Filmroller

Jeff Barr on Cloud Computing

Jeff Barr – Senior web services evangelist at Amazon.com on Amazon’s Cloud Computing platform

Pervasive connectivity means that you don’t intentionally turn on your media experience. Its now all around you all the time.

This means that media interactions can happen at will, anytime, anywhere. This is interesting because film is intended to play in a theatre — a controlled space with other people who focus their attention on the silver screen for a few hours. Its interesting that theatres demand that participants disconnect their cell phones and other devices so that everyone can remain free of distractions. The magic of film seems to have something to do with overcoming the limitations of the media in a way that allows for suspension of disbelief — in other words, films work well when they are crafted in a way that allows the audience to leave their seat in the theatre and live inside the movie for a period of time.

New media is totally reversing that. The strength is not in the power of suspending disbelief, it is about being pervasive and an overlay on your reality — eventually to the point where you can use the media to tweak your reality. You don’t need to leave your seat to get into the story, the story can come to envelop you wherever you are.

Cloud computing is the computational technology behind making this possible. Essentially it is huge computer resources (bandwidth, storage, and processing) on the internet that can respond in real time to support media experiences for anyone anywhere. This is more than just downloading a video on your phone (although data streaming is part of it) this is also about computing the actual experience so that it can respond to the user in an interactive way.

For start-up media producers who create something like a facebook application, or other interactive new media story, cloud computing means you can plod along with minimum resources while your application is small. When it goes big, or viral, the compute cloud can respond to automatically cover the explosion in demand on a minute-by-minute basis. This keeps your up front costs and investment very small without limiting yourself.

This is great for film makers or media creators because you can keep your hosting and overhead costs minimal as you get going and launch. If, or should I say when, your project takes off the cloud automatically scales up to meet demand. And if your story relies on other people’s content, and that content is also on the cloud, everything scales in harmony to meet the spike in demand. Its like a digital ecosystem.

This is in contrast to the current distribution model of stories (books, film, or video) where there is a huge cost involved in getting the media copied into tangible forms (books, newspapers, DVDs, film stock, PAL and NTSC tape, etc) and distribute them to places where you think there is an audience. That risk and cost barrier to accessing an audience is no longer a limitation to getting your story out if you use digital new media formats and cloud computing.

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Bill Buxton on the Future of Media

Bill Buxton is a researcher at Microsoft and and Acadamy award winner for his creation of Maya. The following is a paraphrased (and slightly augmented) version of his presentation:

Film is technology based. One may think it is an art, but emotion and chemistry on celluloid is no different than digital content on the web. The craft is different, the expectations and constraints are different. But every lens the filmmaker chooses is a technological decision.

Films used to be restricted to a highly selective group who had access to the technology required to make them. Now they can be done by average people. New media makes it possible to make a film differently. The creative is opening up, the technical opens more possibilities to more people, but the craft struggles to keep up.

How to keep up and evolve the craft of film making? Just gotta push this stuff, practice practice practice to get good, try stuff. Movies don’t have to be real, there are so many tricks and short cuts that technology offers you don’t have to be locked into the old expensive way of storytelling with film.

Technology might even be about creating such compelling storyboards and shot planning that you’ve already made a low res version of your story before you even get the funding to shoot the real thing. That way, one can mockup a really close version of the story with cheap technology, work it, hone it, perfect it before you go and shoot the expensive film sequences. New media can mean massive cost savings and efficiencies for traditional film making.

Today, electronic film making is computationally about as complex as music was a few decades ago. You can sample, remix, and create electronic video that is derived from other content to create a new product. And you can do it on your laptop today. You can be god and create any scene you want without having to rely on reality. For example: Pixeldust allows you to take out any moving content from existing film footage (say free stock footage) and use it as a background. Then overlay your film footage of your actors. It’s still all film, just remixed.
On another front, video games have taken narrative cues from film makers and made stories that are interactive and participant oriented like a spectator sport such as hockey. Story matters — its about the emotional engagement with people. And in this way, interactive is not limited to one player: others can get emotionally involved and the media can engage a crowd.

“The future is already here, its just unevenly distributed.” – William Gibson

The future of technology is already here, its just that not everyone gets it yet, and no one knows exactly how to use it yet. Its a gamble left to the artists to work out before it goes mainstream. New media right now manifests as folk instruments: amateur tools that allow people excluded from access to the real tools to try stuff out. Technology tends to bypass barriers to entry that have traditionally been used to ensure a closed exclusive group has control over maintaining a minimum quality of craft.

The challenge now is that new media engagement opens new possibilities to new people, many of whom do not have classical training in an artistic craft, and this changes the way we can effectively use the media. Most people make the mistake of translating stuff they know and throwing it up in the new domain. That doesn’t work. People easily get wrapped up in the problems, constraints, and limitations of the last technology (i.e television and movies) when addressing the new technology. And that doesn’t work. Gotta approach it fresh and the amateur has an advantage there. So do kids because they treat it for what it is, not how its like something else.

Microsoft Interactive Surface project – like the iPhone, but on a tabletop. Touch screen and interactive features make this table a part of the interface like the surface-ground relationship in art. Put your phone, or camera, or videocamera on the table and all the digital content from these devices is automatically displayed and connected in a transparent way. Content is not limited to the domain it originated from anymore — new media means that content is now transparent and transportable to any place and any device.

How do you tell stories now? How do you craft a message that can accommodate platform ambiguity? Stories no longer need to be linear. You don’t need to got to the theatre to see the story. And, you need to think differently and push these assumptions to be sucessful storyteller in the future.

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Earl Hong Tai from Telefilm

Earl Hong Tai, Director – Western Region of Telefilm Canada presented in the opening ceremony.

His speech speaks to the film debate and purpose of nextMEDIA.

He asked: why is a film and television cultural funder at nextMEDIA? The lines are being blurred and there is a fundamental shift in storytelling.

“Our screens have no borders”

Earl talks about how telefilm is committed to helping new media people ‘crack the code’, and discover the magic bullet that will revolutionize story telling as much as film and television have. This will include interactive content of some form, and when it happens, it will generate income that far exceeds boxoffice receipts.

Telefilm wants to help Canadian companies to create products with this kind of potential.

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Banff Centre Contacts

So the event opens with a getting-to-know you kind of networking event where I learned 30 people’s names (out of the 400 people that are here). This early exposure comes in handy as I’m seeing them all over the event and it feels like we’ve made a bond already.

Here is a photo of me and Lindsey MacDonald. She’s the production coordinator at the Banff New Media Institute. I know Lindsey from last year when I was working with their Liminal Screen Program and was happy to see her again. We’re talking about another opportunity to come back to the Banff Centre this August to participate in the Interactive Screen Workshop.

The Banff Centre is an inspiring place for Artists of all kinds — from writing to dance to sculpture to new media. They provide residencies, workshops, and co-productions opportunities to help people get their projects made. I highly recommend connecting with them.

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nextMEDIA

Hey there, I’m at nextMEDIA 2008 in Banff and will be doing some brief blogging coverage of this amazing event.

Some backstory: nextMEDIA is the new media conference that proceeds the Banff Television Festival — they are really one in the same with two different names. There are big players from all over the world here and the buzz is about whats happening on the cutting edge of entertainment technology.

Why cover new media on a film blog, you might ask? Well, from the conversations I’ve had over the few hours I’ve been here the view is that film and new media are influencing one another. Heres the low down:

Film is, hands down, the pinacle of storytelling in the 2oth century. Its an industry that has matured into a powerful and influential representation of our culture. However, technology and techniques are changing.

New media and film have obvious overlap in areas such as Computer Generated effects, animation, digital distribution, and editing. Storytelling as a whole is influenced by this technology, and the lines between genres are being blurred. However, new media will never replace the strengths of film, and vice versa. The real intrigue is how people are finding ways to combine these two forms to make a richer storytelling experience.

Many of the projects I’m hearing about from other delegates are about conveying their message in more than one way. Documentary, feature film, and television content creators already create websites to represent their work. These same people are also looking for other ways that new media can expand the reach and audience engagement of their stories. Usually this comes down to using the power of the internet, and interactivity, to help them build a community around their film and have the experience transcend the movie theatre.

So, there is a recognition here that some convergence is happening and we want to know more about what that will look like and how to take advantage of it. I think filmroller readers will find it to be an interesting and worthwhile perspective.

More to come and thanks for reading.

David

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Off Course

I had a terrific story meeting with our Italian producer for Off Course. He has a yacht that he moors in the harbour. So we sat discussed the script and drank excellent wine. Certainly a highlight of the trip. He really gets the script and has some great plans for it. I’m feeling really optimistic.

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Reflecting on Cannes part 2

A few days has passed since Cannes and many of the contacts I made there and e-mailed are responding. I had the opportunity to send “Love Bites” -the low budget hilarious feature I’m directing written by the talented Scots: Jillian and Kevin- to approx. 10 sales agents and and scottish screen someone we’ve been meaning to talk to for some time.

It’s terrific when you have an opportunity to pitch a project in person as the director because the potential funders can see your passion for the project and know you will make the film no matter what. The enthusiasm is infectious and they want to be part of it. That is why even though going to Cannes was expensive it was worth so much. From the 10 financiers I sent “Love Bites” to, 8 have gotten back and said they are reading the script. These are great numbers! Fingers crossed and I’ll keep you posted as we progress.

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Reflecting on Cannes

I remember before I was about to go, I was thrilled to go but also not sure if it would be worth it. It’s an expensive venture and as an independent writer director it can be difficult to justify any additional expenses, but it was so worth it.  I now have an Italian co-producer who really gets the script and being in Cannes, I also learned about funds for film makers shooting their films in Italy that I wouldn’t of heard of otherwise.

I had some cool serendipitous moments. I went to a massive party at a villa for the German films and there I met a terrific producer who produces for Sting.  I met stephen who produced Jennifer Lynch’s new film and invited me to the afterparty for the film, which aside from having the most fantastic dancefllor on hydolic lifts hovering above a pool was a great chance to meet other filmmakers  from around the world.

I was thrilled that so many producers, sales agents, and distributors said yes to meetings evn though they don’t know me. They took a chance and from these meetings every one asked to read the script or one page and we are now in e-mail contact. I would heartily recommend throwing yourself out there and going to Cannes. Especially to anyone who has one or more features under their belt and are looking for European or American co-producers people are very open to meeting and the opportunities are immense.

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Off Course

Had a fantastic meeting with Roberto our producer on his boat which is on the Riveria. We drank wine and talked about the script. He really gets it and has great plans for the film. I’m so pleased.

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Cannes Day 6

Ah here we are just had breakfast with a UK sales agent who seems really keen on all three projects.

have had a great response.

Went to the German Party last night and met this great producer/sales agent who makes Sting’s documentaries and has worked with Ozzy Osbourne. I did Lizzy for him and we laughed hysterically. Got home at 3 then up at 8 for the meetings.

Here are some more pics

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