I've been out shooting footage for LowLifes using my Sony HDR-XR500 - all handheld, in bright sunlight and night time.
I have to say I love the camera. It's very easy to use, easy to switch from auto to manual focus (which is the thing I do most often) and so quick to pop out the memory card and transfer the rushes to the computer.The picture quality is really nice.
The one thing that's a pain in the neck is the AVCHD files because although they're nice and small, that file compression plays havoc with Premiere and After Effects. It "works" but it's slow and troublesome. It's been acceptable for friend's wedding videos and my travelogs but now I'm doing proper work I needed a better solution.
(c) Use cineform to convert all .m2ts files into .avi
(d) I'd already started editing in Premiere with the native AVCHD files so I had to replace them with the .avi files. Use TexRep to do a search and replace and swap ".m2ts" for "avi" - works perfectly!
I thought it was about time I gave an update on the
Lowlifes project. Here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
So… the novella is finished! (fanfare please). I had three
draft copies printed using QOOP to check the look and feel and to have
something physical to give away to potential partners.
The writer, Simon Wood, is now finishing up the webisode
scripts and then I’ll go out to shoot them during August.
The webisodes will
all be voiced by an actor playing the role of private detective Lauren Ortega
(30s, American woman of Mexican parents). Any actor interested in auditioning
for the role – which is voice-over only at this time – should be resident in
the San Francisco Bay Area and should upload an audition piece to the LowLifes Facebook page.It’ll be a non-union paid
gig and probably 1 to 2 days work at a mutually convenient time during late
August-September.
The big step forward for the project is that we’re now
working in partnership with the charity Coalition
on Homelessness in San Francisco (www.cohsf.org).
As part of the collaboration there will
now be a formal transmedia activism component added to the core three-platform
entertainment.
For an excellent primer and “how to” on transmedia activism,
please visit this site. What I’m presenting here is not quite as it’s
prescribed by the site’s authors (Lina Srivastava and Vicki Callahan) but I have borrowed a good deal of inspiration
from them.
The project now looks like this:
The core three-platform entertainment of
novella, webisodes and blog with calls-to-action to visit the fictional website
of a story character who helps homeless people
A fictional character website (more below) with
various fictional but supposedly ”real life” content and calls-to-action to visit the real world CoHSF
site
A campaign landing page at CoHSF that receives
visitors from the fictional website
Paid media advertising (various)
Social media promotion
Some local-level guerilla marketing.
I’ll also be advising CoHSF on a much needed social media
and website make-over to better capture support and donations.
There has been some talk of an ARG but it depends if my
Transmedia Storyteller platform is up and running in time because without it
there’ll be too much work for the resources we have.
Bridging Fiction and Fact
A fictional website will be created for a story character
called Joseph “Holy Joe” Rawlings who pays homeless people to report to him UFO
sightings. Working with non-actors who have been helped by CoHSF, we shall
create several fake “promotional videos” and video testimonies for the Holy Joe
site. The people in the videos will improvise their experiences of working for
Holy Joe around a loose story outline and combine it with their real-world
experiences of fighting homelessness. Links on the site will ask viewers to
find out more about the people in the videos.This will take them to a special landing page at the CoHSF site where
the same non-actors will explain what’s going on and why your money is needed
for the charity.
We have some quite detailed ideas for what will be in these
videos on both sites but I’m being a little vague at this time until we get a
little further into the project ;)
And in summary…
Here’s the presentation I gave to the charity explaining
Lowlifes and how transmedia activism can work for them. I’m totally indebted to
the kindness and foresight of the charity directors for allowing us this chance to
work together and fight homelessness in San Francisco.
If there are other homeless charities in the USA or indeed
around the world feel free to get in touch with me because I have several ideas
for how we might roll out the concept to help others beyond SF.
Here's a presentation I created for a local client that wants to use transmedia for the benefit of their clients. It's goal is to explain the power of transmedia in engaging consumers in a storyworld and how it's different to product placement and branded entertainment.
Specifically I use an ARG (alternative reality game) to illustrate how it can work with an integrated marketing communications plan.
I had to hold off making the document public but now it's out! I'd be interested to hear thoughts from anyone working in this area. Hope it doesn't horrify anyone :)
This is a quick post to join the discussion that's happening across Brooke Thompson's blog and Christy Dena's. I'll expand on it more later at Culture Hacker, most probably next week some time.
My suggestion for naming types of transmedia projects is given in the diagram below.
The major difference with my approach is that the classification is independent of the motives or timing of the development. Does it matter?
By "Narrative Space" I mean the story occupies the same point in the 3D space of this next diagram. Basically, has the same characters, locations and time frame.
It's principally about the how transmedia is shaping up but there's also news about the social, interactive, multi-platform tool I'm developing for folks seeking to deliver transmedia experiences.
I managed to catch a glimpse of Mongoliad in operation last night at Dorkbot in SF.
I have to say it was more impressive than I'd hoped and I think it's going to be very big. Not only the storyworld but also the publishing platform that underlies it (which goes by the name PULP).
Rather than me waffle on, check out this presentation from the evening and then head over to Facebook group :)
The photos are from SF App Show - I took them from the Mongoliad Facebook page.
The diagram below shows provides an overview of the workflow for delivering a transmedia project. You can view a better quality version here.
Many of my earlier posts have looked at the development phase where we're trying to define the entertainment we hope to provide. This diagram looks at the full spectrum of activity from scoping your idea to delivering it.
The process has been developed with brand clients in mind but it's easily adapted for filmmakers creating transmedia for themselves. What's nice about this workflow is that there's a tollgate at each phase - allowing the client to sign off on the project before moving to the next level of detail (and hence cost).
If you right-click this link and "save as" you can download a project reference template (the "bible") that's already structured with this workflow.
Please let me know if you think you've found anything in delivering working transmedia entertainment that's not covered.
Here's something I created to further explain how we're developing the transmedia project, Lowlifes.This is Part 3. Click these links to find Part 1 and Part 2.
Dear friends, We're writing to let you know that the SF Buddhist Center will be hosting a Lit Crawl event in October and is looking for a couple of Buddhist writers to participate. The organizers expect the event to be packed!
The criteria is simple: that you identify as a Buddhist, you are a writer, and you perform great work to a live audience. If you're published, all the better. The writing does not have to be Buddhist or about Buddhism.
The event will take place on Saturday, October 9, 8:30-9:30pm.
