The lesson here is FaceBook and Zuckerberg’s deft handing of The Social Network movie.  Despite being a fictional and immensely unflattering protrait, Zuckerberg wisely refrained from going ballistic in the press– which wouldn’t have helped and would have only made him look worse.  Now he is at the point of being able to laugh at the whole thing and wins points for not taking himself too seriously.

In my opinion, that’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger is a much bigger star than Steven Seagal.  Schwarzenegger doesn’t take himself too seriously and Seagal takes himself way too seriously.  To survive and thrive in the entertainment, lighten up and and don’t be afraid to share a laugh at your own expense.  The ability to do that shows a touch of humility and vulnerability– and that is always appealing.

Nuno Bernardo, from BeFilms, created the original Sofia’s Diary in Portugal, an online drama with videos, blogs, interactive text messages, message boards and a TV show. It was a huge hit in Portugal and went on to spawn versions around the world, including the UK. Recently, he has created a new show Flatmates. This is for an older audience, but works along the same lines.

Nuno is also working on other drama and non-fiction projects.

If you haven’t seen Sofia’s Diary, here’s (part of) the UK version:

http://www.bebo.com/sofiasdiary

Nuno comes from a marketing background and this was his starting point for Sofia’s Diary.

He realized the teenage audience was becoming increasingly difficult to reach, especially through TV. Teenagers are increasingly more interested in the internet – as both a channel of entertainment and information (music, gossip sites, blogs, etc) as well as a way of communicating, through messenger services such as msn.

What sets internet use apart from TV is the interactivity between users. This is also borne out by the fact that teenagers are the heaviest users of text messaging. (Nuno quoted a figure of 200 texts a day for some teenage groups.)

From this, the idea for Sofia’s Diary was born.

The interesting thing from a writing/storytelling point of view is that it was is about creating a whole virtual world for the character and audience, and making a lot of this real time.

This included –

• Phone texts, sent directly to subscribed users, telling them about something that had just happened (and sometimes asking for advice).
• Internet diary blogs, updated every day at 8:30pm. These constituted -a daily experience- for the character, and always left a problem for the next day while asking advice –  for example: I’ve just found out that my boyfriend kissed my rival. Should I forgive him? Users were then invited to leave responses on message boards. This created debate amongst users, with the characters also joining in at times.

• Sofia had her own blog, as did many of her friends, all giving different points of view of central events.
• Weekly/monthly magazine diaries, published in teen mags.
• A radio soap, available for download – again -a daily experience-.
• A mobile phone alert service.

The idea for all of this was to connect with the teen audience by creating the world of Sofia in terms/medium that they themselves use – basically, communicating with them how they communicate with each other.

And all of this through a story which reflected/mirrored their lives/concerns.

Sofia’s Diary was launched in Portugal and was an instant success.

In 2003 it was extended to a television show on the Portugese PBS.

5 minute episodes were produced each day, with a 30 minute episode at weekends. This debuted to some of the best audiences on Portugese TV.

Unlike the other aspects of the Sofia’s Diary, the TV show was not a year-round experience, but ran for 26 weeks a year.

The brand also moved into books, DVDs, a Sofia’s Diary magazine, sponsorship and product placement deals, and product licensing.

Sofia’s Diary then went international, adapting to the local audience and culture. For instance, the South American version had a more sexually active teenager than the one in Portugal. (In the UK, instead of Sofia’s family consisting of mum, dad and brothers/sisters all living together, we had a more dysfunctional UK family. Go figure…)

The show launched in the UK with 5 million hits in its first week. After 6 months that was up to 30 million hits a week… The show then began running on Channel 5.

Nuno explained how it all worked in more detail.

First of all, it’s important to realize this was an ongoing, live experience – 7 days a week, featuring radio, blogs, live texts, magazine articles, comment boards.

It was all a constantly on-going story, so there was a strong sensation of living the story, like a great big multi-platform soap.

Elements were created to interact with each other – for example, the radio show fitted in with the blog, which fitted in with the text messages –  but each element could also be viewed/experienced alone.

In other words, most of the audience would listen to the radio show one day, receive texts another day, read the blogs for a couple of days, maybe spend an hour on the message boards at the weekend exchanging views and advice. It wasn’t necessary to view everything to understand the story.

However, all the different platforms were supporting and cross-promoting each other – which is a really interesting concept for writers to think about. Many people are very wary of the whole idea of writing for online drama, or are simply not that interested (“it isn’t real writing”), but viewed in the above terms, it suddenly seems like being given a big box of tricks, in every medium and platform possible, to tell your story.

The other important aspect was the extent to which the whole thing was hugely interactive.

The audience’s view and opinion on what was happening to Sofia (and her friends) was actively sought. And as that opinion came in, it could affect the story.

It’s a fine line, but as Nuno explained, the audience felt ownership of the show, but they weren’t writing it or dictating where it went.

This was especially true when it came to adding the TV show element, which was filmed way in advance so could never have reacted to the views of the audience anyway.

Nuno also gave another interesting reason for NOT giving the audience power over the direction of the storyline. The audience will always protect the protagonist (if you are telling your story correctly!) and punish the antagonist, which would ultimately lead to very boring stories, with little conflict or drama.

However, the feedback from the audience could also act as real time criticism of the story. For example, on several occasions it became clear through the online discussion boards that the audience hadn’t understood very clearly why a character had behaved in a particular way, or had misconstrued their motives because the story, in that instance, had just been told too fast.

The writers were able to read this and go into the blogs or send out texts the next day and clear those kind of issues up (in character of course), reassuring the audience.

Therefore this rolling multi-platform story was starting to interact heavily with the audience, -interrupting- their lives with unexpected and unplanned text messages from the characters, (“Oh my god, I’ve just found out Dave kissed Francesca…!”)

This is storytelling which apes life-like experiences, blurring the story/reality lines. (Not that I believe that the audience isn’t capable of distinguishing the two. Of course they are. But it questions HOW we tell stories.)

And then Nuno’s next project took that even further.

For Flatmates, again created originally for Portugal, Nuno took a group of 3 flatmates and an older age group. From a storytelling point of view, this complicated (in a good way) the relationship between the audience and the characters. The audience have favourites, and the three flatmates can fight it out online with their blogs, the users then fighting on the message boards.

This led to a different, and potentially more interesting, dynamic between audience and characters.

Another thing they found was that teenagers didn’t like the websites for TV shows. They seemed tacked on, with no interactivity, and histories and blogs which started the day before the show’s debut. Therefore, when creating the blogs, they created a past for the characters, even using the actors family photos, etc to fill that past out.

The audience chose the actors through online auditions which the audience voted for. This had also happened with Sofia’s Diary.

The community/fans were invited to come along to the bar featured in the show, to mill around as extras, but also to interact with the actors, who stayed in character the whole time.

The actors appeared on a daytime talk show as their characters, and the show introduced them as such, blurring the lines between reality and fiction, or at least playing with them.

http://slebisodes.com/Web_Series_Guide/Web_Series_Guide.html

Photo attribution HERE

This is from Savvy-Writer.com and my friend Rebecca Sebek.  She interviewed me as a result of my responding to her query on Reporter Connection.  You can register either as an expert or as a writer (or both).  It’s a great way to research that next script or arcane topic of interest. Here is what she has to say about this amazing new service:

Freelance writers will find Reporter Connection to be their new best friend. Sometimes you don’t where to find experts to interview for your book, radio show, or website (or script). Reporter Connection connects you to experts within seconds.

I’ve used Reporter Connection three times and have been blown away by the responses I received. I had to stop two of my queries because of the amount of responses I received. In one day, I received 15 responses. The next day, I received 10. God only knows how many responses I would have received if I let my query run. I was overwhelmed and overjoyed at the same time!

If you visit my Screenwriting page, you’ll see the benefit of signing up with Reporter Connection. I met some amazing people who are experts their field. The knowledge these people shared is invaluable.

And best of all it’s FREE!

Photo Attribution Here

Someone forwarded me an exerpt from a talk you did at UCLA about New Media. I really liked you point of view and your enthusiasm. I am finishing post production on an original web series for Sony’s Crackle.com called The Bannen Way. I Co-wrote, produced and star in it. It came out of my frustration with my career and wanting to create. We launch January 6th on line with Day and Date iTunes release of the feature. It’s been quite a ride.

The Bannen Way Trailer is on Crackle.com

YouTube has reportedly moved closer to offering users subscription services to access full-length TV shows, in an effort to tempt more broadcasters on board.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of YouTube parent Google, said in April that “micropayments and other forms of subscription models” were coming. Now, Google’s VP of content partnerships David Eun has hinted that this is on the horizon.

“We’re making some interesting bets on long-form content; not all content is accessible to us with the advertising model,” said Eun In an interview with Reuters, which reported that subscriptions were the favoured option.

Full story on YouTube’s possible pay model here

Dr. Howard Suber, author of The Power of Film, teaches an extraordinary class on strategy, storytelling and strategic thinking at UCLA in the MFA Producers Program.  During his course, he has an on-going email conversation with students present and past on the key topics of the class.  We had dinner the other night and discussed the importance of online entertainment.  He is a bit more of a skeptic than I am– I am a true believer, I admit it.

In his class emails he talks about the truism “it’s not what you know, but who you know” which reflects the nepotism, name dropping and almighty rolodex or contact list in Hollywood.  He turns this notion on its head and says the more important thing is “who knows you.”  In his class, Dr. Suber emphasizes the importance of having credibility and a stellar reputation.  In my email to him, printed below. I reference his more accurate and useful truism and apply it to my experience and the importance of “being watched” in the context of making a deal or getting a job in the entertainment industry and how New Media affords you the best platform.

Dear Howard–

For several years, I have been a consultant for FreMantle Media, one of the leading worldwide media companies. I’ve met and worked with their executives, producers and writers across Europe and Australia. I recently started developing my own online series with them.  The reason I got my deal was management had an opportunity to watch me work.   They knew my work ethic, how I relate to their business and what my general approach to drama development was.  They watched and knew me personally.

I think “being watched” is how any one gets any deal or any assignment in this business.  It absolutely goes back to the principle you articulate about “who knows you.”  No one is going to risk any kind of a substantial budget on someone they don’t know on some level.  Spec scripts used to be the way people got to watch and get to know a new writer.  But those days are pretty much gone.  Budgets are too high and most everything is an adaption, a franchise property or a remake.  There are plenty of better known writers ahead of a newbie.  What a newbie brings to the table is a new eye, a fresh take and original ideas– not easily financed any more (with the rare exception).  Then there is the nightmare of distribution even if you do get financed.

That is why I believe online comedy and drama is the future for talent.  The barrier to entry is low.  Productions values can be minimal because the screen is small.  What makes a series successful is really clever, interesting and engaging writing.  The online series is very much a writer’s showcase.  All you really need is a distinctive voice. Distribution is equally available to everyone.

To prove how clever writing emerges in even the most minimal format– take a look at the article below from THR:

“Twitter sensation Shit My Dad Says is headed to television.  CBS has picked up a comedy project based on the Twitter account, which has enlisted more than 700,000 followers since launching in August and has made its creator, Justin Halpern, an Internet star.”

“Will & Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are on board to executive produce and supervise the writing for the multicamera family comedy, which Halpern will co-pen with Patrick Schumacker. Halpern and Schumacker will also co-exec produce the Warner Bros. TV-produced project, which has received a script commitment.  The comedy’s title will change if it gets on the air.”

“Halpern, 29, had moved back in with his parents in San Diego, and on Aug. 3 he launched “Shit My Dad Says,” a Twitter feed featuring colorful — often profane — comments and pearls of wisdom made by his 73-year-old father during their daily conversations.”

Full article is here:  Shit My Dad Says

So Justin Halpern got a deal based on 140 character Tweet depictions of his dad.  He translated his ear for dialogue and sense of humor into a running comedy.  The Powers That Be watched him do it.  Believe me.  They are watching everywhere!  There are staff people whose only job is to troll the Internet for new talent.  If you are talented enough to develop a following they will find you– guaranteed.

Don’t forget Juno scribe Diablo Cody first got noticed for her blog about being a stripper among other things.

From her Wikipedia page:

“Cody began a parody of a weblog called Red Secretary, detailing the (fictional) exploits of a secretary living in Belarus. The events were thinly–veiled allegories for events that happened in Cody’s real life, but told from the perspective of a disgruntled, English–idiom–challenged Eastern Bloc girl.  Cody’s first bona fide blog appeared under the nickname Darling Girl after Cody had moved from Chicago to Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

“Then, Cody signed up for amateur night at a Minneapolis strip club called the Skyway Lounge. Enjoying the experience, she eventually quit her day job and took up stripping full-time.  Based on the popularity of Pussy Ranch (her City Pages Newspaper blog) received, she was able to secure a publishing contract with Gotham Books. At the age of 24, Cody wrote her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.”

As another site says:  “she gonzo-blogged about the local sex industry until people with money began to notice. ”

Cody wasn’t the overnight success everyone depicted– she put in long hours developing a distinctive voice that got noticed online.  She was being watched until they knew her well enough to invest in her.

Last but not least, the WGA has just admitted its first member for writing a self-financed online series– her name is Ruth Livier.  Her Writers Guild membership is based entirely on her online credits.  Livier is a 30+ actress who feared the roles were dwindling for her age range and for her ethnicity.  Here is the story and a whole Guild issue about writing online series in general in  WGA Written By Magazine

Here is what Livier has to say about creating her series:

“In the entertainment community there is typecasting. The ‘powers that be’ don’t really know what to do with you. In my case I am not dark enough to fit their Latina stereotype and not white enough to be white. That’s why writing and producing for New Media is such a fantastic option. It affords us the opportunities that traditional media hasn’t. Let’s be real, the opportunities to break in through ‘traditional’ channels are slim. Like my friend Dennis Leoni says, “The oldest form of affirmative action is the ‘Good Ol’ Boy’ network.” And he is right. Try breaking through that! If you are not a part of the GOB network, mainstream media is super expensive. I don’t know about other Hispanic Americans with similar upbringings to mine, but rich relatives do not abound. No one has the private money to fund theatrical projects. I am not complaining. I’m grateful for my life experience.

I’m just saying New Media, the vehicle we are now using for Ylse, is a fantastic resource and a wonderful opportunity for us. We have immediate and unaltered access to a world audience and are circumventing traditional media platforms which are controlled by a small few.”

Read the full article in Hispanic Tips: News and Ideas

As the old foundations of Media Empires crumble there is plenty of opportunity for talent willing to think and create in a new way.  This is the good news in the Old Media Armageddon.  My advice is don’t waste your time on a dying paradigm that’s more interested in excluding you than including you.  This is a tremendous time to be a pioneer and create new ways to tell stories.  As Gary Carter says in his lecture on Storytelling in the Digital Age,  Old Media is based on exclusion (scarcity) and New Media is based on inclusion (abundance).   I know which one excites me.

In creating my own online drama I took an in-depth look at other series– Why did they succeed or why did they fail.  Here are my observations about a very spectacular public failure: Quarterlife.   These are the take-aways from my analysis of the web series created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of television’s Thirtysomething and Once and Again and producers of My So-Called Life.  You can watch the series here:  Quarterlife on MySpace

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Without Authenticity and Urgency the Audience Disengages

The series, Quarterlife, is named for the phenomena of the “Quarterlife Crisis.”   This is the emotional angst and anxiety that hits around age 25 – 29, when college grads wonder: “What am I doing with my life?  Why am I broke, bored and/or stalled in my career?”  The iconic television series, Friends, explored the same territory in a comedy.

There is a sense of entitlement and astonishment among the Quarterlife characters summed up by Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch), the protagonist:  “A sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.”

This sense of entitlement and astonishment seemed to also accompany the series’ failure.  What went wrong?  Don’t you all know we’re television geniuses?

Quarterlife lacked the necessary authenticity and urgency to engage its core web audience.  The producers didn’t fully understand their audience and the series felt too much like a cynical ploy.  The Friends characters took themselves much less seriously.  Quarterlife simply can’t sustain all the self-important angst.

New Media Ploys Annoy the Audience

Quarterlife was originally conceived as a broadcast series but didn’t get picked up by a major network.  Herskovitz and Zwick broke the series down into 8-minute segments.  They independently financed the show and created special channels for the series on MySpace and YouTube.

Rather than creating content specifically for this new medium and this particular audience, the creators recycled a conventional series and distributed it in smaller chunks.  Their goal seems to have been to get back on broadcast television as quickly as possible.

Despite the social networking aspects of the Quarterlife website, it seems the creators did not fully embrace (or fully understand) their audience and this new storytelling medium.  After a much-hyped launch, viewership dropped precipitously.

“Podcasting News, for example, gleefully pronounced the web series a bomb in December, running a chart of each episode’s views on YouTube that looked like a graph of Ron Paul’s 2009 delegate count, noting that the show was getting fewer web views than ‘sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor’,’” wrote Los Angeles Times media columnist Patrick Goldstein.

Goldstein also suggests that Quarterlife served as a magnet for web devotees’ scorn for all the Old Media Titans who’ve been invading their turf, hoping to turn the new medium into another profit center.

Herskowitz didn’t help matters when he wrote in Slate:  “Most of it (web entertainment) is simply incompetence and ignorance masquerading as an ‘Internet style.’ And until now no one had tried anything that would actually engage the emotions of an audience.”

It’s ironic that Quarterlife doesn’t engage the emotions of their audience in a way that is authentic or that rings true.

Emotions Not Experienced Directly Distance the Audience

Protagonist Dylan Krieger narrates the series via her video blog.  She is a would-be writer stuck in an assistant’s job at a woman’s magazine, working for a boss who tries to steal her ideas.

The creators assume that video-blogging is the same thing as writing.  The key difference, as a commentator on New TeeVee pointed out, is:  “A writer wants an audience for her ideas and observations; a video blogger wants an audience for herself.”

This personal performance aspect is the narcissism of “Watch me – Look at me – I am what’s important here.”

In her video-blog, Dylan says that her “curse” is to see what people are thinking and feeling. In the visual language of storytelling, that is the reaction shot that shows the audience a character’s thoughts and feelings writ large on the actor’s face.

When Dylan narrates, as video blog performer, she prevents the audience from experiencing these emotions, thoughts and feelings directly with the characters.  Her performance distances us from the characters and is a classic violation of the “show don’t tell” rule of storytelling.  Her narration tells us what we’ve already seen or should have already seen ourselves.

If, however, personal narration directly contradicts what we have seen (or will see) then that shows us something new and interesting about the narrator and/or the other characters.   This counterpoint works wonderfully in the classic Herskovitz and Zwick produced series (created by Winnie Holtzman), My So-Called Life.

That show’s high school protagonist, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is hopelessly infatuated with Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto).  She remarks romantically that he is always closing his eyes as if it hurts to look at things.  Later, we see him dousing his eyes to get the stoner-dude red out with Visine.

There is no such ironic or poignant counterpoint in Dylan’s narration.  She tells us what we should see for ourselves or repeats what we already know.

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) muses publicly about personal concerns via her newspaper column in Sex and the City.  The opening image vividly shows the contrast between the public and the private in Carrie’s life when she is splashed with dirty water as a bus plastered with her glamorous billboard image roars past. Sex and the City uses humor and irony to illuminate the disappointments, anxieties and dissatisfactions of a slightly older age group than Quarterlife.  Carrie, the wry witty writer, is not the self-conscious performer that Dylan is as a video-blogger.  The Friends characters also took themselves much less seriously.  Quarterlife simply can’t sustain the self-important angst.

Boredom, Stasis and Frustration Aren’t Urgent

As a friend has pointed out, “there is a reason so many serial dramas are set in hospitals and police stations, these environments provide an automatic sense of urgency, conflict and high stakes to a story.”

Articulate, over-sensitive, highly-educated, middle class white kids bemoaning the lack of a “special and gifted” life track (which is their due) doesn’t provide much emotional urgency.   There is little at stake if they can fall back on Mom and Dad, as one character does.

Fans watch football matches or basketball games because there is a sense that if you aren’t present or watching, cheering as hard as you can for your team, something terrible might happen.  The strength of your passionate concern will somehow help to put your players over the top.

Serial drama fans need to feel the same passionate concern and  personal involvement with the characters whose lives they follow.  What is the worst that can happen? Why do we have to watch to prevent that terrible outcome?  Why must we yell at the screen:  “No, no, don’t do that!”  What do we fear for our characters?  Why is it urgently important that we watch?

Interpersonal relationship can have that kind of emotional tension and urgency.  The stakes just have to be high enough.  The conflicts have to be intense and personal enough to evoke our deepest concern.  We have to be worried about the characters!

Weak Conflict Undercuts Urgency

The biggest potential conflict and most interesting social question in Quarterlife is weakened if not completely neutered.

Dylan’s friends don’t seem to care that she is violating their privacy, disclosing intimate information, betraying confidences and spewing interpersonal revelations to anyone who has access to a computer.

She names names.  She distributes secretly recorded videos.  She commits the emotional equivalent of a physical violation.  Outside of a minor emotional hissy-fit, this potential conflict quickly passes by the wayside.  Nobody really pays attention to Dylan’s video blog.

Her revelations cause little conflict within the group.  They cause no conflict outside the group (no outsider causes a problem for the characters because of information learned through Dylan’s blog).

It is very startling and disconcerting when strangers know the intimate details of your life and remark on them to you.  What happens when everyone knows your whereabouts and/or your personal business?  How does that cause problems and create conflict for the characters?

What are the limits of personal privacy and the ethics of personal disclosures about others?  All those questions are interesting opportunities for conflict that could come from who the characters are as individuals and how they might view the world (or privacy) differently.

If Dylan’s blog has no effect on the other characters, what is the dramatic point other than to show her on a web cam?   This feels like the creators trying to be hip but it comes off as empty, false and inauthentic.

When It Isn’t Urgent It Has to Be Funny

The characters in Quarterlife are remarkable for their lack of humor or any wicked sense of fun.  They take themselves and their lives way too seriously.  The series doesn’t have a vivid appreciation of the absurd.

The classic series, Friends, mined this age group’s anxiety, boredom and frustration brilliantly.  The theme song by The Rembrandts sums up the same storytelling territory:

“So no one told you life was going to be this way.

Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,

Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.

I’ll be there for you…  And you’ll be there for me too.”

Friends had wit, warmth and sense of the absurdity of life (and lasted many years past the characters’ “Quarterlife Crisis” because the fans weren’t willing to let the characters go).  Contrast this with the previous quote:

“A sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.”   (Poor me!)

Which show would you rather watch?

Seinfeld, originally featuring the same or slightly older age group, totally lacked urgency and was proud of it.  That show was about nothing more critical than finding a parking place, making a reservation at a restaurant or buying soup at a lunch counter.  The series had a wicked sense of humor; made us laugh and we were satisfied and came back for more.  If it’s not emotionally dramatic then it must be laugh-out-loud funny.

What Was NBC Thinking?

Quarterlife was picked up by NBC at a time when broadcast dramas were running out of stockpiled scripts and scripted shows were shutting down all over Hollywood during the strike.   It seemed like a slam-dunk opportunity.  Then, just like the story concept for the series characters, reality hit and it was nothing like anyone imagined.

The show only had 3.1 million viewers in its NBC broadcast debut, the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour slot by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The series also got hammered in the adult 18 – 49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.3 rating.  The show was pulled from NBC’s schedule after only one episode.

Why would NBC think that a series allegedly conceived for and widely available on the web would attract the same audience age group in a repeat on broadcast television? Everyone who was interested had seen the show already.

If viewers can watch on their own time on the web why should anyone watch the show on NBC’s time? What was new, different or added to the viewing experience during the rebroadcast?  The network didn’t seem to understand the core audience either.

There is an element of condescension (or maybe contempt) in all of this exemplified by the words the creators put in Dylan’s mouth:  “We blog to exist, therefore we… we are idiots.”  A show on any media platform is really in trouble when the creators have contempt for or belittle their own characters.

I will be there and hope to see some of you too!

.WHAT: AFI DigiFest 2009

WHEN: Wednesday, November 4th & Thursday, November 5th

WHERE: Mann Chinese Theater, Hollywood CA

COST: Free of Charge. You must register.

REGISTER: http://www.afi.com/education/dcl/

DAY ONE – November 4

10 am – 5 pm

DAY ONE of AFI DigiFest showcases cutting-edge digital media prototypes incubated in the AFI Digital Content Lab during the previous year. For eleven years, the Lab has convened teams of industry experts who brainstorm solutions to cross-platform challenges. This year’s projects illustrate the ever-widening spectrum of development and distribution options open to today’s creators while optimizing for the consumers’ eagerness to view and interact with content across a variety of screens.

This year, featured projects include:

• a social network and proposed marketing plan for INTERVIEW PROJECT PRESENTED BY DAVIDLYNCH.COM;

• a proposed online strategy for engaging youth in a series of relevant environmental action challenges for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation;

• a mobile application that provide an interactive past-to-future timeline for an innovative ITVS cross-platform micro-series;

• an interactive mentoring environment for One Economy that encourages students from low-income families to learn more about science as a career;

• a MOBILE STORY MAKER session with longtime filmmaker L.M. Kit Carson, who shot the deeply moving micro-series AFRICA DIARY using a Nokia mobile phone as camera. The series will soon air on the Sundance Channel.

Cocktail party and poolside screening of select short films at the historic Roosevelt Hotel to follow.

DAY TWO – November 5

10 am – 5 pm

DAY TWO of AFI DigiFest offers a curated look at the most innovative digital media productions released during the past year. An eye-opening window onto the emerging digital media landscape, the productions highlighted during AFI DigiFest are consistently dynamic, aggressively cross-platform, and always inventive.

Among the invited presenters this year are:

• DISTRICT 9, a behind-the scenes look at games and an augmented reality application created by production house Trigger;

• LIVE MUSIC, a 3D animation pieced together from contributions by thousands of animators from around the world, masterminded by Mass Animation’s Yair Landau, former vice-chair of Sony Pictures;

• URBAN WOLF, a surveillance camera-based micro-series drama by Parisian director Laurent Touil Tartour;

• MANOBI, an innovative mobile phone application that has helped raise the standard of living for Senegalese farmers and fishermen;

• FIRST THINGS LAST, a dynamic and visual storytelling application for the iPhone created by ScrollMotion;

• ESCAPE FROM CITY 17, a stunning meld of machinima and live action created by the multi-talented Purchase Brothers for less than $500;

• NAKED SKY ENTERTAINMENT, a surprising look at what our collective augmented reality may well look like a year from now;

• MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY, a restoration of Jacques Tati’s 1953 whimsical tale presented by Thomson/Technicolor;

• and more!

Cocktail party in celebration of Planet Illogica in the historic Roosevelt Hotel Ballroom (home to the first Academy Awards).

Register: http://www.afi.com/education/dcl/