headbin

Documentation and support channel

I've been working on a new User Guide for the virtual studio

http://teamsanctuary.modfilms.net/trac/renders/wiki/UserManual

I've also set up a Team Sanctuary group on Google to capture Gavle student queries and discussions around the virtual studio.

http://groups.google.com/group/teamsanctuary

Any questions?

Probably a good time to ask - any questions out there?

I've been in a pretty manic period, developing, installing, configuring, moving countries etc... and I'm sure some of you must be wondering what the hell all this virtual system is all about.

The point of having a virtual studio is to make it easier to do stuff... not make things harder... so if you've got any concerns, queries, however minor, why not flag them up so we can improve things?

Ask a question

Quadratura

Big welcome to Adriano and Gaetano from Italian VFX start-up Quadratura (which means 'simulated architecture' according to Wikipedia).

They will be road testing modfilms.net for their own projects and contributing some of their expertise to Sanctuary.

Net herder in London

Quick roundup of the week.

TEAM

Valiant effort hooking everyone up with Alex this week. Last minute replacement, Soren from Myspace, last night was entertaining but no substitute for the real thing! {;-) We'll get you guys together next time.

Still scouting for finance and sales stakeholders for the team so keep them leads coming.

I'm getting runner/work experience enquiries from broadcastfreelancer.com. Who posted there? Good idea!

COMMS

The message is clear. Too many systems. Too confusing. No one wants to wade through lots of places looking for updates.

A number of suggests have been made including relying more on emails and having "one place" for all uploads/sharing etc.
http://modfilms.com/twiki/bin/view/Sanctuary/ProjectIssues#Too_many_systems

More direct comms via email is a no-brainer. But not so clear is what "one place" we should focus on.

We've tried most approaches now for this elusive "one place" and it's clear that different folks gravitate to different ways of communicating, and also at different points in the project (e.g. concept artists and developers happy with forums, no one else!). Hence the proliferation of SMS, blogs, forums, wikis, chats, community sites, image galleries...

As always, wiki changes are a good barometer of what's going on day-to-day.
http://modfilms.com/twiki/bin/view/Sanctuary/WebChanges

Interested in your thoughts...

PLANS

Would like to launch a revised and reskinned (beta) of modfilms.net in two months.

We've got a stack of suggestions, bug reports, wish list items collated
http://trac.modfilms.com:7861/trac/sanctuary/report/1

Soren, I'll bring you up to speed when we catch up and let's work out some target dates. Steve, Alex, Julie and I have been mapping out the activities across all areas (Information Architecture) and discussing next steps. We'll need another session to wrap this work off ahead. Alex has volunteered to focus on the graphic redesign this month.

FUNDING

A number of leads still active awaiting follow-up. There's some work to do on the budget and biz plan to satisfy these. Aiming to prepare Enterprise R&D grant materials for Tues meeting with Costas from the Thames Innovation Centre.

FILMS

Sanctuary post prod tootles on without funding. I've been neglecting producer duties somewhat, immersing myself in Shake and Maya, but lots of promising developments. Chris's nanobat prop is taking shape (in a French country-side barn) and Jigesh is starting to send me camera tracking data. I need to get back to Soren in DK (yet another Soren) re. character animation.

NEXT STEPS

* Determine funding and team building next-steps - Michela, Soren
* Revise and circulate Information Architecture - Michela, Soren, Julie
* modfilms.net development

Lost and found in Second Life

How civilised. Noodling about in SL I created some junk objects and left them in a pyramid. Only to receive this message this morning - no virtual crap it seems...

The object 'Second Life' has sent you a message from Second Life: Your 2 objects have been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by Aurican Sunchaser near parcel 'Aurican's Pyramid Store' at Mocha 110.757, 128.852 due to parcel auto return.

remixablefilms.multiply.com

http://remixablefilms.multiply.com is live.

Suggestions for assets to seed out first can be made here

http://modfilms.com/twiki/bin/view/Sanctuary/CommunityAssets

Community hosts chatting here

http://modfilms.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=16

del.icio.us Sanctuary

I have to ask myself sometimes if the Net isn't simply going to eat itself recursively aka IBM's original prediction that we only needed about 15-20 computers. All these web services dutifully cross-promoting and cross-referencing themselves with related bookmarks, blog trackbags, etc etc..

but here's a perfectly useful use of del.icio.us -
see how people are tagging their MOD Films bookmark

modfilms community beta

Alex, Mish and I had a good Skype today re.next steps for the community in light of all the recent interest. We've decided this is a good time to split discussions into a more public space hosted on Multiply (as a beta for modfilms.net) and refocus the modfilms-general list for the more commercially sensitive internal discussions. The feedback from the virtual team seems to be that Alex's weekly mailouts are interesting but the scope has widened well beyond Sanctuary so there seems to be no point restricting these new snippets to people who've signed an NDA.

Notes as follows:

The majority of the people in the virtual team don't really need to be privy to internal discussions anymore if they're not actively playing a part in MOD Films' future. That said, we won't be kicking people off the modfilms-general list, purely suggesting that a new "culture" community space might be more appropriate.

Here's a recap of the three lists in operation and the revised direction for each (as of 17th Feb)

* modfilms-announce (PR)

Semi-regular announcements such as product releases. No change from present.

* modfilms-general

Team Sanctuary discussions and MOD Films in-house conversations requiring NDA. All technology discussions re. RIG and modfilms.net. New footer reminding of list purpose. Closed list. Occaisional update postings (not weekly). Content can be more technical in nature, more commercially sensitive. More technical questions posted here. Cross-postings to remind people of culture list.

* modfilms.multiply.com

Invitation-only community space for pre-releasing Sanctuary assets and allowing the re-mix community to get involved with the project. This will provide a cost-effective safe space in which to gauge public interest and host conversations. This ties in with a refocus of MOD Films on selling online asset management.

Website wireframes

Logical structure of websites for demo.

20050523_web_wireframes.ppt

20050405_wireframes.ppt

20050405_web_wireframes.pdf

Organisation chart

Who is doing what? View full screen

Information for contributors

Information for contributors ("the deal" document.

Latest version is 20040915 - Word | PDF

Previous versions: 20040906 (Word)

User groups in film world

Latest thoughts on film world

Collaborative space update

Some major updates have been made to the collaborative project space over the last week.

1) The Image Gallery system is live for easy management of incoming material.

1) The Discussion Forums are live for alpha testing the community features as well as to support the various departments.

Please use the link below to register your details (use the same as headbin to keep things simple)
http://modfilms.com/forums/profile.php?mode=register

The forums are a more effective way of carrying on a conversation on a topic because you can set an option to receive email updates when anyone responds to what you write. You can also put in IM details if appropriate. The production forums are not visible to you until we've classified you as a team member so jump in and let's get started.

headbin will contain to act as my personal publishing system (I get lots of updates, the rest of you don't) but the team activities have outgrown da blog.

3) The MOD Films Wiki is up and running. If you have no idea or desire to know what a Wiki is than feel free to stop reading now... as long as you want to be part of the development team.

A Wiki is a web site where everyone is allowed to edit any page. This is how the project technical documentation will be maintained going forward.

Use the same login details to access the Wiki. To edit a page, you need to register your details.

We've had a go at drafting a top level view of the project
http://modfilms.com/twiki/bin/view/Sanctuary/

Marketing/profile idea

How about strengthening the link between the Massive blog (http://thequality.com/massive/weblog/) and the MOD Films site (http://www.modfilms.com/)?

The Massive blog would act as a very good accessory to the MOD Films site, as a sort of research tool/news resource. It would simply be a matter of rebranding the Massive blog with the MOD Films identity and making it a strong feature of the MOD Films homepage, no?

CASE STUDY: The Corporation

The Corporation - A film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan has web activism, and film marketing nicely integrated.

Being a team player

Tips from the folks making real-time feature length movies on how to get the Internet team dynamics going.

Editorial: Being a Team Player on Machinima.com

MOD Films mailing lists

Please help us build an interest in the project by directing people to the mailing lists to subscribe.

lists.modfilms.com Mailing Lists

Source Films

Other groups are looking at the upcoming Half-Life 2 engine as a movie platform as well.

Gaming Forums - Source Films: A Half Life 2 "mod" Looking for 3D artists

Meeting notes

Notes from my monthly meeting with Lizzie Jackson.

Community timescale:

1) PLANNING AND SET-UP (3 months)

Define use cases
Define online application functionality (in terms of OSS and existing software)
Define navigation (map between community applications)
Social architecture ("how to lay out city", draw buildings, put software in rooms)
Pretty up the skeleton, wallpaper the community

2) LAUNCH PERIOD (3 months)

Evidence that it takes approx. three months for community to form.

3) ACTIVITY PERIOD

Activities, assets available.

COMMUNITY ROLES

Host role

Party organiser, Curator, Workshop leader, Membership secretary, Historian

(see Clff Figallo book 'The Role of the Host')

Moderator role

Greeter role

Host not needed for initial phase (3 months) but important to keep movement going on planning so Workshop/Curating function could be given to Alex.

Suggestions for Alex tasks as of July:

Act as workshop leader for Community plan. Keep in touch with me to coax me to deliver the materials. research background in terms of related communities and info to guide me.

Talk to the open source film-makers. What went wrong in their community attempts? Get gory grimy details. Don't make the same mistakes.

Review House Rules on existing sites (e.g. BBC, HP, Disney). We need
House Rules (i.e. who owns content, right to showcase your content)
Terms/Conditions (i.e. legal protection)
Registration system (i.e. trust network)

Introduce people to idea, website, mailing lists

PROXIMITY

Organise Q/As with name contributors to allow community to feel part of something special.

Remember the community make-up will be

1) Newbies - just visible
2) Movers and Shakers - very visible
3) Lurkers - not visibile

80% of the community will be Lurkers and the success of the community will depend on them!

Message board architecture

I'm reluctant to put up any form of message board system until there is a critical mass of discussions on a general mailing list and, technically, until there is a way to combine blog, message board and mailing list content so that it doesn't matter which mechanism you prefer to use.

E.g. mailing to the list results in a blog posting as well as something put into the message boards hierarchy .

It's apples and oranges as to which interface people are going to prefer using, depending largely on your intended and actual use.

Below is my initial hack at a structure, .comments pls

GENERAL

About the MOD Films network
About MOD Films
Announcements
FAQs

MODS

Ratings
Reviews

FILMS

Ratings
Reviews

EVENTS

Live mixing

GAMES

Ratings
Reviews

2010 surveillance joke

I'm not going to make a habit of blogging spam but this is strangely apt for the humour possibilities in the story universe.

Ordering Pizza in 2010....

Operator: "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your..."

Customer: "Hi, I'd like to order."

Operator: "May I have your NIDN first, sir?"

Customer: "My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610."

Operator: "Thank you, Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number's 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302, and your cell number's 266-2566. Which number are you calling from, sir?"

Customer: "Huh? I'm at home. Where d'ya get all this information?"

Operator: "We're wired into the system, sir."

Customer: (Sighs) "Oh, well, I'd like to order a couple of your All-Meat Special pizzas..."

Operator: "I don't think that's a good idea, sir."

Customer: "Huh? Whaddya mean?"

Operator: "Sir, your medical records indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice."

Customer: "Damn. What do you recommend, then?"

Operator: "You might try our low-fat Soybean Yogurt Pizza. I'm sure you'll like it."

Customer: "What makes you think I'd like something like that?"

Operator: "Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion."

Customer: "All right, all right. Give me two family-sized ones, then. What's the damage?"

Operator: "That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids, sir. The 'damage,' as you put it, heh, heh, comes $49.99."

Customer: "Lemme give you my credit card number."

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash. Your credit card balance is over its limit."

Customer: "I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your driver gets here."

Operator: "That won't work either, sir. Your checking account's overdrawn."

Customer: "Never mind. Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready. How long will it take?"

Operator: "We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45 minutes, sir. If you're in a hurry, you might want to pick 'em up while you're out getting the cash, but carrying pizzas on a motorcycle can be a little awkward."

Customer: "How the heck do you know I'm riding a bike?"

Operator: "It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid up, so I just assumed that you'd be using it."

Customer: "@#%/$@&?#!"

Operator: "I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a July 2006 conviction for cussing out a cop."

Customer: (Speechless)

Operator: "Will there be anything else, sir?"

Customer: "No, nothing. oh, yeah, don't forget the two free liters of Coke your ad says I get with the pizzas."

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but our ad's exclusionary clause prevents us from offering free soda to diabetics

Jolt - UK MOD community

First contact with Dom at http://www.jolt.co.uk was promising. Jolt host 10-12 MODs including the current top rated MOD on moddb.com (Atlantis). They have already produced three commercial MODs for game publishers (ballpark development budgets £15K). An excellent contact.

Dom thought the idea was innovative but rested on the appeal of the film. He emphasised the importance of an FPS (first-person-shooter) MOD for any game community but agreed that this could feasibly materialise without direct funding.

Ultimately, the best trigger for external MOD activity will be the publishing of the RIG API.

Immersion Studios

I ran into Malcolm Garrett this week who is working at Immersion Studios in Toronto.

Interestingly enough, they do Immersion Classrooms, Simulations, Immersion Cinema and other forms of real-time film-making.

Messageboard systems

Messageboard systems for evaluation:

Invisionboard (MoveableType)
VBulletin (VJforumsl)
PHPnuke
Ikonboard
phpBB (Arkaos)

What is the headbin?

The headbin is a personal publishing system (or "blog") that I use as a communications tool. Everyone who has access to this particular blog has signed a non-disclosure agreement and is helping to progress the "SANCTUARY" and "ten weeks in the head bin projects".

Starting on the home page, you can navigate the blog in a number of ways:

• search by keywords (enter them into the text field on the homepage and hit ENTER)
• browse by activity (“RECENT COMMENTS”)
• browse by reverse chronological order (“RECENT ENTRIES”)
• browse by category (via “BLOG SITE MAP” link)

You can also add new content:

• post a new Entry (via the "ADD AN ENTRY" link on the home page)
• post a comment (from the bottom of any existing Entry)

TIP: Click on the "HEADBIN" banner at the top of any page to return home.

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. Michela Ledwidge will be explaining and exploring how using online community to explore the notion of a two-way relationship with films might be seriously relevant to what turns us all on. That is just for openers ;-)
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.

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.

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)

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.

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)