NESTA suggests:
"Expand on what you told us in your initial proposal about what is new and original about your idea and what research you have done so far to confirm that your proposal is genuinely novel?
Does it break new ground and if so how?
Does it use existing technology or processes in an original way or does it seek to develop an entirely new approach? If so, how?
Does your idea have the potential to bring about significant shifts in thinking in your field? Such ideas could inspire new processes, methods or approaches.They might include high risk innovatory projects in the arts or sciences that have potential for commercial and/or social benefits.
Does your idea involve a novel methodology or process or improved design? If so please explain that in your answer to this question."
The idea takes an entertainment experience that has scarcely changed in over 100 years (35mm celluloid film) and bringing it to the crest of the current wave of popular interactive experiences. This is interactive entertainment designed to work with the traditional strengths of the Internet. Few film-makers have the experience and architectural understanding of how to leverage interactive technology and online communities to propagate their stories.
The product is a new type of film that comes assembled like a Rubik’s Cube. The story is designed so that re-arrangement is both possible and encouraged. The story is delivered as part of a new unified yet simple media architecture which makes greater use of open (i.e. free standard) technologies to assist development, production and distribution. The vision is of films that endure because they act as the best story-telling instruments in the hands of an increasingly sophisticated audience.
“Re-mixable film” uses game technology and game distribution but the product focus is one story, not game-play. Using a broadband game console, a film (story, idea, flavour) is re-played and distributed as interactive chunks for (largely passive) consumption prior to formal (and risky) game design elements. It leverages the open source software model to build a rigid sustainable story system.
The form re-appropriates the terms “play” and “film” from the computer game and film industries respectively. Re-mixable films are more playful than films and more accessible to the wider population than games. Game-play is optional. The idea explores the evolution of film in a way that is both extremely personal (to support a story I have written) and potentially universal, given the care to position the concept and design in relation to emerging social and technical standards.
“Re-mixable film” encourages creativity and performance in a new way. It throws open the exclusivity of high-end film-making, allowing a more open relationship between the filmmakers and their audience.
Sample instruments, DJ/VJ controls, are bundled with a film for the first time. MOD makers, albeit a small minority of the audience, can now create new controls and re-invigorate the product over time. The opportunity to make money from film IP is widened in a novel way. The experience bridges cinema and console, allowing players to manipulate and manoeuvre within a film without breaching copyright. Sharable film content is, in itself, not novel anymore but none of the projects exploring this notion have made the effort to attract the key sub-cultures that are already doing this with games and software (e.g. the machinima community, the open source movement). In practice, this is because innovation is often viewed purely in terms of technology advances, not social advances.
This project attempts novelty by re-visiting the origins of film as a popular medium and exploring why Thomas Edison (the inventor) did not give birth to cinema, as we know it, whereas the Lumiere brothers (the entrepeneurs) did. In that sense, this project does not claim to have all the ideas but does have a novel and cost-effective approach to building a new ideas platform using traditional media and trust. Few film-makers trust their audience to respect their work, given the opportunity to tamper with it, but increasingly this is changing. As a practitioner with a track record in bleeding edge internet-related projects, I feel there is an opportunity for innovation here.
The idea is a hybrid approach to media production that stems from internet cultural and commercial trends (e.g. peer-to-peer networking, online community dynamics, digital rights mis-management). No one has attempted to marry a film to this approach before with this degree of sophistication in the project architecture. The availability of re-usable machine-readable story elements will help get new online stories off the ground (however personal) and allow the authors to evolve them over time into larger-scale productions. This will be the first film production engineered for the "Semantic Web", the next generation of machine-readible content and services.
A novel business model for re-mixable films is being proposed, independent of SANCTUARY. User contributed content (i.e. MODS) is an opportunity for new royalty streams through unforeseen commercial spin-offs from successful re-mixable films. Unlike a traditional film property, the “re-mixable film” DVD allows sampling at an unprecedented granular level. Assets (e.g. sound-bites, sets) can be extracted for 3rd party use. Film publishers can promote their interactive assets to sampling practitioners as music publishers do. This promotion method will be of interest to many industry sectors, who may view the film purely in terms of being a snazzy package for a production library (like a production music library CD).
The SANCTUARY DVD will be designed for sampling and file-sharing while being backwards compatible for regular DVD playback. The technical architecture is geared towards sustainable development and distribution of a story. By making the linear story (“the flavour”) more accessible technically, by making it open to re-use, there is more opportunity for the flavour to be added, freely and or under license, to other titles. Spin-offs can be licensed. An online distribution system will track the usage of film assets and issue commercial licenses where appropriate.
The idea of treating a film as an online stage, onto which live performance can be incorporated, is new. I use interactive film products as a performer already (e.g. real-time3d content) but no existing films are created with this in mind. SANCTUARY will be. Computer game controllers do already act as pseudo-musical instruments (in rhythm games) but the focus there is on game-play not story.
User-contributed content and re-mixes is the key to establishing a vibrant fan community (even for existing films). This project improves the way in which such actions relate to the core product. This will be a form of online education through a cross-cultural story-telling device. It is also a novel mechanism (proven for games not films) for extending the shelf-life of interactive entertainment.
This idea is innovative because it is obvious. Control is expensive and limits creativity. Relinqush more control over how a product is used and spend the savings on developing more support (and business) out of the positive outcomes.
Scenario 1: Joni loved 'Matrix Reloaded' but found the dialogue a little tedious in places. After buying the DVD, Joni plays around with replacing the philosophy-lite dialogue with comic one-liners and records a mix for friends. Joni uploads a MOD (of the new bits) to a local fan website where it is rated highly. A local DJ samples the lines. Popular MODs spur more people to upload their own MODs and cross-pollinate the scene. A local developer approaches Joni to use some of the dialogue in a game. The developer is creating a commercial game and wants to use assets that have been popular in that country. Warner Bros licenses the original DVD assets to the developer.
Scenario 2: It is expensive, and arguably impossible, to prevent people from reaching the stage of a popular band. The sheer weight of numbers is on the crowd's side, not the security team. However it is impossible to hide once you are up on stage and negative outcomes can be quickly dealt with.
Scenario 3: Inspired by the success of console games that invite the audience to contribute content to the published game (e.g. the Slovenian game "Hollow" by Zootfly, to be released Christmas 2000, http://games.zootfly.com/hollow/competition/about.htm
http://games.zootfly.com/hollow/competition/about.htm), a film company puts out a call to 3D artists to submit "synthespians" to be used as extras in a scene. The re-mixable film technology is used to manage the influx of entries and is part of the eventual film DVD release so that audiences can substitute their own virtual characters, putting their own people in the film.