The new entertainment culture

360 entertainment

Crossing the void, a one day conference on 360 entertainment (which they seemed to be using the same way i use 'the new entertainment') to 'explore the changing commissioning landscape by bringing TV and new media indies together to discuss collaborative opportunities'

No one actually told us what the void is supposed to be, and to me the whole thing seemed more about the enormous proliferating pile of content and tools and services that crowd this 360 world where online, television, mobile and ourselves meet.

Everyone I spoke to seemed to be crushing in on the same space, like the waste crushing room on the Death Star in the original Star Wars. Everywhere the talk was of television content alongside websites video and audio - streamed and podcasted - photos mobile - messaging, content, communities - geolocational music games quiz shows reality television really good television music film voting shifting uploading downloading sideshifting rollercoasting freebasing. And all seamlessly crossing platforms and rolled into one smooothely integrated format. Of course.

But (at least in the stuff that was presented as already accomplished, rather than about to happen very soon) – most was pretty web 1.5. Great content being pushed out, and some direct engagement with the key audiences to push it. Sky for example showed some great content they had pushed out over web, mobile and email for the Hogfather series. But in this (as with much else that we saw) there was virtually nothing that provided the opportunity to respond, engage, customise, cut up and share. 360 entertainment indeed, but without the further dimension of full audience collaboration which would actually bring it to life.

What was encouraging to see was that everyone was very keen to get involved in this space. The conference sold out very quickly and I had to be quite persistent to persuade them to find me a seat that had been invisible. And everyone was very engaged and excited and filled with ideas. And not just the indies from tv and multimedia but also the network commissioners, who were there in refreshing force and with budgets to spend. Matt Locke, previously of the BBC Innovation labs and now educational commissioner for Channel 4 – talked up his £6m pot for new media, and the fact that the vast majority of it will be spent outside the channel4.com portal, and in the spaces that 14-19 year olds are actually spending their time.

And it was both really encouraging and disheartening that half of the day’s speakers were talking up ARGs. And finally starting to build them outside of the niche, with ambition and proper scalability. Look out for Resistance is British, didn’t see much at all but it smells like the future and Paul Bennun from Somethin Else was easily the most convincing speaker of the day. And if we can get something similar off the ground this year, hopefully we'll be on the roster with him for the next one…

the new entertainment (from the air)

so, i was at schiphol in amsterdam this time last week trying to get home. over the course of four hours i made three trips between the pub and the departure gate, refreshing on fuel for both myself and the laptop each time. the trip to the (new punch drunk show) the masque of the red death was cancelled for me (not postponed - they sold out weeks ago.)

I had been waiting to see this for the twelve months since their interactive Wapping warehouse version of Faust had absolutely blown me away (although apparently the masque is not half the experience that Faust was, which is a great shame). 

so i was a little tired, a little drunk from the re-fuelling, and a little 'put out', shall we say. But then instead of heading straight for the (remaining) landing strip we banked left and did a delaying lap over central London. i hadn't had a window seat for a sweep over the city since coming back after a year in Thailand on my gap year (when we were bedfuddled by the scale and orderliness of everything and couldn't decide whether this was London or a small provicincial town). 

we followed the Thames all the way down to the Docklands before curving back and retracing our steps. It wasa cold, crisp night  outside, with just the odd wisp of Blues Brother cloud hanging between us and the spattering of lights twinkling everywhere. the first thing i could distinguish was the eye, looking like a childs toy. then we were over the millenium dome, which looked like some kind of giant alien spore with the blue-lit spokes coming out of it, then West Ham stadium at Upton Park, then back over Picadilly Circus, which felt like watching television through someone's window, and finally the Royal Albert Hall.

So, what is the point of this rather breathless (long-winded?) post? That other than the big financial centres and their skyscrapers the biggest and most impressive things that our recent society has built have been for entertainment purposes. That where we marvel at churches and wonder at the peoples that built them, perhaps future generations will marvel at these. That perhaps these great halls of fun have come to replace the church in other ways too. Where else do we come together en mass to join together in one voice? where else do we receive our indoctrination of morals and inspiration to be better people? where do we learn most about the world and our place within it?

i'm sure i'm not the first to say it (i think in part at least i studied it) but the BMI131 from Amsterdam was the first time i fully saw it myself...

paradise or bust

just wanted to give some kudos to tribewanted and its accompanying tv series Paradise or Bust that premiered last night. I'm normally the last to do the 'did you see last night...?' chat, but this is an extraordinary project, and one that harnesses the web in a more positively demonstrative way than pretty much anything i can think of...

'Tribewanted is an eco-community project spanning continents, cultures, and the digital divide. Through the project on Vorovoro, Tribewanted is seeking to make a positive difference in the lives of Tribe members than can be applied both individually and globally; a social experiment, an adventure holiday, and an educational journey'

unfortunately it doesn;t make for great television, but as a concept is enough (and it might get a bit more like Shipwrecked when more people start to arrive :) and there are still plenty of spaces left if you want to get involved...

the new entertainment commerce

so, it seems that people these days don't just want their entertainment to be more varied, impressive and accessible, they also want it to be free. The corporations currently rinsing our cash in return for assuaging our massive appetites for destruction, dirty beats or fast driving are now having to think about how to meet this seemingly untenable demand.   

Last week we saw the much maligned Terra Firma announcing how it is going to turn EMI's fortunes around, announcing that the next Radiohead album might be brought to us by (rather than just at) Tesco. Although how he expects brands to fork out for bands that have yet to make it (let alone the 9 out of 10 that don't) wasn't explained. But it is an interesting development (if one that leaves you slightly cold).

Then EA informed us that the next installment of the hugely popular Battlefield will be free to download, and paid for with advertising inside the game. Brilliant, next time they'll be paying us to play! Oh, wait a minute - they already are...

BBC News Sensationalism

‘The main danger has been that so many people watch the BBC in Zimbabwe that some of us are fairly well known. We have been recognised several times and the rumour has gone round that the BBC are here…’

‘This is John Simpson, reporting from Zimbabwe…’

John is stood shrouded in darkness, speaking in hushed tones that might be just his normal David Attenborough-esque breathless excitement, or because there are Mugabe-men waiting out there in the darkness to gun him down...

Cuts back to studio anchor: ‘John and his team have spent the last week in Harare, and although he is no longer in the capital city he is still in the country and not out of danger.’

To which you just have to ask why not? What value is there to the provision of news to us, the public, that he is still there when his special report is coming out. The answer is clear if you think about it: none at all. Yes, there is debatably value in his mission to get an insight into a closeted dictatorship (although you do ask why the Head of Global Affairs is still putting himself on the front line).

But why John is still in the darkness of the Zimbabwean bush instead of a comfortable studio in South Africa?  Purely and simply to make it more exciting for us the viewer. So he can claim to still be in danger, not to have made it out yet, to be risking everything to bring us the Scoop. To bring us that one step closer from reality and into a filmic world where one man really can save the whole thing with his naked lens.

Not that i don't appreciate the value of decent reporting. The fierce braveness of the journalists that go out to these nightmares to give us better insight into how things are (and i very much include John Simpson in this. He is undoubtedly a brave and a great man). But it is the way it is played...

It’s one thing Sky News having whizzy animations, almost understandable that heart-twanging stories like Madeleine Mccann are eked out over months by commercial publications. But, please, John – wasn’t it enough to lead the conquering of Kabul? To dress up as a woman visiting the Taliban?

Come home, put your slippers on and give us an informed perspective from a distance. You’re not Bruce Willis, or Sylvester Stallone, and of course it's about time they hung up their vests / gloves too….

blockbuster of the future

so, i went to see 'the beta version of the blockbuster of the future' this week, Beowulf, in 3D at the IMAX. Now, without wanting to sound too Nathan Barley, we launched commercial films at the Science Museum's IMAX three years ago, and at the time it wasn't doing so well. People were moving away from the cinema and enjoying the comfort of the home and the delivery of large flat-screens and surround sound systems, and the IMAX set up itself had not developed in 15 years and was becoming a relic instead of the prophesy of the future it had once been.

But now the crystal ball gazing has come back, with the new technology from 3ality, which allows directors to see the 3d footage as they film it for the first time, and allegedly will soon allow live streaming of 3D. So the experience they have gained from shooting U2 3D could one day be done at the same time as the performance.

Unfortunately the film itself was a little bit disappointing. It was certainly spectacular - the deep panoramic scenery shots far more than the action sequences. There was gore (huge amounts for a 12A - bodies being torn in half and munched on) and eroticism - from a semi naked drunken Antony Hopkins, to totally naked and digitally perfected Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie's (if such a thing is possible).

But for all it's realism it was just a bit cartoony, lacked credibility. And for some reason they thought a story that had survived 1,500 years needed a new (inferior) plot involving some kind of strange reverse Oedipal complex.

It's definitely exciting as a herald for the return of the glorious cinematic event, but it is the live aspects that appeal to me more than the glory of 3D, which still feels just a little bit Captain Eo.

define: web 3.0

just came across this thread on Business Week discussing what web 3.0 will involve (a term that we were jokingly  bandying about last year, but that is probably inevitable to be deployed for the next gen of internet technology and usage)

apart from the obvious statements that it will be user driven, always on and always with you (through improved mobile access) the following statement from metabeam seemed to sum it up the best...

'The social/democratic character of web 2.0 will, in effect, be added to the big media colonization that represented web 1.0 to create a world where everyone's a simultaneous consumer and producer of pro-quality media. IF THEY CAN TELL A STORY.'

or maybe it just suits my vision of what it should be. Thanks to Lorna Croft for picking up and sharing ...

who needs tv?

Interesting to see two articles on the ‘new entertainment’ (my phrase, not theirs) in successive weeks of the harbinger of cutting edge entertainment The Guardian Guide (whose vocabulary of criticism always leaves me breathless with envy).

The first article was about the evolution of the new neverending series format pioneered by HBC with the likes of Lost and Heroes; that the worlds and plots of these shows are so complicated that you have to commit to them, and stick with them every week for years as they evolve over several series. There have always been long-running entertainment formats, Quantum Leap and The X Files most memorably for me, but the over-arching story could be summed up in the first minute, and then provided just the backdrop for the self-contained episodes. Whereas now the wider story is everything, and not just in terms of the ever-convoluting television plot, but now in a wider canon that seeks to provide a contextual backdrop of character social media profiles, biographies and sub-plots – the Silmarillion to television’s Lord of the Rings (and mostly equally as dull).

The following week’s story was about the latest generation of online entertainment, online shows such as Quarterlife and Kate Modern, that blends the surrounding content more succinctly with the main show to create a world that you not only consume, but also can get involved in – interacting with the characters as if they were actually your friends (as the pioneering LonelyGirl15 on YouTube actually pretended to be, much to the horror of said ‘friends’ when they found out she was a fictional construct.

However, there is still the all important next step to be taken (other than actually making them entertaining) – that allows the audience to interact with not just the characters and elements surrounding the story, but the plot itself. That allows them to cross the line between fiction and reality and become part of the story themselves.

It will happen, my guess is next year. Well, that’s the plan anyway…

Facebook controversy

so, the love affair is well and truly over and users in their thousands are using Facebook's own software to protest against them sharing information about their purchasing habits online - 22,000 belong to the Stop Invading my privacy group, and counting.

The debate goes back to the argument Google was having with the US government last year on whether they should give up info on searches made to help FBI investigations. Except this isn;t around legal power but purchasing power. Facebook has gone against good operating policy by making it opt out rather than opt in (and specific to each site too), but at the same time - they haven;t (completely) sold out to brands, and they do need to make their money somewhere, so why shouldn't they use this information that they have to hand about people's online habits? And shouldn't this ultimately allow brands to target more effectively, moving further away from the disruptive, mass media traditional advertising model that most people agree should have had its day by now?

The issue is with the feeling of the totalitarian state that this provokes. Only in this case, interestingly, it is a commercial state rather than a national state - which ties in with the fact that something like a  third of the top economic powers in the world are now companies not countries.  Omnicom big cheese Tim Love, showed us the old Apple 1984 ad in a presentation the week before last. It was an extraordinary ad for many different reasons, but for the purposes of this argument, it is most interesting for the way it portrays (specifically Apple) technology as destroying the notion of state control by ennabling people to lead lives as individuals. Whereas what we have with the Facebook situation is entirely the opposite. Difficult to say whether ultimately this will prove to be beneficial or detrimental to us, Jo Blogs, the end user - probably as AOL suggested in their awesome ads from last year Is the Internet a Good or a Bad Thing(also referenced by Mr Love), it is both, depending on how it is applied...

guardian story

Video Games Live

ok, so i am a bad blogger. In fact in some definitions i am not actually a blogger at all, just someone who scribbles online occasionally.

so, Video Games Live, the second of our big gaming events this autumn, happened back in late October - members of (Classic FM's orchestra on tour) the Philharmonia, presented by IMG Artists, Raymond Gubbay and Microsoft Xbox 360 tm playing the scores from the most popular games of all time at the Royal Festival Hall as the opening event to this year's London Games Festival. Phew, think i got the messaging all right - you may sense that this was not a simple account to manage!

Fortunately it was also a very exciting and ultimately very successful event. Ok, case study mode: this was the first time that Raymond Gubbay and IMG had presented a concert without any advertising (just fliers and our PR and online outreach efforts) and this was the first time the festival hall had sold out since it re-opened in the summer...

which basically meant a very incongruous night for the festival hall - with 2,000 gaming fans baying for the classics from now and yesteryear, in particular Zelda, Final Fantasy and to finish a Halo triple medley. The crowd gave a standing ovation both when they finished first and following the encore. I've never seen anything like it!