/linkage: 3 posts about living/working with the internet…

August 29th, 2010 View Comments

…And still getting something done.

“The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40.”

Will we have “internet addiction” interventionists soon? I can already see them breaking down my door and then having a AA style group therapy session with the love ones. “Your internet addiction is destroying us!” It would all be recorded and streamed live of course, for the rest of the addicts to watch.

“[...] our lives are becoming more “real-time,” whether we like it or not. Just as Google and Microsoft’s Bing are upgrading their search indexes to make them more real time by capturing things as they occur, instead of hours or even days later, we are being forced to upgrade our internal processes to do the same thing. But doing that isn’t quite as simple as tinkering with a search algorithm — we have to find ways of managing the real-time demands placed on us while still maintaining something approaching a healthy personal life [...]“

“Healthy personal life?” What is that? Wait a sec, I just got a text, and a tweet, and an 100 emails… What was I talking about?

“When you have all day to work on whatever you want, it’s very easy to get caught up in things which a) aren’t helping you grow and b) not as effective as other tasks. As early in your own business life as possible, define the most important things you can accomplish each day and give them utmost priority.”

“They” surely forgot to give me this manual, along with many others.

/geekout: mac: How to solve the full-screen mode keyboard shortcut mess

August 21st, 2010 View Comments

I love the simplicity of full-screen modes or presentation views (Scrivener & WriteRoom are great implementations for writing, and Firefox with some tweaking can be great for full-screening web-apps). And I love keyboard shortcuts (bypass the toolbar menu!). In macs unfortunately, the two don’t go together perfectly right out of the box. Most apps have the same keyboard shortcuts for all the common functions (copy, paste, save, etc.) but it’s a free-for-all when it comes to full-screen modes or presentation views. At some point I just gave up trying to memorize each app’s particular keyboard shortcut for what is basically the same function, and resorted to digging in the toolbar menus (is it in “view” or “window” in this app?).

The challenge: to give every app the same keyboard shortcut for full-screen mode or presentation view.

The solution: For most apps it’s actually quite easy to change the default shortcuts using Apple’s built in keyboard shortcuts panel:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts

You then press the add (+) button, select the app you want to modify, and enter the exact name of the menu title to be modified. Depending on the app, the menu title could be called “Enter Full Screen” or “Full Screen” or “Slideshow”.

The next step is deciding on one master keyboard shortcut. I chose control+option+command+F, since as far as I know it goes unused in most apps and is easy to remember.

The trickiest app to modify ended up being the one I use the most: Firefox. It’s full-screen mode is great for working with web-apps like Gmail or Google Docs (especially when using the Full Fullscreen add-on to remove tabs & search-bar), but the Apple keyboard shortcut panel can’t modify Firefox’s settings. One option is to use the Firefox full-screen shortcut (shift+command+F) for all other apps. But if you really want to customize the shortcut you have to install the keyconfig add-on. After installing, the preferences will appear in the Firefox tools menu under “Keyconfig…”.

Success.

/linkage: 4 posts that got me thinking from @vedrashko, @spytap, @mathewi & @johnaugust

May 29th, 2010 View Comments

4 posts that got me thinking this past week…

“It’s not that there are “57 channels and nothin’ on”. There’s plenty on. Which is exactly the problem. You have to make choices. Choices mean compromises. Compromises mean angst.

Wired magazine published a graph a few years ago that mapped all the ways through which video content could find its way to the viewer; that graph took over an entire spread. Today, it would be easily twice the size and complexity.”

There is an awesomeness that threatens to be unleashed when the TV and the web become one and the same. The problem: it threatens to kill the simplicity of the TV experience. (GoogleTV please be awesome)

“[...] text and images are static in books because that’s how they’re physically printed. When the same content is viewed in a digital format, those physical requirements cease to be a factor. So the experience of “reading” can be profoundly expanded upon. Even the experience of “interaction” between the “reader,” the “author” and the “material.” By simply discarding the idea that a book must include static text and images, you’re opening up your “book” experience to a whole new level of creativity and storytelling.”

Only if you break down the components will you find out what makes the experience truly unique and start thinking of how it will evolve… What is a magazine? What is an album? What is a radio station? What is a TV channel? What is a TV series?… I’ve been asking myself “What is a film?” and “What will be a film?”

“Why would a newspaper like The Guardian choose to provide access to its content via an open API — and not just some of its content, but everything? And why would it allow companies and developers to use that content in commercial applications? For one simple reason: There is more potential value to be generated by providing it to someone else than the newspaper itself can produce by controlling it within its own website or service. You may be the smartest company on the planet, but you are almost never going to be able to maximize all the potential applications of your content or service, no matter how much money you throw at it.”

A great case study on how you can seemingly “give away” your content and still make a profit – in theory even increase it by a wide margin. Another battle in the Paywall vs. “Free” war.

“Every year, thousands of 20-something guys and girls pack up their cars, leave their beloved suburban towns and head west to Los Angeles. And with good reason. LA is the international capital of television and motion pictures. Argue all you want about other places — Ne w York, New Orleans, Vancouver and Eastern Europe — but when all is said and done, LA is where you need to be. Granted, that may change over the next ten years, but as of 2010, LA is still the place.”

PA jobs, internships, mail room stints, film school… This post covers all the basics for first time LA’ers. I wish I’d read it before getting on the plane over here.

/commentary: Google TV “could” be the answer

May 26th, 2010 View Comments

Excerpt of Original Post: Why Google TV Isn’t the Answer on Tubefilter

“But, Google TV’s major strength (and weakness) will be Google’s own addiction to methodology based content curation. If Google TV reigns supreme, television, much like the internet, will transform into a battleground of black and white hat SEO, duking it out over PageRank, trying to secure that coveted first page Google TV search result.

That’s a result that will inherently diminish the value of quality content. The combination of increased competition for eyeballs and advertising revenue spread out over a larger universe of content, all controlled by one company, will threaten the livelihood of professional content creators. For all of Google’s criticism of Apple’s closed iPhone platform, that’s precisely what they’re hoping to replicate on the television set.”

My Comment: Google TV could be the answer

I agree that if Google controlled content through search rankings much as it does with their web search engine this might be a completely useless and evil box. But just as I rarely use search now to find video content on the web, I really doubt search will be that big a component in how the box is actually used, despite Google’s best or worst intentions. I, and I bet most people as well, find web video content mainly through social networks: because a friend of a friend of a friend recommended something, became a fan of something on Facebook, tweeted a review, and then a friend of a friend passed it on and so on and so on. Without the social networking component this would be a really dumb box. But if I could play that link to YouTube from the friend on Facebook or Twitter on the big screen? If that actually worked? Has anyone tried the useless AppleTV? And if on top of that I could subscribe to video feeds of my favorite TV shows? And if Netflix worked flawlessly for movies? That’s a box that I would buy. Despite the ads.

/ramblings: File-sharing films? No problem, because the money is in… ? (Think “brands”)

May 25th, 2010 View Comments

File-sharing has forced the music industry to get creative and fundamentally change the way it does business. @mmasnick at Techdirt has given countless examples, most recently by Lady Gaga, who doesn’t mind fans file-sharing her music because she’s making the real money by touring.

But what is the equivalent of “making money from touring and not ostracising fans for file-sharing” for filmmakers? It’s a current theme at the @rosspruden moderated #infdist panel, and a question every filmmaker should be asking themselves if they hope to make (and keep making) a living in film. Here are my thoughts:

Even though Hollywood hasn’t particularly embraced file-sharing, it certainly seems to have a strategy to combat it’s declining DVD sales: bigger and bigger tent-pole movies (mostly based on franchise or otherwise branded concepts), and all in 3D; additionally the studios are all playing with some sort of on-demand digital distribution and are getting closer to day-and-date releases across platforms. They are making bigger events out of the fewer (and more expensive) films they make, and are making them more convenient to access through growing digital distribution channels.

So what are indie films doing? There are some scattered examples of films that broke-out because of their undeniable quality, some that found a built-in audience they were able to mobilize due to the film’s theme, and other examples of filmmakers that really put in the work to grow a fan-base even before their film was released. But what is the overall strategy? Where is the money? What is the “tour”? Certainly indie films can make file-sharing a tool in their arsenal to get the word out and find an audience, with hopes that they can monetize through a mix of traditional & digital distribution and merchandising. But is that enough?

At the heart of the matter is the product itself. Music for example, isn’t about the single or the album, it’s about the artist. The artist is the brand, and a brand can be monetized in a variety of ways. That’s why Hollywood loves brands; it’s hard to find a major release nowadays that isn’t a sequel, prequel or adaptation of some sort of already established brand. It’s a smart strategy. On the other hand, solitary indie films, the tens of thousands of them, are not brands. That’s not to say that every indie film should have a storyworld that would make Harry Potter blush… I just think that without some sort of brand thinking an indie film has a shot in hell of competing with Hollywood blockbusters or the scores of other entertainment options available to the average consumer. Some quick indie film branding ideas:

Sequels and prequels: Basically imitate Hollywood in how it franchises ideas. A producer, instead of making 2 or 3 isolated indie films, would make them all part of the same storyworld. Maybe even collaborate with other filmmaking teams to create a film library that revolves around the same story universe.

Unite and conquer (by theme): A common storyworld would not be needed, but the premise would be to unite filmmaking teams to create a film library with a certain theme or sensibility. The idea is that if you like one film, you will like others.

Ripped from the headlines: Use indie film’s smaller budgets and crew sizes, and on-demand digital distribution channels, as an antithesis to Hollywood’s bloated production timeline and this way put out content that really reflects the current social, political, economical and environmental context.

Shocking shocking shocking: Go where Hollywood would not in a million years dare to go. Really explore the dark, sexual, violent and perverse, or the other end of the extreme: the über-sweet or contemplative. As long as it’s an extreme, go there and build a library.

Don’t call me a film: Don’t even bother to think of a product that will screen at a theatre and instead experiment with storytelling that utilizes the web and social media and find ways to monetize it in that space alone. Brand by uniqueness of content platform.

/news: “Viva La Causa” screens at the Academy’s Contemporary Docs Series

May 19th, 2010 View Comments

My Oscar shortlisted documentary “Viva La Causa” is screening at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theatre (1313 North Vine Street, Hollywood, CA 90028) on Wednesday May 19th, 7pm, as part of it’s “Contemporary Docs Series”. Entrance is free.

Alonso F. Mayo and Bill Brummel’s Viva la Causa and Patrick Creadon’s I.O.U.S.A. will be screened in the next installment in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 28th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” series on Wednesday, May 19, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission to all screenings in the series is free. Viva la Causa tells the story of a small group of abused California farm workers who, led by Cesar Chavez, put themselves on the line after launching a strike and a national boycott against the multimillion-dollar California grape industry. Mayo and Brummel will be present to take questions from the audience following the screening.

I.O.U.S.A., Viva La Causa: The Us National Debt and Cesar Chavez at Academy Screenings | IMDb

/linkage: 5 posts that got me thinking from @TedHope, @davepell, @heyitsnoah, @jeffjarvis & @TheEconomist

May 18th, 2010 View Comments

5 posts that got me thinking this past week…

“I must admit that I am a bit disappointed that I had no difficulty adding another thirty-eight items to this list of where we are failing.  The exciting part (and why #38 of last year ’s list was “lists like this make the foolish despair”) is that these lists demonstrate a tremendous opportunity for those willing to break from the status quo and take action.  Things may be wrong, but they could always be worse.  From here, we just have to work together to make it better.  It is that simple.  Every deficit is an opportunity for the creative entrepreneur, right?”

Each one of the 38 points is worth expanding. Required reading for all involved in independent film.

“If this Facebook privacy controversy teaches you anything, it should teach you this: The one internet privacy policy that really matters is your own. If you want it private, don’t share it. Because what’s private today might be public tomorrow. Period.”

The Facebook privacy controversy is raging. What’s your online privacy strategy?

1) If I am far away from my neighbors, move towards them.
2) If I am too close to my neighbors, move away from them.
3) If I am neither too close or too far from my neighbors, move with them.

The three rules of swarm behavior can be applied to anything really.

“[...] it assumes process over product; it values iteration; it implies collaboration with one’s public; it still maintains the company’s responsibility for quality. An editor has nothing to edit if others haven’t created anything, so it is in the editor’s interest to enable others to create. And the better the creations that public makes, the better off the editor is, so it’s also in the company-as-editor’s interest to improve what that public creates [...]“

Twitter as an example of a company focusing on the “editing” of customer interaction.

“Like all social activities, television-watching demands compromise. People may have strong ideas about what they want to watch, but what they really want to do is watch together. So the great majority of them first see “what is on”—that is, what is being broadcast at that moment. Restricted choice makes it easier to agree on what to watch. If nothing appeals, they move on to the programmes stored in a DVR. On the very rare occasions when they find nothing there, they will look for an on-demand video.”

We can record shows now and play them back whenever, but still, the basics of TV watching haven’t changed much.

/commentary: Why this film now?

May 12th, 2010 View Comments

Excerpt of Original Post: My thoughts on 1 of Ted’s 38 reasons indie film’s failing on SpringBoardMedia

“This one has always boggled my mind. I’ve written about it before, and will likely do so again, but I’m continually amazed at how little we think about and how little we know about our audience. Whenever I meet with filmmakers about their script or project, I ask them about their intended audience, and as you can guess, most don’t have much of an answer. Sometimes they’ll say something like “everyone who loves indie films” or perhaps they’ve progressed to “white males 25-34” or something. A few have films that have clear niche audiences – Nascar fans – great, or – Nascar fans who only watch at home, don’t tell their friends and drink fancy beer – even better, a true niche. Very few have built any fan base already, either for their films or themselves, which is mind-boggling in an era of Facebook, Twitter and plain-old email lists.”

My Comment: Why this film now?

Good points. I guess it all comes down to if “indie film” is actually a business though. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be, I just don’t think it is. I have a feeling if someone put together the financial information from all indie films made in a period of time and did a cost/benefit analysis, the results would be heartbreaking.

Indie filmmaking is an expensive art. And I do think the only solution is to treat it as the business that it should be. It’s tough though since that starts with a project’s inception. I doubt most independent writers, myself included, get all excited about thinking “what kind of film does the market need.”

I keep thinking of a question that comes up constantly in the documentary world, in the proposal stage: “Why this film now?” It’s an important question because the answer is the first hint of a real possible audience for a film. And not just “everyone who loves indie films.”

/ramblings: A vision of a future fiction experience

May 10th, 2010 View Comments

Inspired by @johnbattelle’s “The Gap Scenario” (a vision of the future of targeted advertising), and @timoreilly’s “A Dream About Augmented Reality Fiction“, I decided to trip out on my own vision for the future of cinema. Technology and social media have forever changed the nature of how people experience entertainment, yet film & TV are still making products as if it where the 1950′s (at least where the storytelling is concerned). What’s the next step for cinema? What will a fiction experience be like 10 years from now?

I wake up. While still in bed, I check my messages and to-do’s on my tablet. Then I finally pay attention to “it”: the story. My first interaction of the day comes in the form of a message. The story knows when I logged on to the net so it sends me a personalized recap of what went on since the time I logged off. I can choose the text version if I’m in a hurry or the audio version if I plan on multitasking, but this morning I can spare a minute so I click on the video. And it’s worth it: the story has been busy during the night, new characters and storyline twists. I can tell that something is about to happen.

As I bathe, clothe and have breakfast, the story’s live video feeds follow me throughout the screens in my apartment, sharing real estate with my personalized news feeds. Next to the day’s political events I watch different characters scheming, in turmoil, or just plain having breakfast. There are too many characters and story-lines to watch all at once, so I have to pick a couple to absorb while I finish my cereal and catch up on some work calls. Just before I have to rush out the door I get a message from the story: something has happened. The story points me to the live feed where it’s all going down. I look at my watch, it’s getting late. I give in.

I press a key combination on my smart-phone and suddenly the walls in my living room turn into screens, all showing me different views of the story. Other screens show me a mix of text and video feeds from the scores of other people who are experiencing the story at that very moment. I get a video call from a friend, who is also watching. He’s very excited -  he’s scored a private invitation to “go inside” the story. I try to hide my jealousy. The story is ramping up, the big finale is probably coming any day now, and my friend may play a part in it. He has to go and prepare. I am already late for work.

I keep up with the story on my tablet on the metro. I can see others doing the same. The story is definitely about to wrap up for the season – it’s already been live for 9 days and a long weekend is coming up. Maybe tonight? They always keep you guessing. Before my exit, I activate a “lock” on the story: I won’t get updates and anything story-related will be filtered out of my digital life. I’ve got to get some work done. I’ll check up on the story during lunch.

I don’t take the “lock” off the story until late that night. Work was brutal. Like clockwork, the recap message arrives in my inbox. I’ve missed a lot, but am just in time for what promises to be the night’s main event. I sit back on my couch and let the story take over my living room, surrounding me with scores of live video feeds. It takes me a couple of minutes to adjust to the pace but I grab my tablet and soon I’m organizing the video feeds to suit me. There are a couple story-lines I don’t understand and I shoot messages to the pool of viewers. I get quick replies and am soon digging back in time, watching some key scenes I missed, captivated. Then the live feeds call for my attention and I flip through the characters, trying to stay one step ahead of the story, like everyone else, trying to solve the mystery. To win.

And then I see him, my friend. He’s a part of a small mission in the story, but he is soon “shot” and “killed”. I can’t help smiling as I think of all the whining I’ll soon be hearing from him. Several hours later the feeds start to thin out. The finale will definitely not be tonight. The character I’m following falls asleep and I too can’t keep my eyes open much longer. But just as I’m about to log off, I find an official message from the story in my inbox. An invitation for a stealth mission that starts in an hour. I smile as I schedule a “call-in-sick” message for work tomorrow and turn on the coffee machine. I have to get ready.

/commentary: A storyworld model

December 18th, 2009 View Comments

Excerpt of Original Post: Moving Filmmakers to a Transmedia Business Model on culture hacker

“My point is that independents are going to have to start audience building early and prove that there’s an appetite for their movie. And so this brings me to my final model.

The Transmedia Model

Raising awareness and audience building is tough. It’s tough enough when you have a finished movie but try doing it for a movie that’s yet to be made.

And that’s why I think we’ll move to a transmedia model for filmmaking in which the filmmaker uses his own money to make some (low-cost) content to build an audience ahead of doing anything else.

There’s long been a school of thought that says to get finance for your feature you should shoot the trailer or shoot a short film based on the feature. I know this can work but I’ve never been a fan of this approach if only because I know finance is most often raised without it. Amazingly though this week, as I write, this short film Panic Attack secured a movie deal.

What transmedia storytelling offers however is not the  Cinderella story of “big investor swoops to finance movie” but a genuine, low-cost, grass-roots audience building.”

My Comment: A storyworld model

Your Transmedia Filmmaking Business Model makes a lot of sense, especially because the success or failure of a project is dependent more on how well the model is applied, and less on the shot in hell that a studio will pick it up or that the filmmakers win the lottery. But I think that to actually apply the model many questions have to be answered, the main one for me being step 1: making (low cost) media.

This has to be the most crucial step since filmmakers will have to come up with an entry-way into their storyworlds that is simple and cheap enough to pull off without major financing, that can stand up on it’s own merit (is not a trailer), that doesn’t take away but adds to the main (future) project and that completely rocks. I doubt a short (like in the Panick Attack example) is a dependable choice, but what is? I’d argue that pulling off a successful webseries or ARG or comic book is tricky and hard work and probably just as undependable as getting a movie financed. At that point, if the story is simple enough, why not just go out and shoot the damn thing? Why not make that step 1?

I guess more than a “business” model I see it as as storyworld model. Step 1 is make a great, low cost media (webseries, ARG, comic book, short, feature or any combination thereof) that can stand on it’s own merit but also, absolutely necessarily, has to be an introduction to a larger storyworld that can spin off other media. That’s the difference with traditional indie films, one-offs where characters resolve everything that needs resolving and the story dies with the movie. Transmedia needs different stories. Much deeper stories. Step 1 is everything.

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