Internet
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Immersive Storytelling for The Lost Children Pt. 2
Part 1 of this series laid out the overall plan for The Lost Children Premier event at Film Society of Lincoln Center in January 2013. In this post, I’m going to focus on some thinking behind the live immersive portion of the event. As I’ve been working on this, I’ve been thinking a lot about this term “immersive.” Any great piece of art can be immersive. Any time you get sucked into an amazing movie to the point that you forget you’re actually watching a movie, that is immersive. I remember having that experience with No Country for Old Men. But here, I’m […]
by Mark Harris on Jan 2, 2013 -
Immersive Storytelling for The Lost Children
My feature film The Lost Children will have its New York City premiere with the Film Society of Lincoln Center in January, 2013. The premiere will not be a film screening alone. It is presented by Convergence: Film Society of Lincoln Center, which is an arm of the FSLC devoted to immersive and transmedia storytelling. Like many organizations in New York City, FSLC is reaching out and exploring new storytelling methods. The 50th anniversary of the NYFF included its first ever series of panels on transmedia. This year, the Tribeca FF is accepting basically any type of project. And the […]
by Mark Harris on Dec 23, 2012 -
Internet Alternatives
The major telecommunications companies, led by AT&T and Verizon, are consolidating their control over the Internet. These companies are working closely with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to further control the telecom market. Together, the giant telephone and cable companies are reducing the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), privatizing the nation’s telecom infrastructure (i.e., the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN), pushing new “data caps” limitations to raise rates and moving aggressively to end net neutrality. And they are succeeding. In the face of this campaign to reduce industry competition and customer choice, efforts are underway throughout the […]
by David Rosen on Dec 19, 2012 -
Five Questions with Marfa Girl Director Larry Clark
Border patrol police and racial tension are not your usual ingredients for a teen movie. Like the adolescent characters they feature, teen dramas tend to be self-referential: they are rarely concerned with anything beyond drugs, unprotected sex, and emotional confusion. Larry Clark, best known for his 1995 film Kids, specializes in this genre, but his latest feature, Marfa Girl, somehow eludes the teen canon to offer a diagonal take on an oft-predictable format. Marfa Girl takes place in a small Texas border town that is home to a community of artists and a threatening number of border policemen. While hostility […]
by Celluloid Liberation Front on Nov 14, 2012 -
Pay to View
The major Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including telcos like AT&T and Verizon and cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner, are changing the way a subscriber accesses broadband content. Traditionally, these providers offered “flat rate” or all-you-can-use data plans which were simple to understand and affordable. These are being replaced by “metered” or usage-based pricing (UBP) plans. In effect, the market is shifting from a buffet model to a tiered model based on what a consumer can afford. The model for metered services was first introduced among wireless carriers. In 2011, the major wireless carries, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile […]
by David Rosen on Oct 10, 2012 -
GOOGLE FIBER
If you live in Kansas City, MO or Kansas City, KS, you might soon get first-world Internet service courtesy of Google Fiber. As of April 2012, almost two-thirds (66%) of American adults could access some form of broadband connection from their home, whether via DSL, cable or fiber line or via a wireless service. However, about a quarter of local Kansas City residents have no broadband access from home. The Google network will deliver symmetric (i.e., two-way) 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) connectivity to households across the city as well as to schools, libraries and hospitals. The 1 Gbps data […]
by David Rosen on Aug 27, 2012 -
ARTFUL DODGERS
On June 21st, the Supreme Court blinked. It used a legal technicality to sidestep determining the status of two long-simmering “indecency” cases and, thus, the legal status of broadcast television and radio, the traditional mass communications media. One case involves the spoken word and was against Fox over what are known as “fleeting expletives,” words like “fuck” and “shit” uttered by Cher, Nicole Richie and Bono at the Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and 2003. The second was against ABC for showing what can be called “fleeting nudity,” the brief display of a female actress’ nude buttocks during an episode […]
by David Rosen on Jun 25, 2012 -
WHAT YOU’LL SEE WHEN YOU DIE
Forget long hallways and white light — in the upcoming Post-Singularity age, death is just another user experience. Welcome to Life is a short film by Tom Scott inspired by the work of Jim Monroe and Rudy Rucker.
by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2012 -
SOPA, PRO AND CON
I’ve linked to several articles critical of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is being debated in Congress this week, and wrote about it in today’s newsletter. Today’s markup hearings were absolutely fascinating, and it was amusing to hear the plight of the low-budget independent filmmaker cited at one point by a pro-SOPA congressman. As you’ve heard from me arguments against the legislation in its current form, I thought I should perhaps link to the other side of the discussion. And then I found this “truth annotated” version of Viacom’s spot lobbying for SOPA. Here, then, in one handy clip […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2011 -
Director Tiffany Shlain on Connected
“Some films go deep,” filmmaker Tiffany Shlain said at the Sundance premiere of her documentary, Connected. “Mine goes wide.” Indeed, Shlain’s film does go wide — it’s like a rubber band stretching in multiple directions while not breaking. Examining the ways in which technology can productively unite our global citizenry, Connected details nothing less than the history of consciousness and its arrival within today’s always-on, hyper-wired mind. Through voiceover narration and breezy montage, Connected explores the right brain/left brain split and its effect on social and economic organization, and it highlights the transformative potential of today’s communication tools. As a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 16, 2011
