http://itvt.com/story/4671/director-ridley-scott-working-audience-driven-interactive-sci-fi-franchise-purefold

DIRECTOR RIDLEY SCOTT WORKING ON AUDIENCE-DRIVEN INTERACTIVE SCI FI FRANCHISE, "PUREFOLD"

Submitted by tracyswedlow on June 5, 2009 - 2:16am in Content Movie Ridley Scott SciFi Social Networking. FriendFeed --Franchise's Storylines to Reflect Viewer Input, "Harvested" through FriendFeed --Franchise to Feature Brand Integration, Will Be Distributed under Creative Commons License Ag8, an independent studio that was recently founded by David Bausola (who previously created "Where are the Joneses," a "social media sitcom" for Ford Motor Company, in which the audience influenced the daily production of a road trip to seek out 27 sperm donor siblings, and which was billed as "the first and largest branded media production to be licensed under the Creative Commons commercial license") and Tom Himpe (who was previously senior strategist at communications consultancy, Naked Communications), announced Thursday that it is working with Scott Free, a newly launched entertainment division of Ridley ("Blade Runner") and Tony Scott's RSA Films, on an audience-driven interactive video project called "Purefold," which it describes as "an open media franchise designed for brands, platforms, filmmakers, product developers and communities to collaboratively imagine our near future." According to Ag8, the "Purefold" franchise will consist of a series of short-format episodes, featuring interlinked storylines and set in the near-future, that will explore the subject of empathy and attempt to answer the question, "What does it mean to be human?" The episodes, which are slated to launch later this summer, will be directed by RSA Films' "global talent pool of directors," Ag8 says, and--most interestingly--will be "informed by real-time online conversations from the audience, which are harvested through FriendFeed, the world's leading 'life streaming' technology." Ag8 says that the "Purefold" franchise will enable brands "to take an alternative route to brand integration than traditional product placement and embrace invention within a narrative framework." It also says that the franchise's content will be distributed on the Web under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license, giving brands, platforms and audiences "unprecedented equal use rights through their participation"--i.e. allowing them to re-edit and redistribute them commercially, provided they do so under the same licensing terms. According to Ag8, "Purefold" is supported by FriendFeed, Creative Commons, WPP, Aegis, Publicis and Naked Communications.

E3 2009 - electronic entertainment 2009

• Relationships major at E3
• News
• June 01, 2009 8:19 PM
• Paul Govan

One day into E3 2009 and we seem to have a theme emerging - celebrity. Each of the first three press conferences have rolled out some impressive celebrity figures. Microsoft had Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Stephen Spielberg and Tony Hawks, whilst EA had Pete Sampras and Ubisoft had Ridley Scott.

More than the name checking though is the ease and willingness at which these folk are happy to stand alongside our favorite videogame experiences. More than ever it seems that games are part of the fabric of our society now, and no longer the reserve of the hardcore gamer.

Alongside these names we find similar technological changes. Particularly interesting to a family gamer was the new ways to play together, as well as the new ways to control games. From the ability to connect LastFM, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix to your Xbox 360, to the new super simple Natal and Hawkscontrollers, it seems like there is a recognition that more casual gamers are more interested in relationships than technology.

As a Dad, I found two of the Natal demonstrations particularly interesting. Here we have a controller that lets you direct a game by standing in front of a camera and moving your body. With this simple concept we watched as they demonstrated a magical painting game - something my kids would love. The player could grab pots of emulsion and fling them onto the canvas, Jackson Pollock style, to impressively creative results.

The second demo using the Natal controller was the creation of a computer controlled character, a little boy called Milo, who could notice and respond to communication as subtle as a smile or as human as sunken shoulders. We watched as the player conversed with Milo, and had as genuine an interaction as you could imagine between a screen and a person.

Then came a moment of magic, when they lent forward to play the fishing activity and we could see their reflection in the pond they were poking and prodding. A simple idea executed seamlessly and without a visible controller.

Time will tell how well the technology stands up to rigorous (and untrained) testing - we should have a hands on for you soon - but hopes are high that this is a big step towards a whole different way of creating game experiences.

kyte.tv - Staying Single to be broadcast

I've decided to broadcast Staying Single as part of my PhD - but to broadcast it in a wider and more focussed way that I did for my MA.

I've created Sophie's channel on kyte.tv and have broadcast a basic intro to Sophie. However I am planning to broadcast an episodic tv version of Staying Single - in a similar way to Sofia's Diary was on Bebo - over the next few months.


I'm still in pre-production phase on this however, and would be willing to take on any advice or hands-on experience that might help shape or move this project on.

Please feel free to contact me on singlesophieregan@yahoo.co.uk

MIPTV - Disney Interactive's Cindy Rose delivers eye-opening keynote

Thought provoking facts from Disney Interactive, which makes me realise that one of the keys to the 'success' of writing for new platforms is to know HOW consumers will react to your work.

Multi-tasking teenagers, (as quoted by Cindy Rose) who are watching TV whilst on 5 websites and IM, are partially attentive to these 7 tasks simultaneously (aided by the 'clickability' factor) - but if they were playing an online role in a game or caught up by an 'experience' such as reading a traditional book they would be far more immersed and probably less likely to click away and multi-task... I am working on a piece now that will test which types of interactive entertainment consumers WANT to be immersed in, and which types they like to receive in 'bite-size-chunks'....


http://www.reedmidem.com/mipblog/index.php/2009/04/02/109-disney-interactive-s-cindy-rose-delivers-eye-opening-keynote

Television is just the tip of the entertainment iceberg for today’s consumers, Cindy Rose, senior vice-president and managing director of Disney Interactive Media Group, EMEA, said in her keynote on cross-platform gaming.

With a sequence of 10 slides and a battery of statistics, she depicted vividly a new world where multi-tasking and interactivity are essential for all ages. A survey of consumers aged 13 to 75 posted the question: Is your computer becoming more of an entertainment device than your TV? Among the millennials (ages 13-24) 80% answered yes; Gen Xers (25-41) 74%; baby boomers (42-60) 64%; and even among seniors it was 51%.

A poll of Disney consumers aged seven to 14 showed “they are typically on five websites at the same time while watching TV and instant messaging, all at the same time”.

On average, 80% own and use multiple gaming devices - for example 84% have a DS and a Wii. The typical day of a European child consists of gaming for breakfast, mobile phone before and after school, PC before dinner and family TV after. Rose said those trends caused her to look closely at her own children’s entertainment schedules.

Rose provided a quick tour of Disney’s 23 interactive sites, ranging from Tinkerbell through Pirates Of The Caribbean to the forthcoming World Of Cars.

At Club Penguin “an ad-free online playground”, boys’ favourite activities were games and parties, while girls opt to decorate their igloos and customise their penguins. That brand was already on multiple platforms and in merchandising, with the potential for theme parks and other earners. While the “Disney difference” was that her company had the scope and resources to do that, she told broadcasters: “You can no longer be satisfied serving up traditional linear TV shows.”