It’s been too long since I’ve shared what I’ve been reading and thinking about…
- Project: Alibi – A Multi-Platform Ghost Story. “Project : Alibi is a ghost story for the digital age, putting you right at the center of the macabre and creepy things happening to Talbot. In the same way you keep close to all your online friends, Project : Alibi is more an experience than mere story and will play out in your day-to-day digital life, at times literally reaching out and pulling you right back in when you least expect it. You think the ghost stories from your youth under a blanket with flashlights were scary? This interactive ghost story will inject itself into your life for an entire week on the run up to Hallowe’en, and in a way that you’ve never experienced it, guaranteed.” From Steve Peters and Alison Norrington!
- MIT’s Alex Pentland on “Living Big Data”. “the biggest difficulty in using big data to build a better society is being able to develop a human-scale, intuitive understanding of social physics.“
- Media Lab to bring more digital tools into newsrooms with $1.2 million Knight Foundation grant. Congrats to William Uricchio, Andrew Whitacre, Ian Condry, Jing Wang and all my friends at the Center for Future Civic Media!
- Amazon Joins With Alloy Entertainment on Digital Publishing Imprint. The critical bit, IMHO, is at the very end: “Alloy, which is known for creating hit teenage series like Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, has teamed up with Amazon in the past. Alloy has already licensed several of its properties for Amazon’s fan fiction venture, Kindle Worlds, which allows fans to publish and sell stories based on popular novels and shows. With its new digital imprint, Alloy aims to test out titles that could be spun off into TV shows and released later in print.“
- How Google Creative Lab Links Product to Stellar Storytelling. “1. Sometimes, the storytellers can influence the product. 2. Product can be plot. 3. People will remember the way you made them feel. 4. Give consumers the power. 5. Do good things that matter.”
- 10 Storytelling Lessons from Google Creative Lab. “1. Educational Campaigns: Chrome Shorts. 2. Build Prototypes. 3. Bake a Broccoli Cupcake. 4. Know the User, Know the Magic, and Connect the Two. 5. Create a Story Pre-Product. 6. Get in Touch with the Community. 7. Connect with Curators to Increase Reach. 8. Be Your Own Case Study. 9. Your Byproducts are Stories. 10. Empower Your Consumers.”
- Where Tech Is Taking Us: A Conversation With Intel’s Genevieve Bell. “I look at the Internet of Things and think about the green-field opportunity, more than connecting things that already exist. It will probably be different from one place to another — in London traffic is a concern, so maybe it will be about traffic. Pollution in Shanghai. In Sydney, where to get the next coffee or beer.”
- More Online Publishers Let Readers Fill the Space. “For publishers, the new meaning of ‘to platform’ is something akin to: Take a traditional media company and add technology that allows readers to upload digital content as varied as links, text, video and other media. The result is a ‘publish first’ model in which a lightly filtered, or unfiltered, stream of material moves from reader to reader, with the publication acting as a host and directing conversation but not controlling it.”
- On the Set of the Most Immersive WWII Movie Ever Made. “Current cinema technologies—whether IMAX, IMAX 3D, or Smell-o-Vision—doesn’t entirely immerse the viewer within the plot, no matter how realistic the on-screen action. It is still limited to a projected image on a flat screen. What’s more, they still only offer passive interaction with the subject matter as opposed to the immersive first person perspective that gaming franchise titans like Halo or CoD can offer players. Jaunt and New Deal, though, want to be first to the next generation of movie-watching.”
- Are You Experiential 101?: Place-Based Storytelling Panel Video. The panel included James Theophane, Digital Creative Director, Clemenger BBDO; Dr. Tim Barker, iCinema Research Centre; Warren Armstrong, new media artist and curator of the (Un)seen Sculptures augmented reality exhibition; Fabien Riggall, founder of Secret Cinema and Future Shorts; moderated by Gary Hayes, CEO of MUVEDesign & Director StoryLabs.
- Tribeca Film Festival Announces 2015 Submissions Deadlines. “Tribeca also welcomes submissions for their transmedia program, in collaboration with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin. This program, which includes an award, celebrates new trends in digital media and recognizes transmedia creators who employ an innovative, interactive, web-based or multi-platform approach to story creation. Through open submissions, selections will be presented to the public at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival… Official entry deadline for short length and feature length film entries as well as transmedia project entries. This is the final deadline for transmedia projects and short films: December 24, 2014 at 6 p.m. EST.”
- 2015 Seattle Film Festival Call for Submissions. “Seattle TransMedia and Independent Film Festival is held at multiple venues in the University District of Seattle. It is a celebration of transmedia storytelling and off-beat independent film from the Northwest and the rest of the world. We feature 9 days of film screenings, exhibits, parties, filmmaker panels and networking… September 1st: Early Deadline; November 1st: Regular Deadline.”