Transmedia
Filmmaking - Transmedia
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Story Hacking in Hollywood
The following is a guest post by StoryCode’s co-founder Mike Knowlton on the inaugural Los Angeles Story Hackathon. From Knowlton’s official bio: “A digital veteran of 20 years, Mike has always pushed the boundaries of storytelling and technology. His work at StoryCode has created a vibrant cross-discipline global community of immersive media creators. StoryCode programs immersive media case study presentations, Transmedia education workshops, and Story Hackathons.” What do you get when you mix a live Steve Jobs-esque pitch presentation and the concept of dating insurance? Or a story about an abducted woman who suddenly appears via webcam, live in front […]
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The Intersection of Film and Live Music: Jem Cohen’s We Have an Anchor
Jem Cohen is back at BAM with the New York premiere of We Have an Anchor — a hybrid documentary that blends projections of landscapes in a variety of formats (Super 8, 16mm, HD), poetry and newspaper clippings to the sounds of a live score by an indie rock supergroup featuring members of Fugazi, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and more. A spiritual sequel to 2008’s Evening’s Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin, We Have an Anchor is an exploration of place (specifically Nova Scotia, more specifically Cape Breton) utilizing footage Cohen has shot over the last 10 years. Cohen departs […]
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Crowdsourced Vine Short Film by You and Airbnb
A film can be as simple as coming up with a concept, brainstorming the shot list, shooting, and editing. That’s what Vine, the app that lets you produce six-second video loops, and Airbnb, the site that lets you rent people’s apartments, are counting on for their short film Hollywood & Vines. Airbnb is tasking Vine users with creating the content that will comprise its crowdsourced short, which will premiere on the Sundance Channel on September 12th. From August 22nd to 28th, Airbnb disseminated the shot lists hourly between 8am and 5pm via Twitter. Each tweet issued a creative prompt for […]
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Leading the Way in Non-Traditional Distribution: Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s Follow the Leader
Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s Follow the Leader may have recently won the Jury Prize in the Feature Film Competition at the 2013 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, but its DIY distinction lies far beyond what’s captured in front of the lens. Over the course of three years, Levitt’s doc trails a trio of high school class presidents (and aspiring U.S. presidents) – all male and all hailing from one of the original 13 Colonies (Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania). Even more remarkable than these teenagers’ evolving attitudes, though, is the director’s distribution game plan, deployed with the targeted precision of a political campaign. […]
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Jake Price on Unknown Spring and Documenting the Japanese Tsunami
Jake Price may primarily be known as a photojournalist, working for outlets like the BBC and the New York Times. But with his latest project, Unknown Spring, he’s strengthening a new identity as an immersive, interactive documentary filmmaker. As his thoughts below illustrate, however, he sees photojournalism, traditional film, and online interactive media all as an extension of nonfiction storytelling–different tools to explore In March 2011 he journeyed to the Tohoku region of Japan to document the devastation left in the wake of the Pacific tsunami. That project eventually became an html5 website featuring photographs, audio recordings, full-motion video, and […]
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Getty Museum’s New “Open Content” Initiative Makes 4,600 Pieces of Art Free to Use
The Getty Museum made an unusual move for the art world last week when they decided to launch their new “Open Content Program”, making over 4,600 pieces of the Museum’s private collection available to download, use, modify and publish for any purpose (all in beautiful full resolution). About this decision, the museum explains: “The Getty was founded on the conviction that understanding art makes the world a better place, and sharing our digital resources is the natural extension of that belief.” Though there are no films included in the Open Content Program, there’s no doubt a vast treasure trove of […]
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40 Days of Dating
40 Days of Dating is a reality-based web piece documenting two good friends’ attempt to get to the bottom of their relationship issues by dating each other for 40 days — and documenting it online. The site is cleverly designed, with gorgeous title treatments for each day, and reports from both — Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman (both designers, ‘natch) — laid out side by side. Interspersed throughout are photos, little videos, etc. Rules include: the two have to see each other every day; no dating or sex with anyone else; and the 40 days have to include at least […]
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The Terror of Free-Fall: A Filmmaker’s Experience at POV Hackathon 4
When making a documentary the following question tends to arise: what should happen to those extra 238.5 hours of material? After a 90-minute (give or take) cut is locked, what does one do with the pile left on the floor? Do you pick up five or so scenes you’re particularly fond of and put them on a DVD as “extras”? What if you grabbed — or carefully selected, depending on your level of intensity of need to control — a handful of material and constructed an interactive online video explorer or choose-your-own-adventure, allowing people to navigate as they wish, depending […]
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Braden King Creates Haunting, Tumblr-based Music Video for Califone
Filmmaker Braden King has made a hauntingly beautiful, web-only “interactive music video” for “Stitches,” the new single from Califone. In real time, the video pulls and sequences images from a curated selection of Tumblrs, sidescrolling them across your monitor in sync to the song’s elegant melancholy. Black-and-white photos and animated GIFs drift by, and by highlighting one with your cursor color bleeds back in. Click and the image flips over, allowing you to write a caption that is then sent to the band (and included on the “Stitches” home page) or, if you want, reblogged. Califone’s Tim Rutili and King are […]
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The Essential Guide to Webfests
Compared to film festivals, webfests — “film” festivals geared specifically toward web series (like Mission Backup Earth, pictured above) and other online videos — are definitely the new kids on the block, but they’re fast coming to fill the role for web video that names like Venice and Cannes did for film decades ago. And they’re springing up much faster — 10 of the thirteen events described below are premiering in 2013 or ’14 — making it appropriate to survey what’s out there, how filmmakers can get their content shown and who’s eligible. TO WebFest (Toronto): Announced Tuesday by the Independent […]
