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.