Update on interviews, articles, and workshops

Hello! This is a quick update on recent and this weekend’s events:

An unusual interview
At the end of last year I had a special guest come stay with me. Her name is Cara Ellison and she is an international games journalist and critic. For a year Ellison has been conducting a fascinating project: “Embed With…“. She has been flying around the world ’embedding’ herself with game developers and sharing her view of the experience on tumblr. After noticing my game Magister Ludi at the Freeplay Independent Games Festival event ‘Parallels,’ Ellison decided to come to Australia for the final interviews. In December Cara, and game critic, journalist and theorist Brendan Keogh came to visit.   – the interview with Goldie (the artist on Magister Ludi) and myself is on her tumblr. I am so thrilled to be a part of this fascinating interview series, and had a ball with Cara and Brendan.

caraandbrendan

Article on interactive writing for the QWC
More recently, to prefigure my forthcoming workshops (see below), I was asked to write a short piece for the Queensland Writers Centre blog. The article, ‘Characters, Players, Writers and Interaction,’ shares some of my experiences and thoughts about interactive writing.

Digital Writers’ Room workshop for QWC in Townsville & Cairns
This Friday I will be flying to Townsville to give an interactive workshop to secondary school and first year university students. The special programme is called iWrite and is run by the Townsville Writers and Publishers Centre. On Saturday I will run a workshop in Townsville at the QWC for writers, and then I will fly to Cairns and run a workshop on Sunday. I really love the digital writers room format I have been developing, where I encourage peer feedback and we get to execute mini exercises in interactive writing.

Closing presentation at the WIDGET Unconference
While I will be travelling interstate for the workshops, I will give a remote presentation to for the first WIDGET Unconference. I have previously written an article for the WIDGET site, and I am very flattered and excited to be giving a special presentation for the special day ace Leena van Deventer has organised. I’ll be sharing a mixed bag of tips and tricks and triumphing over trauma.

WIDGET (Women In Development (Games & Everything Tech)) is a not-for-profit organisation supporting those underrepresented in the fields of development and technology, specifically women (including women-identifying) creators across a range of disciplines. We support women developers by means of supplying resources, showcasing role models, and providing an encouraging space in which to ask questions and learn from others. WIDGET hopes to increase the number of women making awesome stuff in our culture and community.

Ep 004: Tim Wright Interview

 

Another podcast! Yay! At this rate I might even crack three podcasts a year. hehe. Joking aside, I’m excited about our guest today. UK digital writer Tim Wright shares his vast experience with over a decade with online interactive drama and more recently multiplatform storytelling. Below is a time guide showing you topics Tim touches on a certain points. Everything Tim (and I) refer to is in the show notes.

00.00: Online Caroline
11.10: Lonely Girl 15
13.18: closure
15.58: Balancing world creation and fan fiction
19.56: Mount Kristos
25.33: The Search of Oldton
39.32: Multiplatform storytelling
52.09: Scaling
Happiness…

 

Show notes:

More info about Tim:

Other interviews conducted at UC101:

Postscript:
Sorry about the technical difficulties with the podcast. The video editing software I use doesn’t let me do edits to the second, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get both myself and the interviewer at the same sound level. Tim teases me about being in a black room (it was midnight for me!), and being close to the screen with bad lighting. What can I say, I’m an interactive drama cliche. I’ll have to increase the drama with a call to save the world or something. 🙂

Ep 003: Lance Weiler Interview

Filmmaker Lance Weiler is the special guest on this first video podcast at UC101. Weiler talks about the unique ways he has experimented with extending the storyworld of his feature films out to other media platforms and artforms, and he shares his insights into the innovative digital distribution techniques he has been spearheading for years. To jump to particular topics, here is a short guide:

03:02 The Last Broadcast
14:32 Head Trauma
44:14 From Here to Awesome
54:53 Workbook Project
59:01 Random Future

Here is part of his bio from his personal site:

His first feature, The Last Broadcast, is currently distributed in over 20 countries. It has the honor of being the first all digital release of a motion picture to theaters nationwide and has enjoyed runs on HBO and IFC. To date, The Last Broadcast, a self-distributed effort, has grossed over 4 million dollars worldwide. […] Lance’s newest feature, Head Trauma, had its world premiere at the LA Film Festival in 2006. This past fall Head Trauma had a 17 city DIY digital theatrical run before hitting stores and retail outlets nationwide on DVD. Recently, Lance has created a new Head Trauma event called a cinema ARG (alternate realty game) that allows audience members to experience a new form of storytelling. The cinematic ARG is a mashup of movies, music, theatrics and gaming. […] Lance is also the founder of the Workbook Project a ‘social open source’ project for filmmakers. The Workbook Project’s goal is to help filmmakers understand the changing landscape of funding, production, promotion, and distribution in a digital age. Lance also sits on the board of the IFP a national filmmaker organization and is the co-founder of From Here to Awesome a discovery and distribution fest that puts filmmakers directly in touch with global audiences.

And here are links to sites we refer to:

Enjoy!

…want more? Listen to my first interview with cross-media creator Evan Jones.

…and, to satisfy the collector urge in you, join the UC101 Facebook Group.’