Report from DocAviv

I'm just back from the fabulous DocAviv Film Festival. This was my first trip to Israel, and I wish I could've stayed longer. I met wonderful people, saw some great films as part of the International Jury, went to the beach (a lot), visited many of the famous sites and learned a lot. While DocAviv takes place during Cannes, that doesn't matter much to the locals, who are coming out in droves, filling the theaters and having a great time watching some amazing docs.

We awarded two prizes. The first was a Special Jury Mention to the film Darwin, by Nick Brandestini. He's off to Karlovy Vary next, and you can check out the film here. We also awarded the International Competition Award to El Sicario: Room 164 by Gianfranco Rosi. Turns out El Sicario was recently picked up and will play NYC and elsewhere soon. I highly recommend both films as well as all of the others in competition. There was also an Israeli Doc competition (with many great films, Israeli docs are in their prime right now) and student film awards, as well as a DocChallenge and many special events (including my favorite: Food and Film). The festival is only 13 years old now (happy Bar Mitzvah), but is growing in importance and stature and I highly recommend that doc makers, industry and fans check it out. You can't get much better than May in Tel Aviv, with good docs, good conversations and outdoor screenings at the Tel Aviv Port!

While there, I also ran a workshop with Hypermedia on the Future of the Doc, called "Re:Invent." It was a full day workshop broken into three sessions: new business models for distribution and audience engagement, transmedia practices and pitching. I learned a lot from the audience - about particularities of Israeli cinema and possibilities, about new ideas and I hope I left behind some wisdom as well. The biggest things I learned are: 1. that Israeli Docs are great, the scene is vibrant and winning awards (this I knew, but learned even more while there, watching about 15 recent docs) and 2. that there's a pretty solid funding system in place, but not much for trying new models of outreach and distribution, and last 3. that the political situation makes many things difficult for Israeli filmmakers both at home and abroad (in many ways, and from many different perspectives, too much to cover here). There were two interviews that ran in conjunction. One at NRG, and you can see a Google Translation here, and one with DocMovies. Speaking of DocMovies, they have launched a really cool distribution service that is very filmmaker friendly, and I hope to cover more about that soon.

I've uploaded the slides from my workshop to SlideShare. Feel free to download them, and use them as you wish. I hope to give more updates from the festival soon.

DocAviv - Roadmap to the Future of Docs

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And a late edit: The organizers published this great Flickr Set of the day:




 

Up Next: DocAviv and building a roadmap for the future of Docs

I'm finally settled into the new apartment, and have found the buried computer cables. No, I didn't go completely offline thanks to my Android, but I am not much into typing the blog from my phone. While the rest of the film industry preps for Cannes, I'm now busy with a few filmmaker clients and with preparing for my next masterclass/workshop in conjunction with the DocAviv Film Festival, scheduled for May 18, 2011.

I'm working with Hypermedia to put on a full day workshop on the future of the Documentary. Here's the English version of the description and you can find the Hebrew version here or here. If you are in Tel Aviv, register and/or stop by and say hello, and tell your friends who might live there. While I hope to offer some new insights into the possible future of the doc, I'm really looking forward to learning from the audience how the film industry there sees the future, because their doc community is pretty strong and vibrant.

Here's the description:

Roadmap for the Documentary Filmmaker

Why try to predict the future when you can simply invent it?

Digital technology, new business models and a plethora of innovative production and creative tools – all these are combined together and promise many exciting years of research and challenges in the realms of documentary filmmaking. What are the possible directions in the field? Where do we go from here? How do we find the path to success in the new world?

This practical all-day seminar will lead the participants into the future districts of the field and provide filmmakers with a concrete, practical and up-to-date tool kit for turning an era of change into an era of new opportunities.

Content editor and producer: Ari Davidovich.

Wednesday, 18.5.11, at ZOA in Tel Aviv

Fee required, please register in advance.
For details and registration:
www.hypermedia.co.il/future

Slides from my speech at Sofia Film Fest Meetings

Image via WikipediaI've been having a fantastic time here in Sofia, Bulgaria. I've met many great, talented people – producers, distributors, filmmakers, festival folks, etc. I've learned a lot from them about the state of film in Bulgaria (flourishing, yet having funding difficulties), of film financing and distribution in Europe (too much to share here now) and about Bulgaria generally. I highly recommend the Sofia Meetings to anyone interested in international co-productions, or to anyone who just wants to meet some great European film industry folks.

As usual, I spoke a bit fast at my lecture and many people asked me to share the slides. So here they are. If you've been to some of my recent lectures, there's not much new here, but some things have been updated, including some stats on Facebook usage in Bulgaria (strong). The speech was a general overview of changes to audience expectations, digital disruption and how artists are using these new tools to build their audience and make new business models. I didn't know my audience was going to be distributors until I arrived, but as I explained on the spot - nearly everything I mention here can be used by distributors, film fests and organizations as well.

Sofia: Inventing the Future of Film

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Sundance - The Kid's Alright

I just returned from Sun/Slamdance and have to say - I feel pretty good about the state of things in indie land. Last year, things seemed pretty grim and I thought that perhaps only Peter Broderick and Jon Reiss were figuring things out. This year, the energy felt different. I get accused of being a downer in some of these posts, and about the industry generally, but this post is nothing but happy, so put on your smiles!

Even the Sundance organization, late to every digital party thus far, has come up with a pretty good system for helping out indies. (Late? Yes, I had digital projection two years before them in Atlanta, they've botched their previous online partnerships, etc. etc.) Just today, they announced a new partnership with Facebook and Kickstarter, hired away the very smart Chris Horton from CRM and hinted at rumors of more distribution initiatives down the line. From what you can parse between the lines and from the bit (very little) I was able to pick up from behind the scenes, Sundance is doing this smartly. They aren't becoming a distributor, but instead are building on their strengths to help filmmakers. It's curatorial - starting with their alumni, but they hint it might expand later. It's educational - building on the labs to help train artists in how to best use Facebook Pages, for example. It's about bringing their brand and attention to their artists. No, none of this is new, but it shows a maturation of the space, and if Sundance does this right it will be good for everyone. The key here, by the way, is whether or not they keep fees low for artists, which they should.

Kickstarter is a big name, but their little competitor IndieGoGo launched a cool new partnership as well, by marrying their Distribber platform to Brainstorm Media, they can now offer any indie filmmaker the ability to get their film on every VOD platform for a fee. Yes, the fee is reportedly $10,000 and that seems high at first, but if you have an indie film that will make good money it might be a much better deal than the typical percentage splits of other middle-men. Sure, some little indie is going to do this and not make back the 10K, but I bet at least one will hit gold and fulfill their (Brainstorm/Indiegogo) stated wishes to be made to look stupid!

It was also clear that the business was back at Sundance - in every way. Audiences were up, press and industry screenings were too long for many to get into their choice films, sponsors were all over Main Street (alongside the bimbos in high heels in the snow, per usual) and the buyers have been buying films like crazy. It's too early to tell what the final deal count will be (I can't believe I am typing such lame words....), but everyone seems to agree that things are better. More importantly, however, in conversations with many of these "dead" distributors, as many in the DIY world have been proclaiming them, it is clear that yes, they "get" some things about the new world and many (not all) are hiring people to help build better audience engagement tools and test a few models. Yes, just like the music industry, we're still in for massive disruption, but not everyone is as dumb as they look (or recently looked).

I also heard from many new companies launching- some with "old" distribution models, many with new, and it seemed every Q&A had someone launching into a pitch for their new Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Quora, freakin-robotified new tie-in company. Many of these will no doubt fail, but I finally saw a bit of the energy of SXSW on the streets of Park City, and that was nice.

Even the little indies were doing well. Slamdance held another Filmmaker Summit, and despite there still being a couple people in the audience just learning about using the crowd (for funding, distribution, etc), it was also clear that 95% of the audience was smarter than the panelists this time around (okay, they're always smarter than me). Lance Weiler could talk about transmedia without an hour-long definition (that's his project in the photo above), and no one seemed to blink when Greg Pak showed off his comic book and we learned that the Ford Foundation was behind his transmedia vision (Vision Machine, that is). Hell, even Levi's is in the transmedia game with Miss Representation by Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

But probably my favorite thing was that the mood among the DIY indies was so upbeat. People were clearly ready to make their own new system, they have the tools and case studies to help them and were, frankly, completely unafraid of the new world order. I've always hung around this crowd a bit, so I get that people have been happily doing DIY for a long time, but this time it was clear that DIY had gone mainstream. People are slowly starting to "get it" a bit more and every single day I learned something new from a filmmaker doing something different. That's a good thing.

Another good thing this year was that Sundance had "31 documentaries, narrative features, and short films featuring diverse stories that include African and African American talent and/or directors in this year's line-up" according to the Blackhouse Foundation. I think the number of directors was 18, but I'm not sure; anyway, that's great for Sundance. I'd like to know the percentages for other diversity statistics, but it's great to see the nation's premiere film fest looking more like the rest of the country (note: they have had other good years for this too). While it remains difficult to convince Hollywood (or even Indiewood) to make certain stories, and there remains quite a power imbalance, the sentiment of the panel that I was on at the Blackhouse was clear - it's never been a better time to be a diverse filmmaker, make a diverse film and/or find its audience than now.

I was also pretty upbeat about the festival because I discovered a new writing talent in Alicia Van Couvering in Filmmaker Magazine. New to me, that is - she's the producer of one of the most popular movies of the indie world this year, Tiny Furniture, but hey, I don't get out much. Her article on a certain tendency of the American indie film (turn of phrase hat tip: Robert Ray and Truffaut) as of late is quite simply some of the best writing on indie film out there right now. This paragraph might be the single best paragraph on American Indie Film that I have ever read, in an article that comes darn close as well:

Let’s define the circumference of the navel at which we’re gazing (turn of phrase hat tip: James Ponsoldt.) Most Sundance films are directed by members of an extremely small urban artistic class seeking respect within their own tiny community. The reach of these films only occasionally spreads beyond the walls of the New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods where their makers reside. (italics mine) They are a concentrated example of a whole swath of American youth experiencing periods of extended adolescence — choosing careers late, marrying late, buying property late. Like some bizarre capitalist mutation on red diaper babies, these young people are encouraged since birth to find their inner specialness and sing their special song to the world. The fact that the world does not, in fact, want to hear their song, and worse yet, that they have no special song to sing, sends them reeling into a whirlpool of thwarted narcissism. It is, to be sure, the bubbliest of champagne problems.

What makes it even better is that she goes on to redeem this same tendency by showing that masterful filmmakers can make this a legitimate problem to explore. That said, the problem I have italicized above is a real one. It's why we need more diverse voices and it's why I am also glad that Gandu by Q was the only (bit of) film I saw while in Park City. Yes, unfortunately for me, I was in Park City for meetings, and even with a badge I only saw 15 minutes of one film (and 20 minutes past its start time) at Slamdance. I walked into the back, having been tipped off by some folks that it was gold. I am quite positive based on just those 15 minutes that this movie is brilliant. It was 15 minutes of pure amazement - punk, fun, exhuberant, black and white and with an amazing energy. It's a film from Kolkata, about kids in KolKata and it is unlike many other Indian films I've seen (but I am no expert). Here's the synopsis from Slamdance, and the director's bio:

Gandu hates his life. He hates his mother. She is the mistress of a local businessman. As his mother sells sex in the apartment the man has let them live in, Gandu picks the man’s pocket. In his dream, Gandu raps out the hate, anger, dirt and filth of his existence.

One day he finds a friend, a strange Rikshaw-puller, a devotee of Bruce Lee. Together, they dive into a dark fantasy. Smack, rap, porn, horror. And, within that, a glimmer of hope. This delirium meets with harsh reality checks, and the end of the mother-son relationship.

The narrative becomes fragmented and abstract, a head rush of emotion, graphic sex and finally Gandu the rapper getting a breakthrough. We do not know whether it is dream or reality. Surreal and bizarre come together, as the two friends lose their grip and the film takes over.

Director's Bio:

Born and raised in Kolkata. An arts graduate from Calcutta University. Worked in advertising for twelve years in India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Directed over fifty, winning various awards on the way. Then, inspired by the independent films of Europe and Japan, retired voluntarily and shifted trade and city. Back in Kolkata, Q started a progressive art house namely OVERDOSE, a production, design and music company. He produces, writes, shoots and directs films. He works hard on his sense of humour to keep him afloat.

Here's an interview with him, which is also pretty amazing.

Gandu Q&A with director Q from Slamdance on Vimeo.

Here's the trailer:

Gandu Trailer from moifightclub on Vimeo.

Now that isn't the same niche as many American Indie Films.....or is it? A different take on the same theme of not wanting to grow up, and with a sex scene that's supposedly pretty hot (I missed it), perhaps this can find its audience here too. It plays Berlin next, and I bet it does well there.

So there you have it....my wrap report from Sundance. My guess is this is gonna be a good year for indies.

Photo Credit: Me, of Saskia Wilson-Brown and Gregory Bayne exploring Lance Weiler's Pandemic experience at Sundance.

11 Things on My Mind for Twenty11

photo © 2009 Karola Riegler | more info (via: Wylio)
It’s that time of year when everyone makes their top ten lists, and I’ve done it before and am adding my 11 cents here now. I could just paste in last year’s list below, as all of them are still relevant, but that’s too easy...except for number 1, policy. Unfortunately, this one is much the same as last year, so to make up for this repeat, I’m giving eleven thoughts here. Most of these aren’t predictions, but are instead just a few things I’m thinking about as we head into the New Year.

1. Will the film industry start to take policy seriously? I doubt it. Policy turns people off, but if we don’t pay more attention and get active in these debates, the possible future for indie film might get turned off. It’s hard to imagine a world where the internet no longer works like it does now, but take one look at this graphic of what the industry wants and you quickly get a sense of what could become of the internet. This will be the year that this story gets framed to the public in a big way. The Right is already trying to paint the FCC’s recent ruling as “regulating” the internet. Filmmakers are story tellers. We need better stories about why this issue is important. There’s quite a role here for creatives, and I hope a few of them take this issue head-on in 2011.
2. Will Apple become a rights-broker? When talk turns to Apple these days, it’s usually about the Ipad, and when it might come to Verizon. What interests me more is this excellent interview with Michael Whalen about their purchase of a huge cloud computing facility down in NC, and what it might mean for the future. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ownership of content isn’t as important as controlling the experience around content. Apple is already doing well with consumers accessing content. They could also handle rights licensing pretty well - imagine if any artist could post their content (film, music, writing) and set terms and publishers and others licensed that content through a system built by Apple - in the cloud. As Whalen says in the article about their possible plans "What if iTunes or whatever AAPL calls their new streaming service is broken into TWO parts - the actual delivery and streaming of the programs, etc. and on the other side - - the administration of the copyrights in the digital realm including collecting fees and licenses from OTHER PLATFORMS." While this isn’t talked about much, it’s an interesting theory and worthy of some speculation.
3. Which indies will embrace the prequel? I’ve been speaking for a long time about how filmmakers can use short video as a way to build interest in their films before the film is released. Karol Martesko-Fenster has put a name on it with the idea of the prequel, and you can see a great example of how it can work for a documentary film with Bengali Detective which is premiering at Sundance. Lots of room here for other formats - building up certain characters or plot points in a narrative film, for example, and a great way to build audience.
4. Which indie transmedia experiments will succeed? A lot of indies are starting to experiment with developing their story across multiple entry points. Lance Weiler has a transmedia project premiering at Sundance and another in the works (or maybe several). Liz Rosenthal and Tishna Molla are pushing the field forward by holding excellent conferences and labs with Power to the Pixel, and rumor has it some other big entities are getting into this soon. Wendy Levy at BAVC is helping filmmakers learn more about it as well through the BAVC Labs. I don’t think 2011 will be a big year for transmedia - it will probably start gaining more momentum in both indie and Hollywood circles (and elsewhere), but it will probably be 2012 at earliest before the “big embrace,” but maybe I’m wrong.
5. Who will figure out mobile, social, check-in, rewards and indie film? There’s a few companies operating in this space, but no one has put it together well yet. This will be a gold mine (or three) someday and I can’t wait to see what launches and develops in 2011.
6. Will YouTube figure out what it’s doing? If any company could use a strategy, this is the one. I could give them a million ways to do what they’re doing better. I’m sure you could too. They obviously have the whole mass adoption thing down, but when it comes to working with long form film and changing the distribution paradigm, they need some work. They ran some half-assed experiments in releasing films last year, and have been making some interesting moves lately, but this is probably the year when they need to put up or ....
7. Will film festivals figure out social? Yes, they are all on Twitter. Marketing themselves constantly. Oh, wait, sorry, just constantly as the festival approaches or to hit me up to support some fundraising campaign they’re doing. Film festivals, through their curation, are better positioned than almost anyone to build a better relationship with audiences and help change the indie film paradigm. But only if they take social media seriously and start using it to help me (as an audience member) discover films year-round, and not just the ones they programmed. There’s value in the opinions and curations of your programmers. Lots of value, but only if you get smart about social (hint: see 5).
8. Which trades will die? The last couple of year’s have brought us a whole host of new trades - almost completely online - and some new business model experiments. The problem is, we’re not getting any better information. In fact, if you put a bunch of random people who use the Net in a room and asked them to list the top 100 worst ideas for a film trade journal, you’d find all of them represented somewhere in the mix of Variety, HR, The Wrap, Deadline Hollywood, MCN, etc. (I am missing many here, I know). I imagine Variety will survive, if only because enough of Hollywood will pay for it behind their pay-wall, but it’s long been irrelevant. I actually think the HR strategy to become more consumer focused could have worked, but as it is being executed it’s like they are aiming for Delta Sky Magazine level work. That said, they have some new advertisers that might keep them afloat. IndieWire is in good hands now with Dana Harris (Eugene, who did an amazing job, recently left), and she, and the good crew there, might turn this into something even more interesting. At least one of the others will die - that’s one prediction for this year. I was speaking with a media investor the other day, and we both agreed - this space is ripe for some disruption, and I hope someone launches something new (or redirects course), because man, we need something better.
9. Could someone start a fund for creative storytelling? Yes, I know there’s things like Creative Capital, but what I want is an IMPACT Partners for narrative films with no redeeming social value. Okay, just kidding, I know that all films have social value, and I actually believe that narrative storytelling is a better way to have impact on social issues than through docs, but you get my point. We need funding for narrative filmmakers with good ideas.
10. Who will be the new filmmakers who break through and reach an audience? Who will tell the best stories? While most of this post is about business stuff, what I really like is discovering a new voice, or seeing an established artist go in a new direction, or just stay in a tried and true direction with a great new story. Many of these films won’t make it to a large audience, so I’m also interested to see which ones can break through enough to enter the cultural conversation. From what I’ve heard about many films in development or even premiering this January, we might have a great year ahead of us.
11. Who will launch the next big thing? There’s a lot of people at work behind the scenes trying to build new film companies, transmedia companies, tech companies in this sector and similar new endeavors. I feel like I meet with someone about to launch the next big thing almost every day. Here’s to hoping that 2011 is a successful year for all of them!

note: I corrected the title of Bengali Detective (I had it wrong, as Bombay Detective....oops) and fixed the links.

Video of my NYFA Lecture

I recently spoke at the New York Foundation for the Arts or NYFA, a great artist support organization in New York City. They've posted the video of my presentation:


Reinventing the Arts Through Technology from NYFA on Vimeo.

You can also check out and download the slides from Slideshare. 

I'm Still Here as Transmedia

I know the news on this film has largely subsided, but here goes anyway:
I’m Still Here is not only a transmedia project, but it’s also one of the more successful ones ever made...at least this year.

I’m ready for the mobs of trans-experts to attack, but let me (for once) be brief. Wikipedia defines transmedia storytelling as:

In Transmedia storytelling, content becomes invasive and fully permeates the audience's lifestyle. A transmedia project develops storytelling across multiple forms of media in order to have different "entry points" in the story; entry-points with a unique and independent lifespan but with a definite role in the big narrative scheme.

Now we can argue if this is correct, but since we can all contribute to the definition at Wikipedia, for now, this definition will be considered communal. So, to me, I’m Still Here was a story that unfolded across multiple media - television shows, tabloid news, websites, traditional newspapers and eventually a movie. There were rap songs, poems, drug-filled ARG, er, escapades.  Joaquin’s performance was ongoing, pervasive and in a sense it was an ultimate ARG that no one was even sure whether they were participating in it or not. I haven’t looked too far, but I’m sure someone has even created a comic or animation about it. Each of these things was a story entry-point, and could engage audiences with the story in different ways. At minimum, it engaged many audiences in trying to figure out whether it was real, fiction, a bad drug trip or some combination of all of these.

So, how is this not transmedia? (I’m sure I’ll hear in the comments or offline....)

One of the most successful? Definitely not in terms of box office. But if we also look at success by how well people believed in and interacted with (even debated) the story-line, it was a huge success. Same with criteria such as media impressions, entering the cultural conversation, being uber-meta, etc.

Some might say it’s just a hoax, or a mock-u-mentary or doc or just plain stupid. But I think transmedia can be many things, and it might just be that something like I’m Still Here qualifies. Sure, this was an artful hoax, but why can’t a hoax be transmedia? Does the creator have to personally create all the platforms the story unfolds upon for it to be transmedia? Or can they create a situation where even the news as “reported” by someone else becomes part of the experience? Some might argue that the story has to motivate you to participate, but I think plenty of people participated in this by talking about it, sharing it with others and paying for a ticket (ok, maybe 5 people did that).

I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, so please disabuse me of this notion if you think I’m terribly wrong. To be honest, I’ve been wondering for a month why no one has written about this yet - in my googling, I’ve not found anything (but again, tell me if I’m wrong). The closest thing I’ve found on this subject was Henry Jenkins writing about LonelyGirl 15 (back in 2006, mind you) and the relation of the “hoax” story to epistolary fiction. He wrote:

The content of earlier epistolary novels turned readers into armchair detectives and amateur psychologists, piecing together the events of the story from multiple, fragmentary, and sometimes contradictory, always subjective, accounts. These ARGs take on a more public dimension, exploring conspiracies or mysteries which exploit the expansive potential of the transmedia environment. Though read in private, these early novels became the focus of parlor room discussions as people compared notes about the characters and their situations. ARGS today offer a very similar experience of mutual debate and collaborative interpretation for a society just beginning to experiment with what cybertheorist Pierre Levy calls collective intelligence.

He too brought up that most people would think you need to push the audience to act, to do something.  As he wrote:

This is the nature of art (fictional or nonfictional) in the age of collective intelligence: the work provokes us, incites us into action. Indeed, as an art project, Lonelygirl15 seems designed to encourage our participation. Yet we don't know what we are supposed to do if we do not correctly identify the genre within which the text operates: do we dig deeper into the text in search of clues (as in the case of an ARG) or do we go beyond the text in search of reality (as in the case of reality spoiling)? In this case, the public's uncertainty about the status of these images made figuring out the source of these messages the central task. The mystery overwhelmed the content -- perhaps more than the art students anticipated and forced them to out themselves so that we might hopefully engage with their work on another level.

In fact, we’ve been seeing a lot of these “in-between” docs that straddle the line of documentary and fiction, and thereby require us to get more involved as viewers in figuring out the “puzzle” of just how real they are. Jenkins noted: “In other words, there seems to be a fascination with blurry categories at moments of media in transition -- it is one of the ways we try to apply evolving skills in a context where the categories that organize our culture are in flux.” So perhaps as we straddle this line, we’ll get some hybrid forms that become more than just a movie and straddle into transmedia territory.

In a hypothetical debate, I can see arguing the other side - that it’s not transmedia, just a good performance, but more than anything I think arguing this point might help better define the term for all of us.

Until then, I’m calling this one transmedia.


Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures

Pixel Cross Media Forum

I'm en route to the Power to the Pixel Cross Media Forum right now. It's a great event, one of a kind really, focused on Cross Media or Transmedia practice. There are lots of great speakers, people pitching projects, workshops and meetings and even a think-tank later in the week. You can watch it live here. I've been meaning to give it a plug for awhile, and now that my flight is delayed for about..oh...4 hours due to crazy hail in NYC, I guess I get to plug it more now!

I've written about the Pixel Lab a couple of times. I've also spoken there a bit, with this presentation on new business models being my most recent. I'm a big fan of everything the Pixel folks do, and highly recommend that you follow them online and try to attend an event in the future. I'm not speaking, but I am meeting with several producers, catching up with my friends/class from the Lab this summer and doing some meetings in London. I also hope to attend the amazing show by Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern before I leave. I can say it's amazing already, as I've seen some video footage already from this film that's launching soon from Muse Film & Television. If you are based in London, check out the Pixel Lab, the Ai Weiwei show and drop me a note on Twitter to catch up!

My DIY Days Innovation Speech edited into an actual video!

For a long time my friends in the media world have been razzing me about how I present my talks online. I always post the slides to Slideshare and on this blog, and whenever someone videotapes the speech, I’ll link to their video. The problem is, none of these combine the two - it’s difficult to know what I’m talking about because I often use the slides more as a visual counterpoint than for explication. Unfortunately, while I often talk about new technology, I don’t use it when it comes to video. While I could edit in college - quite well IMHO - that was way back with linear editing and I never learned any of the current nonlinear systems. My 8 year old nephew can do it, but I haven’t even tried to use iMovie. So, I asked my good friend Jen Fineran, a professional editor, to edit one of speeches together with the slides. She’s a great editor and can be reached here. She too had a vacation recently, and was then able to catch up and help me with this. Many thanks to her, and to the person who captured this for DIY Days - Raffi Asdourian - a filmmaker himself who can be found here.

Here’s the new edit of the presentation:

DIY Days - Reinventing Innovation Speech from Brian Newman on Vimeo.

Wirewax and Interactive Docs

This week I have contributed a guest post to the In Media Res blog about transmedia and documentary filmmaking. You can read my entire blog post over there, but I wanted to expand a bit about one item on my blog, as I was limited to under 400 words for the In Media Res post. This meant I couldn’t speak much about the technology on display - WireWax.

I wrote about the film Awra Amba: Virtual Village by director Paulina Tervo and how she is using a new technology, called WireWax as one aspect of her transmedia campaign. As I said in that post:

“The website will feature short documentaries expanding the story by focusing on other aspects of the community, chosen by the villagers themselves. By using WireWax technology, these videos will be made interactive for online audiences. In the example shown, the user can click on character’s faces for more background media, or perhaps click on a person weaving and be linked to purchase that person’s fabrics. This last act being not just a consumer purchase, but also an action that can help make the village’s production sustainable.”

You can watch the video and play around with clicking on characters, on items in the frame, etc. The site is currently in Beta, but I think you can get a good sense of what the technology allows. Paulina discovered the technology at the Power to the Pixel Cross-Media Lab, which I attended. During the week, she and her partner in the lab put together the short mock-up you see on the blog. What’s amazing is that when they premiered the clip to the group at the end of the week, we all learned that WireWax had been created by the camera crew who had been filming the panels all week. Amazingly small world! Turns out that in addition to filming panels, Dan and Steve had created WireWax. It’s a great tool to add interactivity to your video. You can try it out for free at their website, and they have a premium model for more extended use. While I’ve seen a few similar projects from other tech companies, this one seems to work great and they have some cool new features launching soon. They’ll be adding things like email integration, live discussion, Facebook integration (where you could see the Facebook profile for any face in a video, great for weddings and maybe for fiction eventually(?)) and more.

Check them out on their website and let me know what you think here or at In Media Res.

Transmedia Discussions

I just finished off a week of guest posts on the ArtsJournal blog, speaking about arts and culture policy concerns, and now I'm joining a group of writers for a week on the In Media Res blog to discuss transmedia. Boy, I'm bouncing from one exciting topic to another! Well, actually, I think both of these topics are important to filmmakers and all artists, even though they are both a bit academic. But, perhaps this week won't be too serious minded - In Media Res is a scholarly online publication, but this week's writers aren't just an academic bunch. Ok, Christy Dena was one, but she's left that world behind to launch new genius endeavors. Her post kicks off the week, and it's a great look back at Stan Vanderbeek speaking from the dusty old days of 1972 (I was a whopping one year old) about how artists can use the computer to create new types of art. Next up is Marc Ruppel (Ok, he's an academic too), then Robert Pratten, myself and Ted Hope closes out the week. While I'm sure the posts will all be interesting, they'll be much more so if you contribute to the conversation by adding comments - it does take a log-in, but it's pretty painless.

The Pixel Market and Arte Pixel Prize

A post for and from my friends at Power to the Pixel:

Power to the Pixel is delighted to announce its groundbreaking Pixel Market which will take place on 13 and 14 October 2010 in London.
 
Applications are now open to find 20 of the world’s best cross-media projects.

Each project will be based on stories that can span any combination of film, TV, online, mobile, interactive, publishing, live events and gaming.

On 13 October up to 10 of the teams will compete for the £6,000 ARTE PIXEL PITCH PRIZE at Power to the Pixel’s public event, The Pixel Pitch at BFI Southbank. 
Producers will present their cross-media project to a handpicked roundtable of international judges made up of decision-makers, commissioning executives and financiers working in film, broadcast, publishing, online, advertising, gaming, the arts and interactive media.

On 14 October The Pixel Meetings will allow all 20 project teams to take part in one-to-one business meetings with potential investors and partners from across the tech, online, interactive, film, broadcast, arts, publishing and gaming industries. 
 
Entries are invited from producer-led teams with projects at an advanced stage of development. Producers should have a strong track record in film, broadcast, interactive media or other relevant creative industries. Projects must include the use of new tools, platforms, services and devices, and can span any combination of film, TV, online, mobile, interactive, publishing, live events and gaming.

The Pixel Market is part of Power to the Pixel’s Cross-Media Forum, which this year will be held 12 - 15 October 2010 in association with The BFI London Film Festival. The annual event has helped develop an agenda for digital change for creatives and businesses, gathering together some of the smartest and most pioneering media professionals and digital experts in the world.

Deadline for applications is 6 August.
Further information can be found at Power to the Pixel’s website.

Thoughts on the Power to the Pixel Lab

I’ve just returned from the very first Pixel Lab, held in Cardiff, Wales for a full week. What an experience it was! I wish an organization in the U.S. was doing this as well, and more were doing it globally, as the information was timely, in-depth and very needed by the field. For seven days, 17 producers with projects in development, and another 17 without current projects, met with leading experts in the field, learned from one another and generally transformed their projects in the realms of story-telling, audience engagement, technology and business models. At the end of the week, the producers with projects pitched their now refined ideas, and we were all impressed. Each of them will stay in touch, receive some further expert mentoring and meet up again at the Pixel Pitch and Market in October at the London Film Festival. I am scheduled to attend and can’t wait.

It’s nearly impossible to summate all the things I/we learned. I think the biggest lesson was that collaboration remains key. Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner kicked us off on this note in his opening keynote - stating that we’re all in this together and can help one another realize their projects - even pledging to give help to each producer as they needed it. But the real sense of collaboration could be seen in the way each group helped one another work through the challenges and opportunities for their projects. We were divided into four groups, and I led one, with Michel Reilhac of Arte France leading another, Ben Grass of Pure Grass Films another and Ian Ginn of Hubbub Films taking the fourth group. Each of us spoke daily with the organizers, the fab Liz Rosenthal and Tishna Molla, and we collectively watched each project go through a transformative process - some more dramatically changing their projects than others, but all improving mightily.

Not everyone wants to add an ARG or a video-game platform to their project, but everyone learned something about new models. We also learned practical advice on the current state of co-productions (once again becoming important to film productions as they find different partners more or less willing to fund transmedia components); methods to best implement story worlds; new fundraising and business models; a keen look at how brands are utilizing transmedia; how the gaming industry is responding; the reaction (or not) of public funding sectors and broadcasters in Europe; implementation strategies; and a hefty dose of thinking about story (for those of you skeptical of all this business talk). For me, while theorizing about changes in story-telling are most interesting, the best speeches were on the new business model aspects, especially regarding brands. There’s a healthy argument to be had about consumerism and the move towards branding in the indie and art-house world. That’s for another post, but it is very clear that in today’s tough financial climate many artists are having to embrace such models. Doing so isn’t easy - in fact, for many indies this will remain impossible, but if you want to incorporate these strategies you can do a lot worse than learning from excellent thinkers in this space like Ben Grass of Pure Grass Films, Mel Exon of BBH Labs and Nuno Bernardo of BeActive. Each of them had very practical examples, strategies for maintaining artistic control and even lessons learned from failures (so rare to see honestly presented on stage).

Many of my take-aways will inform my writing here over the next few months. Videos and presentations of many of the talks should be online soon - although some sections will be cut as the presenters were nice enough to share things with the group that they are barred by contracts from sharing publicly (I’m sure that knowledge will slowly filter out soon as well). For now, let me just end by saying that anyone - filmmaker or industry - thinking about the future of the art should be paying attention to Power to the Pixel. Don’t dismiss transmedia (you can call if cross-platform, etc, but the term as poor as it is, has become the accepted nomenclature). Good old films on the screen with no transmedia will continue to exist, but as an artist the possibilities for new ways to tell stories are amazing; the chance to better engage with your audience should be inspiring (as opposed to scary); and this is not just a fad. Michel Reilhac of Arte France spoke eloquently, as always, about how he and his organization are facing transmedia. In short, they are not just embracing it, but they are changing entire business models internally, in reaction -in healthy, meaningful ways. You could tell that he is allowing himself to just let the changes wash through him - to accept that change is happening and be open to what comes next. This spirit imbued the entire event, and I hope many more embrace it in their own practice soon.

New business models for film & transmedia

I'm here at the Power to the Pixel - Pixel Transmedia Lab in Cardiff, Wales. Thank goodness, because it's only 70 degrees here and NYC is apparently in a heat wave. I'm also sitting on a hotel balcony looking over a beautiful bay (of which I would provide a photo if I only had a camera (!!!) on my Blackberry). I've been learning a lot from the excellent experts they've assembled, as well as from the project participants and other attendees. I'll post more on that soon, but for now, here's the slides I'll be presenting tomorrow at my speech on developing new business and financial models for transmedia production. While this group is made up of largely transmedia producers, many are starting with a relatively traditional film, and I think the slides are relevant to anyone thinking about new business models for the production of any media. As with most of my talks, there's not a ton of detail in the slides - most of it is what I say, so I hope to have video to post or link to soon. I think these are easy enough to understand, however, and you can always contact me directly (in comments here or on Facebook) if you have questions. I should be clear  - I'm not presenting anything here as clear, hard facts - the business models are being invented (here at the Lab, for one), but these are some thoughts and observations:

Transmedia Biz Models, Pixel Lab

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Let me know what you think.

The Pixel Transmedia Lab

I'm off to Cardiff, Wales to join many good friends and even more new people (to me) at the Power to the Pixel Transmedia Lab. There's a great group of "group leaders" and tutors, which you can see here, and here's the participants. To my knowledge, this is the first lab of it's type - essentially a Sundance Lab (warning, that links to the worst website ever made) but for transmedia projects. Here's a description of what's going on from the website:
"Topics of learning will include:

• How to develop stories and create a story universe across multiple platforms
• New marketing & distribution models: an exploration of a variety of new platforms, revenue models and direct-to-consumer models
• Audience building and engagement using social media tools
• Online tools and services
• Project case studies by leading international filmmakers / practitioners
• Legal and digital rights issues across development, production and financing
• The new skills needed for producers and other media professionals in a multi-platform world
• Project packaging, planning and presentation"

I am speaking there about new business and finance models for cross-media/transmedia production. Or rather, I'm speaking about what I hope to see as new models and what is currently going on in the space. While this particular lab is closed to new participants, the organizers have announced a new Pixel Market, with pitching sessions, education and a cash prize. That looks pretty cool, so check it out.

FutureThink - Virtual production

My recent trip to the Edinburgh International Film Festival was grand. As I posted here, I was speaking on several panels for the festival, Shooting People and BAFTA Scotland. I really enjoy these panels, because I almost always learn about new things from the other panelists or we talk about something that really gets my head thinking about new directions in the film/media sphere. This happened once again on the panel called FutureThink, where I was joined by Susan Kemp, Co- Director of Film In the Public Space at the University of Edinburgh, Ted Cawrey of Olswang and the filmmaking team of Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm who had a film called The Red Machine premiering at the film festival.

The panel was about new directions in film and media, and Steph and Alec smartly pushed us to focus more on the future of storytelling than on distribution, etc. The conversation inspired me to launch a new series of columns on this blog, called FutureThink, where I'll pay homage to Edinburgh by trying to write more frequently on emerging trends and how they might impact indie films.My hope is to keep these shorter than my usual (quite lengthy) posts, but that also means I won't be analyzing these things too in depth, just throwing out some ideas in hopes you'll give me more in the comments.

Up first, virtual production and/or virtual performance. Stephanie brought this up as an area of great interest to her, and while I had thought about it before, I hadn't really thought about it as much as she has. So, what is it? Well, I think there's many meanings to the term, and all of them are worth thinking about, but here we're speaking about virtual performance - when actors are playing characters through digital renderings, and entire worlds of characters might be produced with green screens, digital tech and some fancy facial muscle techniques - think Avatar, the Hobbit, etc. We've all seen these great creations where an actor like Andy Serkis gets transformed into Gollum or King Kong. Stephanie pointed out how different it is for an actor, and for the director, when doing such productions. That's a bit obvious, of course, but I found it cool to think about how this changes the nature of acting. Stephanie likened it to having to go back to all your black-box theater skills. While this is all done through technology, it also kinda gets us back to where the director can focus on working with the actor to create a story world - which perhaps can lead not just to new characters, but also new ways of telling stories.

The problem has been (perhaps not a capital P, problem) that such technologies have been and still are very expensive and often proprietary. Like all technology, however, such effects are already getting cheaper and it's not hard to imagine that within a couple of years almost any indie will have the tools on their laptop to create not just amazing CGI but also whatever character they want. This may be with actual actors doing some virtual acting, or it could be completely computer generated. In fact, there's already been many people doing this, creating machinima, or films created in Second Life, where people used their avatars to create an entire Western, for example. That was way back in 2006, by the way, so I'm sure it's come along much further now.

As these costs come down, indies will undoubtedly use them to their advantage, but it's interesting that while this phenomenon is nothing new, this was the first panel I've been on where it ever came up in relation to indie and arthouse films. I attend a lot of festivals and conferences, and while I am sure there's been a few (I know SXSW had at least one), I'm surprised it doesn't come up more often. Sure, the technology is a bit in the future, but I'm also worried that many indies are so focused on the current state of things that this sector is bypassing them altogether. None of my indie friends ever mention machinima, yet some of the most interesting films I've seen have been virtual mash-ups, often created by young folks. I meet a ton of actors, but very few who aspire to learn the skills necessary to be the next Andy Serkis. Some theorize that this trend will mean the death of stars, but I doubt it - if anything I imagine a world of fewer stars, but with the same ones playing multiple virtual roles - kinda like how the voice-over world is dominated by just a handful of stars now. I get in plenty of debates about the future of copyright and piracy, but let me tell you - the fights over piracy of celebrity's images will put them all to shame. Once we have fake digital Bogart's running around in every film, Hollywood (every aspect from the stars to the agents to the home office) is gonna sh-t a virtual brick (performed by which actor I wonder?). What does this mean for documentary, when it becomes even harder to be sure that was really so and so big whig talking, not some avatar? Think that there's been a loss of industry jobs due to runaway production and ever-cheapening costs? Just wait until a farmed-out team of teenagers in China or Mexico is being hired via Amazon's Mechanical Turk to produce entire sets and act out most of the motions for pennies on the dollar....I think you get the point, there's a lot of interesting things to discuss, but very few people seem to be having the discussion (if I'm wrong, please point me to some resources in the comments).

Of course, it's not all bad - as I said, this might also lead to some cool new storytelling as well. I, for one, am excited at the prospect that much of this work can become cheap and digital, leaving storytellers to focus on story, once again.

ATL-PushPush Distrib/Fundraise 101

Just back from my old stomping grounds of the ATL, where I did a few private consults and one big, long workshop for filmmakers at PushPush Theater. The experience, for me at least, was great. My slides are embedded after the fold, but first a few words of thought on Atlanta. Having been there, I'm not telling anyone who lives there anything new when I say there's some serious talent in that town. Sure, we all know about Tyler Perry, Rainforest Films, Turner and all that, but the ideas I heard from several producers/directors were pretty incredible. I also like the fact that they have great resources in town like GSU's DAEL center, the Atlanta Film Festival, a top-notch new media/gaming sector and with an amazing tax incentive, there's arguably few places better to shoot right now.

They also have innovative thinkers like PushPush Theater. Yes, I am biased as they paid me to consult and to speak, disclaimer enough? That said, I don't know of many other theater companies that are thinking about community and creativity like they are doing. They aren't just a theater company. Sure, lots of people open their doors to improv, to people showing film screenings, to training, to actors who might want to go from stage to screen. PushPush, however, is going further and thinking about how their projects can become multi-platform transmedia productions. This kinda started with a program they did called Dailies, which helped a group of filmmakers workshop a series of short film experimentations into what became Pop Film's The Signal.

The Chicago Producers Series Slides

As promised, here's the slides from my presentation at the IFP Chicago Producer's series.

Chicago inventing Future Speech

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Inventing the Future in Chicago

I'm headed to one of my favorite US cities this weekend - Chicago - to give a speech for the IFP Chicago Producer's Series. It looks like a great line-up. Lance Weiler will be joining me, as well as some great speakers like Pat Aufderheide, Gordon Quinn and many others, including quite a few I've never met, which is great because I'll likely learn a lot of new things. My personal favorite is the panel with the one speaker I'll be positively gushing about - Mike Stoklasa on his near-perfect reviews of Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, which I've been raving about.  While there, I'll be speaking about innovation in media - something I just spoke about at DIY Days (the video is now up and embedded below), but I don't plan to recycle the entire speech. Instead, I will speak a bit about the current state of the film business - showing some examples of what is working well for filmmakers and other DIY artists, and then speculate a bit about the possible future of the field (cribbing a bit from my last talk).  I'll be speaking a fair bit about participatory culture, crowd-sourced production, funding and distribution and transmedia practice. You know, all those fun, trendy things to speak about these days.

So, if you live in Chicago, or anywhere nearby in the Midwest, stop by and say hello - or at least watch Mike's talk, if not mine. Hope to see you there.

Here's the video from DIY Days:


Brain Newman - DIY Days from ZAFFI Pictures on Vimeo.

DIY Days - Reinventing Innovation Speech

I just wrapped my DIY Days speech (ok, hrs ago) and people have asked for the text and slides. So here they are. I am kinda commenting on the slides, and some slides are counter-points to what I am saying so the video will  be much easier to follow, once it is up.
Slides:

Diy Days Speech on Innovation

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Here's the text, after the fold: