Anyone interested in transmedia in New York City needs to know about StoryCode. Mike Knowlton and Aina Abiodun, seen below with their team, originally founded it as a transmedia Meetup group, and then last year transformed it into a nonprofit dedicated to cross-platform storytelling–the first such organization in the world. They continue to sponsor monthly meetings to discuss recent transmedia projects, and now for the first time they’re sponsoring a narrative transmedia hackathon. Hackathons, which come from tech culture, have become a popular venue for transmedia designers to develop their work, but this is the first hackathon to explicitly showcase […]
by Randy Astle on Apr 22, 2012Now this is transmedia! Ridley Scott has created a TED Talk from the future for his forthcoming Prometheus. (Actually, here are the credits: “Conceived and designed by Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof and directed by Luke Scott.”) The talk is by “Peter Heyland,” who looks quite a bit like Guy Pearce and is introduced on the TED page like this: Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade. Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 29, 2012All eyes may still be on Park City, but there’s still enough happening back here in the Big Apple to keep indie film lovers busy. One event was Tuesday’s presentation by Steve Coulson, Creative Director at the marketing firm Campfire, about the transmedia campaign he spearheaded for the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones last year. The event was organized by Storycode and hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in the intimate Howard Gilman Theater. Because of the detail of some of his material Coulson asked that his presentation not be simulcast or recorded, but some of the […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 27, 2012Since the mid-1980s, when his serial performance work, Chang in a Void Moon, ran at New York’s Pyramid Club, John Jesurun has explored on stage characters and stories mediated by the images technology throws back at us. His formally ambitious plays use theater, music, and projection to tell narratively fractured tales that are both spellbindingly eerie as well as, sometimes, hilariously funny. His latest play, Stopped Bridge of Dreams, is running now at La Mama in New York City through February 5. As I’m traveling from Sundance to Rotterdam, I’m sad I’m going to miss it. But perhaps some of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 26, 2012“The Making of a Grassroots Movement” is a series of posts that are meant to serve as a case study on transmedia marketing and social engagement and distribution for an independent film called Grassroots. This is blog number 2 — for introductions and context, check out blog 1. To meet our transmedia marketing and outreach goals for Grassroots, we divided our strategy into four areas of focus: Exhibition, Education, Opportunity and Partnerships. The first area – exhibition – was the segment that we needed to address right away: We needed a release date so we could gear everything else (marketing, […]
by Saskia Wilson-Brown on Oct 31, 2011As Vladan Nikolic’s Zenith continues its slow roll-out — finishing its U.S. screenings while premiering on Amazon and iTunes — I thought I’d post on the blog this piece on the film that originally ran in slightly different form in our Winter, 2011 issue. “What is Zenith?” was the question posed on About Top Secret and other conspiracy-related websites last Spring. Paranoid-minded posters jumped in and followed a breadcrumb-trail of online clues relating to everything from the Bavarian Illuminati and fluoridated drinking water to biochemistry and the New World Order. They clicked through a maze of 50 other websites (priestoftruth.com, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2011The IFP and Power to the Pixel present today the Cross-Media Forum. You can read the complete line-up here and also check it out via the livestream below. See you there… or online. Live Broadcasting by Ustream
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2011I’ve been mulling this topic over for a while, as I encounter many filmmakers — usually independent filmmakers — who kind of sneer at the word “transmedia.” They think it’s just marketing, or they don’t understand why people can’t just sit and watch a good film. I wanted to talk a little about this, as I certainly think there are some filmmaking topics transmedia developers need to keep in mind to make the work as a whole really soar. I’ve noticed a number of common traits in several recent high profile transmedia projects that I think can be improved. I’m not […]
by Mark Harris on Apr 18, 2011The IFP and Power to the Pixel’s Cross-Media ForumNYC is coming up April 19, and, as it approaches, several of its participants will be blogging for Filmmaker. Today’s first post is from Mark Harris, who will be presenting his new project, The Lost Children, at the event. Click on the link above for more info and tickets. One of the things that excites me the most about “Cross-media,” “Transmedia” or whatever it is, is the idea of telling a story in many different ways. I know this may not fit into a lot of peoples’ definitions of these terms, but […]
by Mark Harris on Apr 8, 2011I stopped by Sundance’s New Frontiers building yesterday and visited Pandemic 1.0 with its creator, Lance Weiler. Here’s a short, casual Flip video with Weiler showing me the two rooms of the installation. For more info on this piece, read Weiler’s column in this issue of Filmmaker. And here’s Jamie Stuart’s piece on Weiler shot this week in Park City at our Main Street lounge.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2011