trees are people too

Pardon me, but this is so fucking cool.

Yes, as indicated it is a Wes Anderson Film Festival. Currently only in conceptual stages, but I see no reason why it couldn’t be.

Props to you Alex Cornell. I only wish (like with so many things in my life) that it wasn’t hypothetical. Take over the world with well designed words.

This is where I work now.

Unfortunately I imagine that this is poignantly relevant to all creative organisations. All aboard the train to the CCO. Via Fubiz. Thank you for brightening my day despite speaking french.

As you will know, I recently began a new career in advertising with GPYR. It is not half as glamourous as one might think, but working with a number of dangerously creative people can have its perks. And its fails. But variety is the spice of life.

We recently launched this new ad for smart energy, junk ballet.

Not the best ad I have ever seen (currently this) but it is still good fun. More interesting though is that it took me four viewings to work out that my cousin stars in the ad (it is he who plugs the cables together). This is an uncanny coincidence. The boy gets around.

Big ups to Thomas. He is also a keen publisher, a life I lived in one of my previous careers.

So now I have worked in magazine publishing, book publishing, as a journalist and a copy editor, and here I am as an adevrtising executive. One can’t but help hope that I am getting closer to the right career. My dream is to get into strategic communications, mostly in digital spaces. I’ll be updating my progress right here. Keep an eye.

mmm-mmm. My favourite things. And brought to you by the letter M.

We have completed!! I would say we have conquered, but I am not quite convinced we have come that far. Still, we have miraculously managed (all about the mmmm I tell you) to edit, finish and compress our tiny film. You can watch it above (be forgiving on quality, as this has been compressed for the mobile phone size), or locate it in Second Life here (coordinates: 238, 87, 25), or on the pool here.

If you prefer, you can also download the video here, with slightly better sound and picture, and you can also download the .3gp version here.

While it is not the most sophisticated work, it is our exploratory journey of a completely new genre and media, constrained by extensive time and skill limitations. And yet we produced something, which is always some kind of wonderful.

Please enjoy (even if you don’t, please try) and I look forward to repo-ing my blog very soon. It’s been real, university. Adios.

When we talk about new media, we talk a lot about collaboration, about sharing and building together. It’s a new creative space, one that lends itself to remix culture. It is democratisation of the media, creating a whole new world offering the opportunity to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of others. With new media, the increasing ubiquity of the network, the chance to share, to rework and to collaborate ideas and visions is no longer limited by cost, space and time.

Online creations can be shared immediately, instantaneously, and their digital format allows such data to be presented, copied, modified and transmitted with just the click of a mouse button. The network capabilities of the internet allow for vast accessibility, leading to vast involvement and, if we were to be idealistic, vast synergy – an environment where the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts. With such a resource at our fingertips, such a complex relationship developing between previously unknown parties, it seems inevitable that at best synergy will occur, and at the least we will see an emergence of the finest media. It is like the whole world is having a conversation, and not only are you having a say in it, but you can choose which bits you think are most deserving of your attention.

The very nature of the internet, its conversational qualities and huge web of networks, lends itself beautifully to an environment of collaboration – of sharing, copying, remixxing, reworking. While this creates a nightmare for copyrighters, it also signifies a new era for media production. We are no longer just consumers of media, we are prosumers – consumers who also produce media – and we are demanding to be heard. And we are not the rich, the elite, the trained and the qualified. We are the public, the average, the unskilled but the passionate, and we are creating the media of tomorrow.

Second Life is one example of our attempts at collaboration – the idea of a world created and modified by all those who exist within it. ‘Existing’ in Second Life has offered us the opportunity to explore some of the benefits, and the disadvantages, that online collaboration offers. Together we have built far more than any of us could have on our own, and in addition we have learnt from each others work and have been inspired by others’ creations. The space (as I have mentioned before) is a safe one, one in which we can explore the possibilities of collaborating in an online environment, with the freedom to do it in our own time, in our own space, from anywhere. But it can also be threatening….surrendering your Second Life-long work to the mercy of others can leave you feeling slightly vulnerable.

Using the web to collaborate can work in a variety of different ways, but its power is undeniable. You might want to arrange a public event or spectacle, and can use the power of the internet to organise, orchestrate and then record and distribute, such as these outstanding flash mobs. More technically, you can use the combined power of your resources. Projects that utilise distributed computing, such as Folding@home, use the network to access the collective computing power of thousands of computers all over the world, which they can then use to calculate anything from a cure to Alzheimer’s disease to the whereabouts of extra terrestrial beings. Then there is online media collaboration, which can range from collaborative blogs and wikis, such as lolcats or wikipedia, through to the more serious and sophisticated productions, such as open source programing and new and revolutionary collaborative media productions, such as swarm of angels, an outstanding exercise in remixing cinema.

Now this is where it starts getting interesting… where we start to see media created, used and shared in ways we have never seen before. The amount of information out there is vast and ever-increasing, and as a result, from online collaboration so too has spawned an environment of emergence. With so many parties involved in creating, selecting, sharing and choosing the media available, we begin to see an emergent media culture arise – one in which the best quality productions, those with the most currency, the most influence, will emerge on top. The organic spread of viral videos and the continuing ability of wikipedia to remain astoundingly accurate are both examples of emergent media – the ability for the highest quality media to rise to the top of the heap.

There are many tributes to this, to the amazing changes the net has brought about in collaborating. This video puts it quite nicely…

Courtesy of McLeang1 via youtube.

Now, in this new creative space, it’s time to start seriously considering copyleft, a new concept in sharing, developing and producing our ideas.

People [and their productions] can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism.

Think about it. It’s an exciting time to start sharing. And this is what’s so exciting about new media, and the collaboration it brings.

There have been numerous philosophical issues that have arisen during the building of our Second Life set, it’s just that I have been so busy building that I seem to have forgotten what they are… I’ve touched on a few of them when discussing the differences between my own street and my second life street – a pertinent comparison, as in building I endeavoured to model my Second Life street closely on my real street. In doing so I carefully considered aspects of my controlled, social space in comparison to the limitless spatial possibilities available when shaping a virtual street.

In a way, the Second Life environment began as quite threatening and alienating. I didn’t really like that I could terraform the land with the touch of the mouse, that I could ‘build’ a tree, that people could move and manipulate my objects, and mostly I didn’t like the concept of blocks floating in the air. That didn’t fly with me at all. If this was my Second Life, why was everything so uncontrollable? It lacked the order, the stability, the normality, the banality of the real world. A creature of habit and routine am I.

But over the course of building, my attitude changed, and the philosophical challenges became benefits, attributes to the experience. Terraforming the land and the ability to build, copy and modify (described to me by a seasoned SL inhabitant as the key functions of Second Life) meant responsibility, but also freedom, sharing objects meant letting go of my controlling side and learning that collaboration can mean incredible synergy, and floating blocks in the sky…. well, i still grapple slightly with this, but have also learnt to tolerate it.

Ethically, Second Life is an excellent sounding ground. It is about people, places and experiences, and although we have practiced our time there in a relatively controlled environment, it is easy to be aware of the limitations, the challenges and the possibilities. More experienced SL’rs would have a different relationship to the space than I do – more time inhabiting the virtual space would allow for a more engaged response and a different perspective… To me my set was just a street I built in a computer game, but to another inhabitant it is an new environment, unexplored territory, a potential demonstration of values and ideals.

Building the set in Second Life forced me to consider some of my own spatial relationships, my perception of space and narrative. What did a space mean to me? What did it have to look like to convey the sensations I wanted it to? Why did I choose a conventional environment, rather than a castle in the sky? While some of the perimeters set responded to the brief, others were personal – my own preference of order and stability. But this is all about learning to relate to space and narrative, representation and communication, in a completely new and different environment. This video introduces it nicely:

Courtesy of GiffForseti and available under creative commons.

It’s only as i dig deeper and deeper into machinima, and start understanding what can make it amazing, that I am learning to treat the space in Second Life in a different way, view it differently, see it from another angle. It is the capability of machinima to use these environments in imaginative and innovative ways that is exciting – the reworking of existing characters and spaces to create new and unprecedented narrative devices.

We talk about remediation; understanding the relationship between old and new media. I think this is similar in a sense to learning to understand the relationship between old (actual, traditional, conventional) and new (virtual) space. Only after understanding and practicing this virtual space can we break away from conventions, utilise it innovatively and effectively, and produce fantastic and amazing media. Recognising the limitations of real space allows us to recognise the limitless possibilities of the virtual world.

Script has been revised – the closer we get to shooting, the more I am realising how tight our time will be – 90 seconds is nothing, and I hadn’t accounted for placing a title screen and credits at either end. Based on that, we decided to keep our particular script sections down to about two sentences. We also discussed using sound effects to help set the mood – a child laughing for when our character was ten years old, perhaps city noises for when she is thirty and lives in the city. On Wednesday we are going to try and capture some footage, so we are coming prepared with our script and storyboards, and so…. voila! It seems a little meaningless here, but hopefully in its entirity will flow well…

“When I was thirty I moved to the city and lived in a street of bricks and concrete, where nobody spoke to anybody else. One day, someone left their bike in my street, and never returned to collect it. It sat there for months, rusting sadly, until one day it was collected by the garbage men.”

The focus of the story is on the bike, so after using a mid-shot to establish the street, I plan to slowly pan down the street before the camera comes to rest on the bike. It will only be two or three shots in total, although there may also be a lead in and lead out shot – from and to the streets before and after. Here are my planned shots (may need reconsidering after seeing them so small):

These will be even more tightly framed in the final shooting (i.e. get even closer to the bike) and I may stick to just one wideshot, as they are the trickiest on the small screen. I was surprised also to find that after originally being pretty against just using stills, I am now leaning more and more towards it – I think with the use of narration, just fading between these shots could be quite affective. I am not sure if movement in the frame will add to the story (not much action is going on anyway). I will push for this, but it will depend on the overall style of the entire piece also. I’ll let you know after recording on Wednesday.

Oh, and check out my backdrop – it’s Melbourne!! That’s probably about the coolest thing I’ve done thus far. Ha.

We are developing our scripts this week. The structure of our machinima means that we have four short sections, each with their own short VO outlining the story of that location. Thus, with only one and a half minutes to film our entire piece, we each have only 23 seconds each – not a lot of time to include extensive dialogue, so it will need to be short and concise, and as minimal as possible in order to translate successfully to the mobile medium. We must consider that people will be watching and listening to our machinima while on the move or in public, busy, noisy spaces (think on public transport, outside, public spaces) and so wont want to have to concentrate on complex, detailed audio.

My story, which takes place when our character is 30 years old, is about her life in the inner city. While the city is noisy, busy, crowded and urban, she is surprised by the isolation she feels in this space, one that is inhabited by so many others. She lives in an back alley in the city, and a poignant reminder of the lonliness experienced in the city is an abandoned bike that sits in her laneway, untouched for months. To her, it is a symbol of the disconnectedness of the city life, where neighbourhoods exist for years with no sense of community, no sense of belonging. This bike, left unclaimed to rust in the alley, is like a representation of an discarded dream, an abandoned childhood, a happier time when the street had a sense of community.

A voice over will outline this, but will need to be very concise to fit into the 23 seconds. It might go something like this:

“When I was thirty, I lived in an apartment in the city. The city was always busy, but I always felt like it was also lonely, isolated. No one in my street knew anyone else, and kept to their own concrete boxes.
One day, someone left their bicycle in my laneway. It sat there for weeks, slowly rusting, with no one to claim it. For months it sat there, like a lonely reminder of someone’s life, someone’s happier times.
No one in the neighbourhood ever claimed it. Everyone kept their eyes averted, minding their own business, secluding themselves behind closed doors, until one day the garbos collected it, another piece of trash discarded from someone’s life.”

This is too long, but I will refine it. A work in process!!

Framing Statement: Concept and topic, why and how our set will be used, characters and interpretation of the brief.

Our interpretation of the ABC My Street brief is a chronological narrative divided into four parts. It is a group of stories that span over four decades of our central characters life, discussing the different streets they have lived in during their lifetime. The story will begin when the central character, a female (40 years old) is 10 years old, and travel through four decades, each featuring a different street. This concept allows us to explore a range of different environments, focussing on the idea that your ‘street’, which is always ‘yours’, evolves over your life. Each street will have its own anecdote, which will reveal personality and emotional insight into both the character and the streets themselves.

We have divided our plot of land into four sections, each dedicated to a different streetscape from a different time, location and perspective. Our central character is able to wander through from one ‘neighbourhood’ to the next, as the narrative of her life unfolds. Each different street is quite small and simple, making them suitable for close shots and limited movement, but each ideally has its own ‘feel’ and story.

As the central character walks through the different streets, the different stories and nuances of each street will be told from the perspective of that particular time in their life. The tone is factual, intimate and personal, while staying relaxed and informal. This concept will hopefully resonate with a wide audience demographic, who can relate to the experience of living on a variety of different streets and the memories that those streets hold.

The premise is that: “Over time I have lived in many streets, but they have always been My Street”.

Style & Structure

The machinima will be shot in a first person, narrative, observational style. It will predominantly be a continuous shot, with occasional cuts and edits allowing for different camera angles. It will be accompanied by a VO explaining each street environment and the story behind it. The different environments will allow for different effects, lighting, contrast, which will keep the content dynamic and interesting for the mobile phone, while keeping it simple enough to translate to the medium. Our machinima should be ideal for small screen as the story features limited action, primarily from a close-range first person perspective, allowing for lots of slow or still shots. By keeping our sets bright and simple, and by implementing a smooth, continuous shooting style featuring lots of close ups and minimal action, our machinima should look suitable when playing on the mobile phone screen.

well, I said I wanted more pictures, so here you go.

I am documenting my sculptypaint creations as they have a nasty habit of going awol for no reason. I think my poor old confuser is having trouble handling the pressure. It really creaks through this. But this is me as builder.

pretty simplistic, i know, but they will hopefully add a bit of authenticity to the set. For my final trick I hope to make a (drumroll please) trash can, oscar the grouch style. I hope these will suffice as things I have built. The pain of sculptypaint better be worth it -_-*