AFTRS LAMP » innovation

Multi Platform Content Course Apply Before 19 May

Gary — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:16:02 +0000

We are well underway now with Australia’s (and possibly the world’s) first Multi Platform Content Graduate Certificate. AFTRS is also offering the same, even more turbo charged course for the 2nd half of this year (16 weeks part time starting July 12). This post looks at the course thus far with some student example, gives links in how to apply and more detail from the main AFTRS site at the bottom.

Note: This post was cross posted from the course’s Transmedia Design blog

Tell me about the current course

This course was created out of strong demand from both industry and students internally wanting to develop beyond traditional linear and learn about cross media design and production. Starting in February of this year it was the first time AFTRS has run such a dedicated transmedia design award course and it has borrowed a lot of learning from the 5 year presence of the LAMP initiative in the school for the content.

Without burying too deep in the detail here are some high level snapshots of what the nine students half way through the first course have been doing on Mon and Weds evenings (6.15-9.30pm) and (once every 3 weeks or so) a weekend incubator:

Face to face expert seminars, workshops and one-to-one training across business, service design & production, communities, distribution and storytelling techniques, technical insights, mobile/arg/virtual worlds/open social/TV/brand extensions – the list goes on.
Completing a range of challenging and detailed assignments including: audience research and analysis, design and service trends, story with linked business concepts, funding submissions, cross briefing of campaign ideas, game concepts etc:
Immersing themselves in three weekend incubators individually and in teams developing a) A multi platform, social media advertising campaign b) A transmedia TV extension or wrapper (more below) c) A technical prototype of a brand new game or social media mashup (more below)
Planning their main production for the course and learning about the treatment, functional and design spec and business planning behind their unique, individually original project which will be investor/funding presentation ready.

Who has taught so far on this Course?

Amazingly in the first three months they have been instructed and lectured to by some of Australia’s top multi platform producers and thinkers:

Sam Doust – Senior Producer, ABC Innovation, teaching service design and tech. Leader at the ABCTV innovation team
Kelly Chapman – Transmedia Producer and Director of KCDC productions, teaching about the business and production of transmedia content. Producer of Spooks, Emmerdale and Lost property extensions as well as feature films
Jennifer Wilson - Director of The Project Factory & Chair Mobile Industry Australia, specialising in mobile, client and business and industry trends thinking
Martin Walsh – Head of Digital Marketing IBM, teaching about self distribution, measurement and monitoring and social media. Previously Head of Digital at Microsoft and keynote speaker recently at SPAA
Jim Shomos - Forgettherules.com on episodic storytelling, generating business, creating at the edge
Laurel Papworth – Social Network Strategist & Marketing Magazine’s Head of Social Media Industry Australia, teaching online communities and social media campaigns
Lisa Gray - Head of Multi Platform Content at The Feds, about client relationships, creative briefs and marketing
Katherine Blashki - Director of Research and Education at AFTRS, about transmedia storytelling
Catherine Gleeson - Head of Platform09 Design and AFTRS Foundation, showing case studies in transmedia design process
Nathan Anderson – MD of Envelop Entertainment and AFTRS Masters Candidate in Transmedia, new forms of storytelling and game theory
Gary Hayes - CCO of MUVEDesign and Course Coordinator / Lecturer Multi Platform at AFTRS, teaching almost everything but focus on transmedia design, virtual worlds, augmented reality, trends and social media. Previously 8 yrs Senior Dev Producer at BBC, Director of LAMP@AFTRS and Head Virtual Worlds at The Project Factory

“AFTRS is looking for creative people who want to extend their skills to producing 360 degree entertainment. A multi platform strategy is now an essential part of any pitch to broadcasters, funding bodies or investors and this course will give you the tools you need to do this. If you have skills as a content creator in the broadcast industries or are a filmmaker, writer or producer this course is designed to leverage your skills into the multi platform world.”

Why do this Course?

Learn about the key technologies used to facilitate multi platform content and where it is going in the future
Initiate, document, pitch and prototype an innovative multi platform project
Extend professional skills in audience focused content creation
Study in an engaging environment that is responsive to student needs
Learn about technical specifications, information architecture and how to work productively with developers and designers
Enhance your opportunities to work in the industry as a member of the core creative team
Explore the potential to extend story across platforms using new entertainment formats
Design participatory services that provide a role for audience to play
Learn about new business models, Web 2.0, social networking and emerging multi platform entertainment formats

Something from the students?

All students have set-up word press blogs and other CMS’s as well as simple html sites and even create a simple game world in Unity – most came with basic web skills but have hopefully been given the confidence to take control of the distribution of their ideas and implement much more of the backend themselves. A few students are blogging openly about the course and here is Monica and Luci on two recent pieces of AFTRS Multi Platform work.

Monica is capturing some of the work she is doing on her external blogspot site “Notes on Multi Platform“. She is tracking some of the evening sessions with myself and guest lecturers such as a great post on “Finding Your Audience“- based on Kelly Chapman’s talk as part of Multi Platform Business. The last weekend incubator was to actually realise a small prototype as part of a much bigger proposition. So we had great examples & concepts of locative and marker augmented reality, drupal communities, flash games, wordpress blogs etc: Monica and her team member Tali decided to go a slightly tricky route (for non programmers) and try a mashup. Although aware of the issues of coding multiple services together using APIs – Monica and Tali focused on the key need for the service then built a simple live on the web prototype. Monica writes on her World Wise post:

For you to be able to imagine our application we developed some bits: an RSS to search only in specific feeds, TweetBlender: a WordPress plugin, a Flicker widget, etc. The idea is for this application to be used in a searchable interactive interface which will allow citizens, journalists and activists, to find relevant human rights information in ways in which they can contribute, either by becoming more informed or more involved and able to donate time, energy and money to a cause. The result is here http://transmediadesign.org/hera/ but I don’t know for how long, so I took a few screenshots:

Luci is capturing some of her ideas on her existing blogspot site which itself is a great resource for DIY filmmakers “Yet Another Struggling Writer (& Indie Filmmaker)” – her recent post was on the second incubator project that the students teamed up for which was to design a localised TV transmedia project for the show “V”. Jennifer Wilson and I made sure that all students really thought hard about the reasons for the service and of course how to grow ‘relevant’ community and audience. In other incubators they developed completely original ideas but for this one it is important they develop their ‘multi platform’ adaptation skills and other students looked at transmedia extensions to existing linear properties including Madmen, East West 101, Being Erica & ABC News. Read Luci’s in-depth service design post here and as an intro she writes

My team (myself, Jane Arandelovic and Alex Bathur) identified a common problem for the local TV networks that screen overseas content here in Australia after the US air date. The audience most likely to become fans tend to seek these shows out online or on DVD prior to the Australian broadcast. For networks, such as Channel Nine, the problem of securing audience loyalty to their channel, when the same content is available online through someone else, is similar to the question of how filmmakers can turn file-sharers into loyal purchasers. We used the television show “V” as an example. This is a sci-fi series that began screening episodes in the US last November, while it wasn’t till March 2010 that it broadcast in Australia. Our goal was to increase ratings of the show on Channel Nine despite the delayed broadcast. We took the position that we were standing in late 2009 trying to work out how to win over viewers (rather than mid way through the series as it is now).

Wanna Apply?

So if you are Sydney based and want to be instructed by some of the top professionals in this neck of the woods, develop your own transmedia ideas and be ready for the industry as it moves towards multi platform, multi screen, multi form distribution, then sign up for the course.

There are a range of pages about the course on the main AFTRS site but to get lots more info, express interest and provisionally apply here are some links:

To apply straight away, register on the AFTRS portal first by going here
To see more high level stuff about the course go to Graduate Certificate in Multi Platform Content
To read a more detailed page that lists course structure, outcomes and modules etc: go to Multi Platform Content Award Course Detail

If you would like more personalised information about this course please email Peter Giles as your first port of call

Tags: ABC, ABCTV, advertising, AFTRS, application, architecture, AUDIENCE, Australia, backend, BBC, Catherine Gleeson - Head, Chair, Channel, Chapman, CMS, Community, Distribution, Education, Emmerdale, entertainment, ENVIRONMENT, Explore, Factory, feature film, February, Flicker, Foundation, Game, Gary Hayes, Gary Hayes - CCO, generating, Initiate, innovation, Jennifer Wilson, Jim Shomos - Forgettherules, Katherine Blashki - Director, KCDC, Kelly, lamp, Laurel Papworth - Social, leader, Learn, Lisa Gray - Head, Magazine, marketing, Martin Walsh - Head, MMO, Mobile, Multi, MUVEDesign, Nathan Anderson - MD, networking, online, Peter Giles, platform, producer, producers, Production, Project, proposition, research, Senior, something, SPAA, storytelling, strategist, Struggling, Television, transmedia, TweetBlender, Virtual Worlds, Wise, Wordpress

AFTRSTalks – LAMP Seminars Now Up on Vimeo

Gary — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:30:31 +0000

It is always hard to decide on a good video sharing network for longer format material as YouTube & many others have time and quality limitations. LAMP has put up its videos via iTunes store since 2005 as well as running a JWPlayer on it’s own virtual server. So we also just started an AFTRSTalks channel on Vimeo where seminars, lectures, interviews etc: will be uploaded. Here is the first batch from LAMP across a few recent seminars or interviews (at least 15 more to be added shortly to this gallery!).

The Game of Writing Games with Matt Costello from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Social Media Campaign

The Social Media Campaign & Community – Laurel Papworth from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Digital & Social Influence Marketing – Martin Walsh from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

The Rise and Rise of Social Media – Gary Hayes from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

The anatomy of a blogger outreach campaign – Geoffrey Emerson from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Innovations in MultiPlatform Content

The Art & Craft of Multiplatform Storytelling – Hoodlum from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Playing in a Digital World – Jim Shomos from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

The Innovative Community – Laurel Papworth from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Mobile Social Technology and Alternate Reality Gaming – Bob Hitching from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

The Art and Craft of Machinima

Virtual TV: Treet & SLCN – Gary Wiesneski from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Virtual Story: Art & Craft of Machinima – Gary Hayes from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Peter Giles interviews Illclan from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Wandering Eye Pictures Machinima – Mark Strong from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Where Machinima Meets CG – Panel Interview from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

TV 2.0 – Social TV

Introduction Socialized TV 2.0 – Gary Hayes from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Multiplatform TV abridged – Arul Baskaran from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

IPTV Futures – William Cooper & Gary Hayes from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

TV Innovation abridged – Chris Winter from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Documentary 2.0 – Serious Games (2 more to be added)

Games Seriously – Gary Hayes from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Serious Games: Reach Out – Marianne Webb from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Collaborative Communities (2 more to be added)

Collaborative Communities – Laurel Papworth from AFTRSTalks on Vimeo.

Tags: AFTRS, Alternate, alternate reality gaming, Arul Baskaran, Baskaran, Blogger, Bob Hitching, CAMPAIGN, Collaborative, collaborative communities, Documentary, Games, Gary Hayes, geoffrey emerson, hoodlum, innovation, INNOVATIONS, innovative community, Jim Shomos, lamp, Laurel Papworth, Machinima, martin walsh, media, media campaign, Mobile, Multiplatform, Ning, outreach campaign, panel interview, papworth, Peter Giles, platform content, serious games, SLCN, social influence, Socialized, storytelling, Virtual, wandering eye, WHERE MACHINIMA MEETS CG - Panel Interview, William Cooper

Jacobson Brothers Nov 16 Launch for World First Mordy Koots

Gary — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:57:08 +0000

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

Tags: accident, actor, Adventure, American WW2 air force, Australia, australian writer, bill and ted, Blazing, blockquote, Bondi Junction, Boots, camilleri, Chandon, character, Charlie, cinema, cinemanova, Cinemas, class, Clayton Jacobson, Clayton Jacobson (Kenny), Collaboration, comedy, comedy inc, Damian Walsh-Howling, entertainment, episode, Europe, feature, Fiona Harris, Game, Gary, genre, guest, guest appearances, height, img, innovation, Jason Gann, Jim Shomos, Kenny, Koots, lamp, Launch, likeable guy, Machinima, Matrix, MOGIE, Monday, NineMSN, NSW, opinion, Pictures, Popcorn, popcorntaxi, producer, Rob Carlton, Rob Taylor, Rogue, Shane Jacobson, Skithouse, Sydney, talented actor, terrific performances, Terry Camilleri, Thumbs-up, Thursday, Ubisoft, Underbelly, USD, Walsh, watching, whole, Wilfred, Women, Writer /Producer, www.mordykoots.com

The Digital Deadlock – Free LAMP/CSB State of Play Seminar

Gary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:24:25 +0000

The August LAMP State of Play evening seminar will be a joint event with the AFTRS Centre for Screen Business and Screenrights who will be launching Jennifer Wilson’s white paper:

‘The Digital Deadlock: how clearance and copyright issues are keeping Australian content offline’

Jennifer will present the case for reforming the copyright system so that content creators can make the most of the online opportunity. Creators are missing out, she says, because the copyright system has fallen behind: ‘It is failing the very people it is meant to encourage. Not only that, but the public is being denied access to the content it wants.’

Jennifer, a partner at The Project Factory, an ex-LAMP mentor and former Head of Innovation at NineMSN, will outline her proposals for reform and answer questions from the audience.

Come along and receive your free copy of Jennifer’s paper together with her guide to navigating the digital landscape

‘Getting In The Digital Frame: a screen content producer’s guide to the digital landscape’.

Drinks will be hosted by Screenrights and AFTRS after the presentation.

When: 5.00pm Wednesday August 26

Where: Main Theatre, AFTRS, (directions) The Entertainment Quarter, 130 Bent St, Moore Park

RSVP: to Lois Robinson at lois.robinson@aftrs.edu.au by 19 August

We look forward to seeing you there!

Tags: AFTRS, AFTRS Centre for Screen Business and Screenrights, AUDIENCE, Australia, Australian, australian content, content creators, content offline, content producer, copyright issues, copyright system, digital frame, digital landscape, entertainment, free lamp, Head, innovation, Jennifer, Jennifer Wilson, Lois Robinson, Main, mentor, moore park, NineMSN, Ning, online, online opportunity, Play, Presentation, Quarter, robinson, rsvp, screen content, screen content producer, Screenrights, SEMINAR, state of play, The Project Factory

Vodcasts – Television 2.0: Social TV

Gary — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:18:23 +0000

STUDY MULTIPLATFORM CONTENT PRODUCTION part time at AFTRS in 2010

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

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

SOCIALIZED TV 2.0 – 17m © Gary Hayes Director LAMP @ AFTRS and CCO of MUVEDesign (slideshares here)
MULTIPLATFORM TV – 12m (abridged) – © ABCTV Arul Baskaran (Executive Producer ABC TV Multiplatform)
IPTV FUTURES – 20m © William Cooper Head of Informitv (live Skype video interview with Gary Hayes)
TV INNOVATION -15m (abridged) – Chris Winter (ABC Innovation)

Original seminar link – 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? Help prepare you for big changes just on the horizon. Innovations across broadband TV and IPTV. New advertising models and latest video web 2.0 mashups. Is IPTV a valid platform for video producers? The evolving role of public service broadcaster and online video distribution ABC new developments including iView, Google Earth TV & programme related services such as Gruen Transfer How online video will become more personalized Is audience contributed online content sustainable at scale? What does the future hold?

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

Tags: ABC, advertising, advertising model, advertising models, AFTRS, Arul Baskaran, Baskaran, Broadband, broadcaster, Chris Winter, Content, content production, Director LAMP, Distribution, earth tv, executive producer, Gary Hayes, Google, Gruen, innovation, INNOVATIONS, IPTV, mashups, May, model, MP3, Multiplatform, old advertising, ONLY, pod, Podcasts, Post-production, Production, programme, public service broadcaster, publishing, SEMINAR, seminar link, Socialized, STUDY, Television, Theatre, transition, tv innovation, type mp3, VERSIONS, video distribution, video on the web, video web, vodcast, Vodcasts, William Cooper, William Cooper Head

Seminar: Innovations in Multi-Platform Content

Gary Hayes — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:14:23 +0000

INNOVATIONS IN MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT – Wed 22 April 9.30 – 1.00 pm – Sydney

Do you really know what Alternate or Augmented Reality Games are, or what makes Social Media Entertainment really successful?

How do you plan, produce and maintain complex distributed narrative, multi-platform services?

Why do interactive stories work & how to get clients interested in it

How can you combine the immersion of games with the drama of film and TV?

How can you keep people engaged across time and space?

What is the true Future of Entertainment?

The way content is consumed has changed. 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. This will be an eye opener for those who thought cross-media meant TV show and a website!

Hoodlum (global leaders in distributed storytelling) will share behind the scenes on their world renowned multi-platform ‘game-like’ dramas such as Lost, Spooks and Emmerdale. World Communities will highlight the best social media services that draw in audience and user participation while also building loyalty for future services. Animal Logic on a live link from LA will talk about the future of entertainment formats while Xumii will look at this from a social mobile perspective. Finally MOGIE/Forget the Rules will show a unique new Australian grown format combining live action and game worlds. Sohail Dahdal and Gary Hayes, both leading multi-platform creators themselves, will manage this very special seminar.

APPLY: Seminar Wed 22 April 9.30 am – 1 pm

Presenters include:

Anthony Mullins – Creative Director Hoodlum
Giancarlo A. Mori, Senior Vice President, ANIMALLOGIC Interactive
Bob Hitching – Xumii
Jackie Turnure, Head of Development and Production Hoodlum
Laurel Papworth – World Communities & laurelpapworth.com
Jim Shomos – www.mordykoots.com, MOGIE, Movie Over Game Integrated Entertainment
Sohail Dahdal (First Australians, Long Journey Young Lives)
Gary Hayes (LAMP@ AFTRS & MUVEDesign)

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

How to develop new forms of storytelling that integrate narrative and interactivity

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

Tags: A. Mori, AFTRS, Alternate, ANIMALLOGIC, ANIMALLOGIC Interactive, Anthony Mullins, Anthony Mullins - Creative, Australia, Australian, Bob Hitching, Bob Hitching - Xumii, Community, Creating, Creative Director, creator, Dahdal, Director Hoodlum, dramas, Emmerdale, entertainment, Film, film and tv, Future, Gary Hayes, Giancarlo A. Mori, Head of Development, immersion, innovation, INNOVATIONS, Jackie Turnure, Jim Shomos, Laurel Papworth, Laurel Papworth - World, media, media innovation, MULTI-PLATFORM, online entertainment, participation, Presenters, Reality, Senior Vice President, Social, social media, social media services, Sohail, Sohail Dahdal, Spooks, storytelling, Web, www.mordykoots.com

Television 2.0 – Free LAMP ‘State of Play’ Seminar

Gary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:00:08 +0000

TV 2.0: The Latest Innovations in Online Video

Wed 25 March 6-7 pm – TELEVISION 2.0

This is the first of a series of 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)

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 – Introduced by Peter Giles, AFTRS

Arul Baskaran (Executive Producer ABC TV Multiplatform) – Online Gruentransfer, iView…
William Cooper (Informitv – live from UK)
Chris Winter (ABC Innovation)
Gary Hayes (LAMP ex Senior Development Producer BBC New Media)

Areas to be covered in the seminar:

Overview of all categories of existing online video services & business models
The challenges of broadcasting and delivering ondemand
Social Media TV, is TV becoming always-on, participatory and shared?
Innovations across broadband TV and IPTV
New advertising models and latest video web 2.0 mashups
Is IPTV a valid platform for video producers?
The evolving role of public service broadcaster and online video distribution
ABC new developments including iView, Google Earth TV & programme related services such as Gruen Transfer
How online video will become more personalized
Is audience contributed online content sustainable at scale?
What does the future hold?

Tags: advertising, Baskaran, Broadband, business, Chris Winter, Content, development, Executive, free lamp, Gary Hayes, Informitv, innovation, IPTV, lamp, latest innovations, media, MIP, mip tv, Multiplatform, old advertising, Overview, participatory, Peter, Peter Giles, public service broadcaster, seminars, Social, State, state of play, Sydney, Television, Theatre, video distribution, video on the web, video producers, Wednesday, William Cooper

LAMP Three Years of Projects: Video

Gary Hayes — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:45:39 +0000

The AFTRS Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, the first three years of residentials. Around 34 of the 61 projects that were developed over one intensive week to a pitch, flash by in 2 minutes.

These images are part of the original 15-20 minute presentation at the end of that week to commissioners, interested stakeholders and most importantly the mentors and each other. At the moment most are in further development, seven are in full production and five have been produced to audience.

Music: Bounty Island, DJ Shah’s Antonio Harbour Mix

The projects in the video are:
Aftershock, Faction, Captive, Stalkers Ink, Catalyst, Black Creek (renamed), Killer Gene, Machine, Detective Dale, Mondo Froggo, Get Carla, City Games, Middlemania, The Apartment, InWorld, Project Greenlight 2, Thursday’s Fictions, Portable Ghosts, Virtual Roadside Memorials, Call to Arms:Sea Patrol, Master Raindrop, Insect Men, HitIt, Perfect Partner, Tell Tales, Wild Ark, Georgiana Molloy, What If Macbeth, Urban Anarchy, Sum of our Parts, Read with me Play with Me

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Antonio Harbour Mix, Black Creek, Course Workshops, Detective, Detective Dale, Georgiana Molloy, innovation, Island, lamp, media, mentoring, presentations, Production, projects, residential, seminars, Video The AFTRS Laboratory

Innovating Global Social Media Experiences and Collaborative Entertainment Production

Gary — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:45:24 +0000

A rough transcript of a presentation Gary Hayes (LAMP Director) gave as part of the Digital Content Session at the Trilateral KANZ Broadband Summit in Seoul on 19 June 2008. It looks at the emerging nature of Social Media Entertainment but focuses on how creative professionals can keep up with ‘the crowd’. Covers how Film, TV and Radio are early types of non-participatory, localised, social media content but interactive digital experiences are inherently global. LAMP, forward thinking companies and other Australian initiatives develops new multi-platform services that reach out to international markets – video sharing communities, social virtual worlds, alternate reality games, locative stories, simulations and newer hybrid forms. Gary looks at Australian successes of the collision of animation, online games, film, mobile, broadband web and social media applications and the potential for co-development and cross-training between NZ, Korea and Australia. Transcript below the SlideShare embed

| View | Upload your own

Innovating Global Social Media Experiences and Collaborative Entertainment Production © Gary Hayes 2008

An nyoung, Hello

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this Kanz Broadband Summit this morning and I hope I can inspire collaborative action in us all. My talk is based around one key premise that those who we used to call ‘our audience’ are now empowered and creating, I would suggest, more compelling relevant and original content than ‘us’ so-called creative professionals. I look at how the creative content industry can become relevant again and innovate global social media experiences and particularly how collaborative creative development between cultures and countries can bring back the initiative. I will also touch on the fact that the real paradigm shift of broadband is not about technology but about enabling creative collaboration in social groups (the industry and audience). I use the ‘them and us’ metaphor for ease of presentation because of course they are us!

Don’t worry this is not another ‘community-created-content-will-take-over the world’ talk, there have been many of those because that has already happened, this is about a co-creative society sharing it’s media and creating tools to make the process much easier. A high bandwidth wired up world gives them the many-to-many distribution channels and with community created tools for self-publishing they are entertaining each other and creating flexible companies with a skilled and transient human resource. What does this mean for industry and creative professionals? The good news is that ‘they’, are showing industry (inside and across national borders) the best processes in how to create original and innovative content. We, the creative professionals must take note – be as flexible, fleet of foot and inventive as the ‘crowd’ are becoming.

We are hard wiring the world and humans when given the means to communicate over open, high bandwidth channels will share their stories and develop loyal followings from 100s to 100 000s of those who want to be engaged by them. Trying to regulate and halt the growth of social media will also be at our peril. Force majeure will mean ‘they’ will develop their own connected communities with or without telcos, governments or entertainment companies. But that is another story, what remains are new, niche ‘born to be wired’ communities of interest mashing-up content, engineering better software and deciding between themselves what products will succeed in the marketplace. How can industry emulate this force of nature?

Now everyone is a filmmaker, broadcaster and storyteller. The quaint but already outdated methods of distributing ‘stories’ that relied on reaching ‘captive’ audiences by broadcasting ‘at’ them in one direction, we can liken to someone watering a tamed forest with a spray hose. That walled forest was once refreshing but they have quickly learned that outside this wall they have the ability to ‘grow their own’ they will, with or without us – and their combined wisdom dwarfs any sized company or government organization.

Playful Content R&D. Innovation is not about delivering linear tv and film over the wired network to a pc or onto a mobile phone. That is the utility business not the creative one.
The participatory audience are showing the way in how they create hybrid forms from film, tv, games and web applications. They often do this through behaviour rather than engineering. They mesh the way they consume media. Sending facebook updates from their mobile phone while half watching a TV programme but talking about it on twitter while listening to a friends music playlist and so on. New generations learn that they can cherry pick key parts of services making the new form better than the source as this diagram illustrates, it is not about the content, display or distribution but about the format they enable. The way the community are creating this content is a model for industry and the content and telco industries need to move beyond old business models and look at cross-media form rather than distribution

We have to think beyond mono-media. By that I mean see media as just a single film or TV episode or a mobile game. In fragmented markets where participant audiences spend time across hundreds of touch points we need to provide our stories for them across those devices and channels.

Peter Jackson said “I think we’re on a threshold of a new way to tell stories… It’s a form of entertainment that’s not a game and it’s not a film. It’s a filmic game experience.”

As an example quite a few companies and academic organisations in Australia are now developing compelling hybrid forms, such as TV and Games. This cross-reality mix is showing real potential as the live dynamic element of TV utlises the immersive quest like elements of online games. We must also be careful of assuming all interactivity is equal. There is a big difference between on one-hand, point-and-click ‘broadcast-interactivity’ or games where there are preset outcomes (watch a video or hear a sound) and on the other hand, spaces and places where the community can promote, comment or co-create with the original creators.

Moving on a little, I would like to quote from Building a Creative Innovation Economy, A Cultural Ministers Council report from February of this year.

“The creative sector must engage with the community to ensure ongoing support and survival in a global environment where there is increasing competition for consumers’ disposable time and dollars from an ever-expanding choice of leisure services and products. In this sense, user created content on social media web services such as YouTube and MySpace can be seen as competition for cultural audiences’ attention.…The Australian Film, Television and Radio School’s Laboratory of Advanced Media Production (LAMP) is another example of an innovative approach to training. The program enables the conception and development of multimedia content and services in a live-in setting, facilitating collaboration between project teams and mentors. The four stage process equips participants with the tools they need to create compelling interactive content that meets the needs of their audiences and marketplaces. LAMP offers participants a healthy mix of creativity, business awareness, technical skills and audience awareness.”

So I am keen to talk about one of many innovative initiatives in Australia to aid the development of new form content. LAMP (The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production) was formed in 2005 through AFTRS and comes from a tradition of hothouse development initiatives in the UK, at the BBC and the American Film Institute’s Digital Content lab. My experience is that Australia has some of the most creative thinkers in new emerging media content and they are very keen to work on creative vs just technological collaborations.

Since its inception LAMP has propelled over 61 projects and transformed hundreds of participants at workshops and seminars. The reason the hothouse, live-in-labs work is that they create small social networks with a complimentary mix of great story tellers, innovative technicians, interactive designers and producers. They also take these time poor people away from the normal day to day activities and allow them to take risks. This is exactly what the community is doing and who naturally take risks. The more we allow international teams to come together and take risks, the better for all and innovation will result.

Here is a short sample of some social media projects that have been developed at LAMP. Four example projects and two from the last collaborative Australia/New Zealand lab. Portable ghosts explores games that cross from web to real world to mobile. Master Raindrop looks at the combination of online games, mobile and real life movement training. Thursday’s Fictions explores spirituality and literature in a social virtual world and Wild Ark tells stories using mobile devices around zoos and other immersive real life environments.

Our second was developing seven ABC TV original and existing IP of which many ideas are now being implemented in that organisation.

Many projects developed around the world now create content that the community can take up, give them the tools or the forums to continue the stories so they can build and grow the original idea. Most LAMP projects now take this onboard and see the interaction with the audience as a primary driver behind their original idea. A good example of this is Bush IPTV – a pilot LAMP is producing for a broadband TV service in remote indigenous communities in far north Queensland.

Many projects also fall into the ‘simulation’ camp, creating virtual spaces that allow scenarios for entertainment, research and social collaboration. Here is a small selection of testimonials from recent participants.

I can highly recommend LAMP to anyone with a great idea looking to turn it into a success.
It was a totally immersive and focused, overwhelming experience – nothing like I’ve experienced before
The impossible is possible
It was a wonderful creative experience where I believe we were able to generate a wealth of truly new ideas. Marvellous!
A creative vibrant practical atmosphere
The lab exceeded my expectations…The way everyone helped each other out in an environment that was friendly, affectionate and creative allowed us to take our project in ways never thought of before.
This has definitely been one of the best experiences of my life. Thankyou!
I loved loved loved it!
Concept of LAMP is wonderful and it was above and beyond expectation
LAMP helped solidify confidence in the concept and creating a truly viable cross media platform
LAMP 08 was the most amazing professional development experience of my life!

The role of media producers now is to create compelling cross-media immersive entertainment experiences for global audiences. The producer as aggregator of content/curator – creating the conditions to activate audiences.

Games I would suggest are the most social media. A recent report from Bond University said that in Australia social and casual games are now the most dominant with only 19% of all gamers preferring to play alone with more than 56% preferring to play with others.

That suggests why the merging of traditional online social networks such as myspace and facebook with game worlds are growing so quickly. I personally have been involved in the creation of some of these spaces inside virtual worlds with Telstra’s and ABC TVs presence in Second Life (a great portent of future socio/economic virtual worlds) with BigPond now the highest globally for all brands in second life.

There are great opportunities for collaboration and the creation of a new form of global Social Virtual World like Korea’s Cyworld potentially stretching into English speaking countries – and to reiterate the social aspect again, 84% of Australians think that playing together is important for forming family connections with more than half saying games are more social forms of entertainment than other media.

To jump back to the notion of the hybrid form again. Much of this is reflecting my definition of web 3.0, the live or synchronous web where we communicate and co-create in real time. Social interaction through virtual worlds, interactive broadband TV or web and mobile applications can coexist and mingle in this world.

Australia for instance already have a range of companies that are pushing the envelope of what new form entertainment is. Hoodlum for example have just won BAFTA awards for their extended entertainment titles alongside Lost and BBC Spooks and like many LAMP projects they are creating ‘social entertainment’ which is about connecting communities with common goals and quests and stimulating the wisdom of the engaged crowd.

In 2007 Australia had around 40 traditional game companies who have produced more than 200 games resulting in $100mill in exports – notables include Ty The Tasmanian Tiger and De Blob but we still see the growth and dominance of MMOGs many originating in Asian countries and proliferating in Australia

AFTRS is pioneering new forms too. Alongside it’s world renowned TV and Film courses, AFTRS is developing a range of foundational and specialised graduate courses that will explore games, virtual environments and innovative new forms. They will explore the link between story and participatory applications and how interactive media can be made more ‘cinematic’ and immersive. At post graduate level it is planning to offer a project based course that encourages pioneering projects and inspires innovation.”

Australia, New Zealand and Korea are a wonderful mix of original thinking, great test-bed participant audiences and world leading technology. Able to leapfrog over legacy telecommunications we see in other parts of the world it is possible for ground breaking new formats to be developed in partnerships between the three countries. Australia and New Zealand particularly bring world leading innovative media forms to the mix.

Finally social networks have come about to both connect family and friends but also out of business and a collaborative need – we as content producers must be very focused on this to be relevant to the audience that are doing it themselves. Governments and creative industries can become allies in this equation and become authentic co-creators of social media spaces where the voice and creativity of the ‘audience’ can play out.

Nations who have key creative synergies, technical innovation and highly motivated participant audiences to collaborate and develop new forms together. Which is why I suggest we endeavour to create an initial rapid content R&D lab between the three countries be set up this year. The outcome of these will be many real projects a selection of which can be developed to market.

Kamsahamnida
Thank you

© Gary Hayes 2008

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Australia, Broadband, broadband web, Course Workshops, cross-media platform, Gary Hayes, innovation, Korea, lamp, LAMP Director, media, Production, projects, seminars, Seoul, social media applications, social media content

Podcast – Mobile Engagement, Jennifer Wilson

Gary Hayes — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:49:39 +0000

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 world as internet connections, and SMS is the most heavily transferred data type in the world.
Jennifer introduces the concept of native mobile applications; applications that are mobile phone dependent, and identifies video as the ‘killer app’ for the mobile platform in 2008. In addition to defining user demographics by behaviour rather than age, Jennifer shows us how 3G social and geographic networking is already working in the real world, and offers tips on how to develop more user friendly mobile applications.

PDF of presentation 756k here

MP3 recording time 30:59 (15.5MB) Click to listen

A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VIII residential lab in Marysville, Victoria in February 2008.

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

JENNIFER WILSON – Principal, Lean Forward

Jennifer Wilson is the principal at Lean Forward, a company created to consult in the area of engaging consumer experience based on content or marketing concepts, mobile and online. Lean Forward will also be undertaking bespoke development in this area.

Prior to this, Jennifer was Head of Innovation for ninemsn. In this role, she investigated developments in engagement, interaction, social networking, user generated content and other new technologies and how these shape our online and mobile interactive futures. Jennifer conceived of new products and oversaw the development of some cutting edge new destinations.

Prior to this, Jennifer was Managing Director of HWW, content provider and developer of online and mobile sites under the yourTime™ banner; and builder of third-party content sites.

Jennifer is passionate about single, device-independent relationships with consumers; the power and influence of social networks; and ‘soft’ personalisation –providing a tailored, personalised experience to each consumer.

Jennifer has more than 20 years in interactive communications and digital marketing. She sits on the National Executive of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA).

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

This podcast presentation by LAMP @ AFTRS.

Live audio recorded by Peter Giles and Brett Robertson

Podcast description by Rachael Hainsworth

Editing, processing and podcasting production by Gary Hayes

Tags: AFTRS, innovation, lamp, media, presentations, Production, residential

Podcast – Jennifer Wilson ‘Generation C and Z’

Gary Hayes — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:02:49 +0000

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 see email as out-dated and have moved on. Exploring social networks, Jennifer points out the four layers of connection within generation C and how the upper limit of 150 is similar to corporate thresholds of efficiency. She finishes, before being cut off, on explaining why email is an issue for this group.MP3 recording time 6:00 (2.2MB) Click to listen

A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

JENNIFER WILSON – Head of Innovation, Nine MSN

Jennifer Wilson has over 20 years in interactive consumer content and information services, from first building interactive voice response systems in the UK, through voting, banking, gambling and marketing services; online and on all forms of telephone, fixed and mobile.

She was previously Managing Director of HWW, a specialist content aggregation, syndication and digital publishing company, which provides the yourTime™ products (yourMovies, yourTV etc). HWW is also a major developer of mobile sites, providing mobile publishing tools for hard-to-source content as well as building third-party mobile (and web) sites. HWW was recently purchased by ninemsn.

Jennifer holds a patent in the delivery of TV to mobile phones. She has a keen interest in social networking, digital public spaces, tribes, blogs and forums and the interesting digital world of Gen-C.

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

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

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Tags: AFTRS, innovation, lamp, media, presentations

Podcast – John Banks ‘Propogating Social Networks and MMOG Development’

Gary Hayes — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:22:17 +0000

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 wisdom of crowds of key influencers are the best resource for anyone developing a creative service and you must see them as a market and even consider a transparent commercial relationship. Finally he cites Henry Jenkins and says you must be careful and not treat this community as a free resource, it is very easy for it to be counter productive if not managed properly.MP3 recording time 17:55 (6.2MB) Click to listen

A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

Dr. JOHN BANKS – Researcher & Games Manager

Dr John Banks is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Federation Fellowship program, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology. His research interests focus on the emerging relations between media corporations, educational and cultural institutions, and user-led innovation and consumer co-creation in participatory culture networks. He has a particular interest in videogames.

From 2000-2005 John worked in the videogames industry for Brisbane based Auran Games as an online community manager, focusing on the development of user-led content creation networks within the context of game development projects; he has published widely on research grounded in this industry background. He was also a researcher and project leader at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID). His background also includes research and tutoring in literary theory and cultural studies at the University of Queensland (School of English, Media Studies and Art History).

John’s current research & consultancy continues to work at the interface of game developers and gamers as they negotiate emerging co-creation relations. He is currently working with Auran Games on social network strategies for their forthcoming massively multiplayer online game, Fury. In April 2007, John gave an invited presentation to the Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT, addressing the challenges of co-creation relationships (“Navigating Co-Creator Relationships: How do you make this Damned thing Work?”) You can see John’s recent presentation on these issues for AFTRS Centre for Screen BusinessABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

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

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Tags: AFTRS, innovation, lamp, media, presentations, projects

2007 Nov Residential Mentors

Gary Hayes — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 06:02:41 +0000

Mentors on the 7th Live-in-lab (LAMP: Story of the Future) on South Stradbrooke Island, Queensland Nov 07.

GUARDIAN MENTORS

MATT COSTELLO – Writer and Games Designer, Polar Productions
Matt Costello is based in New York, London and LA and has written ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games, and television. Matt has scripted dozens of best-selling games and of one Time Magazine said, ”The story is delivered with unusual art.” He wrote the groundbreaking Pirates of the Caribbean 3 game across all platforms and has been commissioned to do the fourth in the series.

Since writing the critically acclaimed classic game The 7th Guest, he has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ”67 (Guerrilla Games and Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005”s Doom 3 winner of an unprecedented five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: Best of E3. Just Cause, co-written for Eidos, debuted as the #1 game for Xbox 360 in the UK. Named ”Best Adventure Game” at the 2006 E3, it premiered on the US best-seller lists as the #2 Xbox 360 game.

He has written a major new game for Eidos and Rage a new game for ID Software and other notable games include:

Hercules, for Disney Interactive
The Dark Half, for MGM.
Derelict, for The Sci-Fi Channel
Fatal Illusion -The Clue Chronicles ” for Hasbro
Barbie”s Riding Adventure”for Mattel
Clifford”s Reading” for Scholastic
Starsky & Hutch ” for Empire
The Italian Job – Eidos

Matt also specialises in the kid’s genre and has created many award-winning games for children. Several years ago he co-created one of the first major experiments in ‘two-way TV’, called ZoogDisney. Branded as ‘TV you do’ – for two years the ZoogDisney weekend bloc re-shaped the Disney channel, bringing it squarely into the interactive and ‘tweens world. He has written a kids book series for Scholastic , The Kids of Einstein Elementary, which blends adventure and math and also scripted episodes of the award-winning PBS animated series, Cyberchase. Other awards include the landmark Aladdin”s Mathquest with math expert Marilyn Burns for Disney, as well as A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam).

Matt is a designer of many role-playing and board games, including Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Batman, Lone Wolf & Cub, and many others. He also co-wrote episodes of the BBC/Disney series Microsoap, winner of the Prix de Jeunesse and is currently creating an MMOG using Multiverse which integrates its story world with an animated Childrens BBC TV series. Penguin published his latest novel, Nowhere, in 2007.

JENNIFER WILSON – Head of Innovation, Nine MSN

She was previously Managing Director of HWW, a specialist content aggregation, syndication and digital publishing company, which provides the yourTime” products (yourMovies, yourTV etc). HWW is also a major developer of mobile sites, providing mobile publishing tools for hard-to-source content as well as building third-party mobile (and web) sites. HWW was recently purchased by ninemsn.

Dr. JOHN BANKS – Researcher & Games Manager

John”s current research & consultancy continues to work at the interface of game developers and gamers as they negotiate emerging co-creation relations. He is currently working with Auran Games on social network strategies for their forthcoming massively multiplayer online game, Fury. In April 2007, John gave an invited presentation to the Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT, addressing the challenges of co-creation relationships (”Navigating Co-Creator Relationships: How do you make this Damned thing Work”?) You can see John”s recent presentation on these issues for AFTRS Centre for Screen Business (User co-creation relations: Emerging social network markets) here.

MARISSA COOKE – TV, new media and advertising writer, new media producer

Marissa has worked extensively in television, cross-platform entertainment and interactive advertising over the past 10 years as a writer, creative strategist and content producer on a diverse range of innovative, award-winning cross-media projects.

As a new media content producer and senior interactive writer for Australia”s first interactive television series produced by Hoodlum Active, Fat Cow Motel (ABC, Austar), Marissa was responsible for developing an immersive, cross-platform game and producing interactive content across web, iTV, email, mobile and dial-up channels that delivered unprecedented results for the ABC becoming the most visited TV website ever for ABC Online. Marissa also worked on an innovative pre-broadcast viral media campaign delivered via print, radio, email, SMS and web. Marissa won the inaugural Australian Writers” Guild Interactive Media Award in 2005 for her work on Fat Cow Motel.

Marissa was also a scriptwriter on the AFI award-winning first series of the Foxtel drama series Love My Way (Southern Star), as well as the Australian-German co-production Blue Water High (Southern Star) and the SBSTV Mockumentary Series, S(truth).

Marissa”s recent work includes roles as Interactive Content Producer and co-writer for the Yahoo! 7 interactive drama series and game, PS Trixi produced by Hoodlum Active ” a world-first 12 episode new media ”event” delivered across web, Instant Messenger, email, mobile and video platforms.

Most recently, Marissa worked as creative strategist, concept and gameplay designer for Emmerdale Online, a new interactive, cross-platform channel and narrative-based game produced by Hoodlum Active for the hugely popular UK television series, Emmerdale. Emmerdale Online has recently been nominated for several prestigous international awards including Best Drama in the MIPCOM Mobile, Internet and CrossMedia TV Awards, and Best TV online channel for the 2007 Pixel Awards.

Marissa is currently developing several of her own cross-platform projects as well as consulting for a range of clients including television programme producers and award winning interactive advertising agency Tribal DDB as a digital content developer and copywriter across campaigns for Volkswagen, NIKE, Gatorade and McDonalds, three of which were awarded Gold Medals at the prestigious Montruex International Advertising & Multimedia Festival in 2006 & 2007.

ANDREW APOSTOLA – Creative Director Portable Content

Andrew Apostola is the co-founder and Creative Director of Portable Content, an Australian based digital studio that designs and manages innovative web applications for a range of clients in the online space.

In 2006 the company successfully launched portablefilmfestival.com, a user generated video site that distributes video to users through portable video platforms including iPods, mobile phones and laptops. In 2007 the project expanded internationally and was recently launched in the United States at the South By South-West Film and Interactive in Austin Texas.

Andrew has worked for a range of broadcasters and media providers and is well known for successfully launching the Student Youth Network alongside Portable Content co-founder Simon Goodich in Melbourne in 2003. The network is the largest youth media orgnanisation in South-East Asia, operating a full-time terrestrial radio license and broadcasting on television and the web.

As Creative Director of Portable Content Andrew follows the emerging online video sector closely and develops and implements innovative video components for the company and its clients. These include the creation of classnet, a video sharing community for educators and students and syn.org.au, an online distribution platform for independent mediamakers.

Andrew has completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), a Post Graduate Diploma in English Literature at the University of Melbourne and Film and Television Production at Ryerson University in Toronto.

ANTHONY EDEN – Interactive Producer and Designer

Anthony “Arse” Eden is a co-founder and director of Snepo Research, an Australian software and game development studio with a strong focus on innovation. Arse spends his time at Snepo researching new interface and software technologies as well as directing the production of public facing interactive systems. Over the last two years Snepo has cemented its place as a premier development shop, servicing customers all over the world.

Arse has co-authored books on software development and digital creativity, including New Masters of Flash and titles on 3D and Game development. He’s developed award winning educational software for Microsoft and the ICAC and his work has appeared on NBC, CBC and Channel 4. He’s run interactive game development workshops in Norway, Wales and Canada. He’s also an internationally known speaker, having presented at conferences all over the world.

His passions lie in the application of abstract mathmatic principals to the digital realm. By combinding those principals with his fascination with natural patterns and organic relationships he creates truely unique and engaging interactive experiences.

JACKIE TURNURE – Non-linear storyteller

With script editing and writing experience in both traditional and new media, Jackie Turnure brings a unique perspective to the role of narrative in cross media production. For the last 15 years she has been working across film, television, games and online production, with a particular focus on animation and children’s content.

Jackie received her Bachelor of Arts (Visual Communications) from Sydney College of the Arts and her Master of Fine Arts (Film Production) from San Francisco State University. She spent nine years in the US teaching screenwriting at New York University, Hunter College and the Academy of Arts College, San Francisco. During that time, Jackie wrote and directed eight short films and videos that have won awards and screened internationally.

After returning to Sydney, Jackie produced and directed three 3D animated kids’ games for PC, “Bananas in Pyjamas ” It’s Party Time”, “Oz – The Magical Adventure” and “Oz – The Interactive Storybook”. The games have won numerous awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie lectures part time at AFTRS, was an industry mentor at the NSW Film and Television Office’s Indigenous Writers Workshop, ran a Game Design Workshop in FTI in Perth and gave a workshop on Alternative Narratives for the Australian Writer’s Guild. In addition, Jackie works as a script editor and story consultant on feature films, animated television series and animated games. She recently completed story producing and writing 3 episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. Jackie was the script editor and voice director on Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen. She has just recently won a development award at Milia 2007 from Ogilvy and AMEX for her ARG project ‘Diamond Reef’.

PRODUCTION MENTORS

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interaction Designer

Catherine has been a Creative Director and Designer in new and emerging media since 1988. She has extensive experience in information design and visual communication from concept through development, including: physical cross-media installations, information architecture creation, user-experience application, casual game design, 2d animation, illustration, photography, and brand creation, development and extension.

Catherine’s work has included local and international cross-media projects: Creative Direction and design of visitor multimedia at the National Gallery of Victoria for the Ian Potter Centre NGV at Federation Square and NGV International; creative direction and design of ”Radio Expeditions”, one of the first live rich-media services and a pioneering series for National Geographic and National Public Radio (NPR); consultation on exhibition and visitor multimedia design for the Smithsonian Institute and American Museum of Natural History (New York); consultation and design creation of Lonely Planet Images brand and online service; concept, architecture, and design of 20 games for the ”wet ”n” wise” site, an education portal for ANZ and the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia (RLSSA).

Her work has gained a number of awards including: a MUSE Award and a NY Festivals Award for the “Yanardilyi – Cockatoo Creek” interactive; an AIMIA for the Jurong Birdpark Singapore visitor multimedia; an ATOM award for 13 touch-screen interactives at the Phillip Island Visitor”s centre; and an OzCo commendation for the NT community-based project “Strong People: Strong Stories”.

With a background in art and music, Catherine is fired up about the potential intersections of cinema, painting, printmaking and typography in the digital realm.

Catherine also maintains a private practice through her company Platform09 (http://www.platform09.com). She is currently working on “Re-Enchantment” a broadband interactive project with respected filmmaker Sarah Gibson and acclaimed producer Sue Maslin. ”Re-Enchantment” was recently one of four Australian projects (out of 18 internationals), to gain selection in the 2007 X-Media Lab in Singapore.

Catherine is currently Interactive Lecturer in the Digital Media department at AFTRS. She has previously taught in the Media Arts interactive program at the Sydney College of Fine Arts (COFA UNSW), and is a regular guest lecturer at UTS.

PETER GILES – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

Peter has worked as the Head of the Digital Media Department since 1998 and has established Australia’s leading postgraduate and professional programs in Visual Effects, Interactive Media, Broadcast Design and Computer Animation. The Department has produced short films that have won both Australian and international awards for artistic and technical excellence.

Prior to joining the AFTRS Peter worked as Digital Media Manager for Metro Screen where he initiated programs to develop the skills of new and emerging filmmakers. He managed a wide range of innovative production workshops in partnership with organisations including the Loud Youth Festival, IBM, the Australian Film Commission, the NSW Film and Television Office, ABC Online, SBS TV, the Performance Space, the Australian Centre for Photography and the Australian Network for Art and Technology.

Peter has developed digital media curriculum and taught workshops at the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, Sydney, Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Over the past 15 years Peter has produced projects for radio, television, film and interactive media. His video artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Peter is a well known commentator on digital media and is currently the Chair of the Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading computer graphics industry body.

GARY HAYES – Director LAMP and Head of Virtual Worlds, TPF

Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Head of Virtual Worlds with the UK based ‘The Project Factory‘. He has led the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 which has helped develop 54 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and industry seminars. As Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory he has personally produced, designed and built Second Life presences for Australian brands, including BigPond, ABC TV, Tourism and MultiMedia Victoria, Physical TV, AFTRS and Deakin University. He is currently developing ‘experience’ worlds for major US based fortune 100 companies.

Before coming to Australia Gary was Senior Producer at BBC Broadcast and New Media for 8 years devising and producing many of the BBC’s digital interactive “firsts” – the first 24/7 Interactive TV service, the first global, live internet documentary and the first interactive programme on Broadband TV. He also devised and/or created over 20 other enhanced TV shows including Top of the Pops, Walking with Dinosaurs, Travel Show, several future BBC cross-platform navigators and was part of BBC Imagineering developing early “inhabited TV”, Virtual World and TV Mixed Reality formats. He also ran external and internal hothouse development workshops and residential labs as part of BBC Multimedia center and then BBC New Media helping landmark linear programme teams create 360 projects.

He was a driving force behind New Media training and strategy and became BBC Senior Development Manager in New Media and simultaneously chaired the Business Models Group for TV-Anytime (the global personalized TV standard for on-demand personal TV). He moved to the US in 2004 to develop on-demand formats with broadcasters such as NBC and CBS and also line produced the Showtime’s enhanced L-Word, PVR service as part of the AFI eTV labs. He co-authored a UK Department Trade and Industry Report on Personalised TV, one on Interactive Advertising in USA and has been an International Interactive Emmy Awards juror for the past three years.

Gary has or will be keynoting and panelling on Social Virtual Worlds & Cross-Media at Milia 08 (Cannes), ACMA, SPAA (main and fringe), Dept. Foreign Affairs & Trade, ad:tech, CeBit, AIMIA, 8th National Public Affairs, Cross-Media Storytelling 07, Monash, ABC and has presented on education and brands in virtual worlds on radio, podcasts and many seminars. He produces dramatic and corporate machinima and runs workshops in virtual worlds for corporates, designers, cinematographers and script writers – exploring the potential of shared, social online virtual worlds for collaborative production, creativity and education. He runs several popular blogs including media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms (personalizemedia), Second Life POV (justvirtual) and many others found here on his Wikipedia user profile.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, Production, projects, residential, seminars

Mentors Finalised for LAMP VII: Story of the Future

Gary Hayes — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:02:34 +0000

A stellar line-up of mentors from all over Australia and a few internationals have been confirmed for the 7th Live-in-lab (LAMP: Story of the Future) on South Stradbrooke Island, Queensland Nov 07. They can be seen on the mentors page or copied below.

GUARDIAN MENTORS

MATT COSTELLO – Writer and Games Designer, Polar Productions
Matt Costello is based in New York, London and LA and has written ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games, and television. Matt has scripted dozens of best-selling games and of one Time Magazine said, “The story is delivered with unusual art.” He wrote the groundbreaking Pirates of the Caribbean 3 game across all platforms and has been commissioned to do the fourth in the series.

Since writing the critically acclaimed classic game The 7th Guest, he has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ‘67 (Guerrilla Games and Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005’s Doom 3 winner of an unprecedented five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: Best of E3. Just Cause, co-written for Eidos, debuted as the #1 game for Xbox 360 in the UK. Named ‘Best Adventure Game’ at the 2006 E3, it premiered on the US best-seller lists as the #2 Xbox 360 game.

He has written a major new game for Eidos and Rage a new game for ID Software and other notable games include:

Hercules, for Disney Interactive
The Dark Half, for MGM.
Derelict, for The Sci-Fi Channel
Fatal Illusion -The Clue Chronicles – for Hasbro
Barbie’s Riding Adventure–for Mattel
Clifford’s Reading– for Scholastic
Starsky & Hutch – for Empire
The Italian Job – Eidos

Matt also specialises in the kid’s genre and has created many award-winning games for children. Several years ago he co-created one of the first major experiments in ‘two-way TV’, called ZoogDisney. Branded as ‘TV you do’ – for two years the ZoogDisney weekend bloc re-shaped the Disney channel, bringing it squarely into the interactive and ‘tweens world. He has written a kids book series for Scholastic , The Kids of Einstein Elementary, which blends adventure and math and also scripted episodes of the award-winning PBS animated series, Cyberchase. Other awards include the landmark Aladdin’s Mathquest with math expert Marilyn Burns for Disney, as well as A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam).

JENNIFER WILSON – Head of Innovation, Nine MSN

Dr. JOHN BANKS – Researcher & Games Manager

MARISSA COOKE – TV, new media and advertising writer, new media producer

As a new media content producer and senior interactive writer for Australia’s first interactive television series produced by Hoodlum Active, Fat Cow Motel (ABC, Austar), Marissa was responsible for developing an immersive, cross-platform game and producing interactive content across web, iTV, email, mobile and dial-up channels that delivered unprecedented results for the ABC becoming the most visited TV website ever for ABC Online. Marissa also worked on an innovative pre-broadcast viral media campaign delivered via print, radio, email, SMS and web. Marissa won the inaugural Australian Writers’ Guild Interactive Media Award in 2005 for her work on Fat Cow Motel.

Marissa’s recent work includes roles as Interactive Content Producer and co-writer for the Yahoo! 7 interactive drama series and game, PS Trixi produced by Hoodlum Active – a world-first 12 episode new media ‘event’ delivered across web, Instant Messenger, email, mobile and video platforms.

ANDREW APOSTOLA – Creative Director Portable Content

ANTHONY EDEN – Interactive Producer and Designer

JACKIE TURNURE – Non-linear storyteller

GARY HAYES – Director LAMP and Head of Virtual Worlds, TPF

Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Head of Virtual Worlds with the UK ‘The Project Factory‘. He has led The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 that has helped develop 54 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and industry seminars. As Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory he has personally produced, designed and built Second Life presences for Australian brands, including Telstra, Tourism and MultiMedia Victoria, Physical TV and ABC TV. He is currently developing experience worlds for fortune 100 and other global companies.

Before coming to Australia Gary was Senior Producer at BBC Broadcast and 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.

He was a driving force behind New Media training and strategy and became BBC Senior Development Manager in New Media and simultaneously chaired the Business Models for TV-Anytime (the global personalized TV standard). He moved to the US in 2004 to develop on-demand TV with broadcasters such as NBC and CBS and also line produced the Showtime’s enhanced L-Word, PVR service as part of the AFI initiative. 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, Monash and presented on education and brands in virtual worlds on radio, podcasts and many seminars. He produces dramatic and corporate machinima and runs workshops in virtual Multi User Story Environments (vMUSE’s) for cinematographers, designers, and script writers – exploring the potential of shared, social online virtual worlds for collaborative production, creativity and education. He runs several popular blogs including media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms (personalizemedia), Second Life POV (justvirtual) and many others found here on his Wikipedia user profile.

PRODUCTION MENTORS

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interaction Designer

Catherine has been working as a Creative Director in print and new media since 1988. She has extensive experience in information design and visual communication. Her projects include: creative direction of visitor multimedia for the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV), Centre for Australian Art at Federation Square.

Past work includes consultation, creative direction and design on local and international projects for clients such as: the National Geographic (Washington); the Smithsonian Institute (Washington); the American Museum of Natural History (New York); Foster’s Brewing Group; Lonely Planet and ANZ.

Through her company Platform09, Catherine also maintains a separate creative practice. Past projects have included: collaborative, installation work for Experimental; motion graphics, animation and multimedia design for theatre, film and video.

PETER GILES – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

Tags: ABC, advanced, AFTRS, AFTRS Centre for Screen Business, American Museum, ANDREW APOSTOLA, Animation, Anthony "Arse" Eden, Anthony Eden, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Arts College, Australia, Australian and international awards, Australian Centre for Photography, Australian Film Commission, Australian Writer's Guild, Bananas in Pyjamas, banking, BBC, Blue Water High, Brisbane, Broadband, Canada, Caribbean, Catherine Gleeson, Catherine Gleeson- Interaction, CBS, Centre for Australian Art, Chair, co-founder and Creative Director, co-founder and director, co-founder and director of Snepo Research, concept and gameplay designer, Content co-founder, content producer, COOKE - TV, copywriter, Course Workshops, Creative Director, creative strategist, creative strategist and content producer, cross media production, cross-media projects, Cyberchase, Designer, developed digital media curriculum, Development Manager, Diamond Reef, digital content developer, digital media, Digital Media Manager, Director, Director in print, director of Snepo Research, Director Portable Content, Disney channel, educational software, Emmerdale, Emmerdale Online, Emmy, episode new media, Fat Cow Motel, Federation Square, Gary Hayes, Gatorade, Griffith University, Hasbro, Head, Hercules, Hunter College, HWW, IBM, innovation, Institute of Contemporary Art, interactive advertising, interactive advertising agency, Interactive Content Producer and co-writer, interactive media, Interactive Producer and Designer, Interactive TV, interactive voice response, interactive voice response systems, internationally known speaker, Jackie Turnure, Jennifer Wilson, JOHN BANKS, Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, lamp, live internet documentary, London, Loud Youth Festival, Louisiana, Love My Way, Manager for Metro Screen, Managing Director, Marilyn Burns, MARISSA COOKE, Matt Costello, Mattel, McDonalds, media, media and advertising writer, media content producer, media content producer and senior interactive writer, media corporations, media forms, media personalisation, media producer, media projects, media providers, Media Studies and Art History, Melbourne, microsoft, MIT, mobile phones, mobile publishing tools, Morris Gleitzman, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Natural History, National Gallery of Victoria, Natural History, NBC, new media producer, New York, New York University, Nike, Norway, NSW Film, NSW Film and Television Office, online community manager, online distribution platform, online production, online space, participatory culture networks, Paul Jennings, Perth, Peter Giles, Peter Rasmussen, Platform09, Portable Content co-founder, pre-broadcast viral media campaign, producer, Production, Project Factory, projects, public facing interactive systems, Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Reading, researcher, Researcher & Games Manager, researcher and project leader, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Ryerson University in Toronto, San Francisco, San Francisco State University, School of English, script editor and story consultant, script editor and voice director, scriptwriter, seminars, Simon Goodich, Smithsonian Institute, SMS, social networking, social online virtual worlds, software development, software technologies, Sydney, Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, Sydney College of the Arts, Television Office, television programme producers, Telstra, the Australian, The Dark Half, the Game Critics Award, the inaugural Australian Writers’ Guild Interactive Media Award, the Loud Youth Festival, the National Geographic, the prestigious Montruex International Advertising & Multimedia Festival, The Project Factory, Time Magazine, Toronto, Tribal DDB, United Kingdom, United States, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, university of sydney, user-led content creation networks, Victoria, video site, Volkswagen, Wales, Washington, web applications, well known commentator, Writer, Writer and Games Designer, Yahoo!, York, yourTime™ products, youth media orgnanisation

2007 May Residential Mentors

Gary Hayes — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:25:35 +0000

Mentors and developers on the 6th Live-in-lab (LAMP: Story of the Future) in Freycinet, Tasmania May 07.
Paul Bennun – Director, broadcaster, interactive producer – UK

Paul Bennun is co-owner and Director of Strategy of Somethin’ Else, a leading cross-platform production company in the UK. It is the largest radio independent, 9th largest TV entertainment indie and a major interactive content producer. The business has been active in mobile entertainment for almost 7 years. Paul leads the Company’s interactive department and future business strategy. Paul has been working in radio since he was 13, starting as a radio journalist/presenter. Following a degree in English and Drama at the University of London, Paul worked at Jazz FM, then Kiss FM as a specialist producer, also producing critically-acclaimed plays in the 1990s. Paul??????s passion for technology was fuelled by what he learnt about software development at Berkley Systems in San Francisco.

Paul??????s recent projects include creating and developing the first podcast with legally licensed music for Motorola??????s Rokr mobile phone, and producing and developing Buzz, one of the first multimedia games for Playstation 3. He has also recently presented Interface, The Mouse That Roared, for Radio 3 and won a 3GSM Award for Best Mobile Entertainment Content earlier last year for his team??????s work for Orange. Paul and his team are not only embracing the iPod generation, they are driving it.

Responsible for Somethin?????? Else??????s interactive activities, Paul holds top industry awards in both creative and technical fields. He has won a BAFTA award (with two other nominations) for various work in interactivity, a gold Sony Radio Award for radio documentary and the BT Radio Academy Award for Innovation, for work in Digital Radio for the BBC.

Paul transformed Somethin’ Else into a network-based content company that now produces programming and technology for broadcasters, telcos and media owners, operating at the junction of broadcast and interactive entertainment. A BAFTA juror, he recently co-authored a Department of Trade and Industry report on the future of digital music, and wrote mobile network Orange’s current music strategy.

Tony Walsh – Creative Developer and Consultant – Canada

Tony is a Toronto-based creative developer and consultant with a background as a professional artist, writer, and designer. Since 1994, he has helped to plan and build social media and game projects for many local clients. Amongst these he was the game designer, writer and consultant on the recent Emmy winning ReGenesis ARG with Xenophile Media and also the Fallen ARG / “Ocular Effect” again with Xenophile Media and D20 Productions for ABC Family. In addition to his freelance work, Tony teaches Game Culture and Design for George Brown College and Game Theory and Story Development for Centennial College.

He is interested generally in the intersections between culture, business, and technology. Specifically, he finds virtual worlds such as Second Life among the most exciting results of those intersections. Tony has been researching and writing about Second Life since 2004 and his blog Clickable Culture is one of the world’s longest-running and most interesting sources of Second Life criticism and analysis.

He maintains a public profile by blogging, giving presentations, and commentating in the mainstream media. He has been filmed for two pending documentaries about virtual worlds, and has consulted two other pending documentaries on the same topic. On March 11, 2007 he moderated a panel discussion on “Avatar-Based Marketing in Virtual Worlds” at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Last year, Tony moderated a panel on “The Secret Sex Life of Video Games” at the same conference.

JIM SHOMOS – Writer/Producer – comedy, drama, interactive, cross media

Jim is the creator of the interactive cross-media production: forget the rules (joint production with Paul Baiguerra and Peter Dixon). Jim is also a writer/producer, executive producer or creative consultant on a number of TV, film and cross-media projects in development.

Jim is a regular mentor on AFTRS Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP). He has worked as a storyliner on Neighbours copywriter on Sale of The Century, and is a published songwriter. Jim studied writing and feature film production at AFTRS in Sydney in 1998 following an extensive business and marketing background.

Jim is a co-winner of the 2007 Greg Tepper award from Film Victoria for his work on forget the rules; along side the creative team behind feature hit ??????Kenny??????.

forget the rules is the first comedy/drama series in the world to broadcast all episodes on TV, broadband and mobiles. The first season was broadcast on Channel V/Foxtel, 3 mobiles and the FTR website. The 13-week season was made up of 3x3min episodes per week (39 x 3-min) between 10 October 2005 and 8 January 2006.

forget the rules was nominated for Best Original Content Film or Video and Best Interactive Format at the 2006 MIPCOM Mobile TV Awards in Cannes. Almost 300 projects from 34 countries were considered from companies including MTV, Endemol and 20th Century Fox.

FTR was the only project to be nominated in two categories and won the Best Interactive Format award.

In November 2006 Endemol signed a distribution deal for FTR covering canned material and format rights for UK, Europe and USA.

John Buchanan – Entertainment Technology Professor and Researcher

John Buchanan is a Professor at the prestigious Entertainment Technology Center of Carnegie Mellon University, and previously Head of Research at Electronic Arts (EA), the world’s largest games publisher. In 1985 John wrote a game that he released into shareware and received a check from Germany for 10 marks.

Realizing that game design was not his future he enrolled in a M.Sc. at the University of Toronto. In 1993 John joined the University of Alberta where he pursued his doctoral research in Non-Photorealistic rendering. His main learning from this research was that the role of a computer scientist in this area is to enhance the creative abilities of an artist, rather than to try to replace them.

In 1998 John worked at Radical entertainment for 5 months then joined Electronic Arts as head of the research group. His role as head of the research group then extended to Director, Advanced Technology (acting CTO). In addition to these roles John was always building and maintaining relationships with University researchers. In 2002 John was asked to take on the role of University Research Liaison Dude full time. He pursued this job for 4 years.

During John’s tenure at EA he grew very fond of visiting the Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburg. He liked the basic premise of the program so much that in 2006 he joined the teaching faculty of the ETC. Currently John is the CS Pacific Rim professor for the ETC. He is residing with the Australia campus at this time. John is interested in the development of tools for rapid exploration of interactive world ideas. He believes that current prototyping tools are too far down the production pipeline and that more focus should be paid to pre-production tools for the industry.

GARY HAYES – Interaction Producer & Director LAMP@AFTRS

After joining the BBC in London as an editor Gary quickly moved on to lead the BBC’s development of the internet, interactive TV and emerging platforms from 95-04 as Senior Producer and Development Manager. He devised & produced many of the BBC’s ‘firsts’ – Digital Text, the first broadcast interactive TV service – ‘Nomad’ the first live internet documentary – ‘X-Creatures’ the first broadband TV service and in ’96 introduced the first video and audio onto the BBC’s internet sites. He also produced and devised over 20 other eTV and broadband TV services including Top of the Pops, Travel Show, State Apart and several future BBC cross-platform navigators. Gary created numerous courses and seminars on Interactive thinking for linear producers, was active in the Blue Sky Imagineering and R&D depts and was a leading part of BBC strategy teams from 2001 in preparing for on-demand, cross-platform services.

Living & consulting in the US during 2004-5 he line produced Showtime’s PVR enhanced L-Word, as part of AFI digital labs and devised a range of new on-demand program formats for two national TV networks. Gary also produced & chaired conferences around LA including Hollywood industry panel seminars and Digital Days both looking at emerging media super-distribution models. He also chaired the Business Models Group from 99-03 for TV-Anytime (the lead media-on-demand standards body) and co-authored a Department Trade and Industry Report on Personal Video Systems. He has been an International Interactive Emmy juror for the past two years.

Gary is also currently building and devising commercial and game-like services for virtual worlds, having recently produced and built both Telstra and ABC Second Life presences in Second Life. He runs workshops in multi user virtual environments for cinematographers, designers, script writers and directors exploring the potential of shared social online virtual spaces for collaborative production, creativity and education. He is speaking about brand opportunities in Virtual Worlds at CeBit Australia, The 8th National Public Affairs Conference, and The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association amoungst others. He runs a fictional MUVE blog JustVirtual and a renowned blog on media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms and creativity at www.personalizemedia.com. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV/Film and Radio.

Lisa Romano – Interactive Producer, ABC Innovation

Lisa Romano has worked in the media for the last 12 years and has had extensive experience in managing large scale cross-media projects. She currently works in the Strategic Innovation and Development division for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation project managing an interactive TV application for young teens and overseeing the ABC’s presence in the virtual world, Second Life.

Lisa started working on interactive TV projects in 2000 as part of her role as New Media Project Manager for subscription TV channels, LifeStyle and Arena TV. She??????s produced a range of different interactive TV projects, for both the Foxtel and Austar platforms. In November 2005 she launched the Miss World Global Voting interactive TV project on Arena TV. As one of only two nations worldwide that conducted interactive TV voting, issues of time zones, third-party advertising clients and impossibly tight schedules were overcome to create this world first.

Also in 2005 Lisa developed a large-scale interactive campaign to support The LifeStyle Channel??????s co-production of Antiques Roadshow including a live interactive TV quiz and an online application database which garnered 25,000 applicants for the 5,000 tickets available. The campaign received Most Outstanding Program Event at the 2006 Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA) Awards.

During her six years in subscription television, she managed an in-house and external team of content producers, developers and designers. She also oversaw the development of a number of custom-built content-managed websites and databases as well as major online and direct mail marketing campaigns for channels including Arena TV, The LifeStyle Channel, LifeStyle Food, Max and their parent company XYZ networks. She has also worked as a TV producer; researching, writing and directing a weekly entertainment news series.

After completing an MA in Journalism from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Lisa worked as writer on a range of high profile magazines. Joining Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) in 1998, she went on to work for the highly popular women’s magazines sites at ninemsn. While at ninemsn she also worked on their lifestyle and children??????s sites.

She has also previously worked in advertising as a contractor for Clemenger BBDO and other boutique online agencies. Lisa??????s online projects have been recognised with international awards including a Cannes Cyber Lion for Website – Creating Community, (France) 2001 and a BDA Promax Award in 2002 for Best Multimedia Campaign.

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interaction Designer

JACKIE TURNURE – Non-linear storyteller

PETER GILES – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

The Developers who lead the prototype build phase from Weds onwards

ANTHONY EDEN
Anthony Eden is a digital and interactive developer and designer. His diverse career path spans traditional animation, film and online design, software development and project management.
Anthony has worked with Microsoft, Adobe, Disney and Cisco, and is a regular contributor to Flash publications including ‘New Masters of Flash’.
Anthony exploits his passion for mathematics and computational languages, always seeking to push the boundaries. He has a strong appreciation of Life’s natural environment and from it gains the inspiration to transform his world into a digital construct.

MATT DANIELS
Matt is a multimedia developer who specialises in interactive media, a creative thinker with an eye for design, a background in programming and a passion for new technologies. Recently Matt has worked on various projects for companies such as Australasian CRC for Interaction Design, Blue Rocket Productions and various departments of the Tasmanian State Government, creating Interactive Web sites, CD roms, Educational resources and Prototypes of high end web applications. Matt is also a trainer of multiple disciplines in multimedia and revels in the challenge of staying at the forefront of an ever changing industry.

MATTHEW SMITH
Matthew is an independent, Sydney-based creator of interactive media. His work emerges from a background in graphic design, and a passion for programming. He has provided content for Australia’s leading creative, development and media organisations – including the SBS and the ABC, most recently designing and programming tie-ins for John Safran’s Speaking in Tongues and Rural Area Nurse. In 2005, projects he worked on were the recipients of several awards, including two AIMIAs. An ongoing commitment to education, Matthew currently contributes to tutorials in Design Computing at the University of Sydney.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, presentations, Production, projects, residential, seminars

LAMP Project: Award Winning Surreal Dance Film extends into a 3D Virtual World

Gary — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 06:17:06 +0000

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

Tags: ABC, ABC Island, AFTRS, AFTRS Island, Australia Council, Australian Film Television, Australian Film Television and Radio School, Director, Dr Richard James Allen, Gary Hayes, innovation, Jackie Turnure, Karen Perlman, lamp, LAMP Project, Literature Board, NSW Premier, online 3D immersive experience, radio school, residential, Richard James Allen, the 2000 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Kenneth Slessor Prize, The Physical TV Company, The Project Factory, Thursday's Fictions

Podcast – The Mixed Reality Perfect Storm

Gary Hayes — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:01:25 +0000

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 (MoS) Thurs 17 May. An enhanced podcast is also available below and via iTunes.

THE MIXED REALITY PERFECT STORM

“I think we are really approaching a perfect storm, a mixed reality perfect storm, because we are seeing several things happening. The first one is a long history of games based on TV and films, the foundations are already there. Another force creating this storm is virtual worlds, particularly the exponential growth of customisable ones and more importantly external integration into them. The third force is audience behaviour. They are involved in far more simultaneous activity particularly between broadband web and TV. The fourth element to this perfect storm is actually what is happening to TV and film, especially live reality TV becoming more game like and film becoming fantasy based. All of these forces together are creating a really potent mix” Gary Hayes 17 May 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. He looks back 10 years at early inhabited TV 3D world experiments when he was an innovation producer at the BBC and then forward to the latest cross-over services where TV properties become virtual and where the virtual world appears inside traditional forms. He looks at virtual worlds such as there.com, second life, PS3 Home, Habbo Hotel, Neopets etc: and how properties such as Big Brother, Laguna Beach, The Hills, Pimp My Ride and a range of consumer brands that are creating engaging and immersive hybrid entertainment.

MP3 recording time 15:46 (7.7MB) Click to listen

Enhanced Podcast – MP3 with 30 slides. (8.5MB) Click to listen

Presentation presented by LAMP @ AFTRS.

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION

All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store.

Audio processed by G Hayes

SEMINAR: MIXED REALITY BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

“Where Social Networks meet Games meet TV”

Which side of the wall are you on? TV and Film OR Games and Virtual Worlds? That wall is about to crumble. This is a wake up call to all entertainment producers and consumers to prepare for an almighty collision.

Audiences are already spending up to four times as much of their entertainment time in virtual spaces than they are watching TV. EA Games have just partnered with Endemol to produce TV shows inside virtual worlds, MTV Networks have virtual versions of their popular TV program Laguna Beach and there is a growing tide of shows from virtual worlds which mirror our experiences in the physical world.

This exciting afternoon seminar will examine a wide range of cross-over services that work between games, virtual worlds and linear TV. This seminar is intended for games creators, social network managers and film and TV producers looking to merge their entertainment worlds. It will also be of interest to designers of games that work across media in the physical world using mobiles, print, viral techniques, TV and the web.

Join:

* Tony Walsh (Emmy Award Winning Canadian Games Developer)
* Guy Gadney (General Manager PBL Digital Services & President AIMIA) and
* Gary Hayes (Director of LAMP and Head of MUVE at The Project Factory)

GARY HAYES – Interaction Producer & Director LAMP@AFTRS

Gary is also currently building and devising commercial and game-like services for virtual worlds, having recently produced and built both Telstra and ABC Second Life presences in Second Life. He runs workshops via AFTRS in multi user virtual environments for cinematographers, designers, script writers and directors exploring the potential of shared social online virtual spaces for collaborative production, creativity and education. He is speaking about brand opportunities in Virtual Worlds at CeBit Australia, The 8th National Public Affairs Conference, and The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association amoungst others. He runs a fictional MUVE blog JustVirtual and a renowned blog on media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms and creativity at www.personalizemedia.com. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV/Film and Radio.

Tags: AFTRS, Broadband, broadband web, Course Workshops, Gary Hayes, innovation, lamp, media, Production, seminars

Mentors for May residential selected

Gary Hayes — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 02:31:03 +0000

Two international guests combined with solid Australian LAMP mentors deliver one of our strongest mentor teams yet. The current confirmed mentors on the 6th Live-in-lab (LAMP: Story of the Future) in Freycinet, Tasmania May 07 are (full bio details here):

Lisa Romano, Interactive Producer, ABC Innovation

Paul Bennun – Director, Broadcaster, Interactive Producer from the UK

Tony Walsh – Creative Developer, Writer and Consultant – Canada

John Buchanan – Entertainment Technology Professor and Researcher

Jim Shomos – Interaction Producer and Writer

Jackie Turnure – Non-linear Storyteller

Catherine Gleeson – Interaction Designer

Gary Hayes – Interaction Producer & Director LAMP@AFTRS

Peter Giles – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

Tags: AFTRS, broadcaster, Catherine Gleeson, Catherine Gleeson- Interaction, Designer, Director, Gary Hayes, Head of Digital Media, innovation, Interaction Producer & Director, Interaction Producer and Writer, Interactive Producer, Jackie Turnure, Jim Shomos, John Buchanan, lamp, media, Paul Bennun, Peter Giles, producer, Professor and Researcher, residential, Tony Walsh, Writer and Consultant

Story of the Future: Development Clinics

Gary Hayes — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:10:19 +0000

LAMP Story of the Future invites you to the Project Development Clinic, a one-day workshop for writers intersted in working with new digital media.

Join experienced LAMP mentors, Gary Hayes, Peter Giles, Jackie Turnure and Marissa Cooke, as they guide you through a practical workshop that gives you an overview of innovative new media and puts you in the creative driver’s seat.

Presented by AFTRS in collaboration with the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, this hands-on clinic will illuminate, inform and inspire, and give you a taste of the transformative process that is LAMP.

It’s a great place to develop your project and meet potential team partners for the LAMP Story of the Future Residential, taking place in May 2007. All those intending to apply to the Residential are strongly encouraged to attend this clinic.

Sydney: 15 March 2007
Venue: Bondi Icebergs, 1 Notts Avenue, Bondi Beach
Time: 9:30am – 5:00pm

Melbourne: 19 March 2007
Venue: AFTRS Innovation Building, Digital Harbour, Docklands
Time: 9:30am – 5:00pm

The Project Development Clinic is free. Numbers are limited and registration is on a first come first served basis. Please register by 13 March (Sydney) and 16 March (Melbourne).

For more information and registration, visit www.ozco.gov.au/storyofthefuture

Applications for the LAMP Story of the Future Residential will open shortly please keep an eye on our How to Apply page.

Tags: AFTRS, AFTRS Innovation Building, Bondi Icebergs, Course Workshops, Digital Harbour, Governor, innovation, lamp, media, Melbourne, residential, Sydney, The Project Development Clinic, www.ozco.gov.au/storyofthefuture

Submissions – now closed

Gary — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 01:21:17 +0000

Thankyou to the almost forty extremely high quality entries for the next LAMP lab. The selected eight teams will be informed on Monday next week.

PREVIOUS DETAILS

The next LAMP residential lab will be held from Sunday 29 Oct to Friday 3 Nov 2006 in the beautiful resort of Freycinet in Tasmania. The Lab is sponsored by Screen Tasmania & Innovation, Science and Technology and subsidised by AFTRS. Chris Gallagher (Industry Development Officer, Screen Tasmania) said:

“This is a fantastic opportuntity for the Tasmanian Screen Industry and we look forward to the concepts and projects that will be created through the innovative LAMP development process.”

We are now accepting applications and welcome project submissions from all areas of the media industry. Please read the detail below and download the application here which must be returned by Sept 25th. Eight project teams will be selected by the end of Sept.

Costs, dates and location

The lab will be held on Sun 29 October – Fri 3 November 2006 at Freycinet Lodge in Tasmania. The participating teams need only pay transport to and from the residential venue and a $100 admin fee per member. Accommodation, food, mentoring (10 mentors/presenters), technical equipment, build developers, invited speakers and special events are all paid as part of your attendance.

Projects will be assessed on:

Level of innovation
Market focus & audience reach
Potential to benefit from LAMP process
Narrative depth
Suitability of project for cross-platform deployment: We are particularly keen on TV 2.0 (participatory TV formats), new global broadband cross-media services, services based on virtual worlds, 3G mobile and multi-user, online games. All projects should incorporate social networking and user-generated content elements.
Audience interaction and level of involvement
Mix and experience of the project teams

Requirements

We will require teams to be made up of 3 people maximum in the following categories:
1 – Creator – exec prod, producer, director, writer etc
2 – Designer – broadcast, brand, visual identity (It is obligatory to come with a visual designer for the build phase)
3 – Other craft – editor, writer, talent, sound, DOP etc:

The participating teams need only pay transport to and from the residential venue and a $100 admin fee per member. Accommodation, food, mentoring, technical equipment, build developers and special events are all paid as part of your attendance.
There will be range of Industry heads invited onto the final day presentations of prototypes & proof of concepts. Teams can designate stakeholders who can be invited to this.

Technology

Each team will have a G5 20″intel iMac (with extra monitors) complete with full Adobe, Macromedia & Apple production suites. Wireless internet access will be provided.

There will also be two high spec PC laptops for applications including Modelstream for OpenTV and MHP builds. A range of mobile devices, gaming and presentation equipment.

Tags: 3G, Adobe, AFTRS, Broadband, broadband cross-media services, Chris Gallagher, Designer, Director, editor, food, Freycinet Lodge, Industry Development Officer, innovation, lamp, media, media industry, mentoring, mobile devices, presentation equipment, presentations, producer, Production, projects, residential, Screen Tasmania, social networking, Tasmania, USD, visual designer, Wireless internet access, Writer

2006 Jul Residential Mentors

Gary — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:45:00 +0000

Mentors on the 4th Live-in-lab in Sydney July 06

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interaction Designer

DAVID GURNEY – Interaction Producer

David Gurney is a well known creator of animated cartoons. He created, produced and directed Australia’s first fully 3D animated television series, Hoota & Snoz. The series has sold worldwide into over 100 countries. David is a prolific developer of cartoon characters and concepts and with his business partner Alicia Rackett, runs Blue Rocket Productions, an award winning cartoon studio based in Hobart, Tasmania. Other animated TV produced, written and directed by David include Time Cracks (2 series), M????rmel Spots (3 series), The Dog and Cat News (2 series), Bang the Cat (2 series), and short films The Further Adventures of Stafford the Prawn and Spikey Joe??????s Truck. David was also creative director of The Hoota & Snoz Official Website and The Dog and Cat News Website which won Best of the Best and Best Children??????s at the 2006 AIMIA Awards. David is also involved in the creation of mobile entertainment including an exclusive deal to produce all 3D animated mobile content for Manchester United. Blue Rocket??????s mobile content is sold in over 37 countries worldwide.

GARY HAYES – Interaction Producer & Director LAMP@AFTRS

Gary Hayes has been at the forefront of worldwide emerging media development and production since 1993. After joining the BBC in London as an editor he quickly moved on to lead the BBC’s development of the internet, interactive TV and emerging platforms from 95-04 as Senior Producer and Development Manager. The BBC grew from a linear broadcaster to world leader in cross-platform services during this period.

Gary devised & produced many of the BBC’s ‘firsts’ – Digital Text, the first broadcast interactive TV service – ‘Nomad’ the first live internet documentary – ‘X-Creatures’ the first broadband TV service and in ’96 introduced the first video and audio onto the BBC’s internet sites. He also produced and devised over 20 other eTV and broadband TV services including Top of the Pops, Travel Show, State Apart and several future BBC cross-platform navigators. Gary created numerous courses and seminars on Interactive thinking for linear producers, was active in the Imagineering and R&D depts and was a leading part of BBC strategy teams from 2001 in preparing for on-demand, cross-platform services. He also chaired the Business Models Group from 99-03 for TV-Anytime (the lead media-on-demand standards body).

Living & consulting in the US during 2004 he line produced Showtime’s PVR enhanced L-Word, as part of AFI digital labs and devised a range of new on-demand program formats for two national TV networks. Gary also produced & chaired conferences around LA including Hollywood industry panel seminars and Digital Days both looking at emerging media super-distribution models. He has presented at over fifty major international conferences and written several consultancy papers including US Interactive TV Advertising and more recently a report for the DTI on Personal Video Enablers for the UK media industry. He runs a blog on Media Personalisation, Digital Business and Creativity at www.personalizemedia.com

A specialist in personalised digital TV over broadcast and broadband networks Gary evangelises on the empowerment potential of non-passive media. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV and Radio. Gary is also currently exploring the potential of shared social online virtual spaces for collaborative production, creativity and education.

JACKIE TURNURE – Non-linear storyteller

After returning to Sydney, Jackie produced and directed three 3D animated kids’ games for PC, “Bananas in Pyjamas ” It’s Party Time”, “Oz – The Magical Adventure” and “Oz – The Interactive Storybook”. The games have won numerous awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie lectures part time at AFTRS, was an industry mentor at the NSW Film and Television Office’s Indigenous Writers Workshop, ran a Game Design Workshop in FTI in Perth and gave a workshop on Alternative Narratives for the Australian Writer’s Guild.In addition, Jackie works as a script editor and story consultant on feature films, animated television series and animated games. She recently completed story producing and writing 3 episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. Jackie is currently script editing and voice directing Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen.

JIM SHOMOS – Interaction Producer and Writer

Jim is the creator of the acclaimed cross-media service Forget the Rules. He devised the concept and format and with his partners Paul Baiguerra and Peter Dixon from Catfish they made a ground-breaking drama across mobile, broadband PC and TV. Jim also has an extensive business and marketing background.

Jim Shomos and Paul Baiguerra met at the Digital Media Conference run by Film Victoria on 1 July 2004. It was business at first sight, they say: by the end of the day, the basic outline for forget the rules was laid down. Paul got his business partner at Catfish, Peter Dixon, involved and Global Dilemma was born. Forget the Rules was Global Dilemma??????s first production. FTR is the first comedy/drama series in the world to broadcast all episodes on TV, broadband and mobiles. The first season was broadcast on Channel V/Foxtel, 3 mobiles and the FTR website. The 13-week season was made up of 3x3min episodes per week between 10 October 2005 and 8 January 2006. The 117 minutes of production represents the equivalent of 5 x 30min episodes on FTA TV.

In 1998, he studied writing and feature film production at AFTRS in Sydney. He has worked as a copywriter on Sale of The Century, a storyliner on Neighbours (15 hours credits) and is a published songwriter.

Jonathan Marshall – Technical Strategist

Jonathan rejoined the BBC in 1996 working firstly on DAB and then Digital Television for the Research and Development department at Kingswood Warren. It was here that he developed the world’s first interactive TV broadcasts in MHEG. In 1999 Jonathan joined the newly created BBC Interactive TV department at Bush House, where he worked with the technical team in delivering a whole raft of services, including the BAFTA award winning Wimbledon Interactive and Digital Text services on the Sky Platform. This work cemented his reputation as one of the key technical strategists in the interactive TV field. Jonathan went on to become BBC Interactive TV’s main technical interface for all third party providers, testing and appraising their products, giving him an unrivalled knowledge of the interactive TV tools market.

Jonathan now works as a freelance Technical Development Producer working with a range of new media companies from start-ups to multi-nationals. As part of his work he delivers training courses both within the BBC and around the world to enable content producers to deliver world class interactive services using the latest technical innovations.

KEREN FLAVELL – Interaction Producer and Mobile Specialist

Keren Flavell is an award-winning producer with over 10 years experience in interactive media production, documentary, radio and print, taking projects from conception through to production to sales and distribution. While heading up digital media production company, Springtime Productions, she won the prestigious Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival – Best Entertainment Website for the ABC/Film Victoria Digital Media Fund Accord project Sounds Like Techno.

She also produced online documentary projects for SBS and Chunky Move. Keren??????s other credits include producing major websites for BMG, Universal Music and Sanity. Keren is frequently engaged as a consultant on interactive media production strategy and implementation and her clients include ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image), Jack Morton Worldwide, Southern Cross Cables, Royal Children??????s Hospital and MusicMate.

Presently she is on the Lab3000 steering committee and AIMIA Victoria sub-committee. Keren has been a speaker at events such as the AIMIA conference, AIDC, Adelaide Festival FutureProof and lectured in new media production at Victoria College of the Arts, La Trobe University and Victoria University.
She is course director of the Development for Mobile Content course, run by AFTRS. Keren is the convenor of Mobile Monday Melbourne networking event and hosts a weekly podcast called the Mobile Media Show as well as a regular guest position on technology show Byte Into It (3RRRFM).She also runs a mobile entertainment network blog called OMG.tv. Prior to launching into a career in new media Keren wrote a guidebook titled Camping and Tramping in Australia’s National Parks (Random House) that has sold over 20,000 copies and reprinted five times.

PETER GILES – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

Shiralee Saul – New Media Producer

Shiralee has been obsessed with digital media since she purchased her first Amiga. She was a founding Director of New Media Network, Australia’s first dedicated digital media gallery 1994-6, and Artistic Director of Experimenta Media Arts 1996-8. She initiated and edited ‘An Installation Publication’, with James Harley 1989-94, and edited MESH film/video/ multimedia/art journal 1996-8 and SPAM Online until 2000.

She has been a curator since 1984 and has curated numerous contemporary visual art, interactive media and screen arts exhibitions and screening programs. Shiralee most recently co-curated ??????House of Tomorrow?????? which toured nationally and internationally 2003-2005 (curated with Liz Hughes and Helen Stuckey), and ??????Strange Attractors?????? — billed as Australia’s first on-demand film festival, for ABC New Media. She is currently planning ‘Space Invaders,’ a multiple media exhibition of international and Australian artists.

From 1999– 2002 Shiralee created and produced educational online resources through her company Orbis Media. These included the award-winning ??????Growing up at Old Treasury,?????? and ??????Van Diemen??????s Land??????, an innovative online literacy resource using graphic novel and games concepts. She has since undertaken a number of contracts with ABC Online and SBS New Media. Shiralee was the creative director of ??????World Tales?????? (2004) which was commissioned by the SBS-Film Victoria Accord and included major online, DVD and broadcast outcomes. She is currently co-producing an animation series for Rood Media.

Shiralee has provided a range of consultancy services to government and community-based arts organizations since the early ??????90s. She has served as a project assessor for AFC and funding officer for Film Victoria. She is currently a member of Film Victoria??????s DMF Evaluation and Advisory Committee and is undertaking a consultancy for ACMI’s GamesLab.

Shiralee??????s own practice began in multiple-media installation and experimental media. She exhibited regularly in galleries and venues nationally and internationally until the mid-90s. Since then her focus has shifted to WWW-delivered works. She is currently exploring multi-nodal non-linear narrative through her ‘Museum of Dust’ project and is in pre-production for an immersive documentary, ‘The Ambassador’s Wunderkammer’. Some of her work can be viewed at http://www.a-website.org/memory/ or at the test-site for Museum of Dust http://museumofdust.blogspot.com/

Tags: AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, Production, projects, residential, seminars

5th LAMP live-in-lab Oct 06 – APPLY NOW!

Gary Hayes — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:49:02 +0000

“This is a fantastic opportuntity for the Tasmanian Screen Industry and we look forward to the concepts and projects that will be created through the innovative LAMP development process.”

Costs, dates and location

Projects will be assessed on:

Level of innovation
Market focus & audience reach
Potential to benefit from LAMP process
Narrative depth
Suitability of project for cross-platform deployment: We are particularly keen on TV 2.0 (participatory TV formats), new global broadband cross-media services, services based on virtual worlds, 3G mobile and multi-user, online games. All projects should incorporate social networking and user-generated content elements.
Audience interaction and level of involvement
Mix and experience of the project teams

Requirements

Technology

Each team will have a G5 20″intel iMac (with extra monitors) complete with full Adobe, Macromedia & Apple production suites. Wireless internet access will be provided.

There will also be two high spec PC laptops for applications including Modelstream for OpenTV and MHP builds. A range of mobile devices, gaming and presentation equipment.

Don’t forget submission deadline is 25 SEPT 2006

Podcast – Evolving Technology, where will your audience be?

Gary Hayes — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:09:37 +0000

The second of 8 podcasts recorded live during the LAMP lab on Milson Island, Sydney in July 2006 – in front of the eight teams and ten mentors developing emerging media projects. International mentor Jonathan talks about new technologies and how we engage audiences with them.
“Choose the platform based on the audience and their likely location. Think about how each user will move between each platform and don’t choose a platform just for the sake of it”

After an entertaining rope trick showing how TV, mobile and broadband penetration will invert itself over the next few years Jonathan continues by looking at the technological transitions that are taking place at the moment. He looks at the emerging cross-over potential of TV and PC becoming IPTV, of TV and Mobile becoming DVB-H (one flavour of mobile TV) and ‘download’ possibilities as mobiles become as powerful as current PC’s.

Jonathan investigates the shift and flattening of audience demand for content as multicast becomes unicast – traditional broadcast turns into personalised individually available global streamed channels and pots of content over peer-to-peer networks. He asks the age old question is broadcast dead and says it will always have a place from a pure distribution efficiency perspective and shows how it will fit into the three way mix of broadband, broadcast and mobile networks. He ends by talking about future devices and how storage will be ubiquitous and the tools to find content to put onto that storage will become absolutely critical. (During the q&a session there is a discussion about the transition from broadband to PC to IPTV and how broadcasters and telecos are preparing for the fight ahead).

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION
All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store.

JONATHAN MARSHALL

Jonathan Marshall is one of the key technical strategists in the field of interactive TV, having led the development of the BBC’s first groundbreaking services on DTT and Digital Satellite. Jonathan started his career at the BBC in 1991 as a recording engineer for BBC Scotland. He then left to complete a degree in Electronics and Music followed by a Masters in French and Management. By combining these skills he worked in Paris for IRCAM designing and implementing Digital Music Workstations for contemporary composers and performers to use.Jonathan rejoined the BBC in 1996 working firstly on DAB and then Digital Television for the Research and Development department at Kingswood Warren. It was here that he developed the world’s first interactive TV broadcasts in MHEG. In 1999 Jonathan joined the newly created BBC Interactive TV department at Bush House, where he worked with the technical team in delivering a whole raft of services, including the BAFTA award winning Wimbledon Interactive and Digital Text services on the Sky Platform. This work cemented his reputation as one of the key technical strategists in the interactive TV field. Jonathan went on to become BBC Interactive TV’s main technical interface for all third party providers, testing and appraising their products, giving him an unrivalled knowledge of the interactive TV tools market.

Sydney 4 July 2006 – Time 20:54. PDF (191k) of presentation
Click to listen

Audio edit, description and mp3 prep/post – G Hayes

Tags: BBC, BBC Scotland, Digital TV, freelance Technical Development Producer, innovation, interactive services, Interactive TV, Jonathan Marshall, JONATHAN MARSHALL PDF, lamp, media, MP3, Paris, projects, recording engineer, Sydney, the BAFTA award, Wimbledon

Producing Multi-platform TV

Gary Hayes — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:44:31 +0000

LAMP is involved in a one-day special event to be held at AFTRS on the 5th May called “Producing Multi-Platform TV”. A comprehensive look at cross-media and the current transformation of television in a multi-device and global multi-distribution world.

A line-up of top-level guest speakers will provide insights into producing interactive content for next generation television in Australia and overseas at a seminar at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) on Friday, 5 May 2006.

Keynote speaker, David Jensen is a recognised leader of the interactive television industry, having won two Primetime Emmy’s for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television (Viacom 2005 and ABC 2004) and seven Emmy nominations over the past four years.

Geof Heydon, Director, Innovation and Market Development for Alcatel Asia Pacific, will explore IPTV, explain what it really is and the strategic importance of this new capability that will transform TV based services. He will demonstrate some of the future converged entertainment options that combine TV, broadband and telecommunications elements.

A range of other Australian leading industry practitioners will provide valuable insights into how to plan for the revolution of digital television and explore opportunities it will present. For more details and to register online: click here

Tags: ABC, AFTRS, Alcatel Asia, Australia, Australian Film Television, Australian Film Television and Radio School, Broadband, David Jensen, Digital TV, Director, Emmy, Geof Heydon, innovation, Interactive TV, Keynote speaker, lamp, media, radio school, recognised leader, telecommunications elements, Viacom

2005 Dec Residential Mentors

Gary — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 03:02:41 +0000

Residential Mentors at the ABC lab in December

Catherine Gleeson – Interaction Designer

Christy Dena – Transmedia Storyteller

Christy is a world wide, leading practitioner and researcher in cross-media narrative, new media types and their creative application in emerging media. In this area she has contributed numerous articles and reviews to publications such as Australian Book Review, ABC Arts Online and RealTime.

Christy’s work has been referred to in The Age, Encore and in a recent report delivered at the European Commission DG Information Society. Her published articles have covered game-play, artificial intelligence and new narrative forms and she has written creative works for TV, theatre and multi-platform. Christy’s latest visionary work ‘The Villager Girl and the Teenbot’ bridges the gap between print and online chatbot technology. She has also recently been asked to participate in the ARG (Alternate Reality Games) Special Interest Group for the Independent Gamer Developers Association.

In 1993 she was nominated for ‘Young Business Person of the Year’ and shortly after worked as a digital effects/TVC producer, business director and web developer. In 2002 she gained a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing and is currently a Ph.D.candidate in New Media at the School of Creative Arts, Uni of Melbourne. She also teaches new media arts theory at Melbourne and Swinburne Universities, is on the Editorial Committee of New Antigone (a fully refereed international journal), co-edits a renowned site on new media arts, www.WriterResponseTheory.org, and runs a popular research blog, www.cross-mediaentertainment.com.

Gary Hayes – Director LAMP@AFTRS

Gary devised & produced many of the BBC’s ‘firsts’ – Digital Text, the first broadcast interactive TV service – ‘Nomad’ the first live internet documentary – ‘X-Creatures’ the first broadband TV service and in ’96 introduced the first video and audio onto the BBC’s internet sites. He also produced and devised over 20 other eTV and broadband TV services including Top of the Pops, Travel Show, State Apart and several future BBC cross-platform navigators. Gary created numerous courses and seminars on Interactive thinking for linear producers and was a leading part of BBC strategy teams from 2001 in preparing for on-demand, cross-platform services. He also chaired the Business Models Group from 99-03 for TV-Anytime (the lead media-on-demand standards body).

Living & consulting in the US during 2004 he line produced Showtime’s PVR enhanced L-Word, as part of AFI digital labs and devised a range of new on-demand program formats for two national TV networks. Gary also produced & chaired conferences around LA including Hollywood industry panel seminars and Digital Days both looking at emerging media super-distribution models. He has presented at over fifty major international conferences and written several consultancy papers including US Interactive TV Advertising and more recently a report for the DTI on Personal Video Enablers for the UK media industry. He runs a blog on Media Personalisation at www.personalizemedia.com and an Interactive producers site at www.garyhayes.tv.

A specialist in personalised digital TV over broadcast and broadband networks Gary evangelises on the empowerment potential of non-passive media. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV and Radio. Gary ran his own music production business from 1984-89 and is currently working on several film scores.

Jonathan Marshall – Technical Strategist

Peter Giles – Head of Digital Media

Peter is a well known commentator on digital media and is currently the Chair of the Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading computer graphics industry body.

Sohail Dahdal – Interaction Producer

Sohail Dahdal has been a leading force for the past 15 years in pushing the boundaries of new media to as many platforms and mediums as possible. Sohail has produced, designed, and engineered hundreds of DVDs, CD-ROMs, websites, installation and films, always with keen interest for bridging the gap between the new forms of interactive media and the traditional art of filmmaking.

As a director of 6moons Interactive, Sohail has the award wining online documentary Long Journey, Young Lives on child refugees – www.abc.net.au/longjourney, and the soon to be launched SBS TV and online documentary Swapping Lives on Islam & and the west from a youth prospective – www.sbs.com.au/swappinglives

VISITING MENTORS

Jackie Turnure – Non-linear storyteller

After returning to Sydney, Jackie produced and directed three 3D animated kids” games for PC, ”Bananas in Pyjamas ” It”s Party Time”, ”Oz ” The Magical Adventure” and ”Oz ” The Interactive Storybook”. The games have won numerous awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie lectures part time at AFTRS, was an industry mentor at the NSW Film and Television Office’s Indigenous Writers Workshop, ran a Game Design Workshop in FTI in Perth and gave a workshop on Alternative Narratives for the Australian Writer’s Guild.In addition, Jackie works as a script editor and story consultant on feature films, animated television series and animated games. She recently completed story producing and writing 3 episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. Jackie is currently script editing and voice directing Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen.

Malcolm Long – Director AFTRS

Malcolm long is the Director of the Australian Film Television and Radio School and a part-time Member of the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

He has been a consultant working in the area of media and communications business strategy and policy development. His clients have included major communications companies and media enterprises and Commonwealth and State government departments.

From 1993-98 Malcolm Long was Managing Director of SBS Corporation, Australia’s national multicultural broadcaster. Prior to this he was Deputy Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and before that Director of ABC Radio.

Mr Long is a former Chairman of the London-based International Institute of Communications and a former President of the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Ric Holland – Industry Liaison Mentor

In recent years Ric Holland has focused his energy on building alliance partnerships and developing business activities in the latest wave of emerging digital media markets. Consulting to major brands in music production, wireless, broadband, games and CG content creation, helping to find alternate revenue markets, cross-media business models and creative concepts for digital interactive content.

He also lectures in Digital Media regularly at leading universities and private colleges.

His background as a Creative Director and Innovator over the past 25 years has given him unique in-sites and forward thinking when considering conceptual models, alternate market opportunities, audience behavior and technology innovation.

His career background spans the following:
Creative Director for the User Centered Design (UCD) and Interactive Branding & Design teams at IBM”s eBusiness Innovation Centre :: Sydney, pioneering UCD methodologies, branding, human interface and usability engineering.
Technology evangelist and Asia Pacific manager for MetaCreations Corporation, the software company that developed new concepts in interface design for 2D, 3D and web design/production tools.
As director and Creative Director of Vision Graphics he developed advanced digital imaging techniques for the Professional Photographic industry, rapid development platforms for CD-Rom production, web galleries and portfolios. He evangelized the beginning of desktop video publishing in Asia Pacific with Radius and Supermac and spoke at many conferences in regard to new markets and technology.

As the founder and Creative Director of Extreme Digital, an award winning Digital Media and Graphic Design studio, he was one of the first in Australia to foresee and then realize the potential of digital imaging and interactive design and so winning respect among his peers for his innovative work over two decades.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, Production, projects, residential, seminars

2005 Oct Residential Mentors

Gary — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 03:01:10 +0000

Residential mentors October 2005 Lab

Below are the mentors that took part in the Victor Harbour residential LAMP Lab from 9-14 October 2005

Catherine Gleeson- Interaction Designer

Christy Dena – Transmedia Storyteller

Gary Hayes, Director LAMP@AFTRS

Gary devised & produced many of the BBC’s ‘firsts’ – Digital Text, the first broadcast interactive TV service – ‘Nomad’ the first live internet documentary – ‘X-Creatures’ the first broadband TV service and in ’96 introduced the first video and audio onto the BBC’s internet sites. He also produced and devised over 20 other eTV and broadband TV services including Top of the Pops, Travel Show, State Apart and several future BBC cross-platform navigators. Gary created numerous courses and seminars on Interactive thinking for linear producers and was a leading part of BBC strategy teams from 2001 in preparing for on-demand, cross-platform services. He also chaired the Business Models Group from 99-03 for TV-Anytime (the lead media-on-demand standards body).

Living & consulting in the US during 2004 he line produced Showtime’s PVR enhanced L-Word, as part of AFI digital labs and devised a range of new on-demand program formats for two national TV networks. Gary also produced & chaired conferences around LA including Hollywood industry panel seminars and Digital Days both looking at emerging media super-distribution models. He has presented at over fifty major international conferences and written several consultancy papers including US Interactive TV Advertising and more recently a report for the DTI on Personal Video Enablers for the UK media industry. He runs a blog on Media Personalisation at www.personalizemedia.com and an Interactive producers site at www.garyhayes.tv.

A specialist in personalised digital TV over broadcast and broadband networks Gary evangelises on the empowerment potential of non-passive media. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV and Radio. Gary ran his own music production business from 1984-89 and is currently working on several film scores.

Jackie Turnure, Non-linear storyteller

Mark Pesce, Lecturer Interactive Media

Known internationally as the man who fused virtual reality with the World Wide Web, Mark Pesce has been exploring the frontiers of the future for over two decades.

The author of five books, Pesce is widely respected as a technologist, futurist, philosopher and thinker able to translate abstract concepts into concrete explanations. Mainstream publications such as Forbes ASAP, TIME Digital, WIRED and The New York Times have profiled him and his views on the interactive age. A well-respected journalist, Pesce has written for WIRED, Feed, Salon, PC Magazine, and serves on the editorial board of TRIP magazine.

From 1998 through 2000, Pesce chaired the Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California’s world-renowned School of Cinema-Television. His mandate – to bring cinema and broadcast television into the interactive era – led him to create a program that encouraged creative vision and is now producing a generation of entertainment professionals shaping the media of the 21st century.

Pesce’s current projects include TRUE HALLUCINATIONS, an opera based on the life and death of ethnobotanist and philosopher Terence McKenna, and The Next Big Thing, a book chronicling the science, business and politics of nanotechnology.

Articles by Mark Pesce at AFTRS:

Piracy is Good? New models for the distribution of tv programming PDF
Open Source Television: Liberte! Facilite!! Egalite!!! PDF
Redefining Television PDF

Peter Giles, Head of Digital Media

Peter is a well known commentator on digital media and is currently the Chair of the Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading computer graphics industry body.

Raffi Krikorian – Technical Mentor

Raffi Krikorian has been involved in the enhanced television space, specifically in the real-life implementation, deployal, and hacking of these projects while also remaining a strong consumer advocate for a better media experience. During his tenure as a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab he authored ‘TiVo Hacks’ for O’Reilly and Associates, the first book on taking apart and extending the Linux based PVR.

Raffi’s background work includes building large distributed computational engines, studying human sound perception in micro-gravity, and designing and studying large networks of small and embedded devices. While at MIT, he taught ‘How To Make (Almost) Anything’ ‘ a class in rapid prototyping, one week on a fabrication or computation mechanism.

He is currently the founding partner at Synthesis Studios, a technological design and consulting firm with extreme breadth with projects ranging from television to web crawling and aggregation, from embedded solutions to mobile media. The studios are currently developing open-source set-top boxes that will allow anybody to easily develop enhanced, interactive video content, and distribute it to consumers. Synthesis has also been asked to present blue-sky video and data scenarios to North American cable television providers.

Sohail Dahdal – filmmaker and new media artist

VISITING MENTORS

Malcolm Long, Director AFTRS

Malcolm long is the Director of the Australian Film Television and Radio School and a part-time Member of the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Mr Long is a former Chairman of the London-based International Institute of Communications and a former President of the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Ric Holland – Industry Liaison Mentor

He also lectures in Digital Media regularly at leading universities and private colleges.

His career background spans the following: Creative Director for the User Centered Design (UCD) and Interactive Branding & Design teams at IBM”s eBusiness Innovation Centre :: Sydney, pioneering UCD methodologies, branding, human interface and usability engineering. Technology evangelist and Asia Pacific manager for MetaCreations Corporation, the software company that developed new concepts in interface design for 2D, 3D and web design/production tools. As director and Creative Director of Vision Graphics he developed advanced digital imaging techniques for the Professional Photographic industry, rapid development platforms for CD-Rom production, web galleries and portfolios. He evangelized the beginning of desktop video publishing in Asia Pacific with Radius and Supermac and spoke at many conferences in regard to new markets and technology.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, Production, projects, residential, seminars

Podcast – A short tale about a long tail

Gary — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 05:53:58 +0000

“Why did eBay buy Skype?” – Tony Surtees

Tony helps us explore the jungle of marketing confusion as audiences and distribution rapidly alter. He points out that rather than being locked out, good media creators actually have many cross-media opportunities – there is a world of abundance created by the technology. The key resources – storage, bandwidth and communication are the cheapest, while good content is often the most expensive. How to get that content to the viewers Tony explores the concept of the long tail from the perspective of how we can reach and engage niche groups – aggregating the Long Tail. He finishes with a look at the internet ecosystem – search, access, eCommerce, ad services and aggregation.
Accompanying presentation “A short tale about a long tail” – Tony Surtees, Santa Clara Group – PDF

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION
All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store. You can subscribe automatically to these if you have iTunes installed by clicking here.

A pioneer in both electronic commerce (eCommerce) and mobile commerce (mCommerce), Surtees has more than 15 years experience in marketing, strategic planning, and customer retention, gained from building businesses in over 20 countries. As founding Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo!’s Commerce Group, his innovations helped transform the world’s largest communications and information portal into the leading eCommerce destination. Under Surtees direction, Yahoo! Auctions became the world’s largest single branded auction site.

Victor Harbor 12 Oct 2005
Click to listen
Audio preparation by James Christopher Murty

Tags: ad services, auction site, cross-media opportunities, e - commerce, eBay, eCommerce destination, electronic commerce, innovation, internet ecosystem, James Christopher Murty, lamp, media, media creators, Santa Clara, Tony Surtees, Vice President and General Manager, Victor Harbor, Yahoo!

Sponsors & Events

Gary — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 03:40:13 +0000

LAMP is facilitated and funded through the Australian Film TV and Radio School

LAMP aims to continue developing relationships with sponsors and partner companies. Please contact us at lamp@aftrs.edu.au or:

Rachael Hainsworth - Research and Project Coordinator | +61(2) 9805 6567 | Rachael.Hainsworth@aftrs.edu.au

Gary Hayes – Director | +61(2) 9805 6544 | Gary.Hayes@aftrs.edu.au

Previous sponsors and partners have included

LAMP I: October 2005 Open Residential Lab. Victor Harbour SA
Sponsored in part by the South Australian Film Corporation

LAMP II: December 2005 ABC Residential Lab. Sydney AGSM
Sponsored in part by ABCTV

LAMP III: March 2006 Open Residential Lab. Perth Swan Valley

LAMP IV: July 2006 Open Residential. Milsons Island NS

LAMP V: October 2006 Open Residential. Freycinet, TAS
Sponsored in part by the Screen Tasmania & Innovation, Science and Technology

LAMP VI 2007-Open Residential Freycinet, TAS
Sponsored in part by The Australia Council for the Arts

LAMP VII 2007- Open Residential Couran Cove, QLD
Sponsored in part by The Australia Council for the Arts

LAMP VIII 2008 –Open Residential Marysville, VIC
Sponsored in part by The New Zealand Screen Council

AFTRS proudly sponsors as a major partner the following events

X|MEDIA|LAB
Small Screen Big Picture
Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment

Tags: AFTRS, innovation, lamp, media, residential

Mentors

Gary Hayes — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:20:51 +0000

Final mentors on the 8th Live-in-lab at Marylands, Marysville, Victoria February 2008.

GARY HAYES – Director LAMP and CCO, MUVEDesign

Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Chief Creative Officer of ‘MUVEDesign‘. He has led the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 which has helped develop 61 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and industry seminars. At MUVEDesign and (previously Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory) he has personally produced, designed and built Social Virtual World presences for Australian & US brands, including BigPond, ABC TV, Tourism Victoria, Physical TV, AFTRS and Deakin University. He is currently developing ‘experience’ worlds for other fortune 100 companies. Gary runs a Power150 top Media and Marketing blog Personalizemedia.com and recently e co-authored a UK Department Trade and Industry Paper on Personalised TV, one on Interactive Advertising in USA and has been an International Interactive Emmy Awards juror for the past three years.

LAUREL PAPWORTH – Online Community Strategist, World Communities

Laurel Papworth is a consultant specialising in educating companies in how to maximise value from social networks, social media and web 2.0 technologies.

In the past she had lead roles in digitising Fairfax Newspapers and establishing Optus Convergent media and now Laurel lectures on marketing into social networks at the University of Sydney and advising clients such as Channel 10 (Australian Idol community) and Telecom New Zealand.

Laurel frequently presents on Web 2.0 technologies and how they can best be used at a business level including corporate blogging, RSS feeds, user documentation wikis and vibrant customer communities. Renowned blog here.

JENNIFER WILSON – Principal, Lean Forward

Prior to this, Jennifer was Managing Director of HWW, content provider and developer of online and mobile sites under the yourTime™ banner; and builder of third-party content sites.

Jennifer has more than 20 years in interactive communications and digital marketing. She sits on the National Executive of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA).

MATT COSTELLO – Writer and Games Designer, Polar Productions
Matt Costello’s innovative work includes ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games, and television.

Games – Costello wrote the critically acclaimed game The 7th Guest, which helped launch the CD-ROM era. Since then, Costello has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ‘67 (Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005’s Doom 3 of which Time Magazine said, “To play Doom 3 is to feel your skin prickle with atavistic fear. The story is delivered with unusual art.” Recent major games for the next generation consoles include 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for Disney, its first-ever US and UK #1 console title, and the upcoming Just Cause 2, a sequel to his hit Just Cause, also #1 title for the Xbox 360.

Costello has also created award-winning games for children, including the landmark Aladdin’s Mathquest with Robin Williams for Disney, as well as the award-winning A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam) and two games based on the hit PBS series Cyberchase.

Books – Penguin published his novel, Missing Monday, recently optioned for television. His acclaimed novel Beneath Still Waters was been filmed by Lions Gate and premiered in 2007 on The Sci-Fi Channel. His current novel, Out of Time, has been optioned by Electric Entertainment (‘The Patriot’, ‘Independence Day’). The Island of the Skull (Pocket Books), an original prequel to Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’, was released last November. Berkley recently released his new suspense novel, Nowhere, a sequel to his 2006, In Dreams. Matt’s children’s series The Kids of Einstein Elementary, published by Scholastic, blends math and adventure. The first two books, The Last Dinosaur and The Titanic Cat, were released in 2005. Other works for children include Magic Everywhere (Random House) and books on puzzles and games.

TV – For the Disney Channel, Matt Costello co-created ZoogDisney, the groundbreaking on-air/online weekend programming bloc. He has scripted episodes of the hit children’s series, Cyberchase (PBS), and episodes of the innovative Priz de Jeunesse award-wining Disney/BBC series Microsoap, written with Neil Richards. With Paul Wilson, Costello created The Sci-Fi Channel’s first original program, FTL News, which ran for over six years. He is currently creating a new animated series for the BBC, which will be linked as ‘one-world’ to a massive online game world for kids.

Consulting and Education – Matt has also been an interactive and creative consultant for many clients, including James Cameron’s Titanic, the BBC’s Region-wide Story Festival, and television and game companies around the world. He has given speeches on games and narrative recently for The Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Sagasnet, Mipcom, X/Media Labs (Mumbai), The Banff Arts Center, and the government of Singapore, The Austin and Lyon Game Developer’s Conference 2007, The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, Brisbane, Australia, Screen Producers of Australia Association Conference, Gold Coast, Australia. Game Connect: Asia Pacific 2007, Melbourne Australia

Matt appeared on-air host for nine years as ‘The Game Guy’ for WNYC’s award-winning weekly radio show, New York Kids. He Costello also co-created Scholastic’s Teachernet Radio, designed to be a key resource for teachers. With over twenty years of experience in elementary education, he continues to be a consultant and teacher on Gifted and Talented issues for school districts in New York.

ARSE – Interactive Producer and Designer

JIM SHOMOS – Writer/Producer – comedy, drama, interactive, cross media

Jim is a co-winner of the 2007 Greg Tepper award from Film Victoria for his work on forget the rules; along side the creative team behind feature hit “Kenny”.

FTR was the only project to be nominated in two categories and won the Best Interactive Format award.

In November 2006 Endemol signed a distribution deal for FTR covering canned material and format rights for UK, Europe and USA.

ANDREW APOSTOLA – Creative Director Portable Content

PETER GILES – Director of Digital Media AFTRS

Peter Giles is the Director of Digital Media at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) where he has established leading postgraduate and professional programs in Computer Animation, Visual Effects, Interactive and Emerging Media. Projects developed in these programs have won major national and international awards for creative excellence.

Peter specializes in developing innovative media education programs that interface directly with industry. He has worked in partnership with companies including MTV, Nickelodeon, ABC, SBS and Fuel TV to deliver advanced courses with real world production outcomes.

Since 2005 Peter has led a national initiative to address skills shortages and knowledge gaps in Australia’s media industries. He has worked with a range of international thought leaders in the emerging media field and established leading programs in the area.

Prior to working at AFTRS Peter established digital media programs at Sydney’s Metro Screen including innovative workshops run with the Loud Youth Festival, IBM, the ABC, SBS TV, the Performance Space, the Australian Centre for Photography and the Australian Network for Art and Technology.

Peter has produced projects for delivery on a wide range of media platforms. He has worked as a radio journalist producing programs for ABC Radio National’s ‘Radio Eye’, ‘Background Briefing’ and ‘Life Matters’ and JJJ’s ‘Morning Show’. He worked in film sound recording and post production for BBC TV and on a wide range of independent projects in the UK and Australia. He has produced interactive media and museum exhibition projects and taught media production courses at the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney. Peter’s video artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.

Peter is a well known commentator on digital media and has appeared on ABC Television programs including ‘Stateline’ and ‘Mondo Thingo’. He has facilitated and spoken at a wide range of public forums including Popcorn Taxi, the Australian Effects and Animation Festival and the Sydney Film Festival. He is the past Chair of the Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading international computer graphics industry body.

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interactive Lecturer AFTRS

Catherine’s work has included local and international cross-media projects: Creative Direction and design of visitor multimedia at the National Gallery of Victoria for the Ian Potter Centre NGV at Federation Square and NGV International; creative direction and design of “Radio Expeditions”, one of the first live rich-media services and a pioneering series for National Geographic and National Public Radio (NPR); consultation on exhibition and visitor multimedia design for the Smithsonian Institute and American Museum of Natural History (New York); consultation and design creation of Lonely Planet Images brand and online service; concept, architecture, and design of 20 games for the “wet ‘n’ wise” site, an education portal for ANZ and the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia (RLSSA).

Her work has gained a number of awards including: a MUSE Award and a NY Festivals Award for the “Yanardilyi – Cockatoo Creek” interactive; an AIMIA for the Jurong Birdpark Singapore visitor multimedia; an ATOM award for 13 touch-screen interactives at the Phillip Island Visitor’s centre; and an OzCo commendation for the NT community-based project “Strong People: Strong Stories”.

With a background in art and music, Catherine is fired up about the potential intersections of cinema, painting, printmaking and typography in the digital realm.

Catherine also maintains a private practice through her company Platform09 (http://www.platform09.com). She is currently working on “Re-Enchantment” a broadband interactive project with respected filmmaker Sarah Gibson and acclaimed producer Sue Maslin. “Re-Enchantment” was recently one of four Australian projects (out of 18 internationals), to gain selection in the 2007 X-Media Lab in Singapore.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, Course Workshops, innovation, lamp, media, Production, projects, residential, seminars

How to apply

Gary Hayes — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:15:38 +0000

LAMP VIII: VICTORIA RESIDENTIAL – APPLICATIONS CLOSE 10 JAN 2008

We are now accepting applications for the eighth LAMP Residential lab being held in collaboration with sponsors New Zealand Screen Council. We welcome project submissions from project teams in all areas of the media industry and the final selection will be a mix of teams from New Zealand and Australia.

Presented by AFTRS, the eighth LAMP Residential Lab is a unique opportunity to evolve your project for broadband, mobile devices, advanced television, games consoles, multi-user virtual environments and beyond.

Please carefully review the selection criteria, which will help you understand the types of projects that are important to us. The application form must be returned no later than Thursday 10 January 2008. Eight project teams will be selected a week after this date and informed.

Application process

Please submit your application (download form here) both via email and via post (signed version) by Thursday 10 January 2008 to:

*Attention: Project Officer, LAMP
*AFTRS, PO Box 126, North Ryde NSW 2113
and Email to: lamp@aftrs.edu.au

All submissions will be reviewed by the LAMP team and a panel of external mentors, 6-8 projects will be selected and successful applicants will be advised mid January 2008.

Requirements

Teams should consist of a maximum of 3 people, in the following categories:
*1 – Creator/exec producer – also doubling as exec prod, producer, director etc
*2 – Designer – broadcast, brand, visual identity (It is obligatory to come with a visual designer for the build phase)
*3 – Other craft – editor, writer, talent, sound, DOP etc:

A range of Industry VIPs will be invited to the final day presentations of prototypes and proof of concepts. Teams can also designate stakeholders they wish to invite to the presentation day. Visiting stakeholders will have to cover their own expenses.

Projects will be assessed on:

Level of innovation of project
Narrative depth & strength of story world
Appropriate audience interaction and level of involvement
Market focus & audience reach

Project areas

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.

Applicants must satisfy the following eligibility criteria:

* You have a demonstrated ability in some element of linear or interactive production in the past
* You have demonstrated a willingness to assemble a creative team for the project
* Your team members are allocated specific roles and have some history of working together
* You demonstrate potential to benefit from the LAMP process, i.e. that your project submission is open, expansive and shows room for growth and evolution

Costs, dates and location

The lab will take place 24-29 February 2008 and the Victoria location will be confirmed in the next few weeks. Participating teams are required to pay for transport to and from the residential venue and $100 admin fee per member. Accommodation, meals, mentoring (10 mentors/presenters), technical equipment, build developers, invited speakers and special events are all included as part of your attendance. A number of travel scholarships may be available to assist successful teams with significant travel costs (ie from non-eastern states or regional areas).

Technology

Each team will have access to the latest Apple Intel iMac computer (runnings OS X and Windows) complete with full Adobe, Macromedia & Apple production suites. Wireless internet access will be provided. PC laptops and a range of mobile devices, games consoles and presentation equipment will also be available.

Don’t forget the submission deadline is Thursday January 10, 2008.

Tags: advanced, AFTRS, innovation, lamp, media, mentoring, presentations, Production, projects, residential

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