2008

Onemedia unconference Nov 13-14, London

Onemedia logo

This week I headed down to innovation quango NESTA‘s space age HQ (resplete with break-out rooms with circular board tables) to join in the first Onemedia ‘unconference‘. This was basically an open space workshop where the 50 or so participants from a range of media industries – including web, digital, music, film, education and TV – gathered together to set our own agenda and form break-out groups to discuss the hot topics of the day and form our own solutions. The attendees were a jolly nice bunch, mainly indie producers and consultants with a few biggers orgs like ITV represented.

I’ve been to several open space conferences, particularly during my days in Bristol developing projects with Watershed Media Centre. Although you don’t always feel like you get the ‘top down’ knowledge you would from a speaker-led symposium conference, it really allows you to contribute and benefit from the wealth of knowledge of others – paticularly those working in parallel or complimentary fields, and it’s a cheaper and more accessible ways of organising an industry event – particularly in a smaller town or city.

And the best thing about open space is that it works on the ‘law of two feet’: it’s OK to walk away from a session if you’ve said enough or just want to move on. It’s a great way to get live feedback to test the waters with radical ideas. But I forgot how tiring it is – so much talking and even more listening!

We self-secretariat-ed all our session – Mel @ Media Sauce has the un-enviably task of gathering and sorting through all our disparate notes – but some of the key thoughts and ideas I heard in the sessions I attended:

Branded and advertiser-funded content
There was much discussion from the indie production community on the return, 1950s soap-style, to the advertiser leading the production of quality content, from interactive drama through to James Bond heavy rotation product placement. Many discussed the difficult of getting air-time with the major brands; without the gatekeepers that were broadcasting commissioners, the environment to get commissioned direct is impossible to navigate for the micro-indie, and in the case of the telecos, we need them more than they need us. Another example of the ‘flatter’ media landscape being easier to cross the terrain for big players than the many small, yet Magic Lantern played upon the creative vanity and budget crunches of brand managers to deliver interactive content direct to online audiences, cutting out the perplexing range of ‘middle men’ in the current advertising market including buyers, ad agencies and producers. Those established in the ‘old media world’, like Buffy creator Joss Wheedon’s Doctor Horrible or Radiohead’s In Rainbows, mean reaching existing fans with the benefit of years of TV or major record label investment is that much easier to profit from digital-only distribution and to acquire the investment in the first place.

Taste makers
Conversely, there is a key role for ‘taste makers’ like Last.fm and Hype Machine to help users connect with the influencers – be it Nike bribing cool kids to wear their trainers in the playground, or user recommendation and aggreation technologies.

Narrative
Understanding narrative was a key theme in several sessions – web producers need to understand narrative in the user experience journey as much as the many types of narrative forms which can be applicable to everything from a traditional storytellers to a console game. The digital world has much it can learn from those from the film and TV industries – be it how to tell compelling stories on a budget or lighting design.

Universities may be churning out graduates with interactive productions skills ten-to-the-dozen, but those with the intelligence to be trained in the ‘art’ of media production, or the work training to do it, are lacking, yet a lot of the old training from the film schools isn’t needed in the YouTube and digi-camera age where accessibility and story are more important than framing each shot. Budding film-makers can just learn by doing, and start to engage with an audience from day 1.

New skills
Training and skills are paramount to allow people to compete in this shifting landscape – but the significant majority of freelancers in the industry don’t have access to professional development – or even know the question to ask they need the answers for. The project I am working on with White Room for North West Vision is an interesting take – getting ‘traditional media’ freelancers and getting them placed into digital companies in a unique cross-industry experiment.

Writers, producers and directors still largely ‘don’t get it’ when it comes to creating the cross-platform worlds where audience expectations, aggregated by social media, are either enhanced or dumfounded by writers and the opportunities and limitations of each medium are best exploited.

Collaboration
Collaboration between different writers, producers and technical geeks is a necessity in the cross-platform world – and we just aren’t used to getting stuck in together or finding shared languages and commonalities.

Digital distribution
Overall, getting paid and finding the right business models from digital distribution is the crucial hurdle which inhibit development with the professional media community – although there is a necessity for new talent to ‘just f***ing do it’ – prototype your idea, get in online and start to build an audiences rather than chasing the golden commission.

I facilitated an interesting session on digital music distribution and what lessons other industries could learn from the bit-torrented collapse of the conventional music business. Some key findings were that bands and artists have been successful when engaging with their audiences through making it very personal – using social media – like video, blogs and giving a bit of it away for free – were seen as winning tactics for musicians to build direct relationships and acquiring the data of fans which everyone from film-makers to indie games developer could benefit from.

We concluded the old structures – major labels, distributors and retailers – were largely redundant, but have been replaced with other corporate funded spaces like MySpace and Last.fm who act as gatekeepers and curators between content creators and audiences.

Overall, it was an enjoyable event if not a tad long – an intensive, bigger one-day event would I think have worked better. It was a great way to meet people from different disciplines with granularity, but the wealth of indies/consultants compared to brand owners and major media players probably limited the impact of change the conference set out to make. Sponsors NESTA and Pact are interested in the findings so let’s see what next.

This is Playful – London Games Week, Conway Hall, Oct 31

“To thine own self be true” read the inscription above the stage of the humanist community venue of Conway Hall in Holborn – an appropriate epitaph for an era where user-generated content and the collaborative nature of web 2.0 is pervading computer game technologies, and new forms of playfulness emerge from the fusion of game play with toys, theatre, web and movement – as explored at this one day event as part of London Games Festival games fringe week.

Organised by my fellow conspirators Pixel-Lab from Derby, This is Playful was a very chilled out laid back event full of interesting talking and stuff followed by a few light ales, and generally a good sense of community. A lot of the technicalities went over my bear-like-brain-when-it-comes-to-games, but a few talks stood out:

Chris Delay from Introversion talked about building high production values in graphics from a micro-indie’s budget using procedural generation – that is using patterns of nature in a generative progam to produce patterns – like tree branches spreading outwards, or even city scapes spawning more and more detailed roads. This can be split into everything – even building floors and windows on buildings, producing exterior textures, or internal building scapes to produce desks, computers and objects. This cuts out the handmade time of game artists, and would seem to be the future of much CGI and games generation in the increasingly expensive era when users demand higher-level graphics.

Kars Alfink from Leapfrog in Utrecht – the Netherlands’ epicentre of game design – talked about playing with form using the example of the Z-Boys from the film Lords of Dogtown, who formed what became now skateboarding technique from experimenting with their surroundings of disused swimming-pools. Now skate parks take the form of extreme hollowed-out bowls that were originally just the functional spaces available.

We consume media but we use tools – so game media is about creating tools for functional uses. Habbo Hotel, the virtual world for children, has very ‘underspecified’ tools – like rooms where children play at ‘horses’ – despite the fact that it’s not a stable and there are no horse-specific objects there – rather like kids will play at anything with a few limited props in the ‘sandbox’ of a garden or playroom.

Tom Armitage from Headshift talked about the Obama 08 campaign manager software for iPhone, and how you could rate your performance as a campaigner against others – a multiplayer game (of sorts). Everything is now a multiplayer environment – enabled by web 2.0 thinking and technologies. We all have ‘rings’ between us, our closest allies, friends of friends then everyone else; social media platforms ape this – e.g. email/SMS/IM for close contact, Facebook next, MySpace for the semi-unwashed and open spaces for everyone else. Yet social networks are not merely spaces, they consist of people who are connected by a shared object or interest – like World of Warcraft for gamers or Flickr for photo lovers.

Armitage believes multi-player can take the form of differing contexts – not just MMO or simultaneous multi-player forms but a “super context” – shared information and shared fun asyncronously, in close but not necessarily simultaneous timespans – like sending links and sharing comments on Facebook or by email. This also gives you more to talk about AFTER the event.

Eric Zimmerman from GameLab spoke about games being about rules and maths. The play is the free movement within rigid structures – be that skateboarders in swimming pools or playing within the mathematical rules of the game. Gamestar Mechanic is his new venture allowing users to create their own user-generated online game to share and play with others, an interesting combination of web 2.0 and game technologies.

Lots of other interesting bits and bobs including a very interesting presentation on realism and expression in high-end games design from Jolyon Webb from Blitz Games using the example of how getting it right with teeth affects how you feel and interactive with the characters, and a very silly Singing Sock Puppet linking up Last.fm with, er, a sock puppet. A fun end to the week.

Going Apprentice at High Growth Coaching weekend

Last weekend I had an intensive time on a training course. I’m doing a Chartered Management Institute High Growth Coaching Diploma, which is being run by Exponential as part of a programme sponsored by the East Midlands Development Agency’s High Growth Programme to support regional businesses with potential. I was hoping for a bit of a jolly in a nice hotel in Northamptonshire, but of course our public-funded sponsors duly put us to our paces in a 48-hour workathon not unlike an episode of “The Apprentice”.

Placed in a five-person team, we had a series of challenging business modelling exercises to grow a telecoms company, competing with three other teams for market domination. That in itself was a spreadsheet-from-hell exercise, but as the Board of Directors we had to set our code of conduct and strategy. Sesssions were fast-placed and taxing, but half-way through John the course leader announced that as this was a coaching programme, we’d be tested on how true we were to our strategy and conduct – not solely on the bottom-line. The challenge was keeping our nerve and balancing strategic and human relationships with operational ‘get it out the door’ delivery.

Fortunately, my team got on very well – we were blessed with a wealth of experience in marketing, operations and technology from Diane, Mike, John and Adrian – quite literally, as one of the team was a Reverend. As the least skilled member of the team, I was duly elected MD and it put me through my paces (as the youngest coach on the course by the best part of a decade), and tested my mettle in establishing collaborative leadership and focusing on our goals.

We actually had a lot of fun. And we came back with the booty – we won the greatest market share, greatest profit (*grins smugly*). And we were voted the top team who stuck to our conduct and strategy. Woop! I think the key to our success was having shared goals – and I learnt a lot from the course as to how clients need to have a shraed focus, values and to continual evaluate what they are trying to achieve and measuring performance. Having a good sense of humour and fun, being amendable and flexible in attitude, also helped a lot. We benefited from diversity in experiences within our team and it made me recognise that in this context, very much away from the creative industries bubble I work in, my approach was actual quite innovative, risk-taking and radical compared to my peers from more steady-state industries. The yin-yang combination in this kind of bootstrapping environment is a lot stronger than mono-cultures many businesses (especially creative ones) envelope themselves in.

I enjoyed our winning bottle of wine at home, after two crashed wedding parties, a muddy walk thorugh the country and sauna later. Shame to let those lovely facilities go to waste…

4Talent Interactive Drama Inspiration Session, Oct 23 @ Hello Digital

I am the 1 in 10, declared Birmingham’s UB40 to describe the hollow emptiness of Thatcher’s long queue of the unemployed. History may be repeating itself as the long dark shadow of recession bites, but in happier news I was in Birmingham today investigating a brighter future as part of Hello Digital, the curiously schizophrenic festival/media conference mash-up, to attend a 4Talent Inspiration Session on Interactive Drama, where I was lucky enough to be selected from the 10 to 1 applicants ratio to 20 places.

The Inspiration Session format is basically a small seminar with the opportunity to listen to and have a chat with leading experts in the field at close quarters. This session on interactive drama pushed my buttons as I’ve previously blogged on the subject and I’m intrigued about how online brand-sponsored content, factual and fiction, can be used as a model to counteract the two entwining death curves of declining TV advertising revenues, and the shifts to audiences from broadcast to online viewing.

The experts of the day were Dan’l Hewitt [what is that apostrophe hiding?] (Bebo), Luke Hyams (writer of Dubplate Drama and Kate Modern), David Bausola (AG8, producers of ‘Where are the Joneses?’ for Ford), and Robert Wulffe-Cochrane (Channel 4 Drama) Those nice folks at 4Talent have podcasted the best bits online so go hear for yourself. My general thoughts on the day:

Interactive drama is still a bit about the gizmos, the product placement and dumming down to the micro-attention spans of the teen and youth audiences, who for now are the only viable market for commercial sponsorship in this new found revival of brand-sponsored content. Along with music branding deals, like Groove Armada’s partnership with Barcardi (though I was sad to hear that my musical pals The Red Stripes, a White Stripes tribute band in a reggae style, got a cease-and-desist order for a proposed sponsorship deal with Red Stripe beer), interactive drama is seeing a return to the 1950s days of soap suds sponsored domestic dramas, which came to be known as soap operas. Of course, brand placement is nothing new, particularly in cinema, but the de-regulated nature of online drama provides more scope for new forms of business models in addition to formats and production methods.

Luke Hyams, a seminal legend in interactive drama, showed that the vision of writer/director is not diminished by the micro-screen: he referenced Francis Ford Coppola’s immersive journey in “Heart of Darkness” (the making of “Apocalypse Now”), as similar to the process of adaption and iteration which makes the spontaneous nature of online drama truly work – perhaps making it the potential to be a deeper and more emotionally connected drama through the levels of engagement between audience and character – the believability of getting a private message in your Bebo Inbox from your favourite hero or heroine can surely only increase the engagement.

Interactive drama spawns from breaking the ‘rules’ of television. Early protagonist Miles Beckett, the creator of ‘is it real, is it fake?’ YouTube hit LonelyGirl17 used to be a plastic surgeon – deep pockets but with no preconceived idea of what makes a film or production, so created his own rules.

Dan’l from Bebo talked about the social network’s vision for drama. With 1 billion video streams per month, there was a lot of engagement but little storytelling – over 90% of page views were for self-generated content. The Bebo Open Media platform allows a current tranche of 500 content producers to create content, with deals in place for Bebo to promote and attract sponsors in an egalitarian revenue-share deal.

In addition, 9 online shows will be commissioned for 2009 in drama, comedy and music with healthy budgets of around £250K each. The big players are already moving in, with Gap Year, an Endemol production heavily sponsored by outdoor brands, yielding viewers. A Message From Earth, where Bebo users uploaded content for a time capsule blasted into space from the Ukraine really starts to exploit UGC and interactivity with the format for a magazine show. The funding model here is far more like a feature – Bebo won’t go into production until the production costs are covered, making it more profitable that Channel 4’s ‘serious’ dramas.

David Bausola from AG8 was easily my most inspiring speaker of the day. His company AG8 interface between brands and content production, cutting out the middle-man of television. With Henry Normal’s comedy production company Baby Cow he conceived “Where Are The Joneses?” an online drama series commissioned by Ford to rather than overtly product place, associate humorous content with the brand to start revamping the conservative image of the company. It’s all about making it more viral – no one shares TV ads (though I would contest this, Cillit Bang Man’s ad and associated mash-up has racked millions of views on YouTube) but people will share witty, shocking, funny or cute content.

AG8’s tactic is to engage heavily with the “first 100 passionate users” (I guess these are your super-fans and super-connectors) and diffuse it from there – rather than seed it surreptitiously. This works on a new model – rather than produce the ‘content’ (i.e the advert) cheaply and spend the campaign money on broadcasting it frequently, now you spend all the money on the content – a whole series worth – and seed it in online places where people are. However, the tale wags the dog as the series has been licensed for broadcast on Sky.

Interactive drama is all about transmedia – delivering a story across a range of media where UGC creates an environment where “mess is lore” and in a reversal of the 1960s our pop culture is injected with visions from abstract art. Russell Davies, advertising guru, reminds us “forget big ideas, seek rich ideas.” Art and culture bleed back into commerce, like The Simpsons taking over a Kwik-e-Mart with Simpson’s cereal and beer to promote the film.

It’s also less about engagement with the narrative as in traditional television and film, but measuring what interactions and info is being requested. The semantic web is like an innuendo – tags and sharing create different contexts and multiple meanings.

The weakest link of the day, and a particularly depressing take on the brave new world of online drama, was Robert Wulffe-Cochrane from Channel4, who told us all drama lost the network buckets and there is no future in pureplay online commissioning – only for content which supports a landmark show – Skins, Hollyoaks etc. Their budget slashes and 15% headcount death toll may create a dark cloud other its outlook and staff, but I did think that as licensed-funded BBC and even ITV are branching into online-only or initial/primary online broadcasting (with Universal Music co-pro “Britannia High”), the self-proclaimed disruptive broadcaster is in danger here of missing the boat – if it hasn’t done so already.

It’s clear that to succeed online, quality is not king, which is where the complex and high budget interactive drama can fall foul of user-generated content like the YouTube eye make-up video girl who’s been asked to launch her own eye make-up range. Despite ‘competing’ with professional online videos, people preferred her down-to-earth approach. And online content is often as much about the ‘use’ as the ‘entertainment’ value. Yet brand owners’ dollars, to date, have flooded into online – Seth McFarlane scored a $50 million dealth with Burger King to make just 50 x 2 min clips – that’s expensive even for a feature film.

Interesting discussions took place around the production tchniques of the show: Dubplate Drama had two alternatives filmed for everything, with points to weave in and out, and ambigious dialogue to allow for alternatives – (like “after what happened at the club”, where it could have been either a fight or a shooting). Like Choose Your Own Adventure books, it all seems a bit complex and ‘over prodcued’ to be viable in a range of different productions, although highly experimental and relevant.

Interactive drama plots need to appear fast-paced, but actually evolve very slowly and deliberately, ‘less is more’, as users are not always consuming stories linearly, nor are they soaking it all in, as they’re likely to be twittering, IMing, SMSing or listening to music while viewing (the average 30 minutes of online video is viewed in just 20 minutes).

In conclusion, there are I believe great opportunities in interactive comedy and drama for independent producers, but equally for intermediaries and connectors who can join the dots between the big brands and the storytellers. Advertisers, online marketers who partner with film creatives are well-placed to grow with this genre – which is slowly creeping out of the brand-pockets of tweenies and to a more mature and dynamic genre.

DMEX Cross-media Exchange for North West Freelancers

I’m very pleased to announce I am working on a new project with The White Room, a progressive new creative and digital consultancy based in Manchester where we’ll be giving 20 North West TV and media freelancers a unique opportunity to work on a paid 20 day work placement, workshop and mentoring programme to help them working in digital production and cross-platform environments. Exciting stuff – the North West are definitely ahead of the pack here in skills for the digital age. Here’s the blurb:

The White Room have been commissioned by Northwest Vision & Media to run a cross-media exchange programme, commencing in October 2008. This is your chance to get involved.

Northwest Vision & Media, the regional screen agency, are committed to developing the skills of its digital and creative workforce to compete in the increasingly digital media age where cross-platform and 360 degree commissioning, digital marketing strategies and online video are blurring the lines between the skills needed to produce ‘old’ and ‘new’ media.

DMeX Cross Sector Exchange is a new pilot programme, which will lead the North West in a pioneering approach to work placement training, linking the wisdom and skills of traditional media producers and placing them in digital production environments, with the opportunity to get paid to work on live briefs for cutting edge projects, along with high level master classes and mentoring from leading digital industry pioneers.

If you’re intrigued by Twitter, Linked In with many social networks and have heard about and now want to experience Second Life, commercial blogging, vlogging, virals, digital distribution and production skills – DMeX will help you with the knowledge and real-world experience to go digital.

This programme is designed for broadcast or ?lm media production professionals (TV, radio, ?lm or corporate video) with at least 3 years production experience and the equivalent job title of assistant producer or producer, assistant director, script writer/editor, vision mixers, animators, camera or crew.

The programme takes place from November 2008 to March 2009 in a ?exible delivery period, in response to opportunities to deliver live client projects and allowing for a range of types of learning to ?t in around your other work commitments.

We are recruiting 20 media professionals for this pilot programme. They will undertake a paid (BECTU and PACT equivalent rates for a 37.5 hour week) placement within companies whose core business is producing digital content. The White Room are currently recruiting for this project which runs from November 08 to March 09.

If you are interested in getting a placement, please call or email Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.

For further information on the programme, email dmex@visionandmedia.co.uk

What do I get?

A training diagnostic planning session to identify your development needs in working in digital environments Opportunity to learn skills vital to producing media in digital age
A paid 4 week work placement at a NW digital business working on a live brief.
Individual training and development plan.
Attendance at 3 master class seminars with leading digital industry pioneers to offer handson experience and Q&A on topics including Digital Commissioning, Pitching, IP and Collaboration.
Access to an individual mentor with senior experience in digital environments.
Access to the on-line DMeX learning resource Access to all training and resources with encouragement and support to record your placement and training through blogging and video diaries.
Opportunity to participate in a virtual worlds collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University MA Creative Writing tutors to produce a digital short with Moviestorm or in Second Life.
Become part of a network of Freelancers and leading Digital Companies in the NW The support of dedicated programme co-ordinators to ensure you have ongoing benefits from the programme.

How do I get it?

Call me – Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.

About Northwest Vision and Media

Northwest Vision and Media works on behalf of the TV, film, radio, digital and games industries in the North-west to grow a world-class media economy within the region. We provide strategic leadership, help to build businesses, develop skills and talent, encourage and invest in production and inspire audiences. Find out more at www.visionandmedia.co.uk
Northwest Vision and Media is funded by the UK Film Council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency,
European Funds, Skillset, local, city and council authorities across the region.