I know, I know – how unbelievably boring it is to keep hearing about how it’s the future of blockbusters and TV. It all feels so 1985/1958. And the filmmaker in me knows that it’s pointless, lame, marketing-driven Hollywood tosh. I’ve been wanting to blog about this for a few weeks, but I’ve felt too ashamed.
But ever since Captain EO got his hook into me at EPCOT, I’ve always got a massive kick out of seeing movies in 3D. I’m the guy who keeps all the IMAX theatres in business. Boring spacewalks – in 3D! The featureless ocean floor – IN 3D! FAKE DINOSAURS – IN 3D! About 10 years ago, I tried to convince the National Film & TV School that they should let me study making drama in 3D IMAX, because it was clearly the future of blockbusters. They didn’t agree. FOOLS! Now I’ll be back there doing a short course in 3D production next month.
Meanwhile, YouTube 3-D has been quietly amassing content for the last year. You don’t need to have a special camera. Just a couple of regular cameras, some glasses, and something exciting to jump out of the screen. Like the harpoon in Jaws 3-D. I’m not sure why I haven’t started videoblogging in 3D. My shame has been getting in the way. Time to get over it. After all, surely 3D IS THE FUTURE OF VIDEOBLOGGING, RIGHT?
Last night, Charlotte took part in Duncan Speakman’s ‘subtlemob‘ in Covent Garden.
Imagine walking through a film, but it’s happening on the streets you walk down everyday…
when you put on the headphones you’ll find yourself immersed in the cinema of everyday life. As the soundtrack swells people in the crowd around you will begin to re-enact the England of today.
I was in Devon, so couldn’t be there, and Charlotte’s now on her way to New Zealand via Cardiff, so her reporting of the experience might be a little delayed…
Luckily, I just saw that Hannah Nicklin has written a great post about it here.
And Duncan has already posted this video of people talking about their experiences:
After London last night, it happened in Bristol today at 5pm (when I was stuck just outside Bristol in a traffic jam with a screaming baby) and will happen again tomorrow (Saturday), in Liverpool at 4pm.
– Update: Kieran has responded with answers to my questions in the Comments
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Even though OpenIndie has been getting a lot of attention recently, it’s taken me a while to sit down and properly look at what they’re planning to do. Partly because of all the other things on my radar at the moment, partly because I knew they’re focussed on independent feature films.
But it’s an inspired idea – proved by the fact that they’ve just raised over $12,000 from 226 interested filmmakers. Just as IndieScreenings opened up distribution of The Age of Stupid (of which more here soon), so OpenIndie is being set up to help the hundreds of filmmakers who are crowdfunding its creation via Kickstarter.com.
It’s being put together by Arin Crumley (of Four Eyed Monsters) and Kieran Masterton from the UK – seems they’ve been planning it for a long time (5 years and 1 year respectively), and now it’s funded, it’s due to be launched on March 1st.
Another PTTP presentation – forgive us tapping the same resource repeatedly, but it was chock full of goodness, and I would have blogged it three weeks ago if this blog had been launched then.
Most of you who are already interested in these things will know Lance Weiler as a key proponent of transmedia storytelling. He was director of the Blair-Witchy The Last Broadcast (1998) and Head Trauma (2006), and is now organiser of the touring conference DIY Days (like a North American PTTP) and the brains behind online resource The Workbook Project.
This excellent 30 minute presentation covers Lance’s ideas about “story architecture” – how to structure and develop transmedia interactive stories.
I wish I could find a link to his slides, but it doesn’t seem like he publishes them. Although they’re inserted into the video here, their detail is lost. UPDATE: Found them via a tweet from @sarn – have embedded player above so you can read them while listening to the video.
Although we’ve been expanding the scope of what we do, the initial idea to start Chapterplay as a company arose from my work with hypervideo and hypernarratives.
I’ve been mapping out and writing hypernarratives for about three years, gripped by the idea of developing immersive hypervideo stories. Over the course of this year, I’ve started to work on scripting fictional hypervideo narratives in earnest, though I’ve resisted publishing what I’ve been working on until now.
Last year, when YouTube launched their clickable hotspot & notes tool, Annotations, I’d been waiting for a popularly accessible hypervideo technology for so long that I assumed there’d be an explosion of creativity. And yet surprisingly little has been done with it – a few cute puzzles and Choose Your Own Adventure stories.
We’re going to pick out some examples of hypervideo to post here – and Mondays are going to be our regular hypervideo slot. So I figured I should start with my own little videoblog Choose Your Own Adventure story using Annotations from July 2008. It’s silly, but it conveys a simple idea of what can be done with hypervideo.
I’ve also been coordinating a large collaborative hypervideo video art project, which was on hiatus while I had a baby and moved countries, which is underway again and will hopefully be published in the New Year. And we’re also developing a longer hypervideo fiction script. More news of all that here as we progress…
I have a confession to make. I love 3D.