John Banks and Peter Giles interview Matt Costello in two parts at the LAMP: Story of the Future Residential held at Couran Cove, Queensland, Australia in December 2007.
Matt talks about story worlds and how the game play is very dependent on the underlying story and how more importantly they really need to be developed in [...]

Marissa talks through her experiences of extending stories into online and other platforms looking specifically at her work on the enigmatic cross-media service created by Hoodlum for Emmerdale. She talks about call-to-actions, multiple entry points, point-of-view, story worlds, gameplay and trail heads as part of this experience creation for the audience. One technique she uses [...]

Jennifer discusses legacy technologies leading up to mobile phone 3rd generation services and draws up on staggering statistics that indicate a change toward mobile content delivery over PC content delivery. She illustrates the impact mobiles are making as the new delivery platform of choice; right now there are twice as many mobile phones in the [...]

Andrew Apostola and Peter Giles outline typical online revenue generating systems and business models. They touch on direct payment types such as free and chargeable content, and indirect payment types such as pay per click advertising models based on traffic volume and sales results. They discuss various forms of subscription models, one example being micro-payments [...]

‘Building a Social Network” Strategies, implementation and management of online communities.
Laurel takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the various features and functions of organic social networks and how to identify positive and negative aspects of existing services. She refers to how on entry the motto/tagline, tools and what the community are discussing [...]

A sadly highly abridged 6 minute recording of a great talk by Jennifer looking at upcoming demo/psycho graphics particularly generation C (12-24) that she thinks stands for community, creativity and content. They are non-watch wearers as they have some many devices who needs it. She looks at their current modes of communication and bizarrely they [...]

Andrew looks at the nuts and bolts of making money with your content online. He looks at a range of emerging online portals setup to aggregate and share revenues with independent content providers and talks about examples including Revver, Grouper, BlipTV and Crackle. To create a sustainable business you have to connect with interest groups [...]

John explores the intersection of online games and games communities and highlights key techniques in drawing traffic and communities to your property. He uses Fury developed by Auran games as one example and how the relationships with key influencers were nurtured, using genuine and authentic dialogue and co-creation. He is clear pointing out that the [...]

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. [...]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LUKE CARRUTHERS – “The Future Business of Games”
© Luke Carruthers. Luke concentrates on games trends, the complexity of the Business and the heirarchy of market dictating what gets made.
The Presentation
The second of three podcasts from Deborah Todd, Jackie Turnure and Luke Carruthers recorded live at the at the AGL Theatre, Museum of Sydney (MoS), 37 [...]

JACKIE TURNURE – “When Games and Film Collide”
© Jackie Turnure 2007. Jackie gives an overview of the games universe and talks about the importance of story, character and agency.
The Presentation
The first of three podcasts from Deborah Todd, Jackie Turnure and Luke Carruthers recorded live at the at the AGL Theatre, Museum of Sydney (MoS), 37 [...]

© Guy Gadney 2007. The changes taking place across the industry and growth trends mean we are now creative melting pot where many things are starting to happen simultaneously.
The Presentation
The third of three podcasts from Guy Gadney, Tony Walsh and Gary Hayes recorded live at the at the AGL Theatre, Museum of Sydney (MoS) Thurs [...]

© Tony Walsh 2007. Tony (bio below) explores virtual worlds, alternate reality and mixed reality by providing definitions, historical context and his experienced opinion on how the experiences provided by these are really driving future entertainment.
The Presentation
The second of three podcasts from Tony Walsh, Guy Gadney and Gary Hayes recorded live at the at the [...]

© Gary Hayes 2007. A short 16m introduction from Gary Hayes who looks at the four forces that are coming together to create perfect conditions for this hybrid form of entertainment.
The Presentation
The first of three podcasts from Gary Hayes, Tony Walsh and Guy Gadney recorded live at the at the AGL Theatre, Museum of Sydney [...]

© Marissa Cooke 2007. Marissa opens her presentation by stating there are great commonalities between storytelling in digital and traditional media.
The Presentation
Marissa Cooke. TV new media and advertising writer, new media producer – Fat Cow Motel, PSTrixi . Copywriter for many bluechip clients writing for the single screen or the multiple screens.
Marissa talks about [...]

Extending the experiences of TV drama audiences. Evan Jones

“I find it very interesting to see how much people value on-line communities but go about setting them up without a purpose or goal. They say here is a chat room that is set up alongside a TV series but don’t give people anything to talk about…we [...]

“Games don’t need a story – writers in the games industry are essentially unnecessary” Mark Laidlaw, VALVE
Jackie Turnure presented by AFTRS LAMP as part of its Friday Futures Series.
Taken out of context, this comment could be dynamite, but the point made by Mark and many of the speakers at the Writing for Games conference is [...]