NESTA suggestions:
"In this section please tell us what progress you expect to make during the period for which you are seeking NESTA support and specifically what creative/technical hurdles you plan to overcome during this phase. If you have a specific development plan summarise it here e.g. the aims, milestones and outputs of the project and what you expect NESTA support will help you to achieve. "
The aim is to use NESTA funds to develop the idea to the point where the film is ready to shoot (full development) and a technology demo of the re-mixable film experience is ready to be presented to investors (as would be a game demo). I expect that NESTA support will enable production funding to be secured on the basis of this work and its future potential.
Every detail of the film production will be worked out during this phase, including a full animatic (animated story-boards) of the film, shooting script, pre-visualisation 3D animation and concept art.
All the key creative and technical hurdles associated with bringing the vision to life will be explored ahead of production. This will reduce the risk of the subsequent production phase (for investors) and will open up new business opportunities in working on 3rd party productions.
After extensive prototyping with new and existing art assets (from previous productions), a console demo will be produced. This demo will sell the vision of a film that plays in a regular DVD-VIDEO player and on a game console (probably the Sony PS2) as a new kind of experience. This interactive functionality will be branded "the RIG". The RIG (the Reactive Interface Grid) is game software representing the mind-machine interface in the story.
The RIG contains:
• THE FEEDER - to bring new material (MODs) into the film experience (via broadband from a web client).
• THE SWITCH - to mix and record film MODs using DJ/VJ controls.
• THE GROOVER – to play the film like a musical instrument or a rhythm game.
The focus of the demo will be to demonstrate how a film DVD acting as a platform for upload-able modifications (i.e. subsequent functionality can be incorporated at a later stage). The demo will leverage concept and "pre-vis" art as well as fully rendered artwork prototype work. It will not be a product suitable for commercial release. Its purpose is attract further investment based on the fact that the biggest creative and technical hurdles have been overcome.
The deliverables will be:
1. SANCTUARY shooting script
2. SANCTUARY animatic and concept artwork
3. SANCTUARY re-mixable film (DVD) demo aimed at potential funders
4. an online community using a web bulletin board system
5. documentation on how to MOD and re-mix the demo
6. a web demo application (for editing and packaging MODs into the format that can be downloaded into the DVD via the FEEDER)
7. sample MODs for the GROOVER and the SWITCH
The bulletin board for the re-mixable film community will be read-only to the public but available for free subscription. It will be made public prior to the release of the demo and act as a key development platform for this phase. Alpha and Beta testers will be sourced from the community.
The editing tool is a simple web application for creating re-mixable film MODs. The tool supports changing the overall experience ("the mix") by packaging new software and and replacing individual film assets ("the flics"). The tool enables anyone to completely alter the look of the film and create new passive and interactive experiences by re-writing the code which controls how the cinema version is constructed from art assets. New assets will be downloadable from anywhere, by anyone, into a licensed DVD. Access to MODs will not be controlled by the DVD software. Any web service will be able to host MODs.
The main creative hurdles are:
1) Designing the film and DVD experience so that people will be motivated to modify the DVD and publish a variety of re-mixes (MODs) by the product's eventual release date. Press coverage will be a measure of the viability of this approach.
2) Supporting both naive and developer usage without bias. The premise of the re-mixable film experience is that you don't have to interact, or need only interact a little bit, to have fun.
3) Bridging the two worlds of the story (beautiful rugged bushland and virtual world) in a way that is accessible to the viewer.
4) Leveraging the story universe and narrative to convey the overall vision in simple terms.
The main technical hurdles are:
1) Working out a cost-effective pipeline by which 35mm film assets, 360 degree panoramic photography and film resolution 3D models and animation can be effeciently re-purposed for use on the re-mixable DVD.
2) Re-purposing an existing XML publishing system for encoding and reading film semantic information so that any assets (supplied at purchase time or contributed by audience) can be slotted into a run-time film experience. The choice of which emerging standards to base this on (e.g. RDF) will be key.
3) Designing an open source "plug-in" system so that re-mixable film MODs can contain new experiences (alongside GROOVER and SWITCH) as well as simply new art assets.
4) Designing the input/output system (FEEDER) so that it inter-operates with the broadest range of web technology and online distribution systems. FEEDER should be compatible with DRM technologies (e.g. Microsoft).
5) Leveraging a broad suite of available and upcoming open source technology so that the above software development is feasible within the budget.
6) Designing an innovative context for proprietary software and integrating key technologies into the product, to avoid re-inventing the wheel. The company structure will enable me to offer equity in exchange for the license to embed innovative software (e.g. facial image analysis) in the product.