Author: Christy

I was asked to keep news about this upcoming project quiet, but considering it has been covered in the Hollywood Reporter, and the producers were the special guests at the recent mo:life event, I think it is safe to talk.

Jim Shomos and Paul Baiguerra of Global Dilemma, have created the ‘world’s first “dramedy” to be shown simultaneously on TV, mobile and the Internet’ and apparently the ‘first Australian made live-action series released for mobile phone’ and the ‘first interactive comedy-drama available to an Australian mobile audiences’. Their drama, (Oz readers: in the style of Secret Life of Us), will be available over Hutchison’s ‘3’ network, pay TV station Channel [V] and the website. The contracts, Shomos and Baiguerra said at the LAMP workshop in Melb, were the first of its kind in Aust. The series will be x3 three-minute episodes each week with the audience being able to vote on what they want to see the next week. The scene will then be shot accordingly. This type of interactive drama is akin to the early experiments in Aust (and of course internationally) by Griffith University students: Voyear Motel and Hardboiled.

Apparently, it will be launched in Australia in early October. I have a 3 phone and so will watch the relationship (if any) between the platforms. This isn’t really cross-media storytelling of the kind I’m encouraging — it is the remediation of the same content over media rather than each providing different information — but it is a good start.

The SBS Insight program has run a discussion on the state of the Australian Film industry. Reel Drama will be broadcast on Tuesday 13th September at 7.30pm and then repeated on Friday 16th September at 1pm. I was interviewed for the program and put on stand-by to fly up, but wasn’t on the panel in the end. That cross-media storytelling was considered as a factor in a forum on the Oz film industry is a really good sign. For those not in Oz, Insight provide the program online after the broadcast.

Australian TV is experimenting with cross-media, but not in the way you think. A popular gardening/renovation show, Backyard Blitz, had a ‘simulcast’ show (ep.13) on Sunday 4th September in Melbourne on Channel 9. The show was simulcast over TV and a magazine. The content? Smell. When presenters discussed flowers on the show you could also open up the accompanying magazine and rub a picture of the flower to smell it.

In an innovative Blitz first, we launch an interactive “smellivision” experience! In partnership with the Burke’s Backyard magazine, viewers can smell the scents of the flowers that we plant in the garden.

They have a copyedit problem, as the magazine describes the show as ‘smellavision’ not ‘smellivision’ as on the website, or ‘smellovision’ as it is known from experiments in film in the 50s, 60s and 80s.

I wanted to watch the show to see how they dealt with the ‘call to action’. I missed it unfortunately, but by a shot on the website, it looks like they used ‘modeling’ techniques: where the instructions on how to act are shown so that the audience can model behaviour. I do have the magazine section though, and they do smell lovely. They used ‘new technology paper’ which I’m quite impressed by. Smello/i/a/vision is back!