Cross-Media + Transmedia Entertainment

** SHORT VERSION: I’M NOW BLOGGING AT WWW.CHRISTYDENA.COM **

Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided therefore to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if I do when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become ubiquitous. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:

• Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
• You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
• Henry Jenkins personal blog and the Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of goodies from a media studies perspective about ‘transmedia storytelling’ and ‘convergence culture’ in general;
• DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ’Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
• Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
• Monique de Haas blogs about ‘crossmedia communication’ occasionally;
• Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
• Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
• Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
• Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
• Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
• Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane; 
• Max Giovognoli runs everything to do with cross-media in Italy;
• MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
• If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;

I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:

• I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ’s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov; 
• I have my own panel on ‘Designing, Experiencing and Analysing Games in the Age of Integration’, and I am a panelist in Darren Toft’s panel on ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ at the Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment in Dec;
• I’ll be on the panel on ‘Cyber-Born Film’ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Festival (or DestFest) in Dec;
• In Jan 08, I’ll be a guest lecturer again for Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger’s Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media, De Montfort University, UK;
• In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.

For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one: an interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.

That is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.

Check it out: www.ChristyDena.com  

Check it out: www.UniverseCreation101.com

There is a new wave of cinema experiences emerging that points to the revival of the cinema event. Contrasting interactive film (which can be experienced by one person and the interaction is limited to a DVD or remote input), these cinema events require audiences to participate in some way in an event environment.

• Kinoautomat (movie vending-machine), 1967… 2007

This 1967 work by Radúz Çinçera, One Man and His House, is a film that was screened at the Montreal World Fair in a specially-constructed cinema with buttons for the audience. The film continually stops at certain points, two of the actors then come on stage and ask the audience to make their choice of direction.  This is regarded as the first interactive cinema work and is interesting too because the film was specifically designed for this interaction. However, it should be noted that the interaction (like many interactive works for various technical and skills reasons) was only the illusion of interaction. As Media Art Net observes, although a different filmic sequence was shot and screened based on the audience choice. The next choice was always the same. It has recently been revived with an English version being screened in Prague. An interview with Radúz’s daughter, Alena Çinçera , and more pics is here.

Image sourced from Media Art Net. Copyright Radúz Çinçera

• Cause and Effect , 2002/…

Inspired by Kinoautomat, Chris Hales has been creating short ‘interactive cinema performances’. Cause and Effect has been running specially-created short films since 2002 and is currently touring Poland and Finland. There is a video available for download on the site, and here is a basic description from the main page:

We experiment with various techniques of group interaction and the types of interactive film that are commensurate with it. Although using sophisticated methods, the show is designed to be portable, tourable, and suitable for most venues. Currently interaction methods enable audiences to influence films by shouting, passing around bright or coloured lights, using mobile phone handsets, waving, singing soprano and humming. A typical performance consists of around eight short interactive movies (chosen from a substantial repertoire) covering genres of video art, drama, non-fiction, education, and music. The show is both entertaining and intellectual and appeals to a wide audience demographic. It is constantly developing, with varied modes of interaction being explored and new films being regularly created. Certain films are customised for the actual theatre and the language of the country in which the show takes place during a rapid pre-production phase when we arrive at the location. This localisation adds to the audience’s surprise and involvement with the films presented to them.

Image sourced from Cause and Effect

• Lance Weiler’s “Cinema ARG”, 2006/…

As I’ve mentioned here before, Lance Weiler created a unique theatre experience for the screening of his latest film, Head Trauma. His ‘cinema ARG’ involves special screenings of the film with a band playing the soundtrack live, actors and props from the film in the audience and mobile phone interaction. It has been touring across the USA and is now expanding to the web. His latest description:

This fall the HEAD TRAUMA cinematic gaming continues. Players will interact with the film’s characters; offline, online, and via mobile devices in what is a cross between flash mobs, urban gaming, and ARGs. The game starts in late September with the airing of a special web series. The series will run across a number of outlets such as myspace, xbox, twitter, eyespot, stage 6 and opera. Then on Oct. 20th, live cinema games will play out in 10 cities across the country. Within the series are clues aka rabbit holes that lead to hidden sites, blogs, social networking pages and media. A full list of cities will be released in the coming weeks.

• MSNBC’s Newsbreaker Game, 2007

As I’ve mentioned before in my post that includes stats on its success, this example is an interactive cinema advertisement. They actually call the work ‘interactive crowd gaming’ in movie theatres. It was created by SS+K in collaboration with Brand Experience Lab for msnbc.com. Here is a video of one of the cinema events:

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All of these works show without doubt the reinvigoration of the embodied and multi-modal cinema experience. What I find exciting are the fact that many of these works (and more to come I’m sure) are being specially designed. Do you know of some other interactive cinema performances/gaming?

Kylie Robertson of Ish Media, the lass behind such interactive dramas Jupiter Green and the website for Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight, has launched her latest offering: Girl Friday. It is available for free via the web and mobile (in Australia). The main website is at www.GirlFriday.tv with videos at YouTube, including this trailer:

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Earlier I’ve mentioned the technique of having characters call audiences, now Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile Marketing Association, provides a business argument for using voice in mobile campaigns:

Voice provides an opportunity to hook the consumer and then possibly have them engage in more advanced services via text, video, Web, etc. Voice is easy for the consumer to interact with based on their current experiences with their device, so there is no learning curve. A few agencies I spoke to told me that some of the most successful campaigns to date have been voice campaigns. “The numbers are staggering,” said Keenan.

Check it out

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Sheffield International Documentary Festival are pleased to issue a call for proposals for a new cross-media competition called the CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE.

The CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE is a co-production competition for innovative, interactive, socially engaged content with applications for mobile and broadband. It will award one producer a $10,500CAD/£5,000 co-production development deal with the NFB.

ABOUT THE CHALLENGE
Inspired by the NFB’s legendary Challenge for Change program of community filmmaking, today’s NFB is adapting the adage “think globally, act locally” to develop socially engaged media projects relating to issues such as the protection of the environment, health care, human rights, poverty and violence against women.

How can we inspire an exchange of story-telling practices among diverse communities? How can we use media creatively to foster an international dialogue on issues that have local roots? How can we unleash the creative talents of marginal voices and communities and make them heard?

We are interested in projects that use the versatility, mobility and borderless nature of new platforms to enable communities to talk to each other. Projects must be documentary based.

Eligible projects must be cross-platform and multi-platform involving the best features of each medium to ensure maximum audience participation. Projects should take full advantage of the range of new platforms, with particular emphasis on interactive, mobile and on-line. Projects must demonstrate direct contact and interaction with communities as part of the development plan.

More info at: http://www.nfb.ca/about/news.php?id=1554

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at the Web Standards Group on ‘Thinking Outside the Web’. After the talk I was approached by the Workflow Specialist for the Northen Region, Integrated Sales and Marketing of Fuji Xerox Australia, Duane Mackey, who shared with me a project created by Fuji Xerox Australia to market their XMPie technology. I tried it out and it is fabulous! It is a short, fun experience that utilises a website, email, SMS. I’ve spoken with Eliot Harper, the man behind the work as well and they’ve confirmed some changes that they’ll be making (I sent some friendly suggestions). The service can also handle international mobile numbers so just pop in your country code (no + needed) and your mobile number without the 0 at the beginning.

In my talks I’m always trying to find ways to show people who have not experienced cross-media works the potential of what can be done, especially in a simultaneous media usage manner. I’ll be pointing people to this short work as an example of how seamless and fun it can be.

Check it out: http://www.beasuperhero.com.au/

Penguin Australia have launched a new book for the 13+ market: Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight. Written by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow, the story is described as follows:

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother’s faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, and even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges.

Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English. To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. [source]

The story is delivered rotating between the POVs of the characters Joel and Cat and is linked by their tandem storytelling assignment; the writers, Nick and Rebecca, also wrote the story in a tandem storytelling style and the readers can also participate in the tandem storyelling assignment by submitting story threads on the website or SMS. The website was produced by IshMedia, which includes Kylie Robertson — the legend behind online & mobile interactive narrative works such as Jupiter Green (that I analysed for a journal), Girl Friday and Rock Chickz .

As I’ve said before, it is these sort of intimate and parallel media experiences that will increase over the next few years and will explore the potential of polymorphic narrative.

Check it out: http://www.joelandcat.com

The upcoming London conference, Television Studies Goes Digital, has a few interesting papers:

User-Generated Content/Producer-Generated Consumption: How Outsourcing, Crowd-sourcing, and Industrial Identity Theory Fuel Digital TV
John T. Caldwell, UCLA 

Dislocated Screens: The Place of Television in a Mobile Digital Culture
William Boddy, Baruch College, City University of New York

Joined up thinking for the digital age:  Little Kids TV in a multiplatform world
Jeanette Steemers and James Walters, Westminster University

The possibilities of a digital aesthetic
Dr. Karen Lury, University of Glasgow

The Long and the Short of Convergence Aesthetics
Max Dawson, Northwestern University

“The Days of Commissioning Programmes are over…”:  The BBC’s ‘Bundled Project’
Niki Strange, University of Sussex

From Viewer to Participant
Lizzie Jackson, BBC

Digital Television and audience research: a sociological approach to capturing ‘user flows’.
Helen Wood, De Montfort University

The number of papers that address the use of multiple media platforms rather than just ‘digital television’ attests to the inappropriateness of defining a media conference by a single media type. Television hasn’t just gone digital, it has gone to the web, mobile, books and so on.

Check it out: http://www.digitaltvstudies.org.uk/

Nokia are about to launch the beta of their foray into the social networking area with Mosh.

A user-generated content platform designed specifically for use with any mobile device. Create, upload, collect and share applications (like games, software mashups, videos, blogs, music and photos) all from your mobile.

The site is password protected by screenshots are already on the web:

source

But the mobile-phone site (http://mosh.nokia.mobi) is available now:

source

Signup for the beta at: http://mosh.nokia.com/

My old list of mobile phone content has been getting some attention of late. At the time when I wrote it there were not many sites that featured mobile phone content (particularly creative stuff). More recently, however, there has been a growing interest in the area. Here are some links (some old, some new) you may find interesting:

• Téléphone mobile, codes optiques et cross media

A blog about the role mobile technologies play in cross-media. Some great examples of technologies that get networked and non-networked media communicating. There are some great video examples of QR codes etc being used in entertainment and gaming.

• Mobile Aesthetic

Vassilen Iotzov’s research for a diploma thesis at the Berlin University about the emergence of mobile TV aesthetics (mainly german-speaking). Once again, lots of great info and videos for those of us who don’t speak German. Iotzov also emailed me some great additions to my mobile content round-up, which I’ve now added.

• Poetics of Mobile Media

Dean Keep’s research blog for his Masters at RMIT on micro-narratives.

• Dr Reinhold Grether’s Directory of Mobile Art and Locative Media

This is a fantastic listing of projects covering mobile art and research.

•  PicturePhoning & Textually

Emily Turrettini’s sites are always a great resource of information about the industry and creative projects

Oh, and here is a great guide I stumbled upon: DotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide.

I’ve just read the proceedings to Gerard Goggin and Larissa Hjorth’s Mobile Media 2007 and there are some interesting papers. In particular I liked:

• Hidden Meanings: Understanding the new social-psychological impact of mobile phone use through storytelling by Kathleen M. Cumiskey
• From Mobile Phones to Mobile Media: Current developments in mobile phone-based cultural consumption by Juan Miguel Aguado and Inmaculada J. Martinez
• Mobile Phones, Networked Selves, Media Ecologies by Marsha Berry
• Games without Borders: Globalisation, gaming and mobility in Venezuela by Thomas H. Apperley
• Domesticating New Media: a discussion on locating mobile media by Larissa Hjorth
• Perspectives on mobiles and PCs: Attitudinal convergence and divergence among small businesses in urban India by Jonathan Donner

That’s it from me on this topic for now. Let me know of any other sites I’ve forgotten or don’t know about.