Apps
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What Does Xbox One Mean for Independent Filmmakers?
Right now the answer is not entirely clear. The Xbox One, which was unveiled in a presentation last week, represents Microsoft’s latest bid for domination of the living room through a single multipurpose device. It’s not a complete reinvention of the Xbox brand, but it integrates and advances several technologies Microsoft has been working on over the years. Microsoft’s accompanying efforts to expand away from hardcore gaming into other areas of entertainment such as streaming video make it a viable contender to the PS4, Apple TV, and other devices/platforms. Here’s the video of the device’s entire reveal. The discussion of […]
by Randy Astle on May 30, 2013 -
The New Digital Storytelling Series: Caspar Sonnen
For the final installment of Filmmaker and the MIT Open Documentary Lab’s interview project with the foremost thinkers on transmedia, IDFA DocLab’s Caspar Sonnen answers our questions. Sonnen is the new media coordinator for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and curator of the festival’s IDFA DocLab, a competition program for new forms of documentary and interactive storytelling. In 2008, Sonnen founded IDFA DocLab to create a platform for interactive and multimedia documentary storytelling that expands the genre beyond traditional cinema. Besides his work at IDFA, he is co-founder and programmer of the Open Air Film Festival Amsterdam. For an […]
by MIT Open Documentary Lab on May 24, 2013 -
The New Digital Storytelling Series: D. Fox Harrell
In the penultimate part of Filmmaker and the MIT Open Documentary Lab’s interview project with prominent transmedia figures, D. Fox Harrell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Digital Media in the Comparative Media Studies Program and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, answers our questions. Harrell’s research explores the relationship between imaginative cognition and computation. He develops new forms of social media, gaming, computational narrative, and related computational media systems based in computer science, cognitive science, and digital media arts. The National Science Foundation has recognized Harrell with an NSF CAREER Award for his project “Computing for Advanced Identity Representation.” He has worked […]
by MIT Open Documentary Lab on May 16, 2013 -
Audio Watermarks for the Second Screen
Buzz about the second screen is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, as this recent (and, for me, incredibly thought-provoking) Filmmaker article by Scott Macaulay shows. Coordinating content on two devices to play (in any sense of that word) simultaneously, which some have called “orchestrated media,” is one of the next big things, and it’s causing content creators to search for new ways to make their dual-screen programs stand out. First, as that article points out, it requires new mental paradigms for filmmakers/digital storytellers as they plan and execute their work. But second, and just as important, it requires the technological means to […]
by Randy Astle on Apr 1, 2013 -
Should Filmmakers Learn to Code?
“Do filmmakers need to learn to code?” The inspiration for this blog series came from this question. Software is part of our everyday life; in some circles coding is seen as the new literacy and a means of empowerment. At MIT’s Comparative Media Studies, where the MIT Open Documentary Lab is housed, we are confronted with this question on a regular basis as humanists sitting in a land of hackers who marvel at the power and elegance of code. Fluent in many programming languages, some of them believe that we all should be. In an effort to make coding more […]
by Sarah Wolozin on Mar 7, 2013 -
Paper Co-Creator Andrew Allen about his Award-Winning iPad App of the Year
Back in April I published this interview with Andrew Allen, filmmaker and developer with the software company 53, about his newly launched Paper app. This week the app was named by Apple as its #1 app of the year for iPad. Our original conversation about Paper’s development, and Allen’s journey from filmmaker to developer, is detailed below. — SM Andrew Allen, one of Filmmaker‘s “25 New Faces of 2011,” had a big premiere this month, but it’s not a film. Allen is part of FiftyThree, the company behind Paper, an iPad drawing app that made Apple’s App Store “App of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 15, 2012 -
Miranda July and Ira Glass Tell the Future of Storytelling
The Silent History is a fascinating new publishing project that merges app distribution with geolocational storytelling. Launched by former McSweeney’s publisher Eli Horowitz and colleagues, the project will launch next month, downloading stories to readers’ iOS devices and then coaxing them out into the streets of nearly 400 cities for more. Here is the trailer featuring the voices of Miranda July and Ira Glass. Horowitz is interviewed by Reyhan Harmanci at Buzzfeed, and he speaks of the project’s inspirations: “I got to thinking about new storytelling experiences — what can these things do, what can these things lead to,” he […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 16, 2012 -
APP REVIEW: VIDEO TIME MACHINE
Video Time Machine, free this weekend on the App Store for both iPhone and iPad, is one of the most entertaining apps I’ve played with in a while. Like all good video viewing apps, it’s based around one simple curatorial concept. In the case of VTM that concept is — yep, you guessed it — time. Dial up a year and the app pulls from YouTube videos produced during that year. You can further drill down by category, browsing TV, movies, music, sports, news and advertisements. And, there’s a curatorial element: the videos are “hand-picked” and always seem to strike […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2012 -
“EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE IS EXCITING”
In the race to make a social app for every activity you can imagine, Alex Cornell has jumped to the front of the line. His service Jotly rates everything. (Hat tip, Khoi Vinh.) What’s really funny? From the comments section of Vinh’s post I learn that there’s a start-up, Stamped, that might really be trying this!
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 17, 2011
