Considering the profound global success of James Cameron’s Avatar, as well as the hype surrounding practical 3-D television at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the growing frenzy surrounding the current 3-D craze has got me thinking about the future of cinema and immersive entertainment yet again. Now, we’re no where near seeing holographic, pliant, lifelike simulations like the one illustrated in the clip above – in fact, in our lifetimes we’re more likely to see something like a real starship Enterprise constructed before we ever see its famous Holodeck – but, for all the commotion surrounding 3D, well, it has got me looking at some new entertainment ventures that are edging us closer to true, fully immersive digital entertainment. (more…)
Archive for the ‘storytelling’ Category
Edging closer towards the Holodeck
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Video DSLR – the “almost there” future of visual storytelling
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
/above image hot as a fresh flapjack – from http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/images/CameraConfigs/Studio-handheld-cam-2.jpg
Canon, with their 5D MkII and 7D DSLR cameras, (not to mention a host of other traditional still-photography camera manufacturers like Nikon), has slowly been making waves in the camcorder market for the last few years. The disruptive technology found within many modern DSLR’s through their video modes is the primary reason traditional camcorder manufacturers like Sony have to sweat. Video DSLR takes impressive advantage of the large image sensors traditionally used to make high-quality still images by applying these same sensors’ capabilities to video capture. Nowadays, models like the 5D are really stretching the definition of what constitutes a video/film capture methodology. It’s without question that the HD video capabilities of top-of-the-line DSLRs are going from novelty “extra feature” to becoming the primary purpose and use of the device for many production companies and hobbyists alike.
This item from Hurlbut Visuals (special thanks to Twitter user @russish for sharing this) illustrates just how far the video DSLR has come. (more…)
The Emerging Market for Pocketmedia Storytelling in the Developing World
Saturday, December 5th, 2009Below is a Web version of a white paper (pdf here, embeddable Slideshare document here) I prepared for Anita Crofts’ Emerging Markets in Digital Media Fall 2009 course in the University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media program. The paper, entitled “The Emerging Market for Pocketmedia Storytelling in the Developing World” (and accompanying slide presentation, embedded at top) was delivered 5 December 2009, in the Communications Building at the University of Washington.
The two kinds of Web video
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009I believe that there are two kinds of Web videos – those that exist as self-contained narratives, and those that serve a functional external purpose.
Self-contained narratives are iterations of a larger type, what we have classically referred to as “movies” or “films”. Movies can be anything from that 15 second clip of a dog on a skateboard to a two-hour long Netflix stream of Spider-Man 3. To a degree such videos can serve a functional external purpose – for example, the skateboard video could be co-opted by a skateboarding website to help generate pageviews, and we certainly understand a large Hollywood movie like Spider-Man 3 is going to have all kinds of licensed merchandise tie-ins – but invariably, “movies” are, in the old media sense, individual SKUs meant to be consumed on a per-performance basis. By individual SKU, I mean that we think of these movies as products, something we would have traditionally exhibited on the aforementioned per-performance basis; we’d sell tickets or rent the DVD or otherwise distribute, or commoditize, these self-contained narratives for no other reason than to create a viewing experience, or an individual performance of a narrative which, hopefully, would be paid for individually. Moreover, the experience can end when the curtains close and the lights come up.
Now, the fortunate thing about the Web is that anyone, anywhere, even collaboratively over great distances, can produce movies, the 15-second or 2-hour variety, completely unrestricted, and post them almost anywhere on-line. From there, movies can take on new life in the social media space, too, in that they can spread an idea, help build a filmmaker’s portfolio and reputation, foster a meme, and perhaps lead to further work for the filmmakers. Also, movies can become an active part of participatory culture.
The unfortunate thing is that, as digital commodities with a reproduction price of zero, movies on-line are painfully difficult to sell as self-contained narratives. Almost all must (or inevitably will via infringement) be shared for free.
Which brings me to our second variety of Web video, material that serves a functional external purpose… (more…)
White Paper – Adobe Flash for Television
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009I have finally completed and submitted my final paper for this summer’s Web Strategies for Storytelling course in the UW MCDM. Hopefully Professor Keller takes a liking to it! If not, well, I’m still very excited about Adobe releasing its Flash platform to high-def TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and the like. I’m anticipating a revolution in how we consume web video! But, time will tell.
Here’s my white paper, in all it’s PDF glory.
What do you think? Will watching YouTube and Hulu in the comfort of your living room be all that and a bag of chips?
Matt Stringer and Social Media
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Drew Keller asked us students to toss up a brief blog post about what we hope to accomplish with our individual forays in to social media. You know: what do we want to be when we grow up? It’s an interesting question, and one that I have been pondering for some time – well past the due date for the post, too… It’s not that it’s a tough question to answer, although I do feel some pressure to be very clear and very ’spot-on’ because current and future employers, business partners, and other social media associates may read this. Nonetheless, the hang up for me in answering has been that my personal vision for what social media can be, and what I can do with it, is being continually being shaped week after week, day after day. It’s as evolutionary as the subject matter. I’m afraid that whatever I do say will be made moot by tomorrow, either by someone’s blue sky or my own. Of course, the MCDM is a huge part of the equation, but my life leading up to the MCDM, my past educational and career pursuits, have shaped my vision, too. With that, I guess I’ve got to say something! (more…)
name this video
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009A 2 minute (ish) video for Drew Keller’s class in the UW MCDM, Summer 2009.
Idea for “Web Strategies for Storytelling” final course project
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Our course on digital distribution is planning to create a website with a video carousel of sorts. The question is, what should the theme of this website be?
User Engagement
I believe in order to encourage user engagement, the content on the site obviously needs to be meaningful to a particular audience. I think the audience for our project would be the same audience for much of the content coming out of the UW’s MCDM program; that is to say, an audience eager to tap into our knowledge base. If the site is too generic, or too wide in scope, it might lose its audience, too. Having said that, I propose we generate video clips that are highly topical and relevant to our program. So, each clip from each student should answer the question: “What is social media?” Or, “How do I use social media?”
apple
Monday, February 23rd, 2009This video was originally put together as an editing assignment for my storytelling course in the MCDM a few weeks back. Unfortunately, I had to hold on to it until a mini-film festival it ran in earlier this evening. So, here it is now for all the world to see (in HD!):
apple in HD
apple in high quality
apple in normal quality
The perfect mockery of the mommyblog and cutesy LDS girl culture all wrapped into one
Monday, February 16th, 2009Yesterday I was introduced to Seriously, So Blessed!, the ultimate mockery of two genres of societal practice all wrapped in to one.
Seriously, So Blessed!'s February Banner
Trust me, just take a peek if you can stand it and then come back… this site has got insulting two cultures down to a science! First, the phenomenon of the mommyblog, and second, an Inter-mountain West culture comprised primarily of LDS women that appears to gravitate around cultural artifacts like the scrapbook, knitting, and crocheting.
Technorati Profile