LAMP’s Gary Hayes created, posted & paged (on his top 5 Australian AdAge blog, Personalizemedia) this simple flash app a few weeks ago to demonstrate the tsunami of content, communication and commercial activity across Social Media, Mobile and Games. The widget, embedded below, rather ironically went viral itself as it is was linked to from Wired, Guardian, other major sites and was re-tweeted over 2000 times which generated a reach around 15 million! It is now embedded in over 450 sites (over 150 shown in the video below the counter) and Gary is keeping it constantly updated with the latest stats across the 40+ metrics.

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Jim Shomos, innovative Australian writer/producer and also LAMP mentor, is about to launch his latest collaboration Mordy Koots, on an unsuspecting public.

Gary blogged about the project last month & prior to their shoot in a post entitled Thumbs-up for Aussie innovation live action film-in-game looking at Mordy as a new genre, other examples and what it may mean for indie producers. globally.  Jim just sent us this press release which details the screen launches in November, the production process and a teaser of some cool guest appearances…

Australia‟s most famous brothers, the Jacobson‟s, this week wrapped shooting for their groundbreaking new comedy series, Mordy Koots which will be launched on November 16 at Sydney‟s Popcorn Taxi. The 10×3 minute series will be available to download for free from ninemsn. Popcorn Taxi will screen all 10 episodes followed by a Q&A with Clayton and Shane Jacobson.

Created, written and directed by Clayton Jacobson (Kenny) and starring Shane Jacobson (Kenny, Charlie & Boots). Mordy Koots is a character driven comedy series that follows the comedic adventures of Mordy, an American WW2 air force pilot who has a high opinion of himself as a hero, but in reality mostly stumbles through the war – any success he has is usually by accident rather than talent. Each episode features guest appearances, including Damian Walsh-Howling (Secret Life of Us, Underbelly), Rob Carlton (Chandon Pictures), Rob Taylor (Matrix, Rogue), Fiona Harris (Comedy Inc, Skithouse), Jason Gann (Wilfred, The Wedge) and Terry Camilleri (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure).

Producer Jim Shomos said “it was a fun shoot and inspiring watching the way Clayton worked differently with every guest actor. He just knew how to get the best from each one of them… and they all delivered terrific performances. Shane carried a heavy load and was amazing. He‟s such a likeable guy; it‟s easy to forget what a talented actor he is.”

Mordy Koots delivers a unique look and original snack-sized entertainment built around the endearing – and soon to be legendary – Mordy Koots. Women all over the world fall for him, but Mordy loves his plane and the sound of his name: “soon, even the wind will know my name…” *Introducing the world’s first MOGIE (Movie over Game Integrated Entertainment). While there are many projects that feature animated characters within a game world (Machinima) no project has set „real actors‟ within the graphics of a game. The live action performances were shot against a green screen and will feature the graphics of Ubisoft console games Heroes over Europe and Blazing Angels.

Popcorn Taxi – Monday 16 November 7pm Venue: Event Cinemas Bondi Junction, NSW | Tickets: $18 / $16 | Info: popcorntaxi.com.au

Novadose – Thursday 26 November, 7pm Venue: Cinema Nova, Lygon Street Carlton, VIC | Tickets: $11 | Info: cinemanova.com.au

For more information and updates, check out www.mordykoots.com

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LAMP has been an integral part of the interactive cross media & digital curriculum at AFTRS for the past four years. As well as its external facing activities works closely with all aspects of social and cross media in the Graduate Diploma for Directors & Production students, Foundation ‘Creating Experiences and Designing Worlds modules’ and MA specialist courses in Virtual Worlds, Social Media and Games.

Next year there are some great Graduate Certificate courses starting and LAMP will be very active in the Multiplatform and Games & Virtual Worlds offerings and recommend you to pass these around. More info here:

MULTIPLATFORM GRADUATE CERTIFICATE – This course provides a systematic and practical approach to multi platform content creation in order to provide emerging producers with skills to initiate and manage these projects. Students will learn to tailor content for emerging media platforms such as convergent television, broadband web and mobile devices and focus on alternate reality games, episodic social media and other emerging entertainment formats which utilise a combination of platforms to engage audiences. A comprehensive overview of media technologies, platforms and formats is provided in addition to real world exercises and briefs culminating in a final project that can be used by students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. More info here Multiplatform

The games and virtual worlds course is a great mix of social and goal orientated games design and incorporates much of what Ian Brown & Gary Hayes talked about recently in the Kotaku interviews. Again more information from the AFTRS MakeIt site:

GAME AND VIRTUAL WORLDS GRADUATE CERTIFICATE - This course concentrates on the development of original concepts for virtual stories, games, social worlds and innovative gameplay resulting in the creation of a working prototype by the end of the course. Designed for emerging games designers, writers and developers this creatively focused course utilises prototyping methods to rapidly generate ideas and concepts for innovative projects. The crossover between cinematic storytelling and virtual environments, particularly in the areas of cinematography, storytelling, character and environment design are investigated in real world exercises and briefs. More info here Games & Virtual Worlds

Both courses are postgraduate and part time (16 weeks / 1 semester – 2 evenings a week plus 1 weekend a month) so very doable for those working or involved in other activities. The course fee is only $5900.

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STUDY GAMES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS part time at AFTRS in 2010

All video and audio below recorded at the AFTRS Theatre April 2009. LAMP pod and vodcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon on the right if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

SIX SEMINAR VIDEOS – Click the skip arrows to move between presentations

1. VIRTUAL TV: TREET AND SLCN – 24m © TreetTV & Gary Wiesneski CEO SLCN.TV
2. MACHINIMA: THE ILLCLAN WAY – 14m © Illclan and AFTRS. Peter Giles Director of Digital Media AFTRS Interviews Ill Clan. Writer/director Kerria Seabrooke, cinematographer Paul Jannicola and producer Frank Dellario
3. VIRTUAL STORY: THE ART & CRAFT OF MACHINIMA – 42m © Gary Hayes Director LAMP @ AFTRS and CCO of MUVEDesign (slideshares here)
4. MOVIE OVER GAMES INTEGRATED ENTERTAINMENT – 10m © Jim Shomos CEO Forget The Rules
5. WANDERING EYE PICTURES – 40m © Mark Strong Head of Wandering Eye Pictures
6. WHERE MACHINIMA MEETS CG – Panel Interview 17m ©AFTRS Peter Giles Director Digital Media AFTRS in conversation with Jim Shomos, Mark Strong and Kit Devine (AFTRS CG Animation Lecturer)

Original seminar link – All video and audio below recorded at the AFTRS Theatre May 2009. Machinima is a dynamic new form of storytelling that will be explored in a seminar and interactive workshop at AFTRS this week. This unique event will feature leading international experts speaking about the exciting future of this new form which utilises games and virtual worlds as new tools of filmmaking.

A quick ‘tour of tools’ machinima created in only 3 hours using wowmodelviewer as part of the intro presentation, featuring @SilkCharm character and voice over.

AUDIO ONLY VERSIONS OF ABOVE - Click the skip arrows to move between presentations

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

This podcast presentation by LAMP @ AFTRS.

• Video & audio recorded by AFTRS Post-production & Digital Dept
• Pod and vodcast editing, encoding, tagging & publishing by Gary Hayes

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN: CONNECTING & CONVERSING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE COMMUNITY

Social media has exploded over the last 3 years,  the scale of this phenomenon means no one can ignore it anymore. For example mid 2008 there were over 113 million blogs, 200 million active Facebook users & over 1.1 billion twitter messages. Today over 346 million read blogs and another 130 million watch YouTube videos, daily. But it is the time spent using social media that tell a more significant story. Facebook users logged 13.9 billion minutes on their site in April 09, MySpace 5 billion minutes and the new kid in town, Twitter logged 300 million minutes. According to a Nielsen study, total minutes spent on social networking sites has increased 83 percent year-over-year. Learn how to connect and be involved in this social revolution.

A two part event:

1. The three hour seminar will introduce you to the most successful online marketing case studies, promoting content, brands and events online and will demonstrate a range of community building techniques
2. The one day workshop will be intimate hands-on training in how to use a variety online social tools to connect to and grow audiences around ‘your’ niche areas, whether production, event, brand or service

Both days are suitable for creatives wanting to generate interest in their work, marketing departments needing to understand this new environment and any one wanting to understand, promote themselves and grow online communities

SEMINAR: Thurs 2 July 2 – 5 pm CLICK TO APPLY $60

Aimed at anyone who wants to promote themselves, their product or creation into communities. This seminar led by Laurel Papworth looks at the latest techniques of marketing yourself online through engaging with online events, social networks and DIY social media and the workshop will examine case studies of successful producers and creators doing it for themselves.

Final speakers:

• Martin Walsh – Head of Digital Marketing Microsoft & Independent Film Actor & Producer “Long Tan” + ARGs (42 entertainment)
• Danielle Warby – Online Marketing Coordinator the University of Sydney
• Geoffrey Emerson – MD of The Prosperity Principal – Sydney Experiential, Digital, Social Media, Design and Video production
• Laurel Papworth – Australia’s leading Social Network Strategist and communities manager
• (intro) Gary Hayes - Director LAMP and CCO MUVEDesign

WORKSHOP: Friday  3  July 10 am – 5 pm CLICK TO APPLY $240

A workshop looking at how to understand the new audiences, build traffic and loyalty that goes way beyond creating a Facebook group or uploading a trailer onto YouTube but looks at a multitude of techniques of engaging through online events, real time conversation, socializing content and personal or corporate brand building. Some of the key aspects of the Social Media Campaign to be explored are described by Laurel below from her blog

1. Get involved, read what’s out there, source top bloggers, forums, bulletin boards, Twitterers, Digg fanatics and Facebook discussion groups – read and understand them.
2. Create – or better yet, find – social media assets you didn’t know you already had. Powerpoint presentations from the shareholder meeting? Put ‘em up on slideshare. FAQ’s and Customer Service Tip sheets? Put them in a wiki or a blog post. That sort of thing. Don’t waste money on made-for-web ‘viral’ crap. It’s useful, not buzzy stuff that social media wants.
3. Discuss – any campaign you create that is not discussed in social networks, doesn’t exist.Make sure the tools for discussion exist, don’t lock it down with pre-moderation and pdfs.
4. Promote – use distribution, not content networks for promotion. That would be Facebook, Digg and the like (you can’t blog on those sites, they are not for Citizen Journalist, but for Citizen Editor). Better still, offer widgets for customer to customer promotion.
5. Measure, analyse, get your metrics. Which ones are meaningful? A top blogger blogging or a Facebook group discussing? Hits to your web page or increase in Technorati keywords?

By the end of this workshop participants will have had the opportunity to learn about:

• The online ecology of social networks

• Techniques to distribute your content as widely as possible to a global audience

• Planning and staging a campaign which has maximum impact and reach

• Building loyalty and community with an online audience

About Laurel Papworth

Led by Laurel Papworth who is a Power150 media blogger (global – AdNews) and in the top 3 media bloggers for Australia (B&T). She has been teaching for 20 years, mostly in the area of online communities and virtual communications. Laurel is the senior social media strategist in Australia, consulting to companies, not for profits and government departments in Australia, Asia and Middle East including:

• Middle East Broadcasting (Dubai/Saudi Arabia) – Channel MBC4
• Telecom New Zealand
• Fairfax: RSVP Dating Community
• Sony Corporation
• Universal McCann Erickson WorldWide
• CHANNEL TEN: including Australian Idol community
• Sulake: Makers of Habbo
• Macquarie Leisure
• Macquarie Media
• New Holland Publishing
• Australasian, Performing Right Association (APRA)
• Peoplebrowsr
• MySongcast.com unsigned bands community
• Australian Businesswomens’ Network
• Pink Sofa online community
• ABC Australia
• National Archives of Australia (gov)
• Department of State and Regional Development (gov)
• Department of Primary Industry (gov)
• Australian Film Television and Radio School (edu)
• University of Sydney (edu, public)
• University of Western Sydney (edu, Masters program).

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NOTE – TO BE RESCHEDULED IN NEXT TWO WEEKS:

LAMP ‘STATE OF PLAY’ SEMINARS

Profiling successful case studies, people and the latest techniques across multi-platform social media.

PRICE – FREE: Themed seminars running on the last Wednesday of every month at 5.30 – 6.30 pm

PLACE: No need to register just turn up to the main Theatre at AFTRS, Sydney (directions)

DATE & TIME: TO BE RESCHEDULED May 2009 – 5.30 – 6.30

MASSIVELY MULTI-STORYTELLER WORLDS: The Drama of Game Worlds

Virtual worlds are now populated by 900 million players globally with many spending more time in them than their real lives. The demographic of these fantasy and also very representational online games has shifted to being much more mid 30s and nearly half female. For example the stories in the largest online game (62% of the market) World of Warcraft reaches over 11 million people every week and players become the heros in nearly 16 million separate quests per day!

Key MMOGs looked at include: Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Never Winter Nights, Lineage, Eve Online,  Second Life, Habbo Hotel, PS3 Home, There.com, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, City of Heroes, Age of Conan & Runescape

This ‘State of Play’ seminars looks at the range of stories being created in these social and game worlds. It will focus on the drama being created by these full time role players, the hundreds and thousands of quests and back stories across a range of MMOGs and the opportunities for traditional writers to engage in this popular medium.

Speakers:

• Laurel Papworth (Social Network Strategist & Games Moderator) – Community Stories: World of Warcraft & other MMORPGs
  
• Gary Hayes (AFTRS LAMP & MUVEDesign) – Overview of MMOG Story Environments & Dramatic Roleplay in Custom Social Virtual Worlds
• Ian Brown (Leading CG artist) – The Character Driven Game Story

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VIRTUAL STORY: THE ART AND CRAFT OF MACHINIMA

Three hour seminar – Thurs 14 May.
Full day workshop – Fri 15 May

Machinima is a dynamic new form of storytelling that will be explored in a seminar and interactive workshop at AFTRS this week. This unique event will feature leading international experts speaking about the exciting future of this new form which utilises games and virtual worlds as new tools of filmmaking.

Games and virtual worlds are now being used as creative tools to make a wide range of films from horror genre, comedy to corporate training and education. YouTube, Machinima.com and scores of other video portals are filled with thousands of examples of these new forms of virtual storytelling. Some are now even being commissioned by mainstream TV such as NBC aired a CSI episode in 2008 integrating machinima made in Second Life and HBO recently acquired the machinima series ‘Molotov Alva’.

Speakers featured include:

• Gary Wiesneski, who has pioneered SLCN.tv, the world’s first TV network that broadcasts live from the virtual world reaching over 1 million viewers and from July it will be in high definition on treet.tv.
• Mark Strong from Wandering Eye Pictures will also speak about recent machinima projects he has completed for Sony to promote the Ressurrection 2 game for PS3 platform.
• An exclusive interview with leading machinima producers Ill Clan. Writer/director Kerria Seabrooke, cinematographer Paul Jannicola and producer Frank Dellario have been described by Wired magazine as ‘machinima masters’ and give unique insights to how they create their award winning work.
• Gary Hayes, leading Virtual World creator,  put this together inspired by the growing audience for his own machinimas which have achieved hundreds of thousands of views online. More at: http://www.youtube.com/user/hayesg01
• Jim Shomos who, with Kenny creator Shane Jacobson, have pioneered MOGIE or movie over game integrated entertainment in partnership with Ubisoft. More can be seen at: http://www.mordykoots.com
• Kathy Mueller, lecturer in Screen Content at AFTRS, who brings many years of experience as a screen writer/director to new forms.

Following the seminar a day-long workshop will be held on Friday 15th May to explore the tools and techniques of making machinima. This is a rare opportunity to gain insight into an exciting emerging form.

WORKSHOP: Those attending the workshop are encouraged to bring a 1-2 minute audio recording of dialogue between 2-3 characters to create the machinima to.

The seminar will explore the vast range of machinima made with console, PC and online games. It will also look at simple forms of film pre-visualisation now possible using games technologies. The intensive workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to the tools of machinima and the opportunity to work on a short project. Participants are encouraged to bring along a pre-recorded soundtrack (including voice and/or music) to use as the basis for their project.

Sign up now for the seminar only or for the full seminar and workshop program. Hurry, applications close soon!

CLICK TO APPLY: Seminar Thurs 14 May 2 – 5 pm

CLICK TO APPLY: Workshop Fri 15 May 10 am – 5 pm (must attend seminar)

Presenters and workshop trainers include:

• Gary Wiesneski, SLCN.tv
• Mark Strong  – Wandering Eye Pictures
• Jim Shomos – MOGIE – Movie over Game Integrated Entertainment
• International guests TBA
• Gary Hayes, LAMP and MUVEDesign
• Kit Devine and/or Ian Brown – AFTRS
• Kathy Mueller  – AFTRS

By the end of this workshop & seminar participants will have had the opportunity to understand the differences between the types of machinima engines (specialized software, previz tools, social virtual worlds, game-worlds and mods) and learn about:

• What makes compelling machinima
• The wide range of machinima styles being created around the world
• Insight into the engines and tools used to create machinima including: WoW, Second Life, Antics, Crysis, GTA4, Half Life, Halo, iClone, Movie Storm Unity, NWN, The Movies, Sims and many others
• Basic storyboarding and scripting techniques for machinima
• Global machinima community and other online resources
• Role playing and improvisation techniques that work in this new form

From a previous Machinima seminar called “THE VIRTUAL STORY”

Six half hour podcasts featuring SLCN.tv, Physical TV, Jackie Turnure, Gary Hayes and many more from the Film Making and Cinematic Experiences Using Virtual Worlds and Games seminar in Sept 2007 recorded live at the Museum of Sydney.

1 SECOND LIFE CABLE NETWORK – Gary Wisniewski. Gary discusses the technical and logistical aspects of making television in 2nd life. MP3 recording time 33:37 (11.7MB) Click to listen

2 THURSDAY’S FICTIONS – Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen take you through the transition of their project, Thursday’s Fictions from the stage, to the page, to the screen and now to 2nd life. MP3 recording time 30:42 (10.6MB) Click to listen

3 THE STORY ENVIRONMENT – Gary Hayes talks about virtual spaces and the collaborative nature of creating stories within them. MP3 recording time 33:37 (11.3MB) Click to listen

4 CREATING PLACES – Kit Devine a lecturer in 3D at AFTRS talks us through her phd project, a virtual version of Sydney’s Rocks area from 1788 to present, as an illustration of the difference between building places as opposed to spaces. MP3 recording time 16:23 (5.6MB) Click to listen

5 THE VIRTUAL FILM – Jackie Turnure. The art of Machinima – an evolution. Jackie takes us back 11 years to the beginnings of Machinima, (combination of Machine and Cinema) to look at how far things have come and where they might be heading. MP3 recording time 36:42 (12.6MB) Click to listen

6 GAME MEET FILM: PRODUCTION, SKILLS AND FUTURES – Panel “The Craft of Story Environment and Games” – A panel of experts moderated by Gary Hayes look at the production issues and future implications of combining the skills of filmmaking with games design with emphasis on machinima and virtual worlds. MP3 recording time 31:10 (10.7MB) Click to listen

All podcast presentations produced and presented by LAMP @ AFTRS.
Audio edited & processed by Gary Hayes. Podcast descriptions by Casandra Joslyn.

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

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LAMP ‘STATE OF PLAY’ SEMINARS

Profiling successful case studies, people and the latest techniques across multi platform social media.

• FREE themed seminars running on the last Wednesday of every month at 6pm – 7pm.
• No need to register just turn up to the main Theatre at AFTRS, Sydney (directions)

Next FREE seminar:

Wed April 29 – FREE AND EASY: Open Source Creative Tools

There are a vast range of new free to use tools that enable rich and efficient collaboration for audiences and professionals alike. What are the best tools for online communities, project development, video distribution and marketing. A survey of free to use tools and services including Mogulus, Twitter, Joomla, Ning, Blogger, Ustream, Drupal, Wikis, Social Bookmarking, Virtual World Gatherings, WordPress and many others.

Presented by Australia’s foremost Social Network strategist Laurel Papworth will give a clear overview of the best tools to collaborate from a creative, marketing and social angle. She will show the how the previous audience are now TV channel producers, publishers, news agencies, film makers, music producers and how professionals can re-engage by becoming learning the ‘tricks of the community’. Laurel will also cover the basics of how generic social media tools like Ning, UStream and Blogger can be used to quickly create your own networks.

• Speakers:  Laurel Papworth‚ Social Media Strategist & CEO World Communities
• others to be announced
• Introduction by Gary Hayes – AFTRS LAMP

Laurel Papworth
Laurel is a senior consultant, strategist, writer and workshop facilitator on online communities and social networks in Australia, Asia and Middle East. She features regularly on ABC Radio, Public and Commercial TV, serious newspapers and major global blogs. Laurel consults at executive level and facilitates strategic workshops on the impact of social networks on industry sectors, teaches marketing, blogging and social media courses for companies and runs workshops for small and home business on behalf of the Australian Government. Laurel taught the first Australian public social media courses in 2005 at University of Sydney and in addition, develops and teaches Insights Masterclasses for LAMP at Australian Film Television and Radio School on innovation and cross media. When not consulting with companies building online community strategies, Laurel is a global Power150 Media and Marketing blogger (Advertising Age) placing her as #5 blogger in Australia.

Upcoming FREE seminars:

• Wed May 27 – MASSIVELY MULTI-STORYTELLER WORLDS: The Drama of Game Worlds
  • Virtual worlds are now populated by 900 million players globally with many spending more time in them than their real lives. This ‘State of Play’ seminars looks at the range of stories being created in these social and game worlds. It will focus on the drama being created by these full time role players and the opportunities for traditional writers to engage in this popular medium. Speakers: Gary Hayes (AFTRS LAMP) and others to be announced
• Wed Jun 29 – CINEMA 2.0: Big Screen Participatory Futures
  • Stereoscopic 3D, interactive cinema, games in cinema. Where does the future lie for cinemas and other public screen spaces? Speakers: Tim Baier (Animal Logic) and others to be announced

Previous seminar/s

• Wed March 25 – TELEVISION 2.0: latest innovations in online video
  • TV is in major transition. Where are the opportunities across on-demand platforms? Is the old advertising model broken? Will broadband to set top box comfortably co-exist with video on the web? A pre MIP TV session to help prepare you for big changes just on the horizon.
• Speakers:
  • Arul Baskaran (Executive Producer ABC TV Multiplatform)
  • William Cooper (Informitv – live from UK),
  • Chris Winter (ABC Innovation)
  • Gary Hayes (LAMP)

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LAMP @ AFTRS has begun it’s 2009 series of seminars, workshops and incubators, many are listed below.

LAMP has been actively involved in getting 360 Content development integrated into the main curriculum at AFTRS (in its new building) for the past year but is now back delivering industry standard, emerging media education.

Multiplatform Content and Innovative new format development will be delivered as:

• LAMP ‘State of Play’ Seminars
• LAMP ‘Interactive’ Workshops
• LAMP ‘New Format’ Incubators

These new learning packages are specially designed so that industry professionals and students alike can understand the new landscape, appreciate it’s potential and prepare themselves for the production of new form content across  social media, games, mobile, broadband internet, location based services and virtual worlds.

Stay up to date with our activities by joining the LAMP Facebook Group

LAMP ‘STATE OF PLAY’ SEMINARS

Profiling successful case studies, people and the latest techniques across multi platform media.

• FREE themed seminars running on the last Wednesday of every month at 6pm – 7pm.
• No need to register just turn up to the main Theatre at AFTRS, Sydney (directions)

Upcoming FREE seminars:

• Wed Jul 29 – CINEMA 2.0: Big Screen Participatory Futures
  

  • Stereoscopic 3D, interactive cinema, games in cinema. Where does the future lie for cinemas and other public screen spaces? Speakers: Tim Baier (Animal Logic), Paul Nichola (Cane Toad’s 3D cinematographer) and others to be announced

• Wed Aug 26 – MASSIVELY MULTI-STORYTELLER WORLDS: The Drama of Game Worlds
  

  • Virtual worlds are now populated by 900 million players globally with many spending more time in them than their real lives. This ‘State of Play’ seminars looks at the range of stories being created in these social and game worlds. It will focus on the drama being created by these full time role players and the opportunities for traditional writers to engage in this popular medium. Speakers: Gary Hayes (AFTRS LAMP), Ian Brown, Laurel Papworth and others to be announced

• Previous State of Plays

• Wed March 25 – TELEVISION 2.0: latest innovations in online video
  

  • TV is in major transition. Where are the opportunities across on-demand platforms? Is the old advertising model broken? Will broadband to set top box comfortably co-exist with video on the web? A pre MIP TV session to help prepare you for big changes just on the horizon.
  • Speakers: William Cooper (Informitv – live from UK),  Chris Winter (ABC Innovation), Arul Baskaran (Executive Producer ABC TV Multiplatform), Gary Hayes (LAMP)

• Wed April 29 – FREE AND EASY: Open Source Creative Tools
  

  • There are a vast range of new free to use tools that enable rich and efficient collaboration. What are the best tools for online communities, project development, video distribution and marketing. A survey of tools including Mogulus, Joomla, Ning, Ustream, Drupal, Celtx and many others.
  • Speakers:  Laurel Papworth ‚Social Media Strategist, Gary Hayes – AFTRS LAMP

Go to the AFTRS site for a full list of the above seminars

LAMP ‘INTERACTIVE’ WORKSHOPS

Practical and hands on creative workshops exploring everything there is to know about the latest innovative new forms.

Upcoming seminar workshops:

CLICK TO APPLY: Seminar and Workshop Fri 3 April 10am – 5pm

The intersection between documentary filmmaking and games will be explored in this seminar and workshop, providing deep insight into the potential of Serious Games.

Both games and stories have long been recognised as powerful learning tools. Their combination in the 21st century has the potential to provide learning experiences that are collaborative and globally connected. What are the best examples of Serious Games and where are they heading? How can Serious Games be employed by educators, corporations or non-profit organizations?

Screen Australia and the ABC have recently announced a funding initiative in the area of Serious Games. This seminar will bring you up to speed with the latest developments in serious games and provide an opportunity to present your own concepts and workshop ideas with experts in an afternoon workshop.

Speakers include:

• Live link up with Tim Nixon Straylight Studios, New Zealand
• Marianne Webb – Inspire Foundation
• Rachel Perkins & Darren Dale – First Australians
• John Welsh – SYDAC.com.au
• Gary Hayes – LAMP, ex BBC Serious Games & MUVEDesign
  
• Sohail Dahdal  – First Australians, Long Journey Young Lives
• Jennifer Collins – ABC Screen Australia Serious Game Initiative
• Peter Giles – AFTRS

• Rachel Perkins (Director), Darren Dale (EP) Sohail Dahdal (Online Producer) on SBS’s First Australians will talk about the online experience of the documentary series and explore the future possibilities of documentary games.
• Marianne Webb is the interactive manager for Reach Out!, an online service that inspires young people to help themselves through tough times. Marianne will talk about the serious game Reach Out Central that been part of an innovative online strategy to build community engagement by the Inspire Foundation.
• John Welsh is the Development Manager of Serious Games at Sydac, a leading Australian simulation technology company. John will talk about the role of simulation and play in learning environments.
• Gary Hayes is the Head of AFTRS Laboratory for Advanced Media production and he will speak about the history of serious games, a survey of future directions and cross over between games and documentary forms.
• Jennifer Collins – Manager of Development, ABC TV (Jennifer, with Mike Cowap from Screen Australia, is running the Serious Games funding initiative currently calling for applications)
• Tim Nixon – CEO Straylight Studios – Tim runs New Zealand based Straylight Studios an innovative games studio who specialise in ‘meaningful play’.

By the end of this workshop participants will have had the opportunity to learn about:

• The various types of serious games: evolution of the form and the directions it is heading
• The global serious games community and online resources
• Documentary storytelling and its relationship to serious games
• Techniques to brain-storm, plan and document serious games ideas
• The links between documentary research and serious games
• User created games and managing online communities

APPLY: Seminar Wed 22 April 9.30 am – 1 pm

A selection of leading innovators in multi-platform content present recent projects in the areas of social media, cross platform storytelling, extended entertainment, games and online entertainment.

Presenters include:

• Jackie Turnure, Head of Development and Production Hoodlum
• Anthony Mullins – Creative Director Hoodlum
• Laurel Papworth – World Communities & laurelpapworth.com
• Giancarlo A. Mori, Senior Vice President, ANIMALLOGIC Interactive
• Bob Hitching – Xumii
• Jim Shomos – www.mordykoots.com, Forget The Rules
• Sohail Dahdal & Gary Hayes AFTRS

By the end of this seminar participants will have had the opportunity to learn about:

• Innovative techniques in multi platform content creation
• Future directions of media innovation
• Case studies of innovative projects and production methodologies and techniques
• Techniques to foster and promote creative innovation
• Creating community and communicating directly with audiences

CLICK TO APPLY: Seminar Thurs 14 May 2 – 5 pm

CLICK TO APPLY: Workshop Fri 15 May 10 am – 5 pm (must attend seminar)

Games and virtual worlds are now being used as creative tools to make a wide range of films from horror genre, comedy to corporate training and education. YouTube, Machinima.com and scores of other video portals are filled with examples of these new forms of virtual storytelling and some are now being commissioned by mainstream TV. NBC aired a CSI episode in 2008 featuring machinima made in Second Life and HBO recently acquired the machinima series ‘Molotov Alva’.

The seminar will explore the vast range of machinima made with console, PC and online games. It will also look at simple forms of film pre-visualisation now possible using games technologies. The intensive workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to the tools of machinima and the opportunity to work on a short project. Participants are encouraged to bring along a pre-recorded soundtrack (including voice and/or music) to use as the basis for their project.

Presenters and workshop trainers include:

• Gary Wiesneski, SLCN.tv
• Mark Strong  – Wandering Eye Pictures
• TBC – Jim Shomos, ForgetTheRules (MOGIE – Movie over Game Integrated Entertainment)
• Gary Hayes, LAMP and MUVEDesign
• Kit Devine and/or Ian Brown – AFTRS
• Kathy Mueller  – AFTRS

By the end of this workshop & seminar participants will have had the opportunity to learn about:

• What makes compelling machinima
• The wide range of machinima styles being created around the world
• Insight into the engines and tools used to create machinima
• Basic storyboarding and scripting techniques for machinima
• Global machinima community and other online resources
• Role playing and improvisation techniques that work in this new form

CLICK TO APPLY: Seminar Friday 5 June 10am – 1 pm

“The web is 15-30 billion web pages. A workshop designed to help you track and follow the latest trends and information across a range of specialised areas. Browsers, RSS readers and social media mash-ups have evolved into being effective one-stop-shop views on a world of relevant content. This is a half day workshop looking beyond the search engine, basic RSS feeds or old fashioned email alerts. It is designed to help you find, filter information and follow the right people on the web. Web filtering is becoming a critical skill for researchers, marketers and those who need specific news and information. It will also help you track and follow the latest trends and information across a range of specialised areas.

By the end of this workshop participants will have had the opportunity to learn:

• How to get the web to deliver the right information to you
• About the very latest web research techniques across services such as digg, delicious, twitter, technorati, social networks, specialised engines & the semantic web
• How to find the key recommenders, filterers and influencers in your field
• Blogosphere filtering, separating the signal from the noise
• How to make contact and become a key filterer yourself
• Taming RSS feeds and being more efficient with email alerts
• Reading trends and patterns

Led by Laurel Papworth of company World Communities, who is a Power150 media blogger (global – AdNews) and in the top 5 media bloggers for Australia (B&T). She has been teaching for 20 years, mostly in the area of online communities and virtual communications. Laurel is the senior social media strategist in Australia, consulting to companies, not for profits and government departments in Australia, Asia and Middle East.

CLICK TO APPLY: Seminar: Thurs 2 July 2 – 5 pm

CLICK TO APPLY: Workshop : Friday  3  July 10 am – 5 pm

Aimed at anyone who wants to promote themselves, their product or creation into communities. A workshop looking at how to understand the new audiences, build traffic and loyalty that goes way beyond uploading a 9 minute short onto YouTube but looks at techniques of engaging with online events, social networks and DIY social media. The workshop will examine case studies of successful campaigns from producers and creators doing it for themselves.

By the end of this workshop participants will have had the opportunity to learn about:

• The online ecology of social networks
• Techniques to distribute your content as widely as possible to a global audience
• Planning and staging a campaign which has maximum impact and reach
• Building loyalty and community with an online audience

Led by Laurel Papworth who is a Power150 media blogger (global – AdNews) and in the top 5 media bloggers for Australia (B&T). She has been teaching for 20 years, mostly in the area of online communities and virtual communications. Laurel is the senior social media strategist in Australia, consulting to companies, not for profits and government departments in Australia, Asia and Middle East including: Middle East Broadcasting (Dubai/Saudi Arabia) – Channel MBC4, Telecom New Zealand, , Fairfax: RSVP Dating Community, Sony Corporation, Universal McCann Erickson WorldWide, CHANNEL TEN: including Australian Idol community, Sulake: Makers of Habbo, Macquarie Leisure, Macquarie Media, New Holland Publishing, Australasian, Performing Right Association (APRA), Peoplebrowsr, MySongcast.com unsigned bands community, Australian Businesswomens’ Network, Pink Sofa online community, ABC Australia, National Archives of Australia (gov), Department of State and Regional Development (gov), Department of Primary Industry (gov), Australian Film Television and Radio School (edu), University of Sydney (edu, public), University of Western Sydney (edu, Masters program).

Go to the AFTRS site list of all of these seminars and workshops >

LAMP ‘NEW FORMAT’ INCUBATORS

NOTE: To be updated soon.

These are extended and intensive 3-5 day workshops designed to maximise participants time and help them really understand emerging media areas by working collaboratively on new and adapted ideas. Based loosely on previous LAMP intensive labs they really help to push your thinking to the next stage, whether it be piloting, developing participatory audiences, broadening the project’s media format or developing new ways of delivering content. It could include the communication of content through mobile devices, advanced television services, broadband portals, social networks, gaming environments, virtual worlds and more.

The LAMP ‘New Format’ Incubators focus on content and service development, and extends perceived ideas of creativity, technicality, audience, consumer and business. Participants will use a range of exercises and form creative teams to utilise their thinking and skills in new ways to create compelling interactive content that meets the changing needs of audiences and the new media marketplace.

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Early last year (2008) a LAMP initiated project called “Macbeth:What If” from the 7th residential received development/production funding from the NMC and the Australia Council (who also part funded the LAMP: Story of the Future residential) last year. Project creator Kerreen Ely-Harper teamed up with producer Kate Richards, Virtual World creator Angela Thomas and another LAMP alumni, Designer Adam Nash, to realise the original project. After a year or so of development they created an island in second life that built on the original project idea that was looking at the experiential teaching and awareness of Shakespeare’s works via Second Life and also the ability to perform and create machinima in a rich virtual setting.

The video below is quick & cheerful ‘Space Navigator’ Machinima and Music by Gary Hayes. The whole work was very similar in style and form to Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life, another LAMP initiated project two years ago. Full credits for the Macbeth project below.

Filmed and edited by Gary Hayes. Note: This film does not demonstrate the many interactive elements, social intentions or literary integration. Please visit the island to see those first ‘virtual’ hand. A medium resolution (98MB MP4) download is available here

Macbeth in Second Life Credits
Guide & credits here

SLURL – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

A collaboration by Angela Thomas, Kate Richards and Kerreen Ely-Harper, from an original idea by Kerreen Ely-Harper.
Producer: Kate RIchards (Nini Dubrovna)
Director: Kereen Ely-Harper (Dorothy Porta)
Virtual World Content Designer: Angela Thomas (Anya Ixchel)
SL Design Consultant: Adam Nash (Adam Ramona)

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Initial stages of this project were mentored and developed through the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) at Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS). This project has been funded and built by the New Media Consortium

NMC Team:
Larry Johnson (Larry Pixel)
Alan Levine (CDB Barkley)
Rachel Smith (Ninmah Ash)
NMC Second Life Building Team:
Chris Holden (CJ Carnot)
Beth Satchjen (Stella Costello)

Voiceover Actors:
Maggie Blinco
Boris Brkic
Christopher Morris
Ophelia Of The Spirits
Alice Parkinson
Evelyn Parsonage
Recorded at Megaphone Studios
Engineer: Shane Fahey

Additional thanks to:
Larry Johnson
Therese Fingelton
Gary Hayes
Jeff Wegener
Ian Waddely
Nick Noakes

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GameJam 2008 was run at AFTRS in Sydney on 1 November and featured talks to do with developing for or playing with console, pc games or online games. Creating and using virtual worlds, games, film cross-over, machinima, writing, AI and educational, fun or just plain cool stuff.

Below is a selection of those captured on the day including a short item related to three new courses AFTRS are offering in 2008 featuring Previsualisation elements – Animation Directing, Games and Virtual Worlds.

1 Guy Gadney “The Life of an MMORPG Diaspora”

Guy takes us on a personal tour of one of the first ‘grass roots’ online games as he tells the story of Diaspora. MP3 recording 6.9MB Click to listen

2 Dan Graf “Story and Game”

Dan gives a thoughtful talk about the conceptual framework of film or book to game adaptation. He talks about experiential design and audience centric focus when you plan your interactive version. An interesting session at the end when Ian Brown joins the discussion and  the perennial issue of narrative vs play is brought to the fore again. MP3 recording 13.4MB Click to listen

3 Peter Giles “Future of Game Education”

Peter looks at many of the issues that are facing educators and academic institutions as they begin to consider games as a core part of curriculum. MP3 recording 5.6MB Click to listen

4 Physical TV “You Are Going To Die”

Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen are the creators of a cross-media property called Thursday’s Fiction. They worked with Gary Hayes on the virtual world aspect of the project and talk more about where the proposition is headed as it moves into game space. MP3 recording 6.4MB Click to listen

5 Marigo Raftopoulos “Galapagos: Serious Game”

Marigo introduces us to her serious game concept to help businesses understand the benefits of thinking about the environment. MP3 recording 4.9MB Click to listen

6 Brett Robertson “History of Games”

Brett takes us on a light hearted trip down memory lane and also at the current state of the games industry. MP3 recording 7.9MB Click to listen

7 Ian Brown “Portal, Have Your Cake and Eat It Too”

Ian takes us behind the scenes from a user and passionate fan perspective of one of the most unique games to have become commercial, portal. He also looks at the original game, Narbuncular Drop, designed by students that Valve used to develop Portal. MP3 recording 7.4MB Click to listen

8 Michela Ledwidge “MOD the Movies!”

Michela takes us deep into Sanctuary and the thinking behind allowing the audience to customise, mash-up and generally Mod cinematic content. MP3 recording 7.4MB Click to listen

9 Gary Hayes “Reality & Pleasure – State of Play of Blended Real Life, TV and Game World” Vod/Podcast

This video above available as a download (with better audio & creative commons) 50MB MP4 click here

LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

• This podcast presentation by LAMP @ AFTRS.
• Audio recorded by Gary Hayes & Brett Robertson
• Description, editing, podcasting and production by Gary Hayes

Finally a short compilation capture edited by Peter Giles (note video has camera sound, podcasts are higher quality direct lapel mikes).

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‘Growing Worlds” An abridged Presentation on Games Writing and Adaptation by Joe Velikovsky

(Note: the first half of the podcast contains loopback echo due to technical issues)

In this abridged (20 out of 35 mins) presentation at a LAMP Insight ‘Growing Worlds – Games Adaptation Seminar’  Joe looks specifically at the practical side of games design and adaptations from existing IP or story ideas. He talks about console games writing, how they are developed and some of the titles he worked on including Looney Toons and Jumper.

“every chapter has its own introductory and outroductory. We ended up with this entire game summary a couple of meters high and wide so that everyone could easily refer to it and know exactly which level they were making at anyone time – what was in it and what the mission objectives and stories were. We ended up with 10 walkthroughs which were about 40 pages per chapter, times 10 chapters and if you included the images there are about 70 pages, 20 cut scenes of about a page each, and this big excel spreadsheet with over 1060 rows of dialogue.”

He talks about his experience across screen writing leading to writing for games and then looks closely at the target demographics and how they influence the design and what content to include alongside the style of gameplay. Joe then looks at the visual aesthetic, game play and design of Looney Toons in more detail and the structual aspects that are inextricably linked to the gameplay and narrative that permeate the story world and the amount of work that is required to create these large game play environments.

JOE VELIKOVSKY – Screen and Games Writer

Joe Velikovsky is a Producer, Designer and Screenwriter in the fields of New/Digital Media, Game Design, TV and Film. He has been a Professional Writer, Game Designer and Producer for over a decade. The game, film and TV genres he has worked in include drama, sci-fi, horror, and comedy. Professional experience includes:

• Senior Game Designer, Game Co-Writer, and Producer: JUMPER: Griffin’s Story videogame (Xbox 360 SKU only), based on the Fox movie, developed by Redtribe, published by Brash Entertainment, February 2008. [http://www.jumpermoviegame.com/]
• Game Writing and Design consultant to various New Media producers, for The Australia Council and Screen Tasmania.
• Senior Game Designer and Game Screenplay Writer, LOONEY TUNES: ACME ARSENAL videogame (on PS2, Wii, and Xbox 360), released worldwide by Warner Bros Interactive, October 2007 in the US, February 2008 in Australia. [http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/acmearsenal/]
• Writer/Creator of an EPOC (Electronic Proof Of Concept) mobile phone web-soap prototype, with Australian Film Commission funding, LIFERAFT, 2005. Producer Michael Robertson, Prodigy Films (producer of film Blackwater).
• Creative Director of A-Rage Pty Ltd. Producer, Director, Game Designer and Writer on the `Augmented Reality’ game Sky Invaders 3-D which won 2nd Prize for the `Best Unsigned Professional Game’ at the 2004 Australian Game Developers Conference. www.a-rage.com
• Mobile-phone comic-strip producer and author,“Dr N. Sayne” launched by m.Net at www.mobster.com.au. (The first exclusive mobile-phone-comic-strip in Australia) 2004.
• Co-Game Designer, Saturday Night Speedway, developer Ratbag Games, published by Atari.
• Writer/Game Designer on sci-fi action thriller PlayStation2 game, IKON, for Ratbag Games (in turnaround), 2002.
• National Games Market Analyst for Australia, Inform Pty Ltd, Sydney (now GfK). Clients included Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and all the members of Australian Visual Software Distributors Association, 1999-2000.

MP3 recording time 22:38 (6.7MB) Click to listen

This podcast was recorded as part of the Screen Tasmania, Australia Council and LAMP@AFTRS seminar on Games Writing called Growing Worlds delivered in May 2008.

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

This podcast presentation by LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded on a DV cam by Australia Council (echo issues)

Description, editing, podcasting and produced by Gary Hayes

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Previously highlighted on the LAMP site here The Thursday’s Fictions cross-media jamboree continues on and has been put into the Atom finals awards 2008 as Best Multimodal Production (other 3 entries below).

Award Recipients – Names: Richard James Allen, Gary Hayes, and Karen Pearlman

Award Recipients – Organisations: The Physical TV Company, AFTRS LAMP (The Australian Film Television and Radio School – The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production), The Literature Board of the Australia Council ‚- The Story of the Future, and The Project Factory

Thursday’s Fictions is a fantastical parable about reincarnation by Australian writer Richard James Allen which has evolved over almost twenty years to become a cross media work for the stage, the page, the screen and most recently with help from LAMP, the new media creative platforms of Second Life (a 3D online immersive interactive story world) and machinima (cinema made inside a games engine).

This documentary devised and edited by Gary Hayes and co-produced with Physical TV.

Voice-overs captured and reassembled from a LAMP Virtual Story seminar in May 2007. Original podcasts here.

Best Multimodal Production (4 finalists)

The Oasis
NSW Ian Darling Shark Island Productions

Find 815
Hoodlum / ABC (US)

Thursday’s Fictions
Richard James Allen, Gary Hayes and Karen Pearlman.

NSW The Physical TV Company, AFTRS LAMP,
The Literature Board of the Australia Council

Girl Friday
Victoria Kylie Robertson Ish Media

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,

LAMP Lab: Marysville, Victoria, February 2008

Title: Catalyst – ABC, NSW

Tagline: Science that Excites and makes a difference

Project Description: ABC TV’s prime-time science magazine program broadcast on ABC 1 and 2 increases its reach to younger viewers via Ruben ‘The Surfing Scientist’ and provides depth and stickiness to existing viewers through it’s collaborative social network Fatherhood special. Catalyst’s Ruben also ventures into the virtual world on ABC’s Second Life Island and works with the community on science experiments.

Target Media: Web, Mobile, TV, Virtual Worlds

Team Members:

• Nicolas Lee – Executive Producer
• Briony Williamson – Designer/Information Architect
• Laurent Desamaud – Web Producer

Guardian Mentor/s: Anthony ‘Arse’ Eden

Copyright: ABC 2008

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LAMP Lab: Marysville, Victoria, February 2008

Title: Touched by the road toll – NSW

Project Description: In Australia there are five deaths on our roads every day. ‘Touched by the road toll’ is an online social network for all those affected by road trauma. Behind every fatality there are a thousand stories. This online sanctuary provides a space where people can tell their story, create compelling tributes, find support and understanding from an online community, and ultimately heal.

Target Media: Web, Mobile, TV, Virtual Worlds, Locative Mapping, Physical World

Team Members:

• Sandra Cook – Producer/Creator
• Kerry Sunderland – Online Producer/Designer
• Tamsin Smyth – Designer

Guardian Mentor/s: Laurel Papworth

Copyright: 2008

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LAMP Lab: Marysville, Victoria, February 2008

Title: podscape – NZ

Tagline: You’re in the band

Project Description: Social virtual world networking where ‘Your in the Band’, a revolutionary new way to interact with friends and strangers alike. Patent pending.

Target Media: Web, Virtual World, Mobile, Locative

Team Members:

• Chris White – Creator/Producer
• Kentaro Yarrada – Designer

Guardian Mentor/s: Catherine Gleeson

Copyright: 2008 Patent Pending

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A mini ARG (Alternate Reality Game) with virtual world parallel components as part of the 8th LAMP residential in Marysville, Victoria Australia.

We have been running LAMP residential workshops for nearly 3 years now and on the first day we normally run a team bond/building game. The last eight have been 2+ hour long location puzzles, scavenger hunts, role playing, team work with with the intention of exploring cross-media, story and game play. The last four have incorporated the virtual world of Second Life as a parallel story environment to embed clues and story. We finally managed to capture one of these last month for posterity – 24 New Zealand and Australian media industry professionals immersed in this mixed (or cross) reality experience.

The video shows the mirror build in SL of the old house where we had the workshop, has clues within puzzles that point you to real world locations and real world locations pointing back to Second Life as part of a quest to uncover the truth. Based on a fictional story about early settlers, an ancient spell book, witches, the war and evacuated school children, the quest moves into the grounds, secret parts of the building, a nearby sculpture garden and ends in a chanting fire ceremony. Other media involved included live mobile phone role playing, walkie talkies, photographs, websites, placed props/objects. Many seen in the video.

An 89MB medium rez MP4 version is available here

Project Credits:

• Produced, devised & original story: Gary Hayes
• Writing: Matt Costello & Gary Hayes
• Print design: Catherine Gleeson
• Second Life creation: Gary Hayes
• Tech support: Brett Robertson
  

Film credits

• Live action camera: Peter Giles
• Editing: Gary Hayes
• Music composed: Gary Hayes

Special thanks to:

• Bruno’s Sculpture Garden
• Marylands Conferences
• Brett Robertson, Cassandra Joslyn, Peter Giles & Rachael Hainsworth for support
• AFTRS (Australian Film TV and Radio School)
• and especially all the participants and mentors on the 8th LAMP residential

More details about this and other ‘mARGs’ on the LAMP wiki here:

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,

LAMP Lab: Marysville, Victoria, February 2008

Title: The Land of a Thousand Legends – NSW

Tagline: Doragon Taido!

Project Description: The Land of a Thousand Legends is a fully integrated cross media project For 6 to 9 years olds incorporating television, online, mobile and real-world play. Based on the TV series Master Raindrop, it’s an interactive adventure where kids can create, socialise and play in the same world of the TV series.

Target Media: Web, Mobile, TV, Active Game Consoles, Locative

Team Members:

• Karen Horne – Producer/Designer/Writer
• Foster Langbein – Lead Engineer
• Rob Chisholm – TD/Web developer/3D animator/Designer

Guardian Mentor/s: Jennifer Wilson and Peter Giles

Copyright: Flyingbark 2008

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The next residential is LAMP’s first official international event with three teams from New Zealand and four from Australia. The intensive week of development will be held at Marysville in Victoria from 24-29 February 2008, is part sponsored by the New Zealand Screen Council and is the eighth live-in development lab that LAMP has conducted in just over 2 years.

LAMP received around 25 extremely high quality entries from teams in each country. LAMP mentors and Screen New Zealand representatives selected the most compelling, innovative and audience centric projects.

“We normally get forty to fifty entries but given the call for submissions was only four weeks ago and with the holiday season in-between we were staggered by the number of really clued up projects. It was really hard to differentiate from probably the most focused and audience aware ideas we have seen.” said LAMP Director Gary Hayes.

The selected projects are a compelling mix of emerging media forms and the successful teams are:

• Portable Ghosts NZ – The best way to solve ghost mysteries is to have ghosts helping you!
• Catalyst (ABC) NSW – Science that Excites and makes a difference.
• Aftershock NZ – “When disaster strikes, will we pull together or will we fall apart?”
• Virtual Roadside Memorials SA – Community for collective healing and remembrance and co-created documentary.
• Sea Patrol 2 (Chn 9) NSW – An interactive, cross-media platform, user-generated hub.
• Master Raindrop Cross-Media World NSW – Not just a drop in the ocean.
• Podscape NZ – Social virtual world networking where ‘Your in the Band’, a revolutionary new way to interact with friends and strangers alike.

The 6-day live in lab will see seven teams working with around talented new media professional mentors (an updated list here), developing digital media projects for distribution on broadband web, mobile devices, advanced television, games platforms, virtual worlds and beyond.

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Don’t Just Sit Around this Christmas Holidays -
the next LAMP residential is just around the corner

Have you got what it takes to apply?

We are looking for six to eight professional teams with groundbreaking new media ideas to attend our leading R&D production lab from Feb 24 -29, 2008.

Facilitated by the AFTRS, the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) has run hundreds of workshops, seminars and live-in-residentials and developed over 54 projects. LAMP assists production teams in developing innovative emerging media projects including Sharing Web 2.0 Services, Advanced TV, 360 Entertainment, Serious Games and Social Virtual Worlds.

Over our six day LAMP residential, you and internationally recognised industry mentors live and work together in a creative hothouse environment for five days straight.

What a privilege! We were challenged to reach for and achieve
far reaching goals but were also totally supported in the endeavour
by a united team of razor sharp professionals.

You will experience engaging presentations from world class practitioners, evolve the business, technical and creative aspects of your project, and create a dynamic visual proof of concept.

This was a highly productive, intensive session
whereby all outside distractions
were eliminated letting us focus solely on the job

At the end of the residential you are given the opportunity to present your visual proof of concept to a panel of media industry experts, gaining invaluable feedback, insight and advice. Past panels have included representatives from the ABC, Bigpond, NineMSN, yahoo7, SBS, the AFC, Film Victoria, NSWFTO PFTC, Alcatel, Southern Star and Nickelodeon.

I was transformed and uplifted with new confidence,
a new sense of possibility

Our residentials work because participants get to accelerate their ideas rapidly from concept development through to proof of concept while being challenged by a wide range of ideas relevant to the growing creative industries sector.

The next LAMP Residential is being held in collaboration with the New Zealand Screen Council and is set to take place Sun 24 February – Fri 29 February, 2008 in Victoria.

This has definitely been one of the best experiences of my life.
Thankyou!

So get to work today on your application and getting a team together, so you don’t miss out being a part of the first LAMP residential for 2008.

Applications are open now and close on January 10, 2008
Go to www.lamp.edu.au/apply to see criteria and download an application form today

We are happy to receive submissions to attend the next lab in the following areas.

• Advanced TV – Projects that are targeted to local ‘OpenTV-like’ interactive TV over satellite and cable TV (Foxtel and Sky New Zealand) with a mobile phone component. These can include synchronous enhanced TV alongside the programming, simple casual games or multi stream formats
• Social Virtual Worlds – Rich story based virtual worlds that can be built in existing large 3D social multi user environments like Second Life, Multiverse or There.com. These must have a strong community aspect and include co-creative elements.
• 360 Entertainment – Cross-media, collaborative play services. Often called Extended Entertainment or Alternate Reality Games these will be strong narratives played out across many websites, mobile, physical locations, TV and print. Themes are usually investigative and draw audiences into complex scavenger hunts that blur the line between fact or fiction.
• Serious Games – Specifically interested in rich gameplay on consoles, pc or mobile that delivers real learning. The range can be short form flash/sms type games that require brief periods of play spread over many weeks or continuous online games that involve collaboration with others in Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) environments.
• Sharing Web 2.0 – Applications and services that draw together communities on web and mobile with the purpose of sharing and growing around a niche interest. This could be mash-ups of iconic web 2.0 services such as flickr, YouTube, Facebook or something completely new and original that will activate key interest groups.

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,
Title: Wild Ark – VIC

Tagline: Alice in Wonderland meets Noah’s Ark: A journey through the wild habitats of the globe that begins in the palm of your hand and inspires you to act!

Project Description: Wild Ark is a multi-platform wildlife experience that transcends the zoo walls. At the zoo, kids set out on the Wild Ark discovery trail where they use mobile phones to follow clues. Along the way they encounter animals up close and discover their stories through short videos delivered to their phone. In Wild Ark online, they can plays games in habitats from the far reach of the globe, connect with other kids through animal clubs, share stories of their experiences and even adopt a real animal. Wild Ark also offers kids the rare opportunity to get behind the scenes and get local hands-on experience in real world conservation and wildlife programs. The Wild Ark world appeals to the sense of adventure inherent in kids, is fun and empowers kids to take action on issues they care about.

Target Media: Mobile, Location based interpretation, Web, Virtual Environments

Team Members ©: Writer/ Producer Shoni Ellis, Writer Nicole Hayes, Designer Kate Riedel. Strict COPYRIGHT 2007

Guardian Mentor: Jennifer Wilson

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

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THE VIRTUAL STORY
Six half hour podcasts featuring SLCN.tv, Physical TV, Jackie Turnure, Gary Hayes and many more from the Film Making and Cinematic Experiences Using Virtual Worlds and Games seminar in Sept 2007 recorded live at the Museum of Sydney.

All podcast presentations produced and presented by LAMP @ AFTRS.
Audio edited & processed by Gary Hayes. Podcast descriptions by Casandra Joslyn.

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

note: all speaker bios below…

1 SECOND LIFE CABLE NETWORK – Gary Wisniewski

Gary discusses the technical and logistical aspects of making television in 2nd life. He briefly takes us through the background of the 2nd life cable network, the largest and most successful 2nd life television station, 100% of the programming of which is live from 2nd life and broadcast to the web.Gary talks about the advantages and disadvantages of doing things live in-world, takes us through some of the processes and shows us some of the programs themselves.

MP3 recording time 33:37 (11.7MB) Click to listen

2 THURSDAY’S FICTIONS – Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen

Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen take you through the transition of their project, Thursday’s Fictions from the stage, to the page, to the screen and now to 2nd life. They discuss what’s exciting about the process of working in virtual worlds, the interweaving of the form and content, the collaborative process involved and what surprised them about working in 2nd life.They also cover the key shifts they encountered taking Thursday’s Fictions into the film media from the stage show and book, look at the shift from closed forms where the content is delivered to the audience, to a more open form where the audience get to participate, and talk about discovering how working in 2nd life could offer opportunities to explore other themes in a story that has been told across various media platforms.

MP3 recording time 30:42 (10.6MB) Click to listen

3 THE STORY ENVIRONMENT – Gary Hayes

Gary talks about virtual spaces and the collaborative nature of creating stories within them. He focuses on worlds that are social i.e. real people collaborating in real time creating experiences, and also looks at mixed reality – people in real space and in the virtual space.Gary shows a continuum both between the customisation of the worlds from very fixed to very open and between the individual and the collaborative, and looks at where some of these virtual spaces fall within them.

We look at story creation in these environments, the different kinds of environment available, and how these environments can affect the kinds of story you tell. We also hear about the tools of the trade and the four key ingredients to creating anything of value in such a space including character animation and camera manipulation.

MP3 recording time 33:37 (11.3MB) Click to listen

4 CREATING PLACES – Kit Devine

Kit Devine, a lecturer in 3D at AFTRS talks us through her phd project, a virtual version of Sydney’s Rocks area from 1788 to present, as an illustration of the difference between building places as opposed to spaces.She covers how social interaction is a big part of creating a sense of place, as it is the human meaning associated with a location that makes it a place.

Kit also looks at the quality of real-time playback that is now available from 3D programs and shows how this can be valuable to filmmakers in the use of 3D environments for pre-visualisation.

MP3 recording time 16:23 (5.6MB) Click to listen

5 THE VIRTUAL FILM – Jackie Turnure

The art of Machinima – an evolution. Jackie takes us back 11 years to the beginnings of Machinima, (combination of Machine and Cinema) to look at how far things have come and where they might be heading. We move through the evolution of Machinima from simple game records through the popularity of stand alone short films to the rise of the episodic and the shift from comedies to more thoughtful drama.Jackie illustrates the importance of good writing, dialogue and voice acting in machinima and also looks at what makes people choose to create their story using this process.

She touches on the issue of copyright and how to make money from machinima and looks at new tools for creating Machinima license free. Jackie concludes her presentation with her projection for machinima over the next ten years.

MP3 recording time 36:42 (12.6MB) Click to listen

6 GAME MEET FILM: PRODUCTION, SKILLS AND FUTURES – Panel

“The Craft of Story Environment and Games” – A panel of experts moderated by Gary Hayes look at the production issues and future implications of combining the skills of filmmaking with games design with emphasis on machinima and virtual worlds.

A discussion about traditional film making crafts and virtual worlds. Moderated by Gary Hayes with panelists: Peter Giles (Head of Digital Media), Mark Ward (Head of Sound), Jon Rohde (Head of Design) and Gary Wisniewski (CEO, SLCN.tv). Significant comments from Karen Pearlman and Teresa Rizzo.

MP3 recording time 31:10 (10.7MB) Click to listen

THE VIRTUAL STORY
Film Making and Cinematic Experiences Using Virtual Worlds and Games

There is a revolution happening in the way both users and professionals are creating films and story environments. YouTube, Machinima.com and many other video portals are filled with thousands of short films made in game engines and virtual worlds. It is a fast changing space and even in the past week HBO have commissioned the world’s first machinima series to made entirely in a games environment and the first episode is a nominee for an academy award. This two part course consists of a seminar which introduces participants to the exciting work being produced in this area, and a one day workshop that provides a hands-on introduction to the tools that are available.

SEMINAR

The one day seminar, presented by award winning machinima and virtual world creators, will start with state of the art examples, live demos, a panel review show and presentations on the art and craft of machinimation. The second half of the day will look closely at Story Environments – places where rich virtual experiences encourage users to “live”, role play and create their own stories. Several case studies will illustrate the tools and design techniques being used to create these rich story spaces. The day will end with a panel where traditional film industry practitioners discuss how their various crafts apply to films being made in these virtual worlds, followed by another live, theatrical machinima.

Presenters include (see Bios below):
* Gary Hayes, AFTRS – Director, LAMP and Head of Virtual Worlds The Project Factory
* Jackie Turnure, AFTRS – Lecturer, Interactive Storytelling, and co-creator of machinima feature Stolen Life
* Gary Wisniewski – CEO of Second Life Cable Network SLCN.TV
* Ian Brown, AFTRS – Lecturer, VFX and Animation
* Richard James Allen – Writer & Director
* Karen Pearlman, AFTRS – Curriculum Designer, and Writer, Producer, Editor

Special Guest Presenter:

Gary Wisniewski is the CEO of the Second Life Cable Network (SLCN.TV), a professional video network designed to expand the in-world audience as well as deliver virtual entertainment to the real-world. SLCN.TV was started in March 2007 and has now established itself as the leading broadcast service in Second Life. Live broadcasts include The Transformers’ press conference, the largest in-world event ever staged, as well as in-world events for the Die Hard 4release, the 300 press event featuring Frank Miller, as well as events for the ABC and many more. Gary will be demonstrating some remarkable techniques and camera technology they use in the some of their four camera live machinima captures in the seminar and the workshop the following day.

Guest Panelists include:

* Mark Ward, AFTRS – Head of Sound
* John Rohde, AFTRS – Head of Design
* Teresa Rizzo, AFTRS – Lecturer, Screen Studies
* Timothy Smith, AFTRS – Screen and games writer
* Melvin Montalban, AFTRS – Directing student

SPEAKER DETAILS Jackie Turnure
Jackie was the script editor and voice director on Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen. Jackie is a lecturer in interactivity and cross media at AFTRS, where she is also a mentor for LAMP (Laboratory of Advanced Media Production). She brings a unique perspective to the role of narrative in cross media production. Recently she won a development award at Milia 2007 from Ogilvy and AMEX for her Alternate Reality Game project ‘Diamond Reef’.

For the last 15 years she has worked across film, television, games and online production, with a particular focus on animation and children’s content. She has written and produced numerous 3D animated kids’ games for PC, including Bananas in Pyjamas – It’s Party Time, Oz – The Magical Adventure and Oz – The Interactive Storybook. The games have won awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie recently completed story producing and writing three episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman.

Gary Wisniewski
Gary Wisniewski is the CEO of the Second Life Cable Network (SLCN.TV), a professional video network designed to expand the in-world audience as well as deliver virtual entertainment to the real-world. SLCN.TV was started in March 2007 and has now established itself as the leading broadcast service in Second Life. Live broadcasts include The Transformers press conference, the largest in-world event ever staged, as well as in-world events for the Die Hard release, the 300 press event featuring Frank Miller, as well as events for the ABC and many more. Gary will be demonstrating some remarkable techniques and camera technology they use in the some of their four camera live machinima captures in the seminar and the workshop the following day.

Gary Hayes
Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Head of Virtual Worlds at The Project Factory. He has led The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 who have developed 54 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and seminars. As Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory he has personally produced and built Second Life presences for Australian brands, including Telstra, ABC TV, Tourism Victoria, Physical TV and many more. Before coming to Australia Gary was Senior Producer at BBC New Media for 8 years devising and producing many of the BBC’s digital ‘firsts’ – the first 24/7 Interactive TV service, the first live internet documentary and the first truly interactive programming for Broadband TV. He also created over 20 other enhanced TV shows, several future BBC cross-platform navigators and was part of BBC Imagineering developing early ‘inhabited TV’, Virtual World and TV Mixed Reality formats.

As BBC Senior Development Manager he worked on global BBC digital strategies and externally chaired the Business Models for TV-Anytime (the global personalized TV standard) and then moved to the US to develop on-demand TV with broadcasters such as NBC, Showtime and CBS. He recently co-authored a UK Department Trade and Industry Report on Personalised TV and has been an International Interactive Emmy juror for the past two years. Gary recently keynoted on virtual worlds at CeBit, AIMIA and presented on education and brands in virtual worlds on radio, podcasts and many seminars. He produces dramatic and corporate machinima and runs workshops for cinematographers, designers, and script writers exploring the potential of shared, social online virtual worlds for collaborative production, creativity and education and runs a popular blog on media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms and creativity at www.personalizemedia.com.

Dr Richard James Allen Dr Karen Pearlman
Dr Richard James Allen (writer, choreographer, director) and Dr Karen Pearlman (editor, choreographer, producer) are founders of The Physical TV Company and explorers of media and the mind. In New York as That Was Fast they brought content back into dance in The Laughing Movie, Alphabet x 2, The Charlie Stories and other works in their original ‘cinematic blend of text and dance action’. In Australia with companies such as
Dance North and Tasdance, they explored the nexus between fully fledged original play scripts and dance scripts to make ‘dance plays’ such as If War Were A Dance and Blue Cities, bringing movement into character development and choreography into story.

They have been world leaders in the exploration of video dance and dance film and their work in this area as The Physical TV Company has taken them to a deep integration of the languages of cinema, literature and choreography as witnessed by short films such as Rubberman Accepts The Nobel Prize, No Surrender, and Down Time Jaz, and the short feature Thursday’s Fictions. Always engaged by new spaces in which meaning can be explored and communicated, they have recently delved into mobile content with the adaptation of Richard’s 9th book, The Kamikaze Mind, into animated phone poems, and the adaptation of the Richard’s 8th book, Thursday’s Fictions, from a play to a film to a 3D online immersive world in Second Life.

Ian Brown
Ian has been writing and playing games since the days of the Commodore 64, and is the proud owner of a scratch-built cocktail MAME machine. He is currently interested in the impending cross-over of film drama and games technology. For the past ten years Ian has worked in many disciplines and capacities in the film and television industry, encompassing 3D artist and supervisor, art direction, matte painting, production design and storyboarding.

His feature credits include The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet American, Hero, Mission Impossible 2, The Man who Sued God, The Great Raid, Red Planet, Garage Days and The Thin Red Line. His TVC work includes over 50 high-profile international commercials. As a director his work spans both shorts and high-end music videos, earning both local and international awards and nominations, including an AFI.

Panellists

Mark Ward

Whilst studying creative writing and literature Mark became infected with the filmmaking virus and has never fully recovered. A graduate of AFTRS in 1985 (Directing and Sound), he founded a sound design company, Counterpoint Sound, in 1987 with fellow graduates of the School. Counterpoint was a “script-to-screen” service for sound, and built its reputation in documentaries, short and experimental drama and TVCs. In 1991 the same team formed Oracle Pictures, a production company aimed at developing and producing documentary and drama.

By the end of 2000 Mark had put Counterpoint into a box and shifted focus to feature films, working on such features as Lantana, The Quiet American, and In The Cut amongst others. Mark has been a member of both the Australian Screen Sound Guild and ASDA since 1995. Since entering the industry over 20 years ago, Mark has experienced the transition of screen-sound from sprockets to analogue multi-track to software-based design and production. With the same feverish curiosity he looks forward to the creative opportunities of interactive sound design.

Jon Rohde
Jon Rohde has worked in the TV and film industry for over two decades working his way up through most Art Department positions. His most recent position was Production Designer on R.A.N. working in the Torres Strait for Chapman Pictures. Rohde’s other credits include:

• Police Rescue – Assistant Designer, Blue Murder – Assistant Art Director, Wildside – Art Director
• Art Director on Australian features including Risk and Bootmen (AFI winner for Production Design)
• Segment manager for Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremonies
• Production Designer for Columbia Tri-Star films; After the Rain and Heroes Mountain
• Production Designer for Southern Star; Young Lions, Fireflies
• Production Designer for Screentime; Jessica.

Jon completed a Diploma of Arts in Film and TV at QCA in Brisbane and worked for the Seven Network. He then moved to Sydney and began work in Art Departments for ABC Drama while completing a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at UTS. He has worked for numerous production companies and with a wide range of producers, directors and other designers.

Teresa Rizzo

Teresa Rizzo graduated from Murdoch University, Western Australia, with a BA Honours in Communication Studies in 1994. Her honours thesis-video On Becoming won numerous awards nationally, and internationally. From 1994-2005 she has worked in the pay television industry in various producer roles, in organisations such as Teleitalia, Galaxy Media and the Premium Movie Partnership. She recently submitted her doctoral thesis in Film Studies at the University of New South Wales. Teresa’s research interests include Deleuze and feminist film theory, the modern horror genre, and the pay TV industry in Australia. Publications:

• “The Molecular Poetics of Before Night Falls,” Rhizomes, forthcoming Sep. 2005.
• “The Alien Series: A Deleuzian Perspective,” Women: a Cultural Review, Volume 15, Number 3 / November 2004.
• “On Becoming-An Interview with Moira Gatens,” Southern Review vol. 28.1(1995): pp. 53-68. Questions and Interview by Teresa Rizzo.
• On Becoming. Experimental documentary. Dir. prod. and writ. Teresa Rizzo 27mins. Winner of Flickerfest 1994.

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• About (1)

Title: What If? – NSW

Tagline: Breathes life into literature, taking classic narratives to new realms of possibility.

Project Description: What if? is Shakespeare and other literary texts taught in a virtual interactive world. It is a curriculum module for teachers and students, 13-18 years old. Users become the characters and journey through the story world of the text constructing and creatively destroying the narrative utilizing virtual world technologies.

Target Media: Virtual worlds, Second Life, Broadband PC, Play station 3, X Box

Team Members ©: Kereen Ely-Harper, Nicole Johnson, Neroli Wesley. Strict COPYRIGHT 2007

Guardian Mentor: John Banks

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

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,
Title: Machine – Tasmania

Tagline: Building a better world, one person at a time.

Project Description: MACHINE is a competitive social networking game. Two companies, G.I.C. & pSol, vie for world dominance. Players work their way up the ranks of their chosen company by performing a variety of tasks. Each tasks’ solution has a cause and effect on both companies. Players group to complete tasks which gain them rewards. They will rise up and down the ranks depending on their success. Woven within this game is an underlying story of the two companies separated at a particular moment of history. Players can just play the game to succeed within the ranks or they can delve into the deep, dark world of MACHINE and find out the who, why, where, when… and maybe the how. MACHINE is underpinned by a new type of social networking system with the ability to change and mould not just to fit the MACHINE world, but any other project where social networking becomes more than just your friends list.

Target Media: Social Networks, Games, User Generated, Broadband PC, Console, Mobile

Team Members ©: Writer Chris Rattray, Designer Dion Brooks, Producer/Lead Developer Bruce Moyle. Strict COPYRIGHT 2007

Guardian Mentor: Matt Costello

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

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,
Title: ALT + Control – NSW

Tagline: Obsession with who we could be

Project Description: ALT Control is an Alternative Identity Game (AIG) site in which participants can actively construct multiple identities creating the story of their own future. The first seeded project within this framework, Miranda, is a compelling online viral collaborative documentary. ALT Control harnesses our obsession with social networking and identity construction.

Target Media: Broadband PC, Mobile Phones, Locative, Virtual Worlds and TV

Team Members ©: Writer Cristyn Davies, Writer Elena Knox, Designer Sarah Waterson. Strict COPYRIGHT 2007

Guardian Mentor: Gary Hayes

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

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Australian Writers and Producers light-up at the next ‘LAMP: Story of the Future’

Here are the details of the ‘LAMP: Story of the Future Residential’, sponsored by the Australia Council’s Story of the Future Initiative.

The next ‘LAMP: Residential Lab’ will be taking place on November 7-13 on Queensland’s South Stradbroke Island and is the seventh development lab that LAMP has conducted, but the second to be sponsored by the Australia Council’s ‘Story of the Future Initiative’.

The 6-day live in lab will see eight teams working with up to nine talented new media professional mentors, developing digital media projects for distribution on broadband web, mobile devices, advanced television, games platforms, virtual worlds and beyond.

LAMP has rounded up a stellar group of specialist mentors for the event, including the US’ Matt Costello, the highly acclaimed games writer behind massive hits such as Doom 3 and the Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

LAMP received almost 50 entries from teams of writers, producers and designers wishing to take part in the program, however only eight were chosen.

“Choosing the final eight teams was a very tough job, but we now have a great mix of projects. This lab will definitely have a strong games and virtual worlds flavour, so Queensland with its growing games industry is the perfect location” said LAMP Director Gary Hayes.

This is the second ‘LAMP: Story of the Future Residential Lab’ to be run this year, following a successful lab held in Tasmania in May. Australia Council Director of Literature Josie Emery said she’s “very excited about the next crop of projects coming through the lab, particularly as we’re seeing steady progress with teams from the first lab who are now delivering projects and developing further prototypes.”

Story of the Future Project Manager, Therese Fingleton said, “As well as the calibre of the projects we’re excited about dovetailing the lab with the Screen Producers Association Conference also on the Gold Coast in November and working with them to invite some of the best international and local producers to attend the VIP presentation day at the lab and give feedback on the projects.”

The LAMP: Story of the Future Residential Lab is part of the ‘Story of the Future’, a strategic initiative of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts in partnership with AFTRS and its LAMP unit.Media enquiries:

Nicole Haraldson, Media & Marketing Officer, AFTRS (02) 9805 6629 or email: nicole.haraldson@aftrs.edu.au
Andrew Parker, Communications, Australia Council (02) 9215 9020 or email: a.parker@ozco.gov.au

The eight selected projects are: -

Random Thoughts On Existence and Other Drama: – QLD
A story about poetry, secret admirers, stalking, art adventures, life, love and every word is true.

What if Shakespeare: – VIC/NSW
What if you are Macbeth? What if you are Macbeth in Iraq? What if you are Macbeth in Iraq in 2007?

Corroboree: – VIC
Alice in Wonderland meets Noah’s Ark: A journey through the wild habitats of the globe that begins in the palm of your hand and inspires you to act!

Black Creek: – VIC
Where everybody knows something but nobody knows everything. An interactive cross-media thriller that invites teens to choose which characters to follow in order to discover the clues and unravel the mysteries behind Black Creek.

The 13th Samaritan: – NSW
Vengence. Consequence. Your virtual journey.

REDBACK: – NSW
Seven celebrities heading to a secret summit. An outback pub. Environmental espionage on a corporate scale.

Detective Dale: – TAS
Crime/conspiracy. An interactive detective series for crime buffs, interactive puzzlers and 25-49 year olds. It’s Kath & Kim meets the X-files.

MACHINE: – TAS
Building a better world, one person at a time. Are you controlling the great machine, or just playing your part?

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THE VIRTUAL STORY
Film Making and Cinematic Experiences Using Virtual Worlds and Games

There is a revolution happening in the way both users and professionals are creating films and story environments. YouTube, Machinima.com and many other video portals are filled with thousands of short films made in game engines and virtual worlds. It is a fast changing space and even in the past week HBO have commissioned the world’s first machinima series to made entirely in a games environment and the first episode is a nominee for an academy award. This two part course consists of a seminar which introduces participants to the exciting work being produced in this area, and a one day workshop that provides a hands-on introduction to the tools that are available.

SEMINAR

The one day seminar, presented by award winning machinima and virtual world creators, will start with state of the art examples, live demos, a panel review show and presentations on the art and craft of machinimation. The second half of the day will look closely at Story Environments – places where rich virtual experiences encourage users to “live”, role play and create their own stories. Several case studies will illustrate the tools and design techniques being used to create these rich story spaces. The day will end with a panel where traditional film industry practitioners discuss how their various crafts apply to films being made in these virtual worlds, followed by another live, theatrical machinima.

Presenters include (see Bios below):
* Gary Hayes, AFTRS – Director, LAMP and Head of Virtual Worlds The Project Factory
* Jackie Turnure, AFTRS – Lecturer, Interactive Storytelling, and co-creator of machinima feature Stolen Life
* Gary Wisniewski – CEO of Second Life Cable Network SLCN.TV
* Ian Brown, AFTRS – Lecturer, VFX and Animation
* Richard James Allen – Writer & Director
* Karen Pearlman, AFTRS – Curriculum Designer, and Writer, Producer, Editor

Special Guest Presenter:

Gary Wisniewski is the CEO of the Second Life Cable Network (SLCN.TV), a professional video network designed to expand the in-world audience as well as deliver virtual entertainment to the real-world. SLCN.TV was started in March 2007 and has now established itself as the leading broadcast service in Second Life. Live broadcasts include The Transformers’ press conference, the largest in-world event ever staged, as well as in-world events for the Die Hard 4release, the 300 press event featuring Frank Miller, as well as events for the ABC and many more. Gary will be demonstrating some remarkable techniques and camera technology they use in the some of their four camera live machinima captures in the seminar and the workshop the following day.

Guest Panelists include:

* Mark Ward, AFTRS – Head of Sound
* John Rohde, AFTRS – Head of Design
* Teresa Rizzo, AFTRS – Lecturer, Screen Studies
* Timothy Smith, AFTRS – Screen and games writer
* Melvin Montalban, AFTRS – Directing student

Speaker details below and full registration details here

SEMINAR DETAILS:
Date: Wednesday 12 September 2007
Time: 9.30am Registration – 10am-5pm
Registration: Pre-registration and payment is essential. Please use the online Registration Form
Cost: $30 (Light lunch and afternoon tea provided)
Closing Date: Friday 7 September
Venue: Museum of Sydney, (Cnr of Bridge & Phillips Streets), Sydney CBD

TOOLS WORKSHOP

This one day workshop builds on the themes presented in the seminar and provides participants with hands-on experience of the tools used to create virtual stories. This practical session will introduce the best tools available, including: Neverwinter Nights, The Movies, Second Life, Unity, World of Warcraft, The Sims 2 and Console Games such as Halo. We will also explore specific craft aspects of production including cinematography, character animation, sound and set design. Attendance at the seminar is a pre-requisite for attending this workshop, which has limited places and application is essential.

WORKSHOP DETAILS:
Date: Thursday 13 September 2007
Time: 10am-5pm
Places: 24
Application: It is a pre-requisite to attend the seminar, as well as having a familiarity with games/virtual worlds and navigating in a 3D environment. Please use the online Registration Form
Cost: $50 (Light lunch and afternoon tea provided)
Closing Date: Friday 7 September
Venue: LAMP LAB @ AFTRS, Cnr Balaclava and Epping Roads, North Ryde

PRODUCTION WORKHSOP

Participants of BOTH the seminar and one day workshop ONLY are invited to submit ideas for an original machinima film or story environment to be developed in an extra three day workshop. There will be a maximum of four projects chosen. Further details will be made available at the seminar and workshop.

DETAILS:
Date: Wednesday 26-September – Friday 28 September 2007
Time: 10am-5pm, 3 days
Application: Details will be available at the Tools Workshop on 13 Sept.
Cost: $150 (Light lunch and afternoon tea provided each day)
Closing Date: TBA
Venue: LAMP LAB @ AFTRS, Cnr Balaclava and Epping Roads, North Ryde

SPEAKER DETAILS

Jackie Turnure
Jackie was the script editor and voice director on Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen. Jackie is a lecturer in interactivity and cross media at AFTRS, where she is also a mentor for LAMP (Laboratory of Advanced Media Production). She brings a unique perspective to the role of narrative in cross media production. Recently she won a development award at Milia 2007 from Ogilvy and AMEX for her Alternate Reality Game project ‘Diamond Reef’.

For the last 15 years she has worked across film, television, games and online production, with a particular focus on animation and children’s content. She has written and produced numerous 3D animated kids’ games for PC, including Bananas in Pyjamas – It’s Party Time, Oz – The Magical Adventure and Oz – The Interactive Storybook. The games have won awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie recently completed story producing and writing three episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman.

Gary Wisniewski
Gary Wisniewski is the CEO of the Second Life Cable Network (SLCN.TV), a professional video network designed to expand the in-world audience as well as deliver virtual entertainment to the real-world. SLCN.TV was started in March 2007 and has now established itself as the leading broadcast service in Second Life. Live broadcasts include The Transformers press conference, the largest in-world event ever staged, as well as in-world events for the Die Hard release, the 300 press event featuring Frank Miller, as well as events for the ABC and many more. Gary will be demonstrating some remarkable techniques and camera technology they use in the some of their four camera live machinima captures in the seminar and the workshop the following day.

Gary Hayes
Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Head of Virtual Worlds at The Project Factory. He has led The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 who have developed 54 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and seminars. As Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory he has personally produced and built Second Life presences for Australian brands, including Telstra, ABC TV, Tourism Victoria, Physical TV and many more. Before coming to Australia Gary was Senior Producer at BBC New Media for 8 years devising and producing many of the BBC’s digital ‘firsts’ – the first 24/7 Interactive TV service, the first live internet documentary and the first truly interactive programming for Broadband TV. He also created over 20 other enhanced TV shows, several future BBC cross-platform navigators and was part of BBC Imagineering developing early ‘inhabited TV’, Virtual World and TV Mixed Reality formats.

As BBC Senior Development Manager he worked on global BBC digital strategies and externally chaired the Business Models for TV-Anytime (the global personalized TV standard) and then moved to the US to develop on-demand TV with broadcasters such as NBC, Showtime and CBS. He recently co-authored a UK Department Trade and Industry Report on Personalised TV and has been an International Interactive Emmy juror for the past two years. Gary recently keynoted on virtual worlds at CeBit, AIMIA and presented on education and brands in virtual worlds on radio, podcasts and many seminars. He produces dramatic and corporate machinima and runs workshops for cinematographers, designers, and script writers exploring the potential of shared, social online virtual worlds for collaborative production, creativity and education and runs a popular blog on media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms and creativity at www.personalizemedia.com.

Dr Richard James Allen Dr Karen Pearlman
Dr Richard James Allen (writer, choreographer, director) and Dr Karen Pearlman (editor, choreographer, producer) are founders of The Physical TV Company and explorers of media and the mind. In New York as That Was Fast they brought content back into dance in The Laughing Movie, Alphabet x 2, The Charlie Stories and other works in their original ‘cinematic blend of text and dance action’. In Australia with companies such as
Dance North and Tasdance, they explored the nexus between fully fledged original play scripts and dance scripts to make ‘dance plays’ such as If War Were A Dance and Blue Cities, bringing movement into character development and choreography into story.

They have been world leaders in the exploration of video dance and dance film and their work in this area as The Physical TV Company has taken them to a deep integration of the languages of cinema, literature and choreography as witnessed by short films such as Rubberman Accepts The Nobel Prize, No Surrender, and Down Time Jaz, and the short feature Thursday’s Fictions. Always engaged by new spaces in which meaning can be explored and communicated, they have recently delved into mobile content with the adaptation of Richard’s 9th book, The Kamikaze Mind, into animated phone poems, and the adaptation of the Richard’s 8th book, Thursday’s Fictions, from a play to a film to a 3D online immersive world in Second Life.

Ian Brown
Ian has been writing and playing games since the days of the Commodore 64, and is the proud owner of a scratch-built cocktail MAME machine. He is currently interested in the impending cross-over of film drama and games technology. For the past ten years Ian has worked in many disciplines and capacities in the film and television industry, encompassing 3D artist and supervisor, art direction, matte painting, production design and storyboarding.

His feature credits include The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet American, Hero, Mission Impossible 2, The Man who Sued God, The Great Raid, Red Planet, Garage Days and The Thin Red Line. His TVC work includes over 50 high-profile international commercials. As a director his work spans both shorts and high-end music videos, earning both local and international awards and nominations, including an AFI.

Panellists

Mark Ward

Whilst studying creative writing and literature Mark became infected with the filmmaking virus and has never fully recovered. A graduate of AFTRS in 1985 (Directing and Sound), he founded a sound design company, Counterpoint Sound, in 1987 with fellow graduates of the School. Counterpoint was a “script-to-screen” service for sound, and built its reputation in documentaries, short and experimental drama and TVCs. In 1991 the same team formed Oracle Pictures, a production company aimed at developing and producing documentary and drama.

By the end of 2000 Mark had put Counterpoint into a box and shifted focus to feature films, working on such features as Lantana, The Quiet American, and In The Cut amongst others. Mark has been a member of both the Australian Screen Sound Guild and ASDA since 1995. Since entering the industry over 20 years ago, Mark has experienced the transition of screen-sound from sprockets to analogue multi-track to software-based design and production. With the same feverish curiosity he looks forward to the creative opportunities of interactive sound design.

Jon Rohde
Jon Rohde has worked in the TV and film industry for over two decades working his way up through most Art Department positions. His most recent position was Production Designer on R.A.N. working in the Torres Strait for Chapman Pictures. Rohde’s other credits include:

• Police Rescue – Assistant Designer, Blue Murder – Assistant Art Director, Wildside – Art Director
• Art Director on Australian features including Risk and Bootmen (AFI winner for Production Design)
• Segment manager for Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremonies
• Production Designer for Columbia Tri-Star films; After the Rain and Heroes Mountain
• Production Designer for Southern Star; Young Lions, Fireflies
• Production Designer for Screentime; Jessica.

Jon completed a Diploma of Arts in Film and TV at QCA in Brisbane and worked for the Seven Network. He then moved to Sydney and began work in Art Departments for ABC Drama while completing a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at UTS. He has worked for numerous production companies and with a wide range of producers, directors and other designers.

Teresa Rizzo

Teresa Rizzo graduated from Murdoch University, Western Australia, with a BA Honours in Communication Studies in 1994. Her honours thesis-video On Becoming won numerous awards nationally, and internationally. From 1994-2005 she has worked in the pay television industry in various producer roles, in organisations such as Teleitalia, Galaxy Media and the Premium Movie Partnership. She recently submitted her doctoral thesis in Film Studies at the University of New South Wales. Teresa’s research interests include Deleuze and feminist film theory, the modern horror genre, and the pay TV industry in Australia. Publications:

• “The Molecular Poetics of Before Night Falls,” Rhizomes, forthcoming Sep. 2005.
• “The Alien Series: A Deleuzian Perspective,” Women: a Cultural Review, Volume 15, Number 3 / November 2004.
• “On Becoming-An Interview with Moira Gatens,” Southern Review vol. 28.1(1995): pp. 53-68. Questions and Interview by Teresa Rizzo.
• On Becoming. Experimental documentary. Dir. prod. and writ. Teresa Rizzo 27mins. Winner of Flickerfest 1994.

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The project, Thursday’s Fictions, that went through the last LAMP: Story of the Future residential is currently being produced & designed by Gary Hayes in Second Life in collaboration with its creators Dr Richard James Allen and Karen Perlman, with story support from LAMP mentor Jackie Turnure, as a tie in with a transmission of the film of the same name. ABC TV Sunday Arts covers it here

The creators of the award-winning and surreal dance film, Thursday’s Fictions, will launch an online 3D immersive experience in Second Life. In this virtual world quest audiences can experience what it’s like to be one of the characters in the story while sharing the experience with their friends.

Thursday’s Fictions is the story of a woman who tries to cheat the cycle of reincarnation to get eternal life. Adapted from the book, Thursday’s Fictions, by Dr Richard James Allen (short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry at the 2000 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards), the film deals with themes of reincarnation and the nature of our universe.

The initiative is supported by the Literature Board of the Australia Council through its The Story of the Future project, the Australian Film Television and Radio School through LAMP, the ABC through its Innovation and Arts Departments, and The Project Factory. Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life will be launched on the AFTRS Island on Sunday July 29.

Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life is a collaboration by leading Australian dance filmmakers Dr Richard James Allen and Dr Karen Pearlman of The Physical TV Company and Gary Hayes, Director of LAMP at AFTRS and The Project Factory.

Meet the creative artists, Dr Richard James Allen and Dr Karen Pearlman, for a Q & A at the ABC Amphitheatre on the ABC Island in Second Life at 4pm directly following the broadcast.

The work is currently in progress but here are a series of shots of the Second Life build as it currently stands about 50% into the build phase.

Images © LAMP, Physical TV and Gary Hayes

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Project description: You’ll Never Have Another Week Like This One! In order to enter the world of Thursday’s Fictions, you must respond the following “You have five minutes left to live. It is always said that you can’t take it with you, but what if you could? What would you take with you? What is important to you?

Team Members
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Guardian Mentor: Tony Walsh
LAMP Lab: June 2007
Target media: TV, Virtual World

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Project description: A beautiful girl is on the run with 100 grand. Do you help her… Or turn her in?” An alternate reality game driven by a “true story” of a kidnapping that is an extension of a short film scheduled for shooting June 2007

Team Members
John Trefey, James Mitchell and Julien De Nys
Guardian Mentor: Jackie Turnure
LAMP Lab: June 2007
Target media: Cross-Media, Radio ARG, Mobile, Printed, Video Portals, TV

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