I had the pleasure of participating in the panel “New Narratives: Building An Interactive Storyworld” at SXSW this year with Karim Ahmad of ITVS & Future States, Aina Abiodun of Storycode , and Mike Knowlton of Murmur. It was a lively panel and we packed the house.
I had a few takeaways from the panel I thought you might like me to share. 20 to be exact.
By Jennifer Phang
When Ted and I spoke about a possible post here, he mentioned that 80% of feature film directors never get to make a second feature. Why is that?
One reason is that it’s difficult to sustain the momentum of a crew. You are creating a whole village around a project which has an indefinite, but definitely finite, lifetime. Morale starts high, because the act of creation is invigorating, and then people get exhausted, because it’s a gigantic process, and along the way the money runs out, because the village grows and every new villager brings new skills and also new needs. And somehow you have to sustain the discipline to find the beauty in every shot, but also the momentum to finish the film.
The first time is not exactly traumatizing, but it can feel catastrophic, especially if you set out with high ambitions. It’s possibly your one chance to
By Greg Pak
I came up through independent film. Then I snagged a meeting with Marvel and spent most of the last eight years writing comic books. Now I’ve just completed an iPad app version of one of my graphic novels that combines elements of both comics and film. Here are a few thoughts about what inspired me as a filmmaker and comic book writer to plunge into the transmedia world of the “Vision Machine” app project and what I’ve learned.
Why “Vision Machine”?
A few years ago, Orlando Bagwell of the Ford Foundation approached me with the idea of creating a comic book that would help independent media makers imagine the technological, political, and social changes that will affect us over the next fifty years. As an indie filmmaker, sci fi guy, technology freak, and comic book creator, I was immediately hooked. What resulted was a 80 page sci fi thriller that follows three filmmaker friends as they confront the incredible potential and danger of the iEye, Sprout Computers’ latest piece of revolutionary personal technology. The iEye allows users to instantly record anything they can see or imagine, then edit, add special effects, and share it with the world just by thinking about it. Our heroes plunge into a mind-blowing utopia of creativity… and then, of course, the other shoe drops.
With its emphasis on copyright, trademark, privacy, and surveillance, “Vision Machine” let me explore questions that I’m always thinking about as a filmmaker and a citizen of the digital world.
And then ITVS came along and let me take the project to a whole new level.
I wish I had spotted this earlier.
