April 28, 2004
Movieoke - room for improvement
And even Den of Cin's Movieoke has room for improvement...
"I thought they might digitally remove the characters and put you in the scene, just like in karaoke they give you music with no words,"
FOXNews.com - Foxlife - New Game Shows Off Bar Dwellers' Acting Chops
MPGEdit
mpgedit may be the right tool to create the ringtones in the prototype.
E-Mint talk 20th May
I've been invited to present the MOD Films Network idea to E-Mint on 20th May (details below to anyone interested in coming along). Any suggestions on what are the key questions (beyond the notes), please get in touch.
Hello you loverly Londoners …
Here are the next meeting details.
The who the where
--------------------------
All we can get in here right now is a vaguely pithy paragraph, our presenter will fill in the gaps a little later this week.
And the how
------------------
We are looking to take a more intimate spin on this meeting, so we will not be making any stand up presentations but will be putting a round table discussion to the test. This is going to be a very interesting conversation.
Location
-------------
We will be residing in Holborn for again, thanks Ian J, so could people please note the following details.
When you get there could you state you’re expected at the e-Mint meeting on floor 2.
ICP Europe
3 Waterhouse Square
142 Holborn
London EC1N 2NX
For more details try : www.emoderation.com/ContactUs
Any problems please phone Tamara, thanks T, on +44[0]7776 138642
Virtual
---------
We will be trying to run a virtual meeting in tandem as has become the norm. More details in the reminder to come …
Afterwards
---------------
There is a very good chance that many of us will decamp to a watering hole and partake of some more informal chat and falling down juice.
Way-hey :-)
Cheers,
Phil
www.elzware.com
0117 923 1147
07932 056630
This e-mail and any attachment is intended for the named recipient(s) only and may contain proprietary material and/or confidential information. It should not be copied or disclosed to, or used by, any other party. If you are not the named recipient, then please delete this e-mail and any attachment and promptly inform Phil Hall on +44 (0)7932 056630. Thank you.
Video storage for frame retrieval
Q) What is the optimal way to store video for mobmixing? Individual frames storage good or bad idea?
A1) Store JPEG for each frame and map movie current time onto appropriate frame number
A2) Store video and dynamically query for each frame requested
A3) Store video and check static cache ahead of dynamic query
Retina projection for Blake's glasses
BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Laser vision' offers new insights
I've been wondering how Blake could get away with using her RIG in class and perhaps the answer is that she isn't. Instead she could be using one of these jobbies in her spectacle lenses, pointing backwards. Freaky...
RDF vs RULEML
This caught my eye on Slashdot - a thread on the virtues or vapourware of RDF with a comment favouring RULEML as the basis of a Semantic Web application like the RIG.
April 27, 2004
Tasks
Stuff to do... now to find people to help...
Review of RDF technologies relevent to project
Validate Shakespeare XML for compliance
Implement RIG (RDF) parser for Shakespeare
Implement RIG cinema mode for Shakespeare text/speech synthesiser
Backup system and strategy overhaul for thequality.com & MOD Films
Write up all job specifications
Maintain list of all potential sponsors
Write to all potential sponsors and collaborators
Maintain skills list and crossreference category people
Purchase mobile media gateway and purchase path
Fix MobMixer and Imagemagik gateway
Source concept art
Source games producer
Source film producer
Sign up initial team
Finish Sanctuary draft
Source storyboards
Talk to engine vendors and shortlist middleware
Source MOD community evangelist
Source hire #2 - RIG programmer
Choose message board system
Sign up IT support
Purchase software/hardware backlog
Demonstrator for RSS across MOD Films, thequality.com and external resources
Tendrils - open rhythm game
Massive: Tendrils - rhythm combat
One to watch for Groover MOD and Community.
As a game it is fairly clunky as yet (and the 3D maze element is too retro confusing for me!) but it ticks several boxes as a useful case study. Tendrils relies on rhythm game mechanics, re-mixed game art, BitTorrent and Python.
April 26, 2004
Videodrag existing clips and props
Aliens
"Hey Vasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man?" - red bandana
"Sharp Sticks" - Army helmet
Batman
Joker Reveal - Green + white facepaint and red lipstick; toy gun
Post-op Joker - Bandages and small hand mirror
Conan
Swordplay - Sword
"Lamentation" - Throne and Helmet
Wheel of Pain - table, etc. to push against
ET
Bike flight - exercise bike
Drag Queen - dress, wig and hat
"E.T. Phone Home" - Bob Hoskins... kidding. No props needed
Ghost Busters
Slimed - KY jelly
"That's a big Twinkie" - Mr. Kipling cake
Indy I
Idol + Satipo - Idol, bag of sand (rice/flour), whip
Indy II
Anything goes - no props needed
"You cheat very big" - playing cards
"Shakti Kalima" - toy heart (or red sponge)
Predator
"Goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus" - pouch of tobacco, chewing gum, spitoon
"One ugly MoFo" - Mask
Priscilla
I Will Survive - no props needed
Repo Man
End - no props needed
Robocop
Burger Meat - toy guns, something to fall safely onto
Trading Places
Blind Cripple - skateboard, sunglasses
"Break something else?" - plastic vase
"Inga from Sweden" - blond pigtails wig, rucksack, rasta wig, black facepaint, priest's cassock, african mumu.
Prison cell - no props needed
April 23, 2004
Streaking's 30th
For the stadium riot (feature script)
Click on picture for larger version
April 20, 2004
Notes on meeting with Lizzie Jackson
Emotional Triggers for community
- What makes someone want to participate in the MOD Films Network?
- What would make someone come to site?
- What would make someone subscribe?
- What would make someone look after the community?
- What would make someone MOD a film?
- What community-specific terminology should be introduced?
Community dynamics
Lizzie suggested that community activities (even games) will be necessary to provide impetus for participation and involvement. I'm keen to revisit my massively multi-player role-playing game idea for 10weeks which divides the world's population into Authorities, Athletes and Hackers.
http://thequality.com/flics/10weeks/stage7/
To DO)
1) Brainstorm community drivers, emotional triggers
2) Choose an interesting slice of activities/content for community
3) Plan launch
4) Launch community
IDEAS IN THE MIX
Hold back releasing story/script material until after each film is released.
Text-based Shakespeare mixer
Mobmixer for trailers
Start with Michela releasing CC versions of previous work (e.g. HfC, bman)
April 19, 2004
Q) HOWTO detect frame in movie trailer
My MOBMIXER app has hit a design stumbling block.
To make the experience compelling to buy wallpaper/ringtones from a movie trailer you need to be able to get the frame/soundtrack snippet you want within a few clicks. There lies a problem with the way movie trailers are published typically. The player is either the Windows, Real or Quicktime media and there is no easy method (I can see) to pass the current frame, or time, to another application.
Q) What is the best approach? I'm leaning towards A1
A1) Replace movie files themselves with files with embedded scripting (e.g. Quicktime created in LiveStage Pro)?
A2) Embed files in Shockwave?
A3) Embed files in Flash?
A4) Javascript call to movie player API? (can't find way to do this)
A5) Java wrapper for movie player (http://java.khm.de/content/projects/VideoPlayer.java)
A6) Rely on user to type in current frame number
Why Meta-data is important
Massive: The future of Weblogging is some background as to why next generation media has to be described in machine-readable terms to be sustainable.
April 16, 2004
Interactive industry links
In honour of our first business enquiry, a set of industry links:
Gamesbiz.net is brought to you by law firm, Osborne Clarke's Entertainment Group. Launched in 2000, gamesbiz.net provides developers, publishers and other games organisations with regularly updated articles, checklists and template documents on a range of business, finance and legal issues. Endorsed by industry players, commentators and trade bodies, gamesbiz.net is the online business resource for the interactive entertainment industry.
http://www.gamesbiz.net
The Art and Science of Video Games
http://www.gamasutra.com/
The Market for Home Computing and Interactive Entertainment (magazine)
http://www.mcvuk.com/
Michela's weblog tracking the space between film and games
http://thequality.com/massive/weblog/
Re-usable film productions and tools for film re-use
http://modfilms.com
Meeters and greeters
A piece of good advice sampled from the e-mint (online community managers) list.
Dan Dixon writes:
"Another thing to encourage is meeters and greeters.
Actively say hi to every new joiner. Posting the first message somewhere can be a scary and exposing action and just a simple affirmation of this to the person who posted is a great thing. The only problem with this is when it looks like a robot is doing it. So you need real live bodies from your community to do this. It's too big (and stupid) a job for just one person. This wont get more people taking part but will reduce your "one post and I'm outa here" churn.
And again what Ian said about designing for your community. It's easy to copy something else that works, but it's the community you need to look at not the technology. There are nearly 100 sites using slashcode, but only one slashdot."
At boo, one of the most useful jobs in the whole company was done by this young Swedish girl. She cruised around the office, smiled, and took everyone's photo for the directory. Not only was it one of the few workplaces where you could put a name to a face easily but you felt like you were part of something.
I'm still undecided about the best approach for this project, groupware-wise. Most of you are sending me direct emails which works well for me but it rules out any lurking which is kinda the point.
You shouldn't feel compelled to a) receive and b) respond to everything being churned out by the project but the more stuff that goes into sharable resources the more likely that others can pick up on it.
There is also a new addition to the headbin homepage, a list of the most recent comments so you can see which bits of the blog are active, and who's around to meet.
Half-Life2 E3 teaser
For a taste of what's coming in the next generation of games, you could do worse than check out this monster download of Half-Life 2, the most anticipated game in history.
Funny enough, the 'game-play' people are lining up for is simply the ability to fiddle around with the terrain and props in each scene. Shooting guns has been done before but not the ability to rip a world The imagery is driven by Valve Software's new Source engine, available for licensing, which knocks the socks off anything previously.
http://www.valvesoftware.com/sourcelicense/enginefeatures.htm
April 15, 2004
Stephen Wolff (Programmer)
Stephen is a musician and programmer who has been working pre-dominantly on arts-related projects. He will be helping with Flash implementation.
http://www.loopo.co.uk
stephen@loopo.co.uk
Samples:
http://www.musicoftheprimes.com/
http://www.juliefreeman.co.uk/poc/version4/fishSeq.html
Freedom to tinker
Found this weblog with an animated debate on "free-riders" vs. "samplers". No grand revelations but good food for thought on the environment into which SANCTUARY will be dropped.
Freedom to Tinker: A Grand Unified Theory of Filesharing
"the industry should focus on ways to turn *younger* file sharers into samplers "
April 14, 2004
Videodrag at Night Train
Notes from meeting with Shaun, owner of The Arches nightclub, re. videodrag component to be produced by MOD Films.
80's club night "Night Train" at The Arches, Southwark St (behind Tate Modern)
Opening night 7th May, then 1st Friday and 3rd Friday of the month
5pm onwards
Target market: thirtysomething officeworkers
Concept: MOD Films supplies "videodrag" rig and operators to club and starts charging the venue once there is a market for live insertion of people into films.
Videodrag format ideas:
"hole in frame" put heads in
Build up a jukebox of 80s movie moments
Recording booth (like photobooth) with bluescreen and preview monitor
Technical options to overlay, substitute or add the punter into the movie loop
Add punter-contributed subtitles to jukebox loops (for earlier in the night when no one is brave enough to go in front of camera)
Aladin does tricks for the people in the queue and uses suggestion to "place" elements of his tricks into footage.
Team:
Michela - VJ, Director
Damon - Post-production, videography
Sarah - Installation design
Legalities:
Fair use of film material under artistic criticism and review - Videodrag has to be carefully marketed as a "reclaim the media"
MOD Films needs to ring-fence its involvement to avoid problems related to copyright holders and venues
Terms and conditions around the resulting footage need to be worked out.
Issues:
Filming has to be next-to-real-time. Video manipulation has to be quick.
Quality of the experience
Next steps:
Collate footage (ML, DOC, KTM)
Design layout (SPN, ML)
Prepare footage (DOC, ML)
Prepare 'bag o tricks' (ML, DOC)
Seed idea into April 25 VJ set (ML)
Host private party to explore idea (ML)
April 13, 2004
Testing MTQuicktime macro
Testing the Quicktime macro for Damon.
Avatar technologies
Techniques and technologies for inserting a player into virtual space.
April 08, 2004
CD is the star of N
See a groovy stick figure in action in web game "N" by MetaNet Software.
http://theculturalgutter.com/videogames/the_power_of_n.html
The Switch
The Switch is envisaged as a DJ/VJ interface to the film, allowing for malleable properties to be automated and controlled from 3rd party performance tools and other software.
At first glance, the most pragmatic way of approaching this is to develop The Switch as a ReWire application.
http://www.propellerheads.se/technologies/rewire/index.cfm?fuseaction=displaymain
April 06, 2004
Rubberbanding
One technique for getting across the nature of hacking in the script can be "rubberbanding". I'm seeing it a little like bungee jumping, except that what you're jumping into is the network technology surrounding a mind. If the hack fails, you get flung back out of the system rather violently.
April 05, 2004
Australian authoritarism
Australian police state as fiction?
POLICE used capsicum spray on students yesterday to quell protests over rising university fees as rallies across the nation turned violent.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9148817%255E12332,00.html
Paper on "key characteristics" of Australian authoritarianism.
http://thequality.com/people/michela/weblog/archives/000683.html#000683
April 01, 2004
Transport
A little inspiration for the trooper APC...?
http://batmanbegins.warnerbros.com/page.html