Australians now spend an average of 16.1 hours on the internet each week, 12.9 hours watching TV, 8.8 hours listening to the radio, 3.7 hours on a mobile phone and 2.8 hours reading newspapers according to The Nielsen Online Internet and Technology Report quoted in The Australian earlier this year. With internet use now eclipsing TV viewing Australian broadcasters are in for a bumpy ride over the next few years. In this environment, how well prepared are our content producers for a world of participatory media, social networking and transmedia storytelling?
AFTRS are running a new post graduate course in 2010 which has been designed for content producers of all persuasions to combine the practical skills of traditional media with those of the online world. What’s clear is there is a huge appetite by global audiences for rich media content and we need skilled producers to start the conversations.
More information about this groundbreaking new course is available here and applications close on November 1, 2009
The course has been developed utilising the knowledge and experience gained through LAMP workshops, seminars and residentials and the pool of national and international experts who have contributed to its success. To get an idea of the calibre of our industry speakers here is a list of links to some of the most pertinent LAMP podcasts, vodcasts and slideshares about Multi Platform Content innovation. And finally, some of our industry testimonials and more stats to help you ponder your future.
Huge poisonous spiders lie ready to pounce as you carefully traverse a forest lit only by moonlight. This is one of the initiation rights you will face in One Night, a new game that has been prototyped by AFTRS lecturer Ian Brown using Unity3D software. He recently gave a presentation of the project at Gamejam09, the games pitch and demo event initiated by LAMP in 2008.
It took Ian about a month to create a level of One Night including the design of all the assets from scratch. He did modelling and texturing in Mudbox software, the animation in Maya and it was exported to Unity3D where all the gameplay was scripted in Javascript. Unity 3D is a multi platform tool and its relatively easy to create games for Mac, PC, web or iPhone. There is a rapidly growing list of great games being created in Unity3D which you can find here.
You can see a gameplay capture of the One Night on our YouTube channel AFTRSgames or you can play through the prototype by downloading a zipped executable for Mac OSX or Windows.
For those interested in creating their own games like One Night, AFTRS are running a Graduate Certificate in Games and Virtual Worlds in 2010 and we’re looking for visionaries who can create innovative games and rich immersive social virtual worlds. Applications for the course close on November 1 2009 and more information is available here.
AFTRS & LAMP’ers have been fortunate to know Kelly Chapman for a few years now. She is one of a handful of producers and creatives who actually walk-the-talk by ‘making’ & realising transmedia properties. From her work at Hoodlum on accessible web adventures, BBC Spooks, Emmerdale and Lost through to her own, slightly more spreadable, organic and social transmedia efforts Kelly carefully bridges the technical and creative banks of the complex white water, multi platform, rapids.
We introduced her to SPAA and she did a great keynote up at the Foxtel studios last week, edited highlights below. More on Kelly’s work here http://kcdc.com.au/ and on her investigative blog here http://kellychapman.wordpress.com/. Enjoy
Kelly is an experienced producer of transmedia entertainment. She walks participants of SPAA Fringe through the various formats transmedia takes, and step by step through how she’s applied her knowledge to creating effective transmedia strategies for her own projects.
AFTRS in conjunction with the IGDA Sydney are running GameJam 09.
An interactive event by gamers for gamers – a day of playing, learning about and making games. Come be a spectator, play to win, or get involved in the creative jam session. This free one day event features gaming competitions, seminars, networking and creative activities. The JAM starts with a gaming forum where anyone can register to be a presenter – share YOUR latest discoveries, opinions & ideas for games and virtual worlds. The JAM ends with a workshop & competition – where creative teams engage in a battle of ideas & rapid game-design, with prizes for best pitch!
LAMP has been an integral part of the interactive cross media & digital curriculum at AFTRS for the past four years. As well as its external facing activities works closely with all aspects of social and cross media in the Graduate Diploma for Directors & Production students, Foundation ‘Creating Experiences and Designing Worlds modules’ and MA specialist courses in Virtual Worlds, Social Media and Games.
Next year there are some great Graduate Certificate courses starting and LAMP will be very active in the Multiplatform and Games & Virtual Worlds offerings and recommend you to pass these around. More info here:
INNOVATIONS IN MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT – Wed 22 April 9.30 – 1.00 pm – Sydney
Do you really know what Alternate or Augmented Reality Games are, or what makes Social Media Entertainment really successful?
How do you plan, produce and maintain complex distributed narrative, multi-platform services?
Why do interactive stories work & how to get clients interested in it
How can you combine the immersion of games with the drama of film and TV?
How can you keep people engaged across time and space?
What is the true Future of Entertainment?
The way content is consumed has changed. A selection of leading innovators in multi-platform content present recent projects in the areas of social media, cross platform storytelling, extended entertainment, games and online entertainment. This will be an eye opener for those who thought cross-media meant TV show and a website!
Hoodlum (global leaders in distributed storytelling) will share behind the scenes on their world renowned multi-platform ‘game-like’ dramas such as Lost, Spooks and Emmerdale. World Communities will highlight the best social media services that draw in audience and user participation while also building loyalty for future services. Animal Logic on a live link from LA will talk about the future of entertainment formats while Xumii will look at this from a social mobile perspective. Finally MOGIE/Forget the Rules will show a unique new Australian grown format combining live action and game worlds. Sohail Dahdal and Gary Hayes, both leading multi-platform creators themselves, will manage this very special seminar.
GameJam 2008 was run at AFTRS in Sydney on 1 November and featured talks to do with developing for or playing with console, pc games or online games. Creating and using virtual worlds, games, film cross-over, machinima, writing, AI and educational, fun or just plain cool stuff.
Below is a selection of those captured on the day including a short item related to three new courses AFTRS are offering in 2008 featuring Previsualisation elements – Animation Directing, Games and Virtual Worlds.
1 Guy Gadney “The Life of an MMORPG Diaspora”
Guy takes us on a personal tour of one of the first ‘grass roots’ online games as he tells the story of Diaspora. MP3 recording 6.9MB Click to listen
2 Dan Graf “Story and Game”
Dan gives a thoughtful talk about the conceptual framework of film or book to game adaptation. He talks about experiential design and audience centric focus when you plan your interactive version. An interesting session at the end when Ian Brown joins the discussion and the perennial issue of narrative vs play is brought to the fore again. MP3 recording 13.4MB Click to listen
3 Peter Giles “Future of Game Education”
Peter looks at many of the issues that are facing educators and academic institutions as they begin to consider games as a core part of curriculum. MP3 recording 5.6MB Click to listen
4 Physical TV “You Are Going To Die”
Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen are the creators of a cross-media property called Thursday’s Fiction. They worked with Gary Hayes on the virtual world aspect of the project and talk more about where the proposition is headed as it moves into game space. MP3 recording 6.4MB Click to listen
5 Marigo Raftopoulos “Galapagos: Serious Game”
Marigo introduces us to her serious game concept to help businesses understand the benefits of thinking about the environment. MP3 recording 4.9MB Click to listen
6 Brett Robertson “History of Games”
Brett takes us on a light hearted trip down memory lane and also at the current state of the games industry. MP3 recording 7.9MB Click to listen
7 Ian Brown “Portal, Have Your Cake and Eat It Too”
Ian takes us behind the scenes from a user and passionate fan perspective of one of the most unique games to have become commercial, portal. He also looks at the original game, Narbuncular Drop, designed by students that Valve used to develop Portal. MP3 recording 7.4MB Click to listen
8 Michela Ledwidge “MOD the Movies!”
Michela takes us deep into Sanctuary and the thinking behind allowing the audience to customise, mash-up and generally Mod cinematic content. MP3 recording 7.4MB Click to listen
9 Gary Hayes “Reality & Pleasure – State of Play of Blended Real Life, TV and Game World” Vod/Podcast
This video above available as a download (with better audio & creative commons) 50MB MP4 click here
LAMP PODCASTS
All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes – click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!
ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS
This podcast presentation by LAMP @ AFTRS.
Audio recorded by Gary Hayes & Brett Robertson
Description, editing, podcasting and production by Gary Hayes
Finally a short compilation capture edited by Peter Giles (note video has camera sound, podcasts are higher quality direct lapel mikes).
