Anjali Sud – Unedited Experiences, The Future of Storytelling.
Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo, thinks the power of video has a strong connection to the human desire for real and unedited experiences. Video has evolved to be one of the primary ways that we as human beings communicate, and today, people crave video that is more personalized, responsive, and interactive than in the past. In her work at Vimeo, Sud is developing the new tools and techniques that allow creators to tell their stories in a more immersive manner and to more effectively engage with their audiences.
Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012
A great story to connect with your viewers is still the key. It is important for a writer to have a rich and varied background, your writing for someone to get immersed into a world, not like a novel where you describe everything and give them a complete picture. You need to enter this world and not be able to get out of it. Inception, designing these mazes, where it is like a dream, it is not necessary to understand everything as long as it feels authentic. Shaving things down to a minimum in order to get an idea across and is as much about the things that are implied as it is about the words. John Collee
John Collee: Writing and Developing Feature Films
The million dollar question, how to take an idea from script to screen, to create a powerful story that connects with your audience, complete takes them in. Are they completely absorbed, hearing them gasping, cheering, clapping and then have you carried them away with something that has been created. Not only talking, it needs to work psychologically. The audience reacts differently to a character if photographed on a long lens or a wide lens because they see the background or not. Are you going to relate this person talking to other people or do you want to isolate them? Do you want other people in the frame or do you want them to look like they are in a world of their own?
3 Top Tips for Becoming a Master Storyteller with Masako Fukui
Radio producer and journalist Masako Fukui encourages you to draw on your personal experiences to give voice to your most compelling stories.
Lisa Sweeney’s 3 Top Interviewing Tips
AFTRS Radio Program Leader Lisa Sweeney draws on her decades-long career as a journalist, presenter, station manager and people leader to offer 3 fail-safe ways to make you a first-rate interviewer.
How to Write a TV Show Treatment
NARRATIVE
A film that tells a story of a hero, a protagonist and the hero’s struggle against an antagonist. A perceived journey: a change that somehow occurs. Having the viewer feel that there is something being said.
What is Narrative Film — Overview & History of Narrative Cinema
The Narrative being broken into acts, three acts which comprise of sequences made up of scenes which are often broken into particular locations, that are made up of shots.
The first act establishes the main characters and the conflict or struggle that defines the story. The second act covers most of the action as the hero attempts to overcome the conflict. The third act concludes the film resolving the action.
50 BEST SCREENPLAYS TO READ AND DOWNLOAD IN EVERY GENRE.
If you’re looking for the best screenplays to read you’re in the right place. We’ve been strong advocates for the benefits of reading screenplays for a long time as it’s one of the simplest ways to learn how to write. With that in mind, we’ve put together a mega list of the fifty best screenplays to read for aspiring screenwriters. This list of the best screenplays to read is grouped into the five main genres you’ll find in Hollywood today: drama, comedy, action/adventure, thriller and horror. (We prefer to call sci-fi, western, romance, etc. sub-genres of these five and you’ll find examples of these in the lists below too.) Both “shooting” movie scripts and “spec” movie scripts are included in this list. If you’re an aspiring screenwriter trying to break into the industry with a spec, it’s important to ignore all the little formatting quirks that often come with shooting movie scripts. Sluglines with periods instead of dashes, large chunks of descriptive text, excessive use of camera angles and so on, are all expressions of writers who’ve made it.
NOBODY TALKS ABOUT AUSTRALIANS ON SCREEN
AUTHENTIC STORYTELLING – ANA TIWARY: HOW AUTHENTICITY CAN THRIVE IN THE SCREEN COMMUNITY
Authenticity is a journey not a destination. It needs awareness combined with action at every stage from idea to distribution. To facilitate this we need to create certain conditions.
AUTHENTIC STORYTELLING – MARTINE DELANEY: WALKING THE TALK
As an ageing emerging creative, and trans advocate, screen storytelling without throwing away your advocacy hat provides some challenges.
B&T Webinar, in partnership with Shutterstock – Storytelling at Scale
Learn how brands are transforming from advertisers into entertainers and their practices to achieve the full potential of their story.
Ebook is short for “electronic book,” and uses either a computer, mobile device, or ebook reader to display long-form texts in book form. Ebooks have multiple digital “pages” that people can navigate through, and are often packaged as a PDF document so they can easily be sent from one user to another.
Outline, Synopsis, or Treatment: Do You Know The Difference?
Let’s tackle the definition of an outline first. What is an outline? An outline is normally the first thing I write. When I have a story idea in my head, I’ll take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write down the key plot points in my story. I don’t normally have the entire story worked out in my head yet, but I do have an idea of story arc and character arc. This is what I focus on when writing an outline.
What’s the difference between a screenplay synopsis and a screenplay treatment
Typically a treatment is a much longer and more detailed description of the screenplay than a synopsis.
Does Your Screenplay Need a Treatment or a Synopsis?
A treatment or a synopsis can be an indispensable tool, both for writing and marketing a screenplay. In this article, we’ll look at the relationship between the treatment, synopsis, summary, logline, scene cards and coverage. A synopsis can be a story guide for writing your screenplay, or be written afterward the final draft as part of your film’s press kit. So, how do you write a good synopsis? First you have to know the basics.
If you’re a blogger, you’ve probably asked your editor “how long should this blog post be” more times than you’d care to admit.
And most of the time, you’ll hear an answer that sounds something like this: “However long it needs to be.”
LAUNCHING LUMINA: A NEW PODCAST FROM AFTRS
Lumina is a series about how tech innovations challenge and shape the way we share stories. Our host is TEDxSydney’s Head of Curation Fenella Kernebone, a former presenter at ABC RN and Triple J. In the eight-part series, Fenella speaks to a carefully curated brainstrust of storytellers about why technological developments in the industry, and in our society, are something to be excited about, not daunted by. Subscribe and listen to all episodes now on iTunes’ Apple Podcasts.
CREATIVE SCREENWRITING
The Self publishing journey – Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran
How To Self-Publish And Why You Should
Learn how to publish your work like a pro and start building audience with the most comprehensive and up-to-date self-publishing guide on the market today. Packed with practical, actionable advice, Let’s Get Digitaldelivers the very latest best practices on publishing your work and finding readers.
- Boost your writing career with marketing strategies that are proven to sell more books.
- Get expert tips on platform building, blogging and social media.
- Discover which approaches are best for selling fiction vs. non-fiction.
- Implement powerful ways to make your ebooks more discoverable.
- Increase your visibility by optimizing keywords and categories.
- Weigh the pros and cons of Kindle Unlimited, and find out exactly how to tweak your promotional plans depending on whether you stay exclusive to Amazon or opt for wider distribution.
And that’s just for starters…
How to Create Strong Female Characters
With Black Panther and Tomb Raider perched at the top of the box office earlier this year, audiences can see a multitude of powerful female characters lately. They aren’t just action heroes, though—they’re women of action.
Interactive Storytelling: Linear and Non-linear Stories
Stories are as old as humanity and were first expressed orally and in bursts of colour on rocks and cave walls. Stories thread their way through our lives and provide entertainment, inspiration, warnings and advice. Stories connect us to our cultural heritage and teach us what it is to be human.
Interactive Media
Interactive media is a form of text and digital storytelling where the medium responds to the user’s voice, physical movements, decisions and emotional states. These responses can be in the form of text, images, video, audio, animation and video games.
Science of Storytelling 4: How Cinematography and Acting Performance Optimises Engagement and Empathy in Movies
In movies viewers experience empathy vicariously via fictional characters, often through a shared form of suspense (Susan Smith, 2000) that invites viewers to form an emotional alignment with a protagonists’ emotional state. For example, in the context of horror-thriller films, the protagonist is likely to encounter a serious threat to their life producing some form of suffering and pain. Viewers often experience some form of empathy when the protagonist’s life is being threatened because we are pre programmed to dangers and threats in the world and the pain and suffering they cause (Clasen, 2012).
To Write a Great Script, Focus On Plot Structure Not Plot Points
Structure is one of the most discussed and important words in fiction writing. There are many theories of what exactly structure is. Screenwriting texts and experts, for example, often declare that structure is the proper placement of plot points or the use of sequences and acts. These organizing principles are essential to a script, but they relate, I believe, not to structure but to form. Form is the external shape of a script, of how its content– its events and scenes–are molded. Form is not the content of a story. Actual structure, I believe, is the content. And content is always king. By Scott McConnell, the Story Guy
VIP Opening Night with Kobe Bryant and Glen Keane
Widely regarded as one of the best basketball players of all time Kobe Bryant pairs up with world renowned legendary animator Glen Keane to ‘tip off’ opening night at CTNX2017. Join these two legends for a very special event that includes an interview about their careers and a screening of “Dear Basketball”.
PARTICIPANTS: Kobe Bryant, Legendary Basketball Player. Glen Keane, Legendary Animator , Don Hahn, Film Producer
Learn A Valuable Lesson About Storytelling From Hayao Miyazaki
The Idea—the Origin of Everything
Is the starting point of an animated film the time when the project is given the go-ahead and production begins? Is it at that point that you, as the animator, first go over your ideas for that story? No, that isn’t the starting point. Everything begins much earlier, perhaps before you even think of becoming an animator. The stories and original works—even initial project planning—are only triggers.
Briggs on writing for Matt Groening’s new show, ‘Disenchantment’
Briggs has made a name for himself in Australia as a rapper in A.B. Original, a writer for ABC’sBlack Comedy, and a fierce and outspoken defender of Indigenous rights. But yesterday, the talented artist announced he’s got a new gig – he’s one of the writers working on Matt Groening’s new Netflix show, Disenchantment.
30 WALYS TO BRAINSTORM SHORT FILM IDEAS YOU CAN ACTUALLY PRODUCE
Location, Research, Character, Story, Spitball and Live Events.
Making a filmmaker: how 13 pros got their start
Vimeo is filled with inspiring people whose video-making experiences run the gamut. To celebrate our incredible community, we talked with 13 Vimeo filmmakers about how they first began their careers.
Read, Set, Go! Tech for easy reading
While some of us love our paper books, lugging those fairytales, comedies and romantic novels around can be back-breaking. Luckily, with the explosion of internet powered mobile devices and apps available, it’s possible to carry thousands of titles around in your pocket.
So which of these modern eReaders are worth keeping and where are the best places to buy and find eBooks? We asked around the iiOffice and put together a quick rundown of the best e-reading resources for all our bookworm customers out there!
Interview with Luke Davies: Writing the award-winning screenplay for Lion
What is it about the story in Lion that you feel has resonated with audiences?
The obvious answer sounds a bit corny, that is that the universal theme of mothers and unconditional love is touching a heartstring with audiences, it’s about the relationships we have with our mothers. For most of us that relationship is the deepest relationship we have. Liontouches something of that.
When I was five years old, I got lost for a few minutes, and it was a completely traumatic experience. It’s hard to imagine what that would be like if it happened in the same dramatic fashion that it did for Saroo. Lion imagines that experience for the audience, it takes you on the full journey and that is what resonates.
How Science is Advancing the Art of Filmmaking to Meet 21st Century Audience Expectations Consistently
Digital technology enables neuroscientists and media psychologists to decode storytelling and real-time moviegoer experience and identify patterns of audience engagement. This form of data (the science of filmmaking) can be fused with the art of filmmaking to optimise audience engagement in movies, commercials and video games.
Sarah Scheller on writing motherhood satire: The Letdown
The seven-part comedy series, The Letdown, for ABC in Australia and Netflix internationally, was produced with funding support from Screen Australia in association with Create NSW. ABC will broadcast the series in Australia on TV and ABC iView. Netflix will stream the series internationally outside of Australia and in Australia following its premiere season on ABC. Ahead of its release at the end of October we spoke with the series co-writer Sarah Scheller about the series.
What Makes a Great Superhero Movie? July 11, 2016 iiNet eNewsletter
Superhero movies are all the rage. They have been dominating as some of the highest grossing films in recent years. The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Civil War all make appearances in the top 20 highest grossing films of all time. So why are some of these films featuring our superhuman saviours starting to fall flat with fans?
Hay Miyazaki – storytelling techniques
Storytelling Techniques of Hayao Miyazaki- Nature, Culture & Character, Storytelling Techniques of Hayao Miyazaki, Nature, Culture & Character, Storytelling Techniques of Hayao Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki- Nature, Culture & Character, Hayao Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki Storytelling Techniques, Storytelling Techniques
No Tiara, No Problem: ‘Rejected Princesses’ Have Stories Worth Telling
“I take women, sort of unsung heroines — usually from history, but a lot from mythology and some from literature — who wouldn’t necessarily make the cut for mainstream animated princess movies, and give them that style,” Porath tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “It’s sort of an alternate-reality glimpse into, ‘What if they got their moment in the sun?’ ”
ALEX NICE AND ROBERT NEDERHORST — JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM
Over the past few years, the John Wick movies have breathed new life into action filmmaking, marrying balletic big-screen violence with the intricate world-building and compulsive storylines of a quality TV series. Joining Chris this week are returning podcast guests Alex Nice (concept artist) and Robert Nederhorst (VFX supervisor), who talk about their work on John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.
If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that glass features heavily in two major scenes, and Alex and Rob talk about the difficulties of working with (and breaking) elaborate reflective surfaces. Alex reveals how technology such as V-Ray, Unreal and virtual reality helped him plan and preview sets, while Rob discusses some of the problems he ran into on-set — sometimes literally. You’ll also find out how they digitally recreated bridges, rooftops and alleys for the movie — and why they chose a black finger sock for Keanu over a traditional green one.
Did Alfred Hitchcock Invent Suspense?
This article explores the cultural and historical context of suspense narratives which began with the term ‘suspense’ being used to describe specific real-life news stories in newspapers and promotion reviews of theatrical plays and circus acts. Suspense narrative strategies were then used in the serial novel and later transferred to the serial film and promotional techniques across genres. The wider cultural phenomenon of suspense assisted in the development of a specific ‘suspense’ film genre, the US domestic thriller and Hitchcock’s suspense thriller.
SOME QUESTIONS to CONSIDER for MAIN TITLE DESIGN
- what is the visual inspiration of the show
- what is the purpose of the main titles
- how can the dhow be distilled down into a single concept
- how can this concept be uniquely represented
- what is the working duration
- when is delivery
CG SOCIETY
The Evolution of VR Storytelling VR IS A FANTASTIC BEAST Framestore’s Andy Rowan-Robinson on building interaction and expanding narratives in virtual reality.
Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling –Visualised
A while back, now-former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats tweeted a series of pearls of narrative wisdom she had gleaned from working at the studio. This list of 22 rules of storytelling was widely embraced as it was applicable to any writer or anyone who was in the business of communicating (which is pretty much everyone, including software developers). And much of its advice (e.g. “You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different”) is still as applicable as ever. Thanks to the efforts of one fan, though, the rules may now become even more eminently shareable.
WELCOME TO KOBREGUIDE.COM
KOBREGUIDE CHECKLIST online guide to the Web’s best video and multimedia journalism.
Here are the qualities we consider when selecting video and multimedia journalism for inclusion in KobreGuide:
- GOAL: What is the point of this story? What did it set out to say or do? Did it accomplish that?
- INNOVATION: What specifically makes this execution special ? What did the reporter and/or videographer do differently or unusually that warrants our attention? What makes it qualitatively stand out from similar efforts by others?
- INFORMATION: What new light does it shed on the subject matter? What new ideas or data are presented? What makes this information important and worth knowing? What makes it valuable to us?
- JOURNALISM: What are the journalistic merits of this story? What journalistic qualities are worth pointing out? Is it fair? Balanced? Investigative? Adversarial? Contrarian? Probing? Illuminating? Does it employ good sources? Good interviews? Resourceful hard-hitting reporting?
- STORYTELLING: Does it employ storytelling techniques that make it memorable and compelling?
- VISUAL STRENGTHS: What makes this a gripping, well-structured piece of video (or audio-slideshow)? How did the reporter and/or videographer best make use of imagery to tell this story? What distinguishes the way this was SHOT and EDITED?
- AUDIO STRENGTHS: How does the audio track enhance this story? How does it best use voices, natural sounds, ambient sounds, sound effects, music?
- MULTIMEDIA STRENGTHS: How does this story maximize the potential of this medium? How does this story creatively combine media (still photography, videography, audio, graphics) for maximum impact?
- CONTEXT: Why this story now? What was the impetus for telling this story? How does this compare to other coverage of similar subject matter?
- PROCESS: What unusual steps did videographer/journalist take in pursuing this story? What is notable about the approach taken to report and/or present this story?
- IMPACT/ CALL TO ACTION: How does this story shape our thinking? How does it emotionally move us? How does it change the way we think or feel or behave? What exactly does this story inspire us to do, or do differently?
What If Your Subject Doesn’t Want to Talk to You?
SCREEN NSW
Bruna Papandrea in conversation with Matilda Brown
Greg Haddrick: Janet King, creating great female characters and being a writer-prouder
SOME THOUGHT THAT MIGHT BE APPLIED TO STORIES David Viscott
Often people become inhibited by fear at the very moment stye must commit themselves to action. At the first sign of a reversal they doubt themselves, hesitate and fearing that the situation is about too fall apart, retreat untested, convinced that they were in over their heads, thankful just to escape. It is not possible for some people to take a risk until they know they will lose more by not risking. Are people waiting for the circumstances to deteriorate to force them to act. The greatest courage comes from the highest conviction. When there is an object worth risking for the actions become purposeful, life begins to make sense and then no risk can hold you back.
Without taking a risk a change, no one finds true love, no one develops real power and no one gains prestige. When your viewpoint is threatened you retire world feels insecure. Become as familiar as possible with the new and establish some continuity to experience a sense of the familiar on arriving. The objective is to balance feelings of loss by making new gains, not by avoiding the painful loss. Waiting for all anxiety to pass leaves the opportunity passed as well. Do not sit back waiting for the perfect moment, it almost never comes.
Being yourself without a driving need to shape anyone’s destiny but your own. Find your own direction, failure to do this is an act of fear and in the long run harmful to everyone. Avoiding risks is avoiding living, have a goal, realise the effort that needs to be taken and do not leap in the dark. Three forms of loss, love, control and esteem.
The Invisible Ink Blog
“Invisible Ink is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to become a better screenwriter. With elegance and precision, Brian McDonald uses his deep understanding of story and character to pass on essential truths about dramatic writing. Ignore him at your peril.” —Jim Taylor (Academy Award?- winning screenwriter of Sideways and Election)
‘THE DIGITAL PLAYING FIELDS’ Shilo McClean
The Hero’s Journey
Sebastian The Slumberland Odyssey: Fede Ponce Official Interview – HD
Pixar’s Story Process with Austin Madison
FINAL DRAFT: Screenplay formatting, story structure software.
How to Format a Screenplay
CONFLICT, is it a bad thing, expand the meaning to include positive conflict, an obstacle to be overcome.
OBJECTIVE, concrete, is it provable, pursue, is it achieved, can it be improved, is it a shifting target
ANTICIPATION, pursuit of a provable objective, do you react before it actual happens
Thinking tends to lead to conclusions and emotions tend to lead to action: emotions driving the action and the audience is empathising with their emotions. An automatic value response, values and mental associations that are held, feeling emotions and acting is doing.
We humans empathise only with emotion.
VIZRT
Software-defined visual storytelling | Vizrt is the home of IP-based, software-defined visual storytelling, helping to build a better-informed world. Our mission is to give storytellers the power to master complexity and maximize their creativity.
ESSAY, WRITING & INTERVIEWS
What does a good essay need? An academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence.
How to Write an Introduction Paragraph for Your Essay. LESSON CREATED BY PATRICIA DOHERTY USING TED-Ed’s LESSON CREATOR VIDEO FROM David Taylor YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Design Tips for PowerPoint Your first aim is to communicate and well-designed slides will help get your message across.
How to Deliver Effective Presentations Delivering presentations is an everyday art form that anyone can master. To capture your audience’s attention, present your information with ease and confidence. Act as if you are in a conversation with your audience, and they will pay attention to you. To get this level of fluency, write an engaging narrative, use more visuals than text in your slides, and practice, practice, practice.
PowerPoint Basics PowerPoint 2016 In this free PowerPoint 2016 tutorial, learn how to use themes and background styles, add pictures and clip art, modify charts and lists, and do more to create standout presentations.
Instructions for How to Write a Report. Take the time to create a plan for writing a report. The Purdue University Online Writing Lab indicates that the amount of planning and effort you put into an assignment will show in the quality of the writing. The general writing process of pre-writing, drafting, editing, proofreading and publishing will help you navigate the task of creating high-quality reports.
Report writing is an essential skill in many disciplines. Master it now at university and writing reports in the workplace will be easier.
Mobile Apps for:
JotterPad – Writer – A writing app suitable for essays
Essay writing and essay topics
Day One -This journal app allows you to quickly enter your thoughts and have them synced and backed up in the cloud.
Journey – This journal app allows you to make entries from text or photos, geotag your entries and access the service from your computer.
Evernote
PIO Smart Recorder
Smart Recorder and Transcriber
Smart Voice Recorder
Office for Mobile
OneNote – A tool for you to save your notes, collaborate, draw and access from anywhere
PowerPoint
Google Slides
AirDroid
Microsoft PowerPoint
Google Slides
SlideShark
How to write a report
Reflective Writing
How to write a good essay
Introduction to Interviewing
Journalism: How to Lead an Interview
Presentation: How to create a storyboard
Power Point Presentations
Keep it Simple
Make Your Visual Content Interactive
Great Presentations
Power Point Visual Presentations
Report Structure
Word: Table of Contents, SetUp, Inserting, Formatting
NEWSLETTERS – email
The humble email is an incredible way of reaching and engaging audiences, slow media. It can be thoroughly researched, widely accessible, could be a niche topic with the chance to stop, listen and learn. Subscribe or Opt in and out.
MailChimp and Campaign Monitior for a simpler, more straightforward option with limited customisation TinyLetter.
Consider good company culture, diversity, inclusion, inform rather than promote, sharing useful content, digestible format, commentary, pick of the week, meaningful to people, distinctive, accessible, hook line which is the story reduced to one line, identifiable, the age of distraction, engage, curiosity, narcissism, simplicity, stereotypes, assumptions, prejudices, changing the tempo and contemplative content.
- Be regular, be punctual, be consistent to build an audience, choose a schedule and stick to it
- Do not add people without asking
- Make sure you have an easy opt-out option, a lego requirement
- Be adventurous.
Production Design Facilitating Visual Storytelling – Jacinta
DATA JOURNALISM with Caroline Graham
- Conceptualise the Project, key insights might not emerge until later in the investigation and the investigative question must be inherently newsworthy.
- Data collection, if developing a data set with a crawler such as import.io. and cross-checking strategies.
- Analysis, teat it like any other source, interrogate it and ask it questions.
- The story, divvying the data conclusions, the challenge in translating figures into a format readers will understand.
WALKLEY MEDIA TALKS
in association with the State Library of NSW: Interactive Storytelling: New Ways of Engaging Audiences
In the digital age newsrooms are experimenting to capture readers’ attention. Some approach the challenge in a tech-driven way, with chatbots, interactive games, quizzes and complex multimedia stories that let readers choose their own adventure. For others it’s about involving the audience from the earliest stages of story selection through to crowdsourced content. The rise of news bots and Snapchat glasses raise questions about user experiences and concerns about information curation. So what’s next in storytelling, and how are different organisations faring with the growth of interactive content?
Lis Bastian
Moderator: Lis Bastian is the founder of The Big Fix Inc. – a not for profit arts, community and media development service using solutions journalism to ‘change the story’ and grow a collaborative, solutions-focused culture. Lis has worked in radio, television and print media and has been CEO of Arts OutWest and Varuna, the Writers’ House. She has experience in education, business, community development and government. The Big Fix is creating a grassroots-up media service, using storytelling and alliance building to grow collaboration across sectors. The Big Fix is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Craig McCosker
Craig McCosker is the Mobile Product Manager at ABC News. As one of the early journalist-developer crossovers, Craig has played a key role in developing digital strategy at the ABC, launching the first ABC News web sites in the 90s. Craig’s 25-year career in digital publishing has been focused on identifying the potential of new technologies to improve media and communications, designing innovative products and developing content management systems. ABC News has been a pioneer in using live blogging, data journalism, interactive maps, podcasts, distributed platforms, push notifications and interactive video to deliver news. Craig’s most recent project, ABC News on Facebook Messenger, has been praised internationally as a leading example of a successful news bot. Craig says instinct is helpful in ‘picking the next wave’ but research, immersion, experimentation and just ‘paddling really hard’ are the essential elements in keeping pace with the future.
Sheree Joseph
Sheree Joseph is a writer, editor and social media guru. Recently she was the editor of The Vocal, a Fairfax experiment in solutions journalism. She managed social media at Junkee Media, ran the digital communications at Village Roadshow and founded the editorial department at Groupon in Australia. She just graduated from the Walkley Coding scholarship for journalists and has also completed the Walkley Media Incubator and is in the process of starting a new community media model for young people called Tiny Moguls, which aims to bring together journalism, user generated content and services connecting people.
Gina McKeon
Gina McKeon is a Walkley Award-winning multimedia journalist and producer with SBS.She has also worked as a journalist and producer for the ABC’s RN Breakfast, Life Matters, Late Night Live, triple j and NewsRadio shows and networks, and FBi Radio’s All the Best.
How is a story approached to create a digital presence online, taking it further. Is it by the issue, by photo issue with a talking point, audio, illustrations, voice activated illustrations and when it is launched how will the conversation happen? Let the audience know and draw them in by considering how can you talk about this and what part of the story interests you. Use social with a campaign on instagram and facebook dropping different points of content at different times. Also consider live activation and interactive on tablet.
Start ups, combination of interactive story telling and engaging audiences by the start up arenas and via the main stream media, that have different focuses and different implications with what you are doing.
There are more and more ways to publish in different formats and modes becoming more complex to deliver and at the same time for the use it becomes simpler and more convenient.
Google Home, talk to it and is conversational, is powered by the Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. And with support for multiple users, it can distinguish your voice from others in your home so you get a more personalised experience. It’s your own Google, just for you. Comes up through multiple devices and works out which device will respond.
Chatbot – A chatbot (also known as a talkbot, chatterbot, Bot, chatterbox, IM bot, interactive agent, or Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.
Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, is infiltrating your home, your beach trips and even your ride to work. Now that there are four ways to interact with Alexa — with the Tap, Echoand Dot devices, and with the Amazon Fire TV — you might find yourself talking to her more often.
Graphical user interface is not going away, there is video, animated gibs, web page that acts dynamically for the people who do it right it is going to be an interesting media information experience. The impact on storytelling, the story first then multiple expressions, how is it expressed in these different ways? How is it finished as audio, instagram, multiple platforms, static version, long version thus creating media fragmentation. This can reach more people in different ways and becomes expensive to deliver with the need to have the people with all these skills.
The Vocal, was an experimental publication such as taking action at the end of stories or some kinds of social change within it, making unique and interesting. Build audiences independently with a focus on social media, can do a lot when thinking creatively creating an appetite. Needs to be about the users, start with them, is it what they want and spend more time in the planning stage. Is it about how they get there or is it more about that they are there for some other reason. Is it about the issues and not about what you want them to do, offer a solution that they want. More segmentation with audiences and how you talk to them, what the different groups want.
For media it is change or be changed, 26 years of younger have not know a world without the internet and websites.
South by Southwest started as music festival and is now an annual conglomerate of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. Moving from Messaging Box to Voice Activation
Atomising, breaking the story down into atoms for each platform, different parts.
Atomisation of content takes stories and breaks them down into simpler formats and chunks, like a single image or tweet, which is easier to share and digest on mobile. It’s a trend in digital content, the unbundling of larger multimedia packages into bite-sized bits including single images, bits of text, videos, headlines and infographics, and it’s growing.
http://www.fipp.com/news/features/why-publishers-are-turning-to-the-atomisation-of-content
Next phase of virtual reality, social virtual reality, 360. The power of virtual reality where you can be entirely empathetic, you are there, the person experiencing it and dealing what is around you and not so abstract. Is missing the interaction with other people who will let you know within that virtual reality space, social virtual reality. Interact with each other in a completely virtual space.
Her is a 2013 American romantic science-fiction drama film written, directed, and produced by Spike Jonze. It marks Jonze’s solo screenwriting debut. The film follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who develops a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, the field of AI research defines itself as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Colloquially, the term “artificial intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “learning” and “problem solving”.
Who is feeding you the news, such as siri or alexa and how is it being selected and is it increasing media polarisation? They are going with the knowledge about you, friends you have and the places where you have been and the news selection is being reduced and limited to that.
Information on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Apple News, websites and apps. Fishing where the fish are and audience fragments. Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp for smaller groups, AppleiMessage and Snapchat on smart phones, using internet data. A culture of mobile messenger platforms.
Facebook Messenger allows developers to build automated services or chatbots on Messenger for content and services. Free bot-building platform Chatfuel.
Imagine texting a number to order pizza and having it delivered without ever talking to a real human — that’s what bots are all about. Specifically, a bot is an application that performs an automated task, such as setting an alarm, telling you the weather or searching online. Siri and Cortana are bots, as was Microsoft’s Clippy and AOL Instant Messenger’s SmarterChild. And who can forget Tay, the teenage chatbot designed by Microsoft who wound up tweeting racist and offensive messages? Bots are everywhere in technology, ranging from malicious bots that come with a virus to search engine spiders that crawl the Internet looking for new Web pages to add. In this context, we’re talking about chatbots, which can hold a conversation with you to accomplish a task.
A Twitterbot is a type of bot software that controls a Twitter account via the Twitter API. The bot software may autonomously perform actions such as tweeting, retweeting, liking, following, unfollowing, or direct messaging other accounts. The automation of Twitter accounts is governed by a set of automation rules that outline proper and improper uses of automation. Proper usage includes broadcasting helpful information, automatically generating interesting or creative content, and automatically replying to users via direct message. Improper usage includes circumventing API rate limits, violating user privacy, or spamming. Twitterbots may be variously perceived as fun, useful, annoying, or deceptive.
Different bots, different personalities and voices, provided by different companies, abc news bot, chat bot, messenger bot, horoscope bot ‘what is up for Pisces’ and third parties can build things. Writing for voice bots is different from writing for print. Developed a behaviour around how to interact with this bot, are you setting the agenda, can you change the rules and maybe change the way the audience is thinking. Can respond and react. Can set up different alerts for different areas so they are relevant to them. Segmentation for information sending and getting information back. Need people in there and engaging with bots as a new form of communication. Need to meet people on their terms, constant engagement. Adapt information.
Knowledge of storytelling and knowledge of audience finding what people are interested in. It is not one or the other, working together. Using computers and people, not one or the other, working hand in hand. Can choose your provider, the consumer is getting more choice.
A well written article still gets a wide audience reach, subject matter and does not need to be fancy. Conversational writing, threads, what questions would people ask, not just a headline, what would be the follow up thing, inherent interactivity, if standing in a room what would you say and what would be their next question.
What is it like for new starters? Easier when you are free from how it has always been done, how you should do it, try things and not have restrictions. Facebook they are changing their algorithm so groups are going higher than page sites. There has been a large swing in groups, more engagement, linking groups to pages, community feel and maybe a way to keep people from leaving the site. There is a disconnect with companies and social media, need to integrate more. Why are we doing that innovated thing, not an afterthought, integrated thinking, just for the bells and whistles and use technology to get stories out faster, just get them out. Essentially, it comes down to quality, good stories, good storytelling and what people want. What is interesting, take a new angle on it and not to keep talking about the same thing on and on. Do in an exciting and interesting way with data journalism.
Collaborative solutions culture instead of an individualistic culture media outlet. Has gone from facebook to web to print and people in the local are writing and community activated.
What is the story, who is the best audience for this, what is the voice, the elements to work with, what is the platform that will work best of those elements, what does the story want to say, the best way to deliver this for the end user, the audience and do not get overwhelmed with the bells and whistles. Do not leave people hanging with bad news, consider the emotional impact and intensity and what can people do.
Chatbox, what and how people are interacting, immediate experience and make changes with the information that is coming in. Know the demographics for different platforms and make the platforms more familiar to them. Target an audience for each piece, what will be their thoughts about the story, what angle to write from, right audience for this story and what language to use.
Make it an easy experience. Snackable, scan and not read, hyperlink to click for more, quizzes, conversational, comment building into it and giving people control.
IS IT A GOOD STORY, story is the foundation and everything builds off that. There is still a demand for long from journalism.
AFTRS – THE POWER OF STORY, DESIGN & FILM
Are you interested in creating meaningful digital experiences that connect with your audience, or transforming your ideas from page to screen? The current digital media landscape covers a wide range of media formats and platforms, so content creators need to engage their audiences in their natural digital habitats. A sneak peek into the world of Multiplatform Storytelling, Design and Filmmaking with Industry experts:
Kate Ayrton – Digital Media producer of VR and AR for television and web projects, screen writer and digital content producer.
Knowing who your users/audience are, where they are, what they are viewing, and how they are interacting long before you start development or production to create engaging multi-platform experience that you can share as story tellers and content creators.
Previously there were two main outlets, broadcast and cinema, with terminology has changing over the years. Today’s multiplatform storytellers and designers work as a Transmedia Producers, producing content across a lot of different platforms bringing innovative and strategic thinking skills to the experience, as well as a level of interactivity and participation which is what audiences have come to expect.
The traditional broadcast based model of storytelling and branding is over, consumers are now active participants in value creation and are both discerning and empowered in the way they consume their media which is what is driving the economy forward.
Story tellers need to think about how they connect and what the user experience is like, how the user interface looks, how it works, usability, interaction design, how and where it works, its accessibility and most importantly the target audience. Need to know what is in it for the audience and develop an engagement strategy that is going to hook them in.
Why do we love stories, they stimulate the imagination and create a sense of community between the storyteller and the listeners, at the heart of the human experience. How we are telling stories is changing and evolving from the traditional story telling ways of rock art, puppetry and folk tales to tell them thought connected cities, connected homes, internet and screens, social media, AR. Audiences are technically savvy and highly engaged with the content and consuming large amounts of media, often at the same time and across a range of platforms that are changing and evolving. Storytellers need to keep up with technology, be aware of the hundreds of tools, methodologies and platforms as they are for use as a tool box to help with storytelling.
Moving from manufacturing to service based economy, specialising in niche markets such as Air B & B and Uber where users are seeking personalisation, customisation and optimisation on a new level. They way we consume media has changed, people are binge watching when ever and wherever they want to watch. Moving into an age of smart technology, homes, cars and cities and need to start having smart stories that learn and evolve with us and reflect our needs and are increasingly connected to the digital world.
People are different, how do you know who they are? As story tellers we need to know who they are, where they are, what are they viewing, how they are viewing it and how are they interacting with it. Merging and coordination of mass communication outlets such as print, tv, radio, internet, portable and interactive technologies to various digital media platforms.
Converged communications provides multiple platforms for storytelling, consumers can select their levels of interactivity while self directing their own content delivery. As a content creator we need to design the whole experience and think beyond any single platform. Where is the audience, they jumping in and out, tough points, access it, multiplatform, cross platform and transmedia.
- Multi Platform – the same story, the same content and can view on various platforms such as television, online video, podcasts.
- Cross Platform – different content on different platforms, do not need to see them both to understand what is happening, one does not preclude the other. TV series with a blog and web page and are not interdependent on each other, not dependent on driving the experience or the story forward.
- Trans Media – takes the viewer on a journey across multiple different platforms, choose your own adventure and be seeding content in one platform, putting it into another and designing an experience that takes people across all of them. You cannot jump in on one and know what is happening on the other one, it is a whole experience that you design.
It is important in the way you think about story telling and content and how you set it up. Where do you start?
The first thing is always the audience or the user, collecting a bunch of data about their daily habits as they relate to the story or product. It does not need to be a complicated thing, a bunch of friends, school or where people are that you want to create content for.
- need to observe them
- interview them
- talking to them
- listening to them
- understand the world they live in
- what is important to them
- what are their days like
- what is their time like
- their daily habits
- interview
- surveys
How are you going to present them, where are you going to present them, the whole purpose is to get feedback.
Fail fast, fail often, fail early, fail better.
Make improvements and adjustments in small increments, working collaboratively not only as a team and also with input and feedback from customers.
The importance of Design Thinking and Human Centered Design (HCD) principles within any digital project, as well as Ideation and Design Strategy tips and tricks as part of our storytelling.
Human Centered Design is about designing meaningful and useful products and experiences for humans using a set of design principles.
Ideas can be workshopped on youtube, experiment and immediate feedback.
RackaRacka’s videos such as Harry Potter VS Star Wars
Digital Production is made up of interdisciplinary teams – film makers, game designers, programmers, user interface designers, user experience people, audio, writers, budget managers, project managers, clients, users working in a more collaborative and circular fashion than in the film world. Pass the parcel instead of upstairs downstairs.
Product manager methodology was started by developers and programmers to streamline work practices.
Design Thinking, David Kelley, IDEO, to focus in on, target the best way and best solution for audiences and users. “When I started the firm that would eventually become IDEO, all I really wanted to do was work with my friends on cool projects. My dream for the future of IDEO is the same as it was back in 1978: that everyone at IDEO finds their calling; that being here feels like working with friends; that we are all enjoying our lives; that we are engaged in what feels like important work we were personally put on Earth to do.” —David Kelley
A tool to find how best to tell your story based on five main practices.
First learning to empathise with the user or audience, know who they are, observe them and getting the data on them, what they are interested in and what matters to them.
Second phase to define what it is, create a point of view of what you are looking at. Come up with a problem statement, problem area, identify what the missing holes are, what their needs are.
Third phase, ideation, throw ideas up on the wall, as many as possible, what ever, good, bad and go through as a team and work out the best ones
Fourth phase, prototyping, build a representation of what the produce might look like., rough draft, dummy version and test this with the people where the research has been done.
Self direction process where you are looking for patterns, holes, insights, frame questions, frame problems to stimulate thinking to help innovate and ideate to work collaborative to come up with solutions. Comfortable with experimentation. It is a short cut to learning, testing and understand as well as improving products and services before building and launching the product. A way of testing ideas, exploring different directions and can be apply to any discipline or concept.
Story telling today is not only about the idea or content, it is also about the creative process to take it to market. The process is changing because technology is changing to create meaningful and useable experiences. A good way to find out if the idea has legs.
Warwick Young – Filmmaker, Actor in theatre and film also an officer in the Australian Army, active service in Iraq in 2006.
Cinematic story is an art from and we cannot forget that, because of this it has gramma. Master craftsmen can see the gramma and break it down, including the lens choices that affect how we see the images. Good storytelling, cinematically, needs you to know what you are doing. What is going to grab people is the story and how it is told, if it touches your heart – the rapture, the beauty. Can be their pain, the world the storyteller is putting you in.
Traditional film making is a dictatorship and is collaborative, if the artists chooses good people to work with. Need to see co-collaborators strengths, see their ability to put the vision of the story and story world onto the screen. Need to draw from your experiences and give depth, heart and soul to storytelling. Tell it from your heart, otherwise it will not connect and need to be brave enough to go out on a limb.
Needs a premise – the central idea, the argument of the film, the reason the story of the film is being told. Must have a very clear and distinct story world. The time, era, what the people did, how they lived their lives, real characters with a lot of depth, needs to be believable, authentic so we can then connect with it.
Life is hard, everyone has challenges, disfunction, brick walls and hurdles. If you can connect with people in your stories it is because they see that, they have connected with something they can identify with. What you need to understand is the pain and how that can change you mentality because we have done it ourselves, then we can get it because we have done it ourselves. We all have the same faults, flaws and good story telling connects with us that way, that is what characters do, they speak to us like the way we speak to ourselves. Laughing because we have all been there, done that, it happens and that is what makes us real, makes us characters, we need to have and good storytelling will do it. It is what makes the hero.
One clear hero, the young boy, Ethan Hawke playing Todd Anderson. The hero overcame his fatal flaw, finding his inner voice, speaking what comes from within. During the film he cannot talk, too shy and a disappointed to his parents then speaks at the end of the film.
Writing process, need to talk about three things:
- What is the Premise:
- What is the Story World: brings it into reality
- Who are the characters: what do they do, is there a heres journey overcoming our fatal flaws. The things that make us connect with other people.
How are you going to tell the story on the screen?
Brings the designer early, art and ideas can be woven into the story world, have mood boards and designs for specific sets.
Pre-visualising the film, spending as much time here as possible. Cinematographer, how they see the story world shot, their concept and a brief from the director about the style, lens and reasons behind it, certain filters, lighting that will be used to help tell the story. Every decision is always about story, otherwise the story will not be authentic to the audience, might look beautiful though will lose them.
Shot lists, basic shot lists about how the story is going to be told in pictures, how it is going to be shot and this will change. Can shoot scenes, work with actors and how they are going to move. Give as much time as you can, can solve problems here that you are going to have. There will always have obstacles, will always need to come up with new ways to do things on the set and good preparation will keep the tone, shooting style and other aspects of the film making to stay the same and consistent.
Shoot becomes very organic for the actors, the most important people on set, the performances need to be believable. Prepare adequately in pre-production so all the heads of departments, all the people working with you collaboratively have asked the questions they need to ask, the answers given are the best that can be given at the time and when you get on set the shots are about the actors.
Editing is where the film is made. There are three films that you make, the one you write, the one you shoot and the one you edit. Where the shooting ends and the film starts with endless possibilities, can be reshuffle in many different ways. Have the editor on during the shoot.
The sound is integral to the film and is as important as the pictures. Turn either the pictures or sound off and will still get the story. Listen to the music and can get the story. If leave it to fix in post, run out of money and good VFX is expensive so understand what is required. The grade needs to be consistent with the tone of the film and colour palette and needs to be consistent across the images. Telling the story with the right colour palette and the right sense of feeling in that colour palette.
Need to know it in order to create the rapture.
QUESTIONS
Spend and hold back on resources?
What can you afford, put time and effort into having a great story. If they read a great story they will want to be part of it. What does the story require, put the resources there. Let the story make the decision.
Who has control and feedback?
A dictatorship comes down to when a final decision needs to be made you need to make it and let the story rule. A good film maker is very collaborative and a fool if you do not listen to the people around you that you respect and trust.
Using agile methodologies to creating a transmedia story, how are you iterating it, how does it grow over time, a story that wows people and can you do that gradually?
The process is really important. Having everything worked out in advanced, then constantly amending it. Does not all roll out at once, getting feedback as you go and making adjustments and changes. Can have a rough prototype of what you think you want to create and test it out in the market with some of the uses in advance. Depending on how you roll it out may affect how you make changes.
3d art and animation 