headbin

An Inexpensive Video Panorama System

InexpensivePanoramicVideo

Proof-of-concept panoramic video system involving the author's "hexacam", six firewire cameras mounted in a ring.

Software at http://www.vrhotwires.com

Bats

Regent's Park at dusk in summer is a great spot for bat action as the critters swoop low across the lake hunting insects.

http://www.londonbats.org.uk

Sponsorship ideas

Flights

QANTAS

Hosting

http://www.ukfsn.org/

Creative Commons in UK

A CC initiative for the UK was launched in January.

http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/uk/

Film Producer Wishlist

In no particular order:

Luc Besson
Andrew Mason
Terry Gilliam
Mike Figgis
Andrew Macdonald

FUNDING APPROVED

We got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Phase 1 ++++++++ SANCTUARY production funding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks everyone! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx .M.

MobMix for mobile merchandise

0.1 prototype MobMixer for mobile revenue. Extract wallpaper and ring-tones from any art in the system.

http://thequality.com/flics/10weeks/mix/mobilemix.swf

MOBMIXER technical specification

Summary: use MobMixer to select and manipulate a frame direct from a movie trailer and send it to your mobile phone as a wallpaper

Play the movie
Select the desired frame (e.g. pause, scrub movie, enter timecode, back a frame, forward a frame, back one second|minute)
Click on MobMixer icon (ModMixer starts with selected frame loaded)
Manipulate image (rotate, zoom, drag, select phone model)
Reset image to sensible size onscreen
One click to get from movie trailer video to mobmixer
One click to Buy image - transfer to mobile purchase path
Pass transform coordinates to server (to ImageMagick)
Transform server-side image using ImageMagiK
Pass transformed image to purchase path (one time URL?)
Authenticate against mobile purchase path (Bango SOAP?)
Receive token from mobile service provider that payment recevied
Grant access to image for installation via WAP or SMS.

Imagmagick

http://www.imagemagick.org/

God bless OSS! All the static manipulations needed for the prototype and beyond in one handy library. See me for sample code, I've been using for ten years now *gulp*

Groove patterns ("Groover")

MIDI may end up being integral to authoring and prototyping groover (rhythm) patterns in the RIG. Using MIDI within Flash suggests one approach.

I.e. compose pattern in any MIDI package (e.g. Arkaos, Logic, Reason), clean via custom filter, load into Groover and
a) generate diagram from the pattern
b) monitor input and measure accuracy relative to the pattern

Macromedia Director and Flash

Director MX and Flash MX have come a LONG way. Perhaps good enough a framework to get prototyping.

Undocumented Lingo : Quickstart for Xtra Programming

Screen Capture screensaver
http://www.director-online.com/buildArticle.php?id=1109

Streaming Flash video into Shockwave 3D
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/director/articles/streaming_video_03.html

Videodrag candidates

The first movieoke meeting is this week. Registered videodrag.com

What films would we want to MOD?

Film - Scene - Props

80s
The Blues Brothers - James Brown song
The Party - Birdie Num Nums
Top Gun - locker room scene
Ferris Bueller's Day Off - classroom
Heathers - 3 heathers
Airplane (Flying High) - cockpit
Brazil -
Tetsuo - growing spikes
Crocodile Dundee
Highlander
ET
Purple Rain - singing on stage
The Wall

Comments on latest Sanctuary draft

Technology• The technology seems largely peripheral; shoehorned in without any real understanding of why it’s there and what it’s for.
• If Daniel and Jon are to converse in virtual space, when Daniel breaks off may be a good opportunity to introduce the mechanics of the rig and how you can be trapped in virtual space.
• Two sets of nano-bats makes a big issue of them – almost as though they were the key weapon in an arms race. If that is not the case, then they draw too much attention to themselves. If that is the case, then maybe there should be a hint at just how crucial it is to have the upper hand with them.
• Opening exchange between Jon and Mark. What is this about?

Characters
• CD – underdeveloped and next to redundant (Blake even shuts him off at one point)
• Daniel – cursory references to his past, but we never hear or see any evidence of it. Maybe if instead of simply renouncing his past, his focus has shifted to political and academic struggle, as opposed to militaristic physical action, then he can be imbued with a sense of “been there, done that, was the greatest”. 10 Weeks gives a good sense of this shift in approach. What if it is Daniel and not Jon who dies?
• Jon – Jon is lead character for 80% of the script. Appropriate? See below
• Blake – only emerges as the key figure right at the end – nice transition, may catch the audience off guard, as long as Blake has a clear role in the script before Jon’s demise – maybe as an explicit focus for Jon’s and Daniel’s aims – i.e. to give the next generation a life without The State. This can give Blake’s abilities with computers a different starting point, namely excelling in her schoolwork, not hacking about at home (although schoolwork alone would never explain her aptitude). Hacking about at home only gives the impression that she was already a part of the subculture to which the activists subscribe, therefore she wouldn’t be shocked or embarrassed to find out her father was an activist himself. Maybe if Blake was particularly apt with computers because her father taught her up himself against her wishes, the attitude being “Never get roped into that crowd, but just in case you do…” Kind of like a kid being taught sex ed (teacher says “don’t have sex, but here’s how to use a condom” kid thinks “urgh, sex is disusting, why would I want to do that anyway?”). It therefore makes sense that she be so good, having learnt from the best herself. It also might breed a latent resentment towards her father, which is only resolved once he is dead and she finds out the truth about him, thereby causing further grief and further setting her resolve against the state.
• Mark – simply there to bounce exposition off…?

Plot
• “Chief is watching” – as in Big Brother? Is that what we’re going for? I thought that the Chief was going to be an unseen menace. That the chief may at most be mentioned, but not in a 1984 sense, but never appear in Sanctuary, left for 10 Weeks.

Classroom presentation

What are classmates looking at?

Where is Blake giving presnetaiotn?

What is the interface?

WHat is her subject matter?

What is her attitude to the subject matter?

What is a MOD?

MOD

1. stylishly modern, esp. as regards dress.
2. of or relating to an unconventional style of dress in the 1960s in Great Britain, involving bold modern designs such as miniskirts.
3. a music file format containing digitised sound samples and pattern data
4. a modification of a game made by a player
5. a modification of a film made by the audience

Reference footage and other media

Influences and reference material for Sanctuary (e.g. pre-vis, collage)

FILMS

Whale Rider - young girl misfit hero, proud angry jaw
Ned Kelly - burning aussie bush aesthetic
The Matrix - fluid movement through virtual space/mental agility
Matrix Reloaded - dangerous atheletic female
Minority Report/Matrix Reloaded - body language user interface
Starship Troopers - humourous Web user interface (uber flash text)
Heathers - classroom hierarchy (Blake is geek)
Beetlejuice - outsider teenage girl bedroom
Horses for Courses - fluid movement through painterly forest
Tron - minimalistic virtual world
ET - silent watchers (State technicians)
Enemy of the State - surveillance overload
Strange Days - 1st person/VR/look in mirror
Ghost in the Shell - wet-ware, cyberorganic elements
Nausicaa - relationship between teenage girl and nature
Wizard of Oz - get out and back home
ET/Close Encounters/Poltergeist - Spielberg suburbia, just add Hills' Hoists
Hulk - creative use of panelling, wipes, and transitions
Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind - erasing virtual elements of a scene
Dark Crystal - bat as surveillance devices

TV

24 - panelling, pace

COMMERCIALS

NIKE basketball commercial - stick figure a litte like CD

MUSIC VIDEO

Star Guitar by The Chemical Brothers - rythmic visuals
*see http://www.director-file.com/gondry/Dxliv.html# and follow "mov" link on right
Royksopp - Remind Me - diagrams/maps of complexity

GAMES

Gitaroo Man - rhythm game interface
Half-Life 2 - troopers streetfighting
Rez - low rez fly-through The System, hacking

VIDEO ART

HeadCleaner - industrial banging for action sequence

Webcam interfaces

Besides http://www.eyetoy.com

there is

http://www.bhv.de (Camgoo PC Eyetoy clone in development), sole UK distribututor, http://www.interactiveideas.com, has announced this in the trade press as a £19.99 game (£29.99 with camera) with "six fully interactive games" ripped off from eyetoy:play

---

Flash 8 prototype

http://www.protozoo.com/?p=178

Shakespeare in XML

Jon Bosak has marked up the complete works of Shakespeare in XML.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/niagara/data/shakes/shaksper.htm

Files available from:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bosak/

Mobile content development research

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,st_p_58,00.html

http://www.thewirelessfaq.com

http://www.ringtonemarket.com/

http://ringtonetools.mikekohn.net

http://www.ringtonecreator.info/download.shtml

http://www.unwiredtec.com/wmcreator.shtml

Trust network

1. Business partner
2. Management
3. HR/Accounts
4. Staff (e.g. moderator)
5. Suppliers (software vendor)
6. DVD customer
7. Contributor (e.g. MODs, forum posts)
8. Online customer (e.g. registered DVD, bought ringtone, wallpaper, rights)
9. Online subscriber (no purchases)
10. Anonymous (unregistered user)

View frames of The Matrix

Too simple an idea for someone NOT to have done it on the sly.

"Er yeah, I'd like the ring-tone with the leather chick..."

Choose a frame of the movie to display:

http://onyx.chattanoogastate.edu/~jack/matrix/

Technology R&D test wishlist

Tests that could have a big impact on the screenplay are in bold.

• Embedding/packaging meta-data for assets
• Meta-data plugins for key production tools
• 3D collision detection against video
• Left/Right groove detection by webcam (Eyetoy clone)
• Ubertext flash layering
• Asset metrics
• Actor/Prop/Scene/Set labelling
• Re-mix labelling
• Feeder protocols
• MP3 generation/MP3 ringtone generation
• 360 degree panorama control object
• Loop editor/Switch
• Application media player
• P2P client
• Variable video parameters
• Variable audio parameters
• Variable panorama parameters
• Variable motion capture parameters
• Variable display/render parameters
• GUI design
• User profile requirements
• RDF story schema
• RDF rights schema/Creative Commons interface
• MOD installer
• Devnet community structure
• GROOVER MOD design
• FEEDER MOD design
• SWITCH MOD design
• Switch interface to 3rd party DJ/VJ tools
• Asset meta-data
• Online community literature review (refresher)
• Cross-platform game platform literature review (refresher)

Bitstream Syntax Description Language:

Bitstream Syntax Description Language: Application of XML-Schema to Multimedia Content Adaptation

Julia Bardsley - Transgression

Julia Bardsley's a NESTA supported artist and this piece is the closest I've come across that captures the kind of aesthestic I'm envisaging for Blake's online (virtual) space. Think this but messier. What kid has time to tidy up their bedroom when they're out trying to save the world... (one of those annoying framesets so here's link to her homepage http://www.juliabardsley.net

Bat echoes used as virtual reality guide

Wa hey! There's a precedent for nano-bats. A scientist has been using bat echo-location in VR.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994165

Market research - ring tones

Strategy Analytics - Separates Hype from Reality in Volatile High Technology Markets

European total youth spend on mobile products (2003 - 2006)

US provider that has signed a distribution deal with Disney
http://www.xingcom.net/

Bango - mobile e-commerce ASP
http://corp.bango.net

Sample customer - zeroindex
http://www.zeroindex.co.uk

When you charge for content using Bango, you are receive 60% of the revenue ex VAT. The revenue split shapes up like this:

Content provider
60% guaranteed
Billing Provider (Operator, SMS provider)
35% average
Bango.net
5% average

Feedback from EA

Your proposal is very interesting. One of the key aims for us and the rest of the games industry at the moment, is trying to draw in people who are not current gamesplayers. What you are suggesting may well be a way to attract new consumers and reach that Holy Grail of the non-gameplaying market.

At the moment I see what you are proposing but I am not clear how exactly you can make this work. Without having a protoype to demonstrate that you can make this work in a compelling manner it is difficult to visualise and therefore drive the development any further. I would also like to use a prototype to focus test this with targeted groups of consumers to see how compelling it is for them.

I would be delighted to see your protoype if you can get the funding together to do it.

Please keep me up to date on how you progress

Thanks

Nick
Nick Button-Brown
EAP Business Development Manager
+44 (0)1932 450770
MB +44 (0)7958 579 467