Pixel Lab Diary - Day 1

MONDAY 5th July 2010

Ok - before diving into the week headlong - here's how it works…

The time is split between:

• Plenary Sessions - Experts present in main room to all groups
• Group Sessions - Experts discuss their subjects and feedback on projects
• Group Work - Project teams developing their projects
• Case Studies - Projects of interest presented in main room to all groups
• Individual Meetings - One to one meetings with experts
• Networking - so it goes…

Participants/Projects:

• There are 35(ish) participants in the Lab split into 4 groups
• Half of the participants have a project (I have one)
• Those without a project are assigned a collaborator with a project
• They work together to develop the project over the course of the week The projects are pitched publicly at the end of the week

So Monday.... a great day! We started at 9am with Plenary Session: "Creating Blockbuster Worlds" - Jeff Gomez talked about his experiences creating storyworlds. There were some really key points in his presentation:

Telling stories with Transmedia means:

• putting ears on your story
• platforms become instruments (in the orchestra of the story)
• maintaining logic and consistency
• using timeless themes – artfully presented
• the cultivation, validation and celebration of fanbase
• story/platform extensions that maintain integrity of the brand
• interwoven stories and continuity over different platforms & product lines
• careful market segmentation
• coordination, attention to detail and quality is all important
• recognising your driving platform
• having a creative visionary and IP stewards
• storyworlds have to stand up to deep analysis
• needing a central message for the storyworld (preferably upbeat & aspirational)
• complex narratives need a simple, mythic essence
• audience participation without the dialogue becomes propaganda

Jeff was a veritable oracle about the relevance of storyworlds in today’s connected world - and what a good project needs - this is crucial to what we're doing with AWP and Sheerport.

Apologies if the headlines listed above are too abstract without the context of the PowerPoint - I can’t post the power point here but if I can find relevant stuff over the next few days I will amend it here.

Then Plenary Session: "Story Design for the Four Key Cross Media Types" - Christy Dena talking about story and user experience design. I had seen some of her presentation before but it's worth refreshing on a couple of points:

• Think: pre experience – during experience – post experience
• Wayfinders: orientation of audience – where are they on arrival? what do they need to do now?
• Think about including a tutorial

My notes are not that comprehensive but Christy finished her PhD on transmedia recently - you can download it here - she's ace!

Then we had a group session with Erica Motley - "Finance Plan". My project partner Mira Stavela (Deputy Director of Sofia IFF/Art Fest Ltd) and I worked on the financial structure of AWP and put it in front of Erica.

This was a most useful meeting having previously struggled with this side of financing projects - Erica really made it clear in an A B C kind of way - we need to establish partnerships with co-producers and a sales agent. That's how we're going to do it.

Then a Case Study: Alexandre Brachet of Upian showed 2 great interactive documentary projects they created with the web as the primary platform - both worth checking out:

Gaza Sderot
Prison Valley

Then a group session with Christy Dena. Christy thought that the timing of our planned AWP release not being real time causes a problem in the suspension of disbelief. She might be right...