Pixel Lab Summation

The Pixel Lab was an immense success and I had an amazing time there. I learned a vast amount and it turned my project around. This was the first time that I have seen/heard of/been involved with great transmedia creatives being put together with influential commissioners and business people under the single banner of furthering this new form of storytelling.

As I sat at the last dinner (before running away swiftly from the dreaded 'organised welsh dancing') - I had great conversations around the table about the context of the Lab, transmedia, the wider world of rapidly changing media and what is to come. After 10+ years (many in the wilderness) trying to build a creative career telling stories with new technology I am now starting to feel that the world is catching up and this kind of work will find a home in front of a bigger audience than I have ever dared to wish for.

Lastly a quote from one of my favourite film makers - Stanley Kubrick:

'Sometimes the truth of a thing is not so much in the think of it, but in the feel of it.'

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 5

FRIDAY 10th July 2010

Plenary Session: "The Games Industry and Cross Media" Ray Maguire

I can't ever really know what it feels like to live in an occupied country but this session gave me a flavour I think. Did Sony turn up in Humvee's? I don't know but it WAS like an invasion force with industrial strength power point tech and little scope for feedback or 'participation'. Interesting stuff mind you - they spent the most part demo-ing Heavy Rain which I have been mad keen to see as I was a big fan of the author David Cage's previous interactive game/film Fahrenheit.

I had a burning question which no b*gger would answer (probably because Ian Ginn who was sitting close by had given them such a roasting with the 1st question)...

Disturbing Fact #113: The internet accounts for 5% of global energy use and will soon eclipse air travel as the most un-eco activity for and on the planet.

...and the pitch gets closer.

Plenary Session: "Established Financiers, New Models"  Michel Reilhac, Paul Grindley and Lizzie Francke.

This was fun and interesting - especially Michel from Arte. He filled the room with beautiful quotes that inspire him in the shifting world of transmedia.

'I used to be normal but it drove me mad.'

In comparison Paul was conservative in approach but Channel 4 are heading in the right direction - he even suggested Michel should apply for the new controller's job at Channel 4 - I wish he would too.

Lizzie seemed to be buying into the transmedia idea more than the UK Film Council have previously. Having been around all these guys with AWP 2 years ago I think it's time to try again as the commissioners are catching up it would seem..

Then I had an individual meeting with Monique De Haas - she was great offering good advice and contacts - I hope to continue this conversation and would love to port some of our work into Holland

Group work -  practice the pitch - edit the pitch - practice the pitch - edit the pitch - practice the pitch - edit the pitch

Networking Lunch - Mel Exon gave me her iPad to look at Touching Stories - it's not great but I liked it - it reminded me how much I like good interactive video - stuff with agency (Touching Stories didn't have agency) - I guess I'm coming into transmedia with that as my thing - I really love audiovisual media delivered with pizazz(?) and enough attention to detail to make as compelling as a good console game.

Then the Project Pitches - I joined for the second half and pitched AWP - it seemed to go down quite well and there are lots of conversations following on.

Networking drinks - met Ian Tweedale from BBC interactive, Cardiff who is a great guy and I enjoyed talking to him.

Then food (with a tear in the eye - it's over....) and back to my room before the Welsh dancing started - but I still couldn't sleep!

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 4

THURSDAY 8th July 2010

Plenary Session: "New Revenue Models & New Delivery Partners" Wendy Bernfeld

I had been looking forward to this - and wasn't disappointed. Wendy is really sharp and inhabits a new world of distribution - she works on behalf of networks 80% and producers 20%. The possibilities are endless with a non-exclusive approach it would seem...

Think about:

• Different windows and regions
• Produce shoulder material (extra content)
• There are commissioning and broadcaster hold backs
• Keep deals non-exclusive wherever possible
• Start deal negotiations early

Plenary Session: "Digital Rights Issues for Cross-Media Properties" Gregor Pryor. Gregor gave a presentation that was an overview of current law, new thinking and issues we all need to consider in the creation of new IP properties.

In summary:

• Digital production and distribution is a core business driver for film industry moving forward
• Latest production focus is on international cross-media property development
• Clear divisional distribution and exploitation strategy attracts financiers
• Beware digital seduction

Then a Group Session with Steve Peters. By this time I had radically changed the AWP plan and I tested the new pitch in front of Steve and my group.

AWP Plan - I had been thinking about AWP as a transmedia campaign with various outputs: feature film, game, tv series, mobile, events etc. £750k

New Plan - My thinking now was to have the feature film as the driving media platform - supported by a before and after transmedia campaign. £500k

The pitch went down well - I added in real world objects, 'secret cinema' type events and kept the transmedia delivery small and manageable. Will it stick?

Plenary Session: "The Social Web, Storytellers and Brands" Mel Exon. Mel was really good - she showed a number of key brand/advertising led projects. It was great to get up to date info on this world as it's a minefield to approach from the outside.

It seems that although brands are keen to tell stories, the commissions Mel showed are projects that encourage storytelling - i.e. encourages word of mouth recounting - rather than the telling of a fictional narrative. I can see how this is useful and a pretty solid approach but the pendulum will undoubtedly swing the other way - people always want stories told to them at some point.

I had an individual meeting with Mel Exon - my gambit was should/could I approach brands with AWP? - at last an honest answer from the murky world of brands - probably not! Mel did give me some other ideas and we talked a lot about a potential new wave of interactive video projects (inspired in part by the recent Touching Stories and the AWP team's previous interactive film Crimeface).

Group work - so close to the Friday pitch now and AWP undergoing big changes in my head - practice the pitch - edit the pitch - practice the pitch - edit the pitch - practice the pitch - edit the pitch

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 3

WEDNESDAY 7th July 2010

I am exhausted by now. I can’t sleep and don’t seem to get a minute to work on the project – let alone to myself.

Plenary Session: "New Business Models & Finance Structures" with Brian Newman, Ian Ginn and Ben Grass.

This session was good but basically it outlined what we all should know by now = there are no rules/ no business models/ no easy answers BUT if you have good material and you can get an audience amassed around your story you can make it work for you.

Brian is very knowledgeable about the indie moviemaking scene in the USA where people are making amazing entrepreneurial moves and breaking new ground using digital/web and new distribution methods.

Ian is a British entrepreneur living in Holland. He didn’t really get around to his business models but told us the tale of his working life which includes 3d holograms, the open source software ‘Blender’, movie producing and now producing web serials with some really interesting technology to help tell his stories.

Ben is producer working in the UK. His company Puregrass have had some major successes making interactive web serials but was very honest about the pitfalls involved in his projects. It was really good to see someone passionate about creating good story and IP and the ways he is making this happen.

Then a Case Study: "Embracing the Audience" - Timo Vuorensola showed us his 2 projects - the incredibly successful "Star Wreck" and the upcoming "Iron Sky" - both made in collaboration with a global audience, check out these sites:

Star Wreck
Wreck a Movie
Iron Sky

Timo’s schtick covered:

• Demand
• Collaborate
• Support
• Share

Timo was very funny and enthusiastic – as well as very savvy about what he and his crew are doing.

Plenary Session: "Social Media & Audience Engagement Design" with Monique De Haas. Monique showed some great material from Holland – a TV reality game show where the winner gets a kidney and some footage of a teenage girl throughout her day showing the different touch points we can access an audience through. Then some points on designing for the audience:

• Design for entry
• Design for repeat
• Design for referral
• Design for the dive

This was good though the audience were baffled at some points as they had seen some of these concepts delivered differently by other tutors previously in the week so the difference in her approach was seen as confusing. (The funnel diagram was talked about for days.)

We get some time on the project! Group work: AWP is broken by now – I’m getting phased/tired/confused…

Then we have to get on a boat and go across the bay for dinner – which is a lovely idea but I only last about half an hour and get a taxi back to Cardiff to work on the project…

This blog entry is very poor admittedly - will try to revise later - wasn't my best day as you can probably tell...

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 2

TUESDAY 6th July 2010

Hit the ground running again.

Plenary Session: "The Cross-Media Challenge: How to produce content for different platforms" - Nuno Bernado, creator of many successful web/TV crossovers talked about his projects: Sofia's Diary, Flatmates, Beat Generation and Final Punishment.

Some wisdom from Nuno:

• Remember the audience have different levels of obsession/interest
• Find out when your audience are watching – tailor your delivery to them
• Plan with military precision
• Initial story is broken down between video episodes and interactive activity
• Remember a terrible TV show starts with an audience – the best web show in the world starts with none

Nuno’s projects are interesting - not to my taste stylistically but his franchise is on fire with and he repeatedly sells the formats internationally.

Plenary Session: "Shattering the Fourth Wall with Social Media - How the future will tell stories" - Steve Peters talked about his own ARG projects - Why so serious?, Vanishing Point, Dead Mens Tale and Six Minutes to Midnight -  then he outlined some golden rules for what the audience want and need.

How to connect-reach-interact with your audience in a meaningful way:

• Let the audience touch the story
• Let the audience find you – discovery = ownership (but not too stealthy)
• Surround the audience – push the story into their lives
• Get Bloggers onside
• Design so the audience always wants more
• Stay out of audience space – let them have ownership
• Keep audience interactions positive
• Maintain low barrier to entry
• Let the audience tell the story to each other
• Let the audience feel like they live in the same world your story does
• Don’t betray the audience’s trust
• Setup the update schedule and maintain pacing, momentum and focus
• Let the audience feel smart by letting them do it themselves
• Balance the reward with the ask
• Let the audience see themselves in the story
• Build in viral potential
• Keep the essence of the story simple
• Voyeurism creates a strong emotional connection with the characters (character blogs etc)
• Build in opportunities for UGC

Brilliant stuff – these are great pointers for anybody creating content that will be delivered online or via social networks - please post a comment if you want further explanation of any points.

Also – did you know – Facebook accounts for 25% of all web page views in the USA – that means a quarter of the population only go only as far into the web as Facebook…

Then a group session with Nuno Bernado - Project planning, workflow, schedules. Nuno's background - business models etc. Nuno had the same problems with our delivery schedule as Christy did – uh oh!

Then group session with Jeff Gomez - Creating story universe. Really liked this and got to quiz him a lot - very cool chap. Did Jeff have a problem with our delivery schedule? Yes!

Then Plenary Session: "Transmedia Production - New models and New Possibilities" - Jeff Gomez took us further into his world.

Later, an individual meeting with Steve Peters -  great guy – gave me lots of useful tech tips, ARG rabbit hole techniques and more besides...

Ok - so by this point AWP is getting a fair amount of criticism for the proposed schedule - the fact we have put material out already and the way we intend to reversion the material for a feature film version.

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 1

MONDAY 5th July 2010

Ok - before diving into the week headlong - here's how it works…

The time is split between:

• Plenary Sessions - Experts present in main room to all groups
• Group Sessions - Experts discuss their subjects and feedback on projects
• Group Work - Project teams developing their projects
• Case Studies - Projects of interest presented in main room to all groups
•  Individual Meetings - One to one meetings with experts
•  Networking - so it goes…

Participants/Projects:

• There are 35(ish) participants in the Lab split into 4 groups
• Half of the participants have a project (I have one)
• Those without a project are assigned a collaborator with a project 
• They work together to develop the project over the course of the week The projects are pitched publicly at the end of the week

So Monday.... a great day! We started at 9am with Plenary Session: "Creating Blockbuster Worlds" - Jeff Gomez talked about his experiences creating storyworlds. There were some really key points in his presentation:

Telling stories with Transmedia means:

• putting ears on your story
• platforms become instruments (in the orchestra of the story)
• maintaining logic and consistency
• using timeless themes – artfully presented
• the cultivation, validation and celebration of fanbase
• story/platform extensions that maintain integrity of the brand
• interwoven stories and continuity over different platforms & product lines
• careful market segmentation
• coordination, attention to detail and quality is all important
• recognising your driving platform
• having a creative visionary and IP stewards
• storyworlds have to stand up to deep analysis
• needing a central message for the storyworld (preferably upbeat & aspirational)
• complex narratives need a simple, mythic essence
• audience participation without the dialogue becomes propaganda

Jeff was a veritable oracle about the relevance of storyworlds in today’s connected world - and what a good project needs - this is crucial to what we're doing with AWP and Sheerport.

Apologies if the headlines listed above are too abstract without the context of the PowerPoint - I can’t post the power point here but if I can find relevant stuff over the next few days I will amend it here.

Then Plenary Session: "Story Design for the Four Key Cross Media Types" - Christy Dena talking about story and user experience design. I had seen some of her presentation before but it's worth refreshing on a couple of points:

• Think: pre experience – during experience – post experience
• Wayfinders: orientation of audience – where are they on arrival? what do they need to do now?
• Think about including a tutorial

My notes are not that comprehensive but Christy finished her PhD on transmedia recently - you can download it here - she's ace!

Then we had a group session with Erica Motley - "Finance Plan". My project partner Mira Stavela (Deputy Director of Sofia IFF/Art Fest Ltd) and I worked on the financial structure of AWP and put it in front of Erica.

This was a most useful meeting having previously struggled with this side of financing projects - Erica really made it clear in an A B C kind of way - we need to establish partnerships with co-producers and a sales agent. That's how we're going to do it.

Then a Case Study: Alexandre Brachet of Upian showed 2 great interactive documentary projects they created with the web as the primary platform - both worth checking out:

Gaza Sderot
Prison Valley

Then a group session with Christy Dena. Christy thought that the timing of our planned AWP  release not being real time causes a problem in the suspension of disbelief. She might be right...

Pixel Lab Diary - Day 0

SUNDAY 4th July 2010

I make my way to the Pixel Lab, taking "The Alexander Wilson Project" with me to develop and pitch amidst the cream of Transmedia experts from around the globe.

The list of experts/tutors is here:

Nuno Bernardo, CEO, beActive Entertainment (PT)
Wendy Bernfeld, MD, Rights Stuff BV (NL)
Guillaume Blanchot, Director of Multimedia and Technical Industries, Centre National du Cinema (FR)
Alexandre Brachet, CEO, Upian.com (FR)
Christy Dena, Director, Universe Creation 101 (AUS)
Mel Exon, Managing Partner, BBH Labs (UK/USA)
Lizzie Francke, Senior Development & Production Executive, UKFC (UK)
Jeff Gomez, President & Chief Executive Officer, Starlight Runner Entertainment (USA)
Paul Grindey, Head of Legal & Business Affairs (Scripted Content), Ch4 (UK)
Monique de Haas, Audience Engagement Expert, Dondersteen Media (NL)
Ray Maguire, President, Sony Computer Entertainment UK, Nordic, Ireland (UK)
Erica Motley, Film & Digital Consultant, Terbish Partners (USA)
Steve Peters, Experience Designer & Partner, No Mimes Media (USA)
Gregor Pryor, Digital Media Lawyer and Partner, Reed Smith (UK)
Timo Vuorensola, Filmmaker (Iron Sky) & Internet Pioneer (FIN)

The Group Leaders:

Ian Ginn, Producer, Hubbub Media (NL) – GROUP A
Ben Grass, Producer & MD, Pure Grass Films (UK) – GROUP B
Brian Newman, Consultant and Former President, Tribeca Film Institute (USA) – GROUP C (my group)
Michel Reilhac, Executive Director ARTE France Cinéma (FR) – GROUP D

We hit the ground running with an intro at 4pm and by 5.10pm I was pitching AWP to my group. Then meet and greet in the bar, food and now typing up....

Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner introduces an intriguing central theme to the transmedia storyworld of the Pixel Lab.

ARG? Not ARG? Read on - Warning: Transmedia themes to follow...

Now I hopefully have your attention. I want to tell you about my serendipitous week at Power to the Pixel's recent Cross-Media Film Workshop, The Pixel Lab.

Jeff Gomez brought the theme of "keiretsu" early on in the week and inspired a brilliantly open approach to information and contacts between all levels of attendance to the Lab - and in every direction. The true meaning of keiretsu I cannot be sure of but I took it to mean something like "strength through the sharing of ideas". (Jeff please correct me if I'm wrong!)

It was inspiring stuff. Christy Dena, Steve Peters, Nuno Bernado and a veritable bevy of transmedia experts also kicked knowledge-transfer ass all week and a good time was had by all.

This coming week I will post the up to date thinking that was disseminated at the Lab on transmedia/multiplatform/interactive stories and film making (did i miss one?) - in the order of events as they happened last week in Cardiff.

There was no ARG there unless I am mistaken.
The Alexander Wilson Project is not an ARG either.

And Then...

...things started to shift... taking Sheerport and AWP to the Pixel Lab.