Christy Dena

Yes, that’s right, my podcast at UniverseCreation101.com is now in video. In this vodcast I interview filmmaker Lance Weiler, who has been extending his films to different media platforms for years, and spearheading digital distribution & social networking for the film community. Check it out. Also, for those in Facebook I’ve started a UC101 group. It is there I’ll ping you when a new video or substantial post is up, you can post stuff you think I and the others in the group will find interesting, and you can heckle me.

• Interview with Lance Weiler at UC101.com
• Large screen version of interview with Lance Weiler at Blip.tv
• Join the UC101 Facebook group

My latest articles to be published include an academic book review and two opinion pieces/reports about a film festival panel and a new media art panel I participated in.

My review, in the latest issue of Cyberculture Studies, covers Anne Friedberg’s very interesting book about the history of windows, screens & frames in film, art, architecture & philosophy: The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. The review is also graced with a response from the author: Anne Friedberg. As an extra note, the man behind CyberCulture Studies — David Silver — included the online augmentation to my essay on Tiering & ARGs (and Sean Stacey’s article on ‘Undefining ARGs’) as reading material in his class on Digital Literacies, which was guest lectured by Bryan Alexander. Ah, the world is getting smaller and smaller.

I participated, chaired & organised a few panels last year, and as I intimated in an earlier post, I was commissioned to write opinion pieces on two of the panels I participated in. The first is a short review/opinion piece about the ‘cyber-born film panel‘ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Film Festival. Here is the blurb about the panel:

The revolution will be downloaded… It’s an exciting time in filmmaking right now. Using Four-Eyed Monsters as a starting point - the superb ’YouTube feature’ - our panel will explore how online and digital culture has r/evolutionised and challenged traditional means of production, distribution and exhibition. Has the internet made these conventional methods all but redundant? How? And where are things moving to? A range of viewpoints will be heard across the spectrum - from filmmakers and producers to artists and web designers.

The article, ‘Cyber-Conceived/Cyber-Birthed Films: Christy Dena on Making and Distribution at DestFest’ has been published in RealTimeArts (an Australian arts magazine) and has been edited somewhat. Of particular significance (regarding the editing) is the listing I included of all those who participated in the panel. So, here it is: This panel was organised by film critic, journalist and director Megan Spencer. The panelists included Arin Crumley of Four Eyed Monsters fame (via video Skype); remix artists Dan & Dominique Angeloro of Soda_Jerk ; highly regarded film producer Rosemary Blight; Rachael Lucas, the director of cult hit Bondi Tsunami; DOP, Producer/Cinematographer Streetsweeper Toby Ralph; director and composer Jason Sweeney and me.

The second article in the same issue of RealTimeArts and is an opinion piece/review of the panel ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ from the 2007 Australasian Interactive Entertainment Conference. Here is that blurb:

So was it the mobile phone or changes at the OzCo? Why has new media art apparently disappeared from the cultural landscape? Key cultural institutions such as ACMI have made the transition from pixels to Pixar. Games criticism is thriving at a time when discussions of media art histories recede into the background. Or do we need to revise our definitions of what is new media art? Does anyone really care about interactivity any more? In the age of machinima and Second Life, is there still a place for “new” media art?

In this panel discussion key media artists, curators and writers will debate these issues.

Interactivity may, or may not, be present during the discussion.

For those interested in a bit a background to the debate: recent notable essays & discussions include Steve Dietz’s 2004 ISEA essay ‘Art After New Media’ and 2006 Olhares de Outono Symposium essay ‘Just Art: Contemporary Art after the Art formerly known as New Media’. In 2007 Steve Dietz was in Australia and continued the discussions there (here): ‘A Meeting with Steve Dietz’. For an Australia-specific (though internationally relevant) article about Art & funding bodies etc, see Keith Gallasch’s (the editor of RealTime) 2005 essay: ‘From Art in a Cold Climate’.

So, in light of such history new media arts critic, academic and educator Darren Tofts organised the ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ panel. It included educator, critic and curator Shiralee Saul; director, critic, writer and curator Philip Brophy; new media artist Marcia Jane and myself.

My article on the panel is now online: ‘Playing the Moon: Christy Dena on the Fate of New Media Art’.

As an added bonus, a participant on the panel and long-time (well for me) colleague of mine Shiralee Saul also has an article about game art in the just-released: SwanQuake: The User’s Manual. Also, one person who was in the audience of the panel (but who participated in the panel I organised for Interactive Entertainment 2007) — Christian McCrea — is participating in this months’ empyre discussion ‘Game Off’:

Whether we play or not, whether we live in the moneyed west or not, games occur.
Using the rubric of ‘game off’, our stellar guests will tease out and map intertwined threads of play culture, game art, game theory interrogating the frictions and fissions of experiential pleasure, avatar uprisings, the game engine medium, collection and archiving, futility and joy. Join Marguerite Charmante, Daphne Dragona, Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer, Julian Oliver, Melanie Swalwell, David Surman (and maybe Helen Stuckey) in multi-streamed dialogues moderated by Christian McCrea and Melinda Rackham.

Empyre is an interesting new media arts listserv that I had the pleasure of participating in as an invited guest about Second Life art a few months ago. Ah yes…cyberspace can seem really small at times. Then I wake up. There really is no end of the Internet, though the idea is funny.

Anyway. Enjoy the finger-linking-goodness!

Last year DIY filmmaking pioneers Lance Weiler (The Last Broadcast, Head Trauma, WorkBookProject), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and M dot Strange (We Are The Strange) got together and came up with the idea for a film festival in which audiences can watch films they choose in theatres, in their living room, online and via mobile phones. Not only does this give audiences choice and the filmmakers a global audience, all filmmakers are welcome to submit, they retain their rights, pay no fees AND get revenue directly from the distribution outlets. They’ll also be running virtual panels. Here is some more info about their goals:

The festival’s goal is to create a direct connection between filmmaker and audience. There are no submission fees for filmmakers. FHTA attempts to create multiple revenue opportunities for the festival filmmakers by providing a platform that enables distribution across multiple outlets - mobile, online, living rooms and theaters. Filmmakers retain all their rights and choose how to price their work.

In an interesting twist we’ve decided to put the programming of the festival directly in the hands of the audience. By harnessing the power of social tools, audience members will be able to discover, share and assist in programming the festival.

FROM HERE TO AWESOME consists of four main parts.

1. Discovery – filmmakers and audience members use core features and functions of youTube and myspace to submit and select projects that will be showcased in FHTA.

2. Education – audience members learn filmmaking in an engaging and fun way that has them interacting with their peers and directly with showcased filmmakers.

3. Sharing – audience members enjoy interesting feature length and
short form entertainment which they have helped to program.

4. New Models - the goal of FHTA is to experiment with new distribution models for filmmakers that give them realistic options for reaching global audiences and seeing a return for their creative efforts.

In their generous style, they’re already sharing tips and tricks:

So check it out! It is going to be AWESOME!

Eighteen months ago I submitted an essay idea to Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze for their special issue of the Convergence journal. The essay, titled ‘Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games’ is in the publication and is now available online. I’ve created a website to go with the essay for a few reasons….some of which is to provide general-reader designer-oriented content, to provide the basic info it wasn’t appropriate to put in an analytical essay and because the copyright agreement is that I cannot publish the essay on my site for a year. Here is the full list of contents:

• Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze > Editorial: Convergence Culture
• danah boyd > Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence
• Neil Perryman > Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media: A Case Study in `Transmedia Storytelling’
• Christy Dena > Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games
• Hector Postigo > Video Game Appropriation through Modifications: Attitudes Concerning Intellectual Property among Modders and Fans
• Daren C. Brabham > Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases
• Larissa Hjorth > Being Real in the Mobile Reel: A Case Study on Convergent Mobile Media as Domesticated New Media in Seoul, South Korea
• Gunn Sara Enli > Redefining Public Service Broadcasting: Multi-Platform Participation
• Samantha Lay > Book Review: Barbara Klinger. Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home
• Melissa Gregg > Book Review: Mark Nunes. Cyberspaces of Everyday Life

I look forward to reading the other essays. I hope this issue provokes some conversations, please send through your thoughts on the comments here or via email. I’d love to hear them.

Apologies for the lateness of this post — I’ve been snowed under in tropical Australia.

For your holiday pleasure, I’ve put together a listing of ‘Cross-Media Christmas’ gift ideas of goods that came out in 2007. The following are not only cross-media (they’re transmedia & 360 etc) and they’re not only for Christmas, but the alliteration sounds good.

CROSS-MEDIA BABIES

Tiny Love’s DVD MAGIQ™
For babies 3-36months, Tiny Love’s DVD with specially integrated toy looks like a great pressie. What I find especially interesting is the language used in the product sheet. The arguments put forward about the functions of this cross-media product are almost exactly the same rhetoric for those in cross-media entertainment in general. Here is a snippet:

The MAGIQ™ lies within the special triangle formed by baby, doll and media. Baby no longer stares passively at the screen, but looks aside at her friend the doll, pondering its reactions, and causing her to explore her own feelings and react proactively to the stimuli on the screen. The experience here becomes a multi-directional and dynamic interaction between the DVD content, baby and doll. This experience is Active Viewing. The result: Baby is stimulated on a much deeper level, and has a richer and more holistic experience. The Active Viewing experience that DVD MAGIQ™ provides engages baby on a higher intellectual, emotional and social plain and encourages genuine interaction. [source]

CROSS-MEDIA TEENS

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight
The novel is delivered rotating between the POVs of the characters Joel and Cat, and is linked by their tandem storytelling assignment. The writers, Nick and Rebecca, also wrote the story in a tandem storytelling style, and readers can also participate in the tandem storyelling assignment by submitting story threads on the website or via SMS. I posted about this here.

OTHER CROSS-MEDIA BOOKS

Raw Shark Texts
Steven Hall’s book, Raw Shark Texts, was launched with special content on the website and had a small ARG surrounding the launch. I posted about it here.

CROSS-MEDIA TV

Twin Peaks
The beginning of it all, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks came out this year in the Definitive Gold Box Edition. You’ll have to buy the feature film and books separately though.

Heroes
NBC’s Heroes exploded from the TV with Heroes Evolutions (Heroes 360 Experience) and graphic novels. You can buy the season one DVD, but you can’t buy the comic that is in the TV series (9th Wonders) (although they did give copies away to fans, the fact that you cannot buy this comic is IMHO a very big missed merchandising opportunity). You can buy the comics that are part of Evolutions though.

Lost
The complete season three of Lost is now available on DVD. ABC’s Lost TV show had of course the The Lost Experience, a book and numerous websites that expanded beyond the episodes. I posted about The Lost Experience when it first started here.

Jericho
During September 1996, CBS launched Beyond Jericho the day after the pilot aired on TV. The webisode series was to follow different characters than those in the series. Only one webisode aired however. But in October the same year a new webisode, Countdown, began. Countdown (Oct/…) was published during the nine-week hiatus. It is a prequel to the events in the TV series. It has only one character from the main series, Robert Hawkins, and follows his research about nuclear bombs before moving to Jericho. In 2007, the first season was made available on DVD.

CSI: NY
In 2007, the complete third season was released on DVD. It includes episode 4, ‘Hung Out to Dry’, which includes real life websites and the ARG t-shirt company EDOC Laundry. So you can buy the DVD (or individual episode) and the t-shirts featured in the series (which are also part of their own ARG).

The Office
October 2007 (perhaps earlier) NBC put up a fictional company website for The Office: Dunder Mifflin Infinity. Mid 2006, between season 2 and 3, they also put out a webisode: The Office: The Accountants. You can buy the DVD and the game that was released in Nov 2007 as well.

Ghost Whisperer
In March 2007, CBS’ Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side webisode provides a shift of point-of-view from the TV series as it is told from the perspective of a ghost, Zach. Eight webisodes were netcast. Slam Internet Productions produced an online graphic novel for Ghost Whisperer, titled Spirit: The Ghost Whisperer . It was edited by Ron Frenz and is available for download in PDF form. The graphic novel is a flashback to the character Melinda Gordan’s school days as a cheerleader, prefiguring the release of the ‘Mean Girls’ TV episode which was broadcast on 9th Feb 2007. The complete second season DVD includes the webisodes.

Skins
From January 2007, after each television episode of Channel 4’s Skins is aired on their pay-TV channel E7, an episode that elaborates on events is released on the web in Unseen Skins. Two extra episodes not published online are supplied in the DVD of the first season.

Firefly
Joss Whedon’s Firefly TV series continued in webisodes, comics and a feature film. A Collector’s Edition of the feature film, Serenity, was released this year and includes the webisodes. You can Buy the comics and TV series on DVD and you’re set!

My Name is Earl
In May 2007, for a special episode of NBC’s My Name Is Earl, ‘Get A Real Job,’ viewers could participate in ‘the first ever “Laugh ‘n Sniff” interactive episode’. Whilst watching the show, viewers were prompted to scratch the special boxes supplied on the scent card in TV Guide. The scents included a ‘new car smell’ for a blow-up doll. So, if you get the episode, ‘Get a Real Job’ through iTunes and an old copy of the TV Guide — you’ve got a replayable simultaneous media experience that is alot of fun. Indeed, this episode was one of the year’s highlights for me. MNiE also has a blog and has done lots of interesting things with fans. I posted about the ‘Laugh ‘n Sniff’ episode here.

CROSS-MEDIA FILM

Late Fragment
This Canadian interactive film by Daryl Cloran, Anita Doron, Mateo Guez, Anita Lee & Ana Serrano, Late Fragment, is the first interactive dramatic feature in North America. It was Vjeed live is available on DVD.

Head Trauma
Lance Weiler’s feature film Head Trauma was, in cross-media exploration terms, the stand-out cross-media project for 2007. It included both a cinema ARG, ARG (Hope is Missing), interactive graphic novel and many other online explorations. YOu can buy the Head Trauma DVD at Lance’s online store, get it VOD through portals such as Amazon UnBoxed and Xbox Movies, or even a DVD bundle with The Last Broadcast — the first integrated feature film & website project. I posted about Head Trauma here and here.

Pirates of the Carribean
Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End Collector’s Edition came out in 2007. Pirates of course has a long history, beginning as a ride at Disneyland and includes projects such as the 2006 online interactive adventure: Dead Man’s Tale. Worthy of note too, is the specially-crafted book that came out in 2007: The Secret Files of the East India Trading Company. This book is set after the events of the third film, and is written in the style of ARG-like Cathy’s Book: written incharacter with bits that fall out of the pages. Respected imagineer Jim Hill reviews the book created by Becker & Mayer.

The Host
In 2007, Magnolia Films commissioned ARG Studios to create an ARG for Bong Joon Ho’s The Host . The ARG, Monster Hunt Club, helped market the release of the Korean film in the US. The DVD was released July this year.

Southland Tales
Richard Kelly, the director of Donnie Darko, brought out his cross-media project that combines a feature film, experiential website, and graphic novels.

CROSS-MEDIA MUSIC

Year Zero
Earlier this year Trent Reznor expanded the music experience to an alternate reality game: Year Zero. Though the game has finished, you can still go through most of the sites and read the still-active community posts, and buy the music in digital and/or CD form.

American Girl Posse
Tori Amos’ album American Girl Posse features five different characters, each of which have their own blog: Clyde, Isabel, Tori, Santa, Pip. So, you can read the blogs and then hear the characters sing on the CD.

CROSS-MEDIA GAMING

World of Warcraft
You can buy a subscription to the World of Warcraft MMORPG and the comics have begun to be sold.

The Lord of the Rings Online
2007 saw the release of the Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, a highly regarded online game that is set in the LOTR universe. You can give a subscription to this continuation of the LOTR experience.

CROSS-MEDIA DONATIONS
And then of course there is the trend of using the money you would to buy someone a gift and donating it to a charity, cause or community of their behalf. Here are a couple of cross-media related communities ideas:

• Donate to the Unfiction Unforums, the community where most ARGs and most transmedia works are played
• Donate to Networked Performance, a blog that has for the last few years been sharing information about all forms of networked performance, locative arts and games, along with Turbulence, and important organisation that funds networked performances. They need $25,000 by Dec 31st in order to keep going, and ask for a mere $5 pledge. More info on the fundraising.

CROSS-MEDIA THEORY
As for theory or design books…There have been no books dedicated to cross-media that have come out this year. There have been plenty of books out about Heroes and Lost etc, but none of them feature any substantial information about their extended experiences. There are two publications, however, that aren’t academic books (they’re written by academics & designers for general readers) that may be of interest:

• Kristin Thompson’s The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. Check out the blog for more info.
• The edited collection of Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level. In this collection ARG and pervasive game designers & theorists contributed lots of short entries (including me). Check out the main site.

Anyway, that is a quick list of some gifts you can buy for a cross-media fan. They do not include all the cross-media projects that happened in 2007, and not all of them are good, but the list is nevertheless fun. Let me know if you have some suggestions too.

I look forward to 2008 — there are some great projects coming out, and I’ll have my PhD finished. Very, very exciting.

All the best,
Christy

I participated in three panels this past week, three panels that I really enjoyed.

Designing, Experiencing and Analysing Games in the Age of Integration, Australasian Interactive Entertainment Conference
The first panel was actually my own panel at the 2007 Interactive Entertainment Conference. Here is the blurb:

The contextual framing of this panel is that this age is not about digital media, but the relationships between all media, digital and not. This panel addresses, therefore, the design, experience and analysis of games in an integrating media context. The specially selected panel addresses these media proliferation concerns.

I did something different with this panel. Instead of the usual presentation with Q&A at the end, I did a mix of the unconference style (I learnt from organising BarCampSydney) and chairing in general. I repositioned all the chairs into a circle and told everyone that not only can they ask a question at any time, they can answer one at anytime too! The idea is that everyone has something to add, and that the panelists were provocateurs rather than the only experts in the room. I facilitated discussion by asking the panelists about the ideas they presented in their papers and encouraging conversational exploration of issues. I’m thrilled to say the experiment worked well, I received alot of great positive feedback from the panelists and participants. Well done to the panelists for jumping wholeheartedly into the experiment and doing so well on the day. They were fabulous! Here is the info about their papers:

In his paper, ‘Citizenship and Consumption: Convergence Culture, Transmedia Narratives and the Digital Divide’, media studies Research Fellow and PhD candidate Tom Apperley problematises the experience of ‘transmedia storytelling’ in the context of gaming in Venezuela. In his paper, ‘Place as Media in Pervasive Games’, game designer and lecturer Hugh Davies explores the role of space in pervasive games. Games and interactivity lecturer Christian McCrea charts a synchronic and diachronic course through the co-presence of media within digital games in his paper: ‘Then, Suddenly, I Was Moved: Nostalgia and the Media History of Games’. In ‘Capturing Polymorphic Creations: Towards Ontological Heterogeneity and Transmodiology’, Christy Dena discusses methodologies to analyse polymorphism (from transmedia storytelling to pervasive games to telematic arts).

All the papers are online

Also, I would like to note it was great to spend time getting to know some interesting minds: Robin Hunicke, Troy Innocent, Adam Nash and Kevin McGee.

What Happened to New Media Art?, Australasian Interactive Entertainment Conference

So was it the mobile phone or changes at the OzCo? Why has new media art apparently disappeared from the cultural landscape? Key cultural institutions such as ACMI have made the transition from pixels to Pixar. Games criticism is thriving at a time when discussions of media art histories recede into the background. Or do we need to revise our definitions of what is new media art? Does anyone really care about interactivity any more? In the age of machinima and Second Life, is there still a place for “new” media art?

In this panel discussion key media artists, curators and writers will debate these issues.

Interactivity may, or may not, be present during the discussion.

This panel was organised by new media arts critic and educator Darren Tofts. It included educator, critic and curator Shiralee Saul; director, critic, writer and curator Philip Brophy; new media artist Marcia Jane and myself. I found the discussion very interesting because, to me, it made it very clear that there are generational issues with the question that are related to how much someone identifies themselves through ‘new media arts’. I’ve been commissioned to write an opinion peice on it for RealTime, so more in a couple of months.

Cyber-Born Film, Destination Film Festival

The revolution will be downloaded… It’s an exciting time in filmmaking right now. Using Four-Eyed Monsters as a starting point - the superb ’YouTube feature’ - our panel will explore how online and digital culture has r/evolutionised and challenged traditional means of production, distribution and exhibition. Has the internet made these conventional methods all but redundant? How? And where are things moving to? A range of viewpoints will be heard across the spectrum - from filmmakers and producers to artists and web designers.

This panel was organised by film critic, journalist and director Megan Spencer. The panelists included Arin Crumley of Four Eyed Monsters fame (via video Skype); remix artists Dan & Dominique Angeloro of Soda_Jerk ; highly regarded film producer Rosemary Blight; Rachael Lucas, the director of cult hit Bondi Tsunami; DOP, Producer/Cinematographer Streetsweeper Toby Ralph; director and composer Jason Sweeney and me.

It was a great panel, discussing contemporary strategies for film distribution, marketing, filmmaking and emerging transmedia film forms. I’ve been commissioned to write an opinion piece on this too, so more coming soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in these panels, catching up with people I haven’t seen for a while and meeting new people. Lots of great minds bursting to get out there…and I’m happy to be riding the wave - no - creating it with them.

Mark Coleran creates fictional interfaces for film and TV. He has a great showreel online. Adverlab also linked to Michael Schmitz’s academic paper on Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies, and Jakob Nielson’s Usability in Movies Bloopers.

[image from Mark Coleran's website]

As I’ve said before, I’ll be participating on the ‘Cyber-Born Film’ panel at Megan Spencer’s Destination Film Festival (DestFest). It will be launched this weekend and Megan has provided a humorous but true point-of-difference post about the festival:

Big Brand Film Festival: “I’m going to focus on features and government funded films as if no other films are made in Australia (or that other films made in Australia don’t really count).

DestFest: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to hold a panel about how to compete with your fellow filmmakers for government funding this round”.

DF: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to hold a pitching competition so you can win an opportunity to make a film”.

DF: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to spend thousands of dollars flying an American into Australia to tell you how to write the perfect script”.

DF: “I won’t”.

DF: “I’m going to encourage culture instead of industry, community instead of competition, artistic inventiveness instead of commercial compromise, and passion instead of toeing the party line. I’m going to ask filmmakers and film artists to take centre stage regardless of whether or not you’ve heard of them, whether they’ve been to Film School, been tagged as “the next big thing”, won an AFI award or received any government funding”.

BBFF: “Um…”

Though I don’t think ‘culture’ and ‘industry’ are two opposites, the sentiment of preferencing what is needed rather than perpetrating the standard line is much needed.

I’m on the ‘Cyber-Born film’ panel at Destination Festival (Dest Fest) on Dec 8th, which is organised by Megan Spencer. The panel includes Arin Crumley, Dan & Dominique Angeloro, Tim Buesing, Rachael Lucas, Toby Ralph, Jason Sweeney and Rosemary Blight. I’m looking forward to this event. Here is the just released flyer: