I’m quoted in a Hollywood Reporter article on the Canadian Film Centre talking about the NBC Universal MultiPlatform Matchmaking Program:
NBC Universal, which, like rival U.S. networks, has looked abroad for content, is also backing the CFC’s multiplatform matchmaking program. Here Canadian industry veterans challenge tradition by hot-housing new crossover digital media product in the course of one week. Story2.OH creator Jill Golick, a previous participant in the CFC multiplatform program, says each experimental lab immerses professionals from diverse fields in an alternative universe free of commercial constraints to collaborate on next-generation creative ventures.
“We will all have to work together one day, so the time to develop a new creative language and ways to work together might as well be now,” she says.
Close enough. When Etan Vlessing interviewed me about the program I took last March, I told him that it was the best creative experience of my life. Sponsored by NBC Universal and hosted by the CFC, the lab is run by the amazing Frank Boyd of Crossover UK. The participants usually come from distinctly different backgrounds — half from an interactive/digital environment and the other half from the tv/film world. Over the course of a week, the two groups become one, first mapping out their shared understanding of the current media landscape and then working together to develop projects which draw on their shared skill sets. One of the most important features of the program is that it gives participants — who have completely different work experiences — a method for working together and communicating. I’m not quite sure I said the words “one day” or “might as well be now”, but I did mention the importance of developing a creative language to help us all work together.
Of course, there’s lots of good stuff to read in the Etan’s piece and the Film Centre definitely deserves the international recognition.
Screenwriter Jill Golick, another panellist, has more than 200 hours of TV work behind her. Now working as a digital strategist for organizations, she explores the edges of new media through her site Story2.OH (story2oh.com).
For this month’s social media week in Toronto, Golick and colleagues created a “live comedy soap opera” as a learning experience called Crushing It, which also illustrates the potential of new media.
Quite a few of the details about the Crushing It story are wrong (“The plot line included a mother, her daughter, a pregnant girl wondering who the father is and assorted friends.”) but the gist of the quotes are bang on:
“The really cool thing was that you could talk to the characters, and they would talk back to you,” Golick said. “You could give them advice ” and if they had a good suggestion the characters would put it into action.” In addition, the creators could ask for ideas to encourage readers to join in, such as asking what to name the baby and whether the parent should get married.
“There was a real sense from the audience they could influence the story.”
Now that I’ve done my star turn, I suppose I should go back to shoveling snow.