.net.au/index.php?h=NewMedia} 

The main examples that we studied were extremely profitable enterprises. We met and were mentored by the creators of these success stories.

In North America Miles Beckett and team started the “Lonely Girl 15” phenomenon. They looked at what works on YouTube, mostly copyright rip-offs and video-blogging. Obviously the only profitable area was focussing on video-blogging.  Lonely Girl created a video blogger identity. A short series began, with Bree complaining about her parents and not being able to go out as much as she would like. 

A buzz was created. People started to wonder who this person was, where they lived, what her parents did for work, which religious sect they belonged to. And those people were asking these questions on-line in forums and on Lonely Girls profile pages.

Eventually the Lonely Girl team came out and stated publicly this is a fiction, we have created Bree and her story.  It was a scandal without too much bite, a victimless crime, and Lonely Girl’s buzz increased as word got out. 

Now Bree has loads of fans and followers and the story still continues 18months after it started.

Next step, the spin-off.

The Lonely Girl team noticed that they had world popularity, but the most impact was close to home where users has more opportunity to interact with the characters and story. So they created a new series in the UK, Kate Modern. 

Luke Hyams is a key writer and producer for the Kate Modern series. Using the same format profile, but new characters and storylines the new UK series was created. But this time they started with a big budget. Due to the notoriety of Lonely Girl, the team garnered immediate sponsorship and alignment with the social-networing site, Bebo. Bebo is the primary social-networking tool in the UK, and they saw this as a way keeping there difference and excitement for consumers. They held initial first- run of all episodes, before the ep’s could then be re-distributed in ‘traditional’ on-line areas, such as You Tube – a virtual free-to-air distributor.

Highly successful. Highly interactive.

A standout story for me was hearing how they held an Art Gallery opening of Kate’s work. Only 12 viewers showed up as no-one really believed it was for real. The writers had devised a double-whammy for this event and thus staged an abduction of another character at the Opening. Some savvy viewers recorded this on their mobile phones and effectively scooped the Kate Modern team by uploading that night. But it also created a greater buzz and there are loads of loyal viewers and participants in this show week-to-week.

Profitable Webisodes Downunder

The local version of this type of online serial is the Melbourne based “Forget the Rules”. Their second series is uploading as we speak. 

They started out in the first series offering viewer participation by giving a choice of 3 endings which would be voted on, chosen, written, filmed, edited and uploaded all within a week. Loads of fun and very vital filmmaking.

They are linked with Optus for the second series and also received development funding  from Film Victoria.

Portable Screen Academy

We produced in two teams of 12, two separate on-line serial formats. Then we broke our teams down and in smaller groups to create individual episodes. Bearing in mind that we filmed in about an hour and half, and edited in an hour then compressed and uploaded all in one day, a mighty effort. All our work was fitted around seminars and speakers, but it feels great to have put it into practice and see how possible it all is. The other West Australian on the course was Kane Jason. He was on the Help Me Get Karen team, and I was on the Forever storyline. 

Follow the links below to learn more about these on-line serials. And if you are going to look at my story (Forever – Episode 3) please put in a comment and favourite it, and give it 5 stars. Support local content, harnessing these new delivery forms.

Cheers,

Justine
 

YOU TUBE

Forever – Episode 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=x0mwaCd5yY0

Forever – Episode 2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=HqYPZwQLlBU

Forever – Episode 3 http://youtube.com/watch?v=zjLB8luUDRQ

 

Forever Productions http://youtube.com/user/foreverproductions20

 

YOU TUBE

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=SN-pvoTA9vQ

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBuklV1YA70

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 3 http://youtube.com/watch?v=W6Kfkj6I1ZI

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 4 http://youtube.com/watch?v=pzq5k6JI5m8

 

It is what it is what it is http://youtube.com/user/itiswhatitiswhatitis

 

PORTABLE FILM FESTIVAL

http://portablefilmfestival.com/

 

Forever – Episode 1 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=206

Forever – Episode 2 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=209

Forever – Episode 3 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=207

 

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 1

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=202

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 2 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=203

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 3

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=204

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 4

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=205

 

Also of interest:

Have a look at our actor Oliver Clark, in another online creation…

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=167

 

Australian made webisodes, generating an income, and harnessing the form.

http://www.forgettherules.com/

 

Lonely Girl 15 – from the USA

http://youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15

www.lg15.com

 

Kate Modern – the UK spin-off

http://youtube.com/user/KateModernLG15

http://www.bebo.com/katemodern

 

We love the way TV show 'LOST' uses additional material on the internet to extend the viewing experience.   Now in the USA in advance of Season 4 begining people have started spotting billboards for the fictional Oceanic Airlines.   Providing viewers with yet another mystery to unravel.

The billboards aren't everywhere though, just in towns and cities that have been included in the shows spralling and complexly interlinked flashback sequences.

In the USA television is becoming common place in department stores and retail outlets, now CBS has announced a new venture that will see their content being viewed at Petrol Pumps.  

Given the average person takes 3 minutes to fill their tank, that is a  brief captive audience.   i wonder where else you could put a television screen?

Recent improvements in technology may allow old films and television shows to be realistically colourised making them more appealing to a modern audience.

While many older programs can be painfully slow to watch because storytelling has spead up dramatically over the last 60 years, others, especially comedies and musicals are still brilliant.  

I recently watched a half hour episode of the comedian Tony Handcock, it was made in the 1950's but it was hilarious!  Unfortunately there is little chance this show would be broadcast today as it is in black and white.  

Imagine how this could be used in the documentary sector, old footage could be more seamlessly combined with re-enactments.   Older footage could be brought to life allowing greater audience engagement.

It may not all be so easy though.   Imagine a classic film like 'Top Hat' starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, we're accustomed to it in black and white.   We know that he beatiful white feather dress in the famous dance sequence was really yellow, because 'yellow' looked more white on the finished film.   If you were put in charge of colourisation what colour would you make it?   White, Yellow, Blue?  

A new study has just revealed what visual content Australians were downloading via bit-torrent in 2007, television programs 'Heroes', 'Lost', 'Battlestar Galatica', 'Top Gear' and 'Prison Break' were popular.    While in Australia it is easy to draw a comparison between TV programming delays and downloading in the USA downloading still reamins a problem, so it's not just the fact that we get the shows months later.

Obviously in Australia one of the biggest contributing factors to a high level is downloading is the many months or even years between when a show airs in the USA or UK and when it finally reaches Australia.   Australians have always been frustrated to wait, before we just lived with it, now we don't have too.

That dosen't explain why people download so much in the US though.   The real reason for this is not just changes to technology, but changes to the way we live.   The days when people worked 9-5 and Monday to Friday are long gone.   Many people now are not getting home until late in the evening - yet both free to air and PAY-TV still fail to cater audiences outside the standard primetime viewing hours.   

If I'm free to watch TV from mindnight to 2am, what are my choices,

1. Get a DVD
2. Record things on my VHS
3. Wait for Tivo to arrive
4. Turn to my computer

The point is that I wouldn't reach choice number 4 unless all my other options are closed.   Televison providers who want to build and maintain audiences in the future will have to open up some options for me.   Bring the advertising dollar to where I'm watching, rather than sheparding me to 'traditional appointment viewing'.   I'd like my appointment to be at 2am please.