WE HAVE MOVED

please visit us at: www.ninafroriep.com.

Immersive Storytelling, Transmedia Experiences and Storyscapes

The past week I have had chance to experience a few transmedia experiences. What they are called or billed as is as fluid as their content, use of technology and, alas, quality of all of the above.  

The Lincoln Film Society has a program called, Convergence: Immersive Media  at Lincoln Center. Currently the program features Futuremate a hybrid live performance, film and interactive game experience.  Billed as a wickedly funny satire about life, love and the modern surveillance state, I had a hard time immersing myself.  Partially to blame for that was of course the fact that any “mating” game in NYC will have to deal with the skewed 2:1 female male ratio. Parts of the experience felt forced, video elements where poorly produced and although the script had its moments it was all a bit too over the top for my taste. I felt like an outsider watching with (more or less) interest a not so great theatrical performance with many gimmicks and I was certainly not immersed.   I think a much better experience could have been had with better actors and certainly a better balanced audience.   It’s the age old issue, and I’ve been there myself, where people with great ideas and a great script are not necessarily great directors or actors.  This just a hunch...

The Tribeca Film Festival had two floors of Storyscapes as part of their Innovation Week. The projects in Storyscapes incorporated virtual reality, live performance, 3D graphics, music and gesture-based gaming and they were all participatory.  In addition to the five finalist featured there were quite a few other immersive or transmedia experiences. All of this, by the way, fueled by massive amounts of Sapphire Bombay Gin to which I fell prey the first visit and no popcorn in the world could keep up with the gin.  

TED Talks, take 1 - Bionics

http://biomech.media.mit.edu

On the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing I wanted to share a TED talk by Hugh Herr, head of MIT’s Media Lab’s Biomechatronics group. A double amputee himself he demonstrates what prosthetics, biomechanical limbs are capable of and what they can do into the future.  He maintains that people are never broken, but the technology is.

To demonstrate what he can do, he brings to the talk ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her left leg in the Boston Marathon bombing, to perform for the first time since she lost her leg on the TED stage.  It’s a modest, but emotionally powerful dance.  As someone who had a traumatic lower leg injury and nearly lost a leg to a sporting accident I can tell you, that not only standing up straight and walking, but dancing, and having the mental strength to do so is awe-inspiring.  The leg’s movements are phenomenal and I’m inspired to see that had I lost a leg, maybe I’d be very ok today.

Spring Quiz (aka April Fool’s Quiz)

It was a good year for the Fools of April. I would blame the weather for it (what else).  The first two pranks I saw while checking emails in bed (yes: bad, bad habit) where the funniest. 

First an email announcement from a stock footage house – it was so elaborate that I still have not found out whom it’s exactly from – announced the comeback of the VHS tape and had everything from client testimonials to special offers and a video.  The list of perks listed among other things: easy to order – simple 3 page fax order form.  Or: don’t settle for invisible digital goods.  Or: amazing 720 x 480 resolution. I’m still LOL. The email leads you to this site.

Transmedia

For the past year and a half, I've been strongly advocating for what I have been calling cross-platform outreach for documentaries:  a way to disseminate the information that filmmakers do not or cannot incorporate into a documentary film; to encourage a grass roots movement of participation and conversation;  to explore the often fine line between subject matter and audience; to crowd source stories and footage as a means to expanding the conversation or to cast your film; or to simply let loose some cool ideas that do not fit into a linear narrative.   

April Fool's Day!

Ha! If you come to this blog post via the Clock Wise Productions email blast of April 1st, 2014 you have just been April Fooled!  Congratulations! Do comment here or send me an email and you might still win a prize.  

Prezi Version of Panna Cotta Recipe

I thought I'd share a trial run of the new Prezi interface for which I used a (rather boring) visual presentation for a Panna Cotta recipe [a la Production Style] I had done a few weeks ago and had posted here. 

For the entire presentation on Prezi.com, click here. 

Original Programming

July 2011 I wrote about how we watch TV, the title:  I Don’t Have a TV.  I recently read Outside the Box, by Ken Auletta in the New Yorker, an article I highly recommend and decided it was time to revisit the topic for a bit.

 

We know that “TV” has changed.  What has changed as well, is who means what when they use the word “TV”.  That’s what my blog post from nearly three years ago was mostly about.  This time around, I’m more interested in the programming aspect of TV; that is content, not context.

 

Television today faces two major threats: advertising models and streaming services.

Side Note: March Madness



Hello, Mister...

March Madness has several meanings apart from the popular American reference to some kind of baseball thing that has to do with college teams, presumably in March. To me March Madness is two things: first the mating season for rabbits (need I say more) and secondly this March for sure, a hole slate of weird ‘stuff’ – and don’t tell me that is because whichever planet is in retrograde.

 

Under ‘stuff’ I would file the funky weather for instance. That is, it’s been freaking cold and snow has been falling in all the wrong places, like South Jersey wants snow, really!  Dump it in Lake Placid please.

 

Next on my ‘stuff’ list:  MH370, the plane that disappeared, crashed, was blown up, hijacked by aliens, or swallowed by David Blaine who will spit it out in a month.  The ensuing madness of cultural “lost in translation” miscommunication, obsessive über-sharing of information of the wrong kind by the media, and the rampant conspiracy theories make it that more baffling that in our world today a plane could disappear mid-flight to never (?) be seen again.  

A Case for Social Media, Outreach, Marketing and Distribution Producers

The first time I heard of a 50/50 film budget, I was like, yeah, right, like I’m going to spend 50% of my production budget on M&A (Marketing & Advertising).

That was the fall of 2009 after having spent all but $1K of my budget on MAKING a film. The remaining 1K was earmarked for festival submissions.  Not long after I started spending my own money to cover outreach and marketing expenses so the film would meet some deserving eye balls.  Not including my labor, 20% of the production budget for distribution seemed about right.  But then I started factoring in my time and realized how long an outreach, marketing and distribution process lasts. 50% now was very reasonable.

Searching for Bitcoins

If you’re like me you understand the concept of Bitcoin as a virtual currency, but not the finer points, you do not pay for anything with Bitcoins, nor would you know where to GET Bitcoins (it’s called mining, by the way), let alone would you invest in them.  

 

According to the Wikipedia definition: Bitcoin as a concept and the network is spelled with a capital “B”, the actual currency “bitcoin”: no capital “B”.  I’ll try to keep them straight…

 

TechCrunch wrote about a guy on February 28th, who was stopped for further search by the TSA looking for Bitcoins in his carry-on, which is beyond hysterically funny.  And of course it’s not, especially if you, like me have been on the road so much you’ve slept less than half the time in your own bed for a year.

Five Not So Easy Pieces

I just sat through all five documentary shorts that are up for an Oscar on Sunday night. And, who would have thought, I learned a few things (thankfully).

Artistry and compulsive obsessive disorder are cousins if not siblings and can save you or kill you, much like madness and genius share a thin line.

Panna Cotta Recipe for Cook-o-Phopes and Kitchen-Adverse Production People

Crazy Creative

No clue whose car this is. Found it on Saturday on Central Park West in the low hundreds. Funnily enough: once I started taking pictures (unfortunately the inside pix didn't turn out) a whole bubble of other passersby took the time to stop and take pictures too.  Why did they need the license to take a picture by watching me? Maybe they didn't want to be 'left out', or didn't think to take one until they saw me pull out my phone?  It prompted a few fun exchanges about the "craziness", the possible message of the car and whodunnit?  To me the message was, that we as New Yorkers took a moment to stop our hurried (yes, even on a Saturday) lives and interact and smile at each other. I think that in itself is mission accomplished.  Thank you to whomever so lovingly decorated the car.  

Documentary Distribution Update

Peter Broderick, an independent film distribution consultant and strategist posted this month on getting ready for festivals, with Sundance about to start.  Getting into Sundance is something many of us dream of and so few achieve.  Needless to say, the advice goes beyond festivals and also provides a good check list, and primer on independent distribution windows, strategies and current trends; a definite must read if you’re about to, in the midst of, or thinking of distributing anything with pixels, consecutive frames and sound...   

 

Peter links to a post by Thom Powers Distribution Advice for 2014 – a must read, especially for doc filmmakers and to Ted Hope’s blog who in effect has curated a list about all things festival – and distribution – and this list is being updated as we move along! That should keep you busy for at least a while… once you’re done, why don’t you share what you learned here?

Where to Hide? Part 2

In “Where to Hide? Part 1”I talked about finding people online without much information to go by.  The story to follow  talks about the ‘other’ direction; being found.

It’s early 2008, the world is still in order and people go to work at Lehman Brothers:  I had a conservative client who apparently was close to circles that where close to the pope… kinda one, or two degrees of separation.  This just to make the point in what way the client was conservative.

I was working as a media consultant for the CEO. After a few months Clock Wise’s role was to be expanded into producing video content.  Since it was a sizeable budget Clock Wise needed to be vetted.  With nothing to worry about, I foresaw no problems.

Where to Hide? Part 1

I’ve written a bit about on-line privacy in the past months, and how can one ignore the topic with the N.S.A. scandal and the Snowden leaks.  In this and the next post I want to share a story each of on-line privacy issues from opposite directions.

 

The first and most recent story begins with a conversation I had over dinner with a guy who told me about his ex (which wasn’t all that “ex” as it turns out, but that’s a hole other topic and not for this blog). From the conversation I had gathered the following information: