AIDC 2010: Convergent Media "if you build it, they won't come"
by: Mark Poole
Publihed in Screen Hub
Thursday 25 February, 2010
Kirsty Hunter, Head of Interactive at Lion Television in the UK, Australian Jennifer Wilson, Director of The Project Factory, and Canadians Michael McMahon, Executive Producer, Primitive Entertainment and Silva Basmajian, Executive Producer at the National Film Board of Canada, dazzled all with their powerpoint presentations.
First up was Kirsty Hunter, born in Australia but recently working in the UK as Head of Interactive at Lion Television. Suggesting that one reason why we’re laggards in the digital realm, she provided some handy definitions about the digital media space. For Kirsty, the session’s ‘totally convergent’ title springs from the term ‘convergence,’ which comes from the concept of convergent evolution describing the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.
How does convergence work in the real world? Some tips from Kirsty:
Go where your audience is
Know strengths and weaknesses of different platforms
Make sure your message is crystal clear, and
Push that message around, across all available platforms.
Hunter provided the example of Jamie Oliver’s universe, in which the savvy chef has generated an iphone app, magazines, a twitter feed, cook books, schools, restaurants and of course products in your very own kitchen.
Of course the cross platform concept is nothing new, she added, as people calling up radio stations with their five cents’ worth has been interactive, at a certain level, for decades.
Kirsty gob-smacked us with an example of one of the projects that her company Lion Interactive created from the ground up, a project called Britain From Above. “It was a dream project,” she told us, “a hi tech big-budget bluechip project for the BBC.”
As Kirsty demonstrated via a movie file from her Mac, the brief was nothing less than to redefine documentary online. The designer’s eyes lit up upon hearing that the concept was a video rich site that created a web site without words.
And it was a big hit for the audience, who didn’t need to sit down and view a solid hour of doco on the BBC, but could instead sample a sliver via the site – or more, if they got hooked into the content.
The site played with notions of creative navigation, providing the option of a linear journey for those who wanted one, or a randomized series of clips for those who didn’t. “People would come in to watch one clip and stay for half an hour,” she added.
The content was pushed far and wide over cyberspace. “Some really well known blogs picked up on our content. Our clips were viewed lots of times on YouTube, and there were 160,000 iplayer streams.”
The end result was a huge success for both broadcast and online delivery, produced by a single team across all platforms. Some content was exclusive to the web, and there was the ability to geotag content and download computer graphics. The series was described as ‘the untold story of Britain’s secrets, told from above.’ It was an insight into Britain they don’t normally get.
You can check it out for yourself at: www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove.
Hunter also provided a second example, Victorian Farm which has been a sleeper hit and almost outrates Master Chef in the UK, peaking at 4.5 million viewers on BBC Two. The online site allowed audiences to create their own Victorian Christmas, which they did in droves. And of course there was the book and the DVD as well.
Kirsty provided her golden rules of Totally Convergent production:
Rule 1: The current space is like TV in the 60s. Nobody knows what they’re doing.
Rule 2: Build and they won’t come. Instead, you have to know your audience, know where they are, and go where they are.
Rule 3: Don’t do something just because you can. The Net is littered with such examples, and as per rule Number 2, if you build it they won’t come. Instead give audiences something useful in their lives, something they’ll seek out.
There are other rules, such as deploying multidisciplinary teams rather than separate silos, but you must have a single series producer who’s across everything. And of course regular team meetings are required, where you can host joint briefings about titles and graphics.
“No one platform is more important than any other,” Kirsty emphasised.
And finally she provided the 20:80 rule of budgeting, which is to allocate 20% of your funds for creating the beast up to the launch date, and the remaining 80% for improving, testing, refining and finessing the project.
Next up was Michael McMahon, the Canadian whose documentary Waterlife about the pollution in the Great Lakes which slakes the thirsts of millions of Canadians and millions more from the US, which is creating huge health problems. Released in June 2009, the film has won awards, and the website as well.
Michael showed us some slabs from the website, which is interactive and engaging in the way that many aren’t. “Often websites become a glossy brochure for the film and don’t exploit the benefits of online,” he told us. “The website has three or four different ways of navigating around, and there have been 400,000 unique visits to the web site since its creation, and 1.5 million page impressions.”
Check out the site at www:waterlife.nfb.ca.
The third speaker was Silva Basmajian, Executive Producer from the National Film Board of Canada, an organization with a venerable documentary history, yet which has become at the cutting edge of convergence with docs shot on mobile phones and exploiting online opportunities.
Charged with creating content with a unique Canadian perspective, Silva’s organization has created new digital content that otherwise wouldn’t get made.
Silva listed some of the NFB’s recent successes, including a foray into mobile content commencing in 2004 that marked the directorial debut of Isabella Rossellini. “We represent social responsibility, innovation and risktaking in filmmaking,” she explained. The venture was between a public producer and private broadcaster with a budget of only $15,000 each. One of the films created, shot on a mobile phone, was blown up on 35m and screened at film festivals.
Another of the NFB’s recent achievements is using the web as new tool for documentary filmmaking. She described a project called Filmmaker in Residence, which was described in the promo clip as “smashing the stereotypes and fusing media and medicine to change lives.”
So can cameras and computers improve health? See for yourself at:
www.nfb.ca/filmmakersonline
Silva described a current project called High Rise, which will use the power of handycam filmmaking to tell the stories of people living in ten high rise buildings in ten suburbs in ten countries around the world. It’s about the concrete containers that are the most common form of building today. It’s a multi year, multiplatform project, local and global.
Attempting to wrap up, Silva mentioned a 3 box set of DVDs they put out last year on the Filmmakers in Residence project, including a feature doc version and a making of, at the conclusion of the project which was run over four years.
“We also have an iphone app which you can use to navigate to our online screenings to view our content,” Silva added. Or if you’re iphone-challenged, you can go to their online screening rooms at nfb.ca. “In one year the plays have exceeded our expectations, we have had 4 million plays.”
“Globally 100 million consumers watch digital content online every day,” she concluded. “There are new funding structures for digital online media being created on govt level as well. We can have our cake and eat it too. It’s an exciting time for filmmakers.”
The final speaker was Jennifer Wilson, Director of The Project Factory, based in Sydney. Now seriously short of time for the session, Jennifer raced through a number of key ideas, under a heading of building the digital bridge.
Describing the way her daughter watched Foxtel IQ while on MSN and facebook and downloading music onto her iPhone, the question for Jennifer, and us all, is how to get people’s attention in this fragmented space. Interestingly, she said that studies have shown that if audiences view a clip on their computer instead of on a TV screen, they are 20% more attentive.
Wilson made the critical point that people believe the online audience is passive and just wants to absorb stuff when in fact many want to interact with it in some way, whether to be a critic, a creator, a joiner, a supporter or some other way.
She believes 360 is a misnomer, as sometimes you just want to go 180, or maybe 270.
“Sometimes it starts as a broadcast and bleeds into other areas. Sometimes it begins online and is so compelling that it gains an audience on broadcast.”
The issue with online at present is a lack of a credible business model. Jennifer believes that mobiles will be a critical part of engaging with audiences. Interestingly she described how at the moment people want to use new media to get a job in old media. They want to post a YouTube clip (new media) that will get them a directing gig on a film (old media.) But soon, new media will be a viable end goal and source of employment in itself. (We all hope so.)
Wilson told us that the freemium model is currently the way to go, where you give away your content for free, creating the buzz that entices audiences to buy the DVD or download additional content at a cost. Sponsorship is an alternative model, but online advertising on its own is about the worst model in terms of generating revenue. “The extension/upgrade model is the way forward,” she said.
Jennifer pointed out that presently if you commence your multiplatform delivery at the very beginning, all costs are QAPEable (the Australian producer offset subsidy) but if you begin at the conclusion of production, it’s counted as promotion and not counted for QAPE.
Kirsty said in answer to a question that a ballpark budget for her is 10% of the project’s total for online content. And every proposal should have a digital dimension. “I don’t let a project leave the building without a digital treatment.”
Veronica reminded the audience that online content is global, allowing us in Australia to transcend the geographical boundaries that constrain us.
A great session.
Mark Poole
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