blackandbrownnews.com

blackandbrownnews.com

As we learned in class online journalism is made up of not just text on the screen or on your digital media device, it has multi-media elements. These elements can consist of a photography, info-graphics, video, sound recordings, etc. There seems to be no limit to how you can cove a story in the new world of online journalism. For this newborn child of media the field is wide open. So how does an online media outlet traverse this new arena and deal with this fast changing landscape of digital media? Even more than that how does a online media outlet that serves a minatory community deal with it? For an answers to that other questions and more I turn to Blackandbrownnew.com and it publisher and founder Sharon Toommer.

As journalism evlousi   some people see blogs as the voice of the community as community in a sense. How do you think that is going to fit ?

Sharon: Not all blogs are equal some are escordinary well written well information pieces. Always what our concern is and what my concern is not just with blog but with new in general I see journalistic outlets doing it, the passing around of bad information. But I think there is place for voices that we never heard from before.  

Why separate yourself (blackandbrownnews.com) from a blog?

There are principles of journalism. We have writers that write stream of consciousness and that’s what   bog is. But we go thou the steps of vetting and not all blogs do that. Blog you can just in front of you computer and write whatever you want and its your fact. But its not really your fact, you did have al the information you didn’t check with as many sides as possible. In opinion is different from reporting. There is editorial and there is reporting I think reporting is still a necessary part of the democracy.

Who is doing it well?

We have writer that I like a lot Dádìsì Idọwú Ọlùwátọsìn and I like him because he is very careful. He is an option writer he write commentary but he treats it as very important rule and so he is careful in not what he say or how he says, if he is citing facts he has done the do diligent. If he is making statements he is backing it up. I think all of that is very important partially with a community that suffers from to much bad information. We are inundated with a lot of lifestyle like entertainment so we need creditable information. You know be creditable.

What biggest lesson you have learned via technology?

Always stay I mean this notation of putting it out there and just seeing how it goes. Always be looking be nimble be really flexible flexible and not so wedded to any one thing, because things are rapidly changing. I hear it referred to as the wild wild west and it is. So if your stagnate you just become irrelevant. So always be open. Even if it’s something I would wan to do I always have people that say way we should do it and that helps us to stay relevant.

A lot the rules of online journalism are still be written. How is this effecting what you are doing?

I stick with the core (principles). Yes you have a online publication and you can publishing ever hour. But we don’t have the capacity for that.  There use to be a time back in the olden days when people would get their news once week. Hence we have the Brooklyn town crier. But I think if you stick with these core principles then there is so much more that you can toy with and that you always keep the reader best interest ahead of yours. Any example is that we are not going to get the story first but we do want to get it right.  We might be a day late but we don’t want to be the once correcting what we wrote the day before.  And that is more challenging in this arena of  it happened a minute ago and its already out there. An example was and this is relatively old example was Michele Jackson’s death. We kept on hearing conflicting reports is he dead or is he alive. So we didn’t post it until the medial examiner (said he was dead). Not when TMZ put it out but when the medial examiner. Not saying that TMZ doesn’t get it right because a lot of the time they do.  But how they get their information. They pay for their information that is not a principle of journalism. But you know we are moving into that arena where these intuitions are paying. But you have to question when exchanges (hands).                     

FUNDING Part 1

             FUNDING Part 1     

      

Project funding was the topic of the April 10,2012 StoryCode Immersions at the Film Society Lincoln Center. The immersions hosts were Mike Knowlton of StoryCode and Sparrow Hall Author and New Media Innovator.  Done in two parts, Knowlton’s presentation was focused on the providing an overview of funding, Hall jumped in for part two of the immersions talking about brands. That being said I’m going to break this blog posting into two separate posts so I can cover both aspects of the immersion adequately. Lets start with first kind of funding anyone ever has self-funding.

SELF-FUNDING

Just as the name says self-funding come from you. You are taking your hard earned money and putting it into a transmedia project. When self-funding consider putting together several different budget. Really learn how to work a budget. Ask other people that have self-funded projects about what the have learned about how to use their own money. Sharing what you doing in a open source, meet up environment is all so help to self-funders.

CROWD SOURCE

A new trend in funding is Crowd Source funding. This is when you get a group of people that you don’t know donate money to your project’s goal. You have a certain amount of time to reach this goal. If you reach the goal amount in the allotted time you get the money. If you don’t you get nothing. Two of the biggest crowned sourcing web sites are indie go-go (indiegogo.com) and kickstarter (kickstarter.com).  A first glance they both look almost the same the theoretically. But big different between the two are how much money they take from you’re the funding.  Indie go-go takes 9% if goal not met; 4% if met. Kickstarter only funds if met, at 5%. But you really need good strategies to get people to notice you project. One is to ask people early in the week. Researching, having a team, an amazing video, having your campaign come out in phases, partnering people that make you project more visible is also effective.

INVESTORS/ VENTER CAPITALS (VCs)

When using investors/VCs remember that it is more about value position and less about story. Perfect your elevator pitch to take advantage of sudden opportunities. Preparing an investor deck will show that you are thinking with an investors/VCs mind and will separate you from others. Investors/VCs are less likely to fund experiments so business model is paramount. Showcasing any new technology that you inventing is always attractive especially if you can use in any future projects.

MARKETS

Markets are events where you pay to shop you project for funding to possible funders. Examples of markets are Power to the Pixel - Pixel Market and the BANFF Co-Production and Co-Venture Business Market. When dealing with markets you should expectations that a realistic. Have Headphone if you plan on playing you trailer or video.

CONFERENCES

Now I know the sound crazy but your goal at conferences are to increase your contacts so you can follow towards setting up meeting that could get you funding. This is also a good place for your evaluator pitch. Some upcoming conferences included StoryWorld - SF in 2011, LA in 2012, Ad: Tech - Fall NY / Spring SF, Digital Hollywood - Fall NY / Spring LA, and StoryCodes own Hackathons - TechCrunch / StoryCode in May 2012.

GRANTS / LABS

Getting funding from grants and Labs are very difficult in the U.S. doe to stiff competition. Canada and Europe on the other hand has government allocated   funding transmedia projects so you should consider bringing in a Canadian Co-production. Some leads for grants are http://creative-capital.org, Tribeca New Media Fund, Sundance New Frontiers. If you thinking about going the Canada and Europe route you can information on the  http://kulturvulturz.tumblr.com/post/12332547408/where-i-correct-the-rumors-regarding-transmedia-money blog.

In Funding Part 2 I break down Sparrow Hall's half the Immersion where he talks about funding working with brands.

Come out and Play

Come out and Play

When I say play what comes to mind? Well many things come to mind. You can play a game, you can play can play an instrument. You can play by with others or you can play by yourself. And now with online technology you can you can even by yourself with others. All are different experiences and all have their own differences experiences. They also have their own benefits that fit into our lives. These are some of the topics that Come out and Play Co-Creator Nicolas Fortugno presented Come Out and Play as case study at StoryCode on at Lincoln Center Film Center.

Come out and Play describes itself as a “an annual festival of street games that turns New York City & San Francisco into a giant playground. We provide a forum for new types of public games and play by bringing together players eager to interact with the world around them and designers producing innovative new games and experiences.” That being said Fortugno goes into the elements of social play by talking about his experiences and creating games for social play with Come Out and Play goes about. He starts with a definition of games from Bernard Suits “ The voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles “. From there he goes in what Come out and Play is all about what some of what he has learned in designing games for social play in the worlds transmedia, real world or location based games and online. “Making games is very about that placing obstacles in peoples way to make the thing interesting. And sometime you do it right and you place the right obstacles in their way and the thing is fun and sometimes you don’t. Using the a comparison between of a regular person and professional soccer player Fortugno gets right the core of what makes a games a game. “Taking this moment of play and transform it into a game formalizing it. What are the goals and rules you put around it that thing. It very much about taking the core in a game and figuring out what can I do with that.”

While continuing his using soccer Fortugno explains the core mechanics of games. The core mechanics of soccer is kick the ball past somebody (in to the goal). Then you extrapolate that out then its about passing and defense and the off sides rule and that sort of thing. In soccer it kick that ball into the goal.” Fortugno goes on further to explain how presenting the rules and finding the twist that people create from game play. Which is that people do thing that you don’t expect with the game and you to go back and it do it all over again. Taking what the player has done that you did not expect and finding out what makes that cool, so you can add it the game. Fortugno goes into the why game play has changed over the years is because of a aging demographic the average gamer is in their late 30’s, game play moving into a more casual mode where people are asked to only give up a short period of their time. Also how the game audience has changed to include more people from different demographics. The importance of play is still important because of its benefits to the society and the world, that people learn how to interact and with one another and themselves. Who wants to play?

DIY DAYS

DIY DAYS

DYI Days is as the producers call it is a “is a roving gathering for those who create. Past stops have included Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia. FREE to participants and organized by volunteers – DIY DAYS is about the accessibility of ideas, resources and networking that can enable creators to fund, create, distribute and sustain.” DYI Days which New York event took place at The New School on March 3,2012 was a gathering of creative brain trust. Participants were able to take part in workshop workshops, think tanks, talks, etc to gain knowledge and help build their ideas from the wealth of sharing taking place. That is part of the beauty of DYI Days it is not just good for transmedia developers but for people in all creative mediums from music, gaming to journalism you name it. Also involved were non-creative fields that would like to share and pick new up new tools to energize their field. One example of that is education from scholars to elementary school education is well represented at DIY days. Two examples are Nicholas Diakopoulos and Story Pirates. Diakopoulos a Brown University graduate and known media researcher spoke on data and how it can be used in the world of creativity. Story Pirates multi- focused development program uses kids talent as writers to develop stories that that they create and Story Pirates act out, that is both educational and fun. They also graced the stage at the end of the event with a crazy story about creatives of the future that everyone seemed to really enjoy.

One of the highlights of the event is the pitch sessions. This is when they take time out from the event and regular attendees could come up to the microphone and pitch whatever they have, which could be anything. Attendees pitched everything from projects that they are working on that they might need some kind of help with too a school teacher who just want to find a way to enhance her classroom with some of the ideas that are present at the event. The list of invited speakers also specks volumes of the depth of DIY Days they included Playmatics Chief Creative Officer & Come Out and Play co-creator Nicholas Fortungo who talk about the benefits of social play. Also former lawyer turned activist Lina Srivastava who talked the use story to effect change by utilizing available multi-media platforms. Storycode the first Transmedia non-for-profit was also present at the event they head up a panel on the use of technology in transmedia storytelling. One of the events producers is story architect and director Lance Weiler who created the film and transmedia experience Pandemic that wowed folks at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. So he is stranger to transmedia and its importance in the future of media and beyond. Weiler stressed the importance of event like DIY Days to everyone in attendance no matter what you do. DIY Days seem like it has it only began to door open for new things for the future and beyond.

http://diydays.com/

http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/

http://diydays.com/

http://storypirates.org/

http://storycode.org/

Social Samba

Social Samba

Social media has become big part our some of lives. Facebook in particular has millions of user and counting. And it not just regular people it has tons of companies that use it as well. Sharing the moments of their lives interacting with one each other being social. So it only makes since that transmedia creators use this robust tool as way to get their projects to the masses. To bring the story to audience in a way that they have become accustom looking at, via post. But how do you do it. With so many people placing post online and trying to reach an audience the same as you. Intruding Social Samba an online platform using Facebook in your transmedia projects. The description on the Social Samba itself as the following “Social Samba is scripted social networking - the scalable way for storytellers to engage fans and tell them a story through posts, images and videos. It's the experience of Facebook, but scripted so fans can experience it whenever they want.” The last part of that description “experience it whenever they want “ is very important because with the rapidly growing ways of engage with technology Social Samba has to be able to seen on the multitude of platforms. People are not just stuck to their desktop or laptop anymore. Oh no, people are using tablets, cell phones, gaming systems, etc. That is part of the magic of Social Samba. But that is not all.

Creators can use Social Samba have the audience become part of the story effecting what happens in the story. Let say you want the charters in you transmedia project to interact with the audience. Where the audience can talk to the charters and actually tell them what to do in certain situations. Making the audience a part of creating the storyline using social media. As Aaron Williams Social Samba Co-Founder, CEO describes that part of Social Samba this way “ Let say have James Bond character and he is hot the train of a weapons smuggling operation. You can decided if he follows the guns to South America or the money to Morocco.” Creators can use Social Samba as a to add a transmedia element to already existing project as was it was used in the movie like Dolphin Tale and Joyful Noise starring hip-hop legend Queen Lafits and country music icon Dolly Parton. The creator of Dolphin Tale used Social Samba in make the audience part of dolphin rescue. Joyful Noise used Social Samba as way for the audience join the choir in an online audition. Film is not the ones adding Social Samba to the mix. TV shows like USA Networks Psych are using Social Samba to in an online game called hastag killer. Where the audience helps the shows two lead charters track down a killer. The was game was so well received that is was a South by South West 2012 award finalist. Social Samba has proven itself to be effective tool to add an interactive element to projects.

Back in his office help another Professor

Peter helping a Professor in their classroom

Peter helping in the Film & Media office

Track him down

On the move

Keys to the kingdom

Finding the right tool for the job

see picture blew

Peter's desk command central

Cables, if you need one

Peter Jackson at his desk with Film & Media interns

Workbench

on the left of entrance some might call it chaos

His name is on the door a big title for big job

Peter Jackson Senior Digital Media C.L.T & Production Coordinator, Hunter College

Peter Jackson Senior Digital Media C.L.T & Production Coordinator, Hunter College

The entrance to Peter Jackson's office

TRANSMEDIA. WHAT IS IT?

TRANSMEDIA. WHAT IS IT?

A definition of transmedia is not easy to come by try looking it up in the dictionary. Now hold on before you go the computer to look it up. I want you to got to actual printed copy of the dictionary not use the online dictionary that some of us have gotten used to lately. A pain in the you know what maybe, but just do it just for fun. I’ll give you moment and to save us sometime I will go to online version of the dictionary and see if I can find a definition as well. What did you find, nothing me neither. But lets not let that stop us from finding out what this tranmedia thing is all about. Hold on a minute while I plug transmedia into a search engine. Hmm looks we have something here good ol wikipedia it defines transmedia as the following.

“Transmedia storytelling, also known as multi-platform storytelling, cross-platform storytelling, or transmedia narrative, is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. It is not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises,[1] sequels or adaptations.”

Since wikipedia is not always seen as a scholarly resource of information I going to do some more digging. Give me a moment. Ok I found something we can use. It's from the creator of the NBC tv show "Heros" Tim Kring “Transmedia is a fancy word for a simple concept: telling stories across multiple platforms.”

Sound its just more the same from Mr. Kring which is a lot to wrap your head around. Perhaps a definition is not going to do it when defining transmeida lets think of something else. Maybe we should use an example of transmedia that would serve us better. For example the ABC’s drama “Castile” where the character of Richard Castile a very successful mystery/crime writer is paired with a New York City police detective Kate Beckett to solve crimes. (Mostly murders). In the show Richard is penning a book tilted “Night Heat” with the lead character Nikki Heat loosely and not so loosely inspired by Beckett. The real “Night Heat” book released by publisher Hyperion at the same time as the shows is airing with Richard Castile as the author. A second book is entitled “Naked Heat” released during the shows second season. All welded together moving the storyworld from tv show to the book and back again. The books are tied into the plot of the plot of the show and part of the storyworld of the show. There you have it an example of transmedia. Which in provides us with a definition. What’s that you sayi? You have some questions. Well shot.

What if I have seen the tv show but not read the novel I’m I going to be miss part of the story?

What about other forms of media?

Are they using social media as well?

Who else is using trans media?

Wouldn’t transmedia be good for marketing?

How do I learn more?

Whoa, slow down looks like you more questions than I can answer in single blog posting. But I will say that the answers to your questions are the challenges that tranemedia makers take to heart during the creative process. I guess the only way to continue this is to employ transmedia to perhaps answer your questions.

Work cited :

Jenka Gurfinkel, " Your Life Is A Transmedia Experience — Now With Pictures!"http://social-creature.com/.blog.Febuary,10,2012