Write Design Multimedia

Monday 16 Class

2006-10-16T10:21:00.000+10:00

Please remember to bring either the digital or hardcopy of your storyboard -- we will be scanning and compiling into an animatic in Flash tonight.

Media Domocracy

2006-10-16T10:18:00.000+10:00

An open-source project to make it easier to view & upload video to the Net. Developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation based in Worcester, Massachusetts: http://www.getdemocracy.com/

Eness : The Light Garden

2006-10-09T15:04:00.000+10:00

The Light Garden is a whimsical exploration of wireless connectivity in the most unwired locations, a place of goldfish pondcasts and trickling newsfeeds, video-chatting flora, and hyperlinked trees. ENESS and Unwired invite you to venture into a realm of virtual delights and bask in the glow of our projected future.

October 4th-14th 2006
10am - 6pm daily
GPO Melbourne,
Level 2 Cnr Bourke & Elizabeth St.
FREE Entry

Optus Mobile TV / MTV and Sony Ericsson Competition

2006-10-09T12:04:00.000+10:00

An initiative between Optus Mobile TV / MTV and Sony Ericsson launched 13 September inviting writers, directors and producers to create a 3minute script and pilot for mobile phones. Competition closes 24 November.

More info: http://www.one80project.com.au/

BRIAN MAY SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE

2006-09-26T16:52:00.000+10:00

The Brian May Scholarship is one of Australia's most generous academic scholarships assisting local film composers to study film scoring at the University of Southern California in the United States. The Brian May Scholarship will provide up to $80,000.00AUD every two years towards travel, tuition and accommodation costs for a promising Australian film composer to undertake the Graduate Certificate in Scoring for Motion Picture & Television at USC's Thornton School of Music.

The scholarship website is: http://www.brianmayscholarship.org/

Melbourne Fringe ELECTRIC SHORTS launch

2006-09-21T09:44:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Fringe ELECTRIC SHORTS 2006 Film Festival invites you to come along and enjoy twelve independant self-funded films, have a drink, mingle and support our future film makers. Entrance is free, to be held at the LOOP Bar, 23 Meyers Place Melbourne 3000 Wednesday October 11 2006 at 7.15 pm.

Hope to see you there!

The Australian Writers' Foundation and Southern Star Children's Television Production Initiative - Industry Placement.

2006-09-18T12:56:00.000+10:00

Applications Open, 18 September 2006

Applications for the Australian Writers' Foundation and Southern Star Children's Television Production Initiative are now open.

The successful candidate will receive an industry placement with Southern Star Entertainment allowing them to participate in script development meetings of a children's television production. Southern Star will also pay the writer $5,000 (which would include air fares and accommodation if based interstate).

This fantastic career opportunity, announced at the 2006 AWGIE Awards in August, aims to give a writer exposure to the requirements of writing for a children's audience and help develop an awareness of the disciplines peculiar to story telling for children.

Applications are invited from both new writers and those who have experience in other areas of performance writing, such as adult drama. What is required however is a genuine aspiration to want to write television stories for children, be it animated or live action, pre-school or "C" drama.

Applicants must be members of the Australian Writers' Guild and in their applications should state why they want to write for children's television; what visions or goals they have in this genre; and list any relevant writing credits.

Applications (2 pages maximum) should be sent to admin@awg.com.au with "Southern Star Placement" in the subject header. Applications close 20 October 2006 and the successful candidate will be announced on Friday 15 December 2006. The judges' decision will be final. Both full and associate members of the Guild are welcome to apply.

For information on joining the Australian Writers' Guild please visit www.awg.com.au or call 02 9281 1544 (ext.222).

ABC makes user-generated high priority

2006-08-28T11:40:00.000+10:00

It's not unusual for traditional television commissioners to spawn internet or mobile add-ons, but at Australia's ABC the 'new media' department is the one programming second-tier cabsat channel ABC2. Dan Fill, head of development for new media and digital services, tells David Jenkinson about the thinking behind this back-to-front approach.

Dan Fill (left) moved to ABC from Canadian producer Decode eight months ago. He's been at the heart of the interactive game for years, and now, as head of development for new media and digital services at Australia's public network, he's having some fun defining next-generation content that works on and off TV.

ABC's output divisions include television production, radio and ABC Enterprises, which manages books and merchandise and 60 retail stores across the country. The company relies on revenues from the latter division to be reinvested as it is a commercial-free network. Then there is new media and digital services, which primarily manages a 1.8 million page website that, among other things, is the biggest podcaster in Australia.

"We also have responsibility for the mobile strategy and interactive television," says Fill. "And also sitting within the new media division is broadcaster ABC2, a digital free-to-air channel the original programming for which is derived from the new media team."

The channel has just celebrated its first birthday, and Fill is now focused on developing new programming that can work on TV but also adds fuel to the new digital initiatives coming out of the department. "It's quite a nice option to know you have a television component that you can build into what may primarily be, for instance, a web proposition," says Fill.

ABC2 is focused on kids, youth and regional programming and has a lot of time-shifted shows from the main network. "Increasingly we are looking at innovative projects that are a bit riskier than you would see on the main network," says Fill. He is responsible for the original programming while Carol Saab, who came from Sky in the UK, is in charge of acquisitions.

In terms of new content, one of the things ABC has realised is that its radio station Triple J (TKTK) has a strong youth audience - which is something that can carry over into TV and onto the internet. "So we are producing a television series for the main network called JTV, and then for ABC2 we are making an extended two-hour version of it called JTVXL. It is focused on rock - and fairly inexpensive youth energy and interest," says Fill.

The show is in a magazine format featuring interviews and shorts (bought in) that are "quirky and different." Music videos will be played within the two-hour piece as well.

When it comes to acquisitions, ABC is looking for material like Atom Films' stuff or the Happy Tree Friends. But the main play for Fill will be looking at generating content from users, which is "a huge part of the interactive strategy."

"We are still considering the exact way to go about creating the user-generated content but we have a lot of infrastructure in place through the Triple J site and we have a lot of calls to action for the radio station, so it is just a matter of determining the exact kinds of content we want," he says.

"We realised that this youth audience wants the content when they want it, and they want it in depth. Once the show has finished there is an enormous amount of content on the web that flushes things out."

It has also become clear that kids want to get up on their own soapboxes and say what they think. "It is clear that they do want to see themselves reflected in the content of the show. We are totally open to that notion," says Fill. Many of the opportunities to do this will happen online.

Broadband penetration floats around 70% in Australia, and cable penetration - which is currently low - is about to rocket. "They have just cut the cable prices by 50% and subs are improving, so we are expecting a massive rise," says Fill.

There are two competing offerings: Optus and Foxtel. The full package has dropped to A$50 (US$38) a month.

Fill is buoyant about how the department will move forwards with user-generated content commissions. He says: "We've done some pretty interesting things in the past months. We didn't have the rights to the Commonwealth Games, so we invited people to send in images of their own Commonwealth Games - their own little parties and how they were taking things - through their mobile phones. We got a massive amount of response, things we would never have been able to pull off the wire, and it was very exciting for us."

In the kids arena, ABC is launching an application called Playground Radio that will harness the power of the user-generated trend. "The ABC has a very big library of preschool music, so this ap will allow kids to create their own playlists of songs - like Wiggles songs and Bananas in Pyjamas, some decent brands. In total they can listen to a library of around 1,500 songs," says Fill.

Playground Radio also has some special playlists from kids characters The Wiggles. "If you would like to download those songs to a mobile device and then take it off the computer then that goes through to an arrangement with Destra Publishing," he explains.

"We are trying to broaden our reach to the audience in preschool and have also just launched a parenting section online. We recognise parents surf with their kids."

ABC is also about to overhaul its news site, and while the focus is going to be on providing editorially sound news content it is also about allowing users to be able to participate in some way in terms of tagging content or being able to comment.

There are likely to be extensions of projects like Snapshots, in which the broadcaster sends out 100 cameras into regional Australia and has people take pictures of their lives. "Now we are entering the second season of Snapshots the media is likely to be more rich," says Fill. "And probably spill over from the website onto ABC2.

"We have another project called Video Lives in which we invited the audience to send in videos about them and their regions. Those went up on the ABC.net.au, and then the audience came online and voted for the best, which were broadcast on ABC2. In season two we have actually taken the five or six that were the most compelling of all and have now turned them into a weekly video diary that they do on a show called Australia Wide on TV."

However the network chooses to move forwards, it seems users will play a big part of ABC's future.

LAMP calling for submissions - deadline September 25

2006-08-24T22:38:00.000+10:00

The Laboratory of Advanced Media Production (LAMP) is calling for cross-media projects from creative teams in the Australian media industry for its fifth live-in-lab in Freycinet, Tasmania, October 29 to November 3, 2006. LAMP gratefully acknowledge the support of major sponsor Screen Tasmania.

LAMP is an initiative of the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), funded by the Australian Government. The LAMP live-in-lab is a practical, production and market-focused prototyping lab specifically tailored for content creators. Project teams spend the week developing concepts and production prototypes for delivery on multiple devices.

In the last 10 months LAMP has run four major live-in-labs developing over 30 projects and transforming 92 people in the process. These have been run with ABC TV, South Australian Film Corporation in SA and general ones in WA and Sydney. It has also run seminars around the country in digital business and distribution.

LAMP Director Gary Hayes said that LAMP was designed to transform the participants and their projects.

“LAMP uses a proven development model adapted to suit the Australian emerging media landscape, similar to immersive labs in the US and Europe,” he said.

"The week is focused on producing a pitchable prototype and as such it is exhausting but very exhilarating process. It creates a real future for your cross-media property by making you relevant to the new audiences.

“The labs have attracted high profile teams from News Interactive, Project Greenlight Australia, Firelight Productions, Double the Fist, ABC TV, SBS TV, Bush TV and Penny Chapman Pictures.”

LAMP requires teams to be comprised of:
1 - Creator - executive producer, producer, director, writer etc
2 - Designer - broadcast, brand, visual identity
3 - Other craft - editor, writer, talent, sound, DOP etc:

Participants will be led by Australian and international mentors with specialist skills in design, writing, business, user experience and the technical aspects of cross media. The Lab will conclude with teams pitching their projects and showcasing their prototypes to VIP’s from the Australian media industries.

Peter Giles, Head of Digital Media at AFTRS said producers need to make the shift and follow audiences to embrace new delivery platforms such as broadband internet, IPTV, games and mobile devices.

“It's about building new partnerships and thinking outside the square to tailor a message that works across multiple platforms,” he said.

“We've found that the intensive workshop model is extremely effective in developing high-level skills for career professionals working in a dynamic global media environment.”

Interested people can apply at www.lamp.edu.au/apply to deliver concept on mobile devices, interactive television, broadband, games consoles and beyond. The submission deadline is September 25, 2006. For further information visit: www.lamp.edu.au or email lamp@aftrs.edu.au

Bring your storyboards

2006-08-23T07:58:00.000+10:00

Please remember to bring your storyboards on Monday. We will be starting to compile them into an animatic...

AFTRS National Screening Tour

2006-08-21T09:38:00.000+10:00

Each year AFTRS packages up a cross-section of its best work highlighting the country's most exciting new talent and tours across Australia.

In addition to the screenings, the program provides an opportunity to attend an information seminar on everything you need to know about applying to the country's finest film, television and radio school.

This event is free and open to the public. We hope to see you there...

NOTE: Program and dates may be subject to change. Films are unclassified and recommended for viewing by audiences 15+ in every state. Seating is limited and no prior bookings will be available. Allocation is unreserved on a first come first serve basis.

Melbourne

Wednesday 23 August
4.00pm Recruitment Seminar
5.00pm Screening
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Cinema 1
Federation Square, Flinders Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000
Enquiries 03 9602 2300

St Kilda Short Cuts Luanch and Screenings

2006-08-10T10:19:00.000+10:00

Premiere Event Launch 30th August 2006 :: Take a Short Cut to St Kilda

The Directors of the infamous Fitzroy Shorts cross the river to bring you St Kilda SHORT CUTS, a new monthly short film festival that promises to be a spectacular addition to St Kilda's film landscape. Its home, the gorgeous first floor Lounge Bar at Big Mouth. The Short Cuts launch event will be held on 30 August 2006 and will give movie punters an awesome selection of short films that have won acclaim for the filmmakers or propelled them onto greater projects.

The SHORT CUTS ALLSTARS launch night, is a collection of rare, specially curated short films, never to be seen together again. Featuring the acclaimed short film Wilfred, directed by Tony Rogers, and soon to be a TV Series on SBS. Also featuring is Harvie Krumpet, the nude little man that we all love. See where it all started for the director of Wolf Creek, Greg Mclean featuring his rarely seen short film ICQ and finally the internationally award winning short film Cracker Bag, which took out the prestigious Cannes Palm d'Or for best short in 2003 for its director, Glendyn Ivin, which put the Australian short film circuit on the international map. Glendyn is part of this years prestigious accellerator program at MIFF.

Invite yourself to the launch of this monthly short film festival @ Big Mouth St Kilda. And then on the last Wednesday of each month for 2006 and into 2007.

Take a Short Cut to St Kilda and join us upstairs at Big Mouth for films, food, booze, rare funk grooves from DJ Mr B and door prizes to the value of $500.00.

For a screening calendar and full list of films screening on the launch night please visit www.shortcuts.net.au.

WHEN: Wednesday, 30 August 2006
WHERE: Big Mouth first floor lounge bar, St Kilda
TIME: Doors open 7pm, Screening at 8.30pm
COST: $10 Full, & $7 Conc. Tickets only available on the door!
WHY YOU NEED TO COME: Door Prizes to the value of $500.00

For further info simply email: info@shortcuts.net.au

Canberra Short Film Festival

2006-08-07T10:55:00.000+10:00

The Eleventh Canberra Short Film Festival is calling for entries. With its four competition categories, expanded out-of-competition screening program, filmmaking forums and hands-on workshops, this year's festival is looking to be a big one.

General Entry guidelines: Max 30 mins, made since Jan 2004, any genre. For full requirements, see the entry form on the website.

There are four competition categories:
* National. Entrants must be Australian residents. Prize is $2,000 cash and a trophy.
* Canberra Region. Entrants must be residents of the Canberra Region. Prize is $1,500 cash and a trophy.
* Youth. Entrants must be 25 or under at time of film's completion. Prize is $1,000 cash and a trophy.
* The University of Canberra Schools Competition. Entrants must have been Students in Grades 1 – 12 at time of film's completion. Prize is $750 and a trophy.

This year an expanded screening program will see films selected for screening in out-of-competition collections including:
* Animation,
* Horror,
* Experimental and
* Family Friendly

For more information and an entry form>>
DEADLINE: Friday September 1st 2006
p] 02 6297 0432
e] canberrashort@iinet.net.au
m] PO Box 5212 KINGSTON ACT 2604

Flickerfest 16th International Australian Short Film Festival

2006-07-24T12:27:00.000+10:00

Flickerfest, Australia’s only Academy Award accredited Short Film festival,
is delighted to announce that it is now accepting entries for the 2007 festival.

The FLICKERFEST International competition is open to any production available for screening on 35mm. BETACAM IS ALSO ACCEPTABLE FOR THE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION. All films must be under 30 minutes and must have been completed within 2 years of the closing date. Films must be in English or have English subtitles. Due to the competitive nature of the Festival, we favour Sydney premieres and films that have not been broadcast in Australia.

Application deadline for Australian Films is Friday 15 September 2006
Entry forms are downloadable from our website-
www.flickerfest.com.au
Office: Bondi Pavilion, Queen Elizabeth Drive, Bondi Beach Sydney Australia
Mail: PO Box 7416 Bondi Beach Australia 2026
Ph +61 2 9365 6877
Fax +61 2 9365 6899

Crossover Australia 2007

2006-07-24T12:22:00.000+10:00

Following on from the success of Crossover Australia 2003, the South Australian Film Corporation, and the Adelaide Film Festival are calling for applications for Crossover Australia 2007.

Crossover Australia is a creative think tank that brings together independent artists, writers, filmmakers and new media producers with the aim of developing innovative digital and interactive projects. With the growth of broadband access and a plethora of emerging distribution platforms as a backdrop, Crossover Australia is a creative incubator devoted to building new forms of interactivity, such as true interactive television applications, IP and mobile TV content or even story-telling and programming inspired by RPGs (role playing games).

Over the course of five days, participants are immersed in a series of activities where the primary goal is the development of conceptual prototypes for groundbreaking interactive projects.
http://www.crossover.org.au/ >>

For better and for worse – an insight into business blogging

2006-07-24T12:19:00.000+10:00

5.30pm – 7.30pm, 22 August, 2006
Innovation House, Docklands, Melbourne

With US Judges declaring that bloggers have the same rights as journalists and companies fearing employees will make negative posts about them, it's time for every organisation to work out how to tackle this new beast.

Hear from a panel of Melbourne’s most experienced bloggers talk about what can go right and wrong in corporate blogging.

- Cameron Reilly, Co-founder, The Podcast Network
- Ben Barron, Co-founder, Feedcorp
- Darren Rowse, Problogger.com

Cashing in on the Loose Change phenomenon

2006-07-24T12:17:00.000+10:00

From: C21's Factual Week

9/11 conspiracy doc Loose Change 2nd Edition has attracted huge grassroots interest and a potential theatrical release, all thanks to the internet. With growing numbers of filmmakers parading their wares online, Antony Reeve-Crook asks if VoD and user-generated websites are now the ideal hunting ground for distributors seeking the next factual blockbuster.

Louder Than Words, the US indie prodco behind controversial 9/11 online factual smash Loose Change 2nd Edition, is in talks with four producers looking to make a final cut of the movie.

The 90-minute examination of the terror attacks, in which fledgling filmmakers Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery point the finger of blame at the Bush administration, is currently averaging more than 20,000 downloads a day on Google Video, and UK distributor Mercury Media is on board for the international, non-US rights.

Yet Loose Change failed to pull in a single interested party when Mercury initially pitched it to broadcasters in January.

But now, spurred into action by Vanity Fair magazine's recent claim that the doc would be one of the most popular - and incendiary - movies in the US right now as a theatrical release, the film's stock has skyrocketed.

"All it took for us to get noticed was one mainstream magazine coming out and doing an article on us," Rowe tells C21. "Beforehand we talked to movie companies and they said 'Oh it's good but you kind of hurt yourself by putting it online.' But things are not like that any more. If you want your media and your message to be heard, then online is the way to go."

His view is echoed by Mercury Media MD Tim Sparke (left). "I don't think it makes any difference if anyone sees something on the net," he says. "It isn't going to be an impediment to them watching it on TV, on DVD or on film. In many cases, they will go and see it at the cinema because they saw it on the internet."

In the case of a doc such as Loose Change, the internet certainly creates a furore that is difficult to emulate elsewhere.

The name Loose Change refers to the 200 or so pieces of video shot by broadcasters in the wake of the twin towers' collapse. Both Louder Than Words and Sparke argue that by freely distributing your investigative documentary, others with undiscovered material are prompted to come forward and add to it.

"The more information that comes to light, the more it gets out there," he says. "Other people have got different pieces of the puzzle to add. There's much more material in the final cut of Loose Change because these new pieces of information have come to light."

Loose Change began with a 1,000-DVD pressing made available over the internet in April 2005 and since then has been downloaded more than 10 million times on Google Video. Its online following has enabled Mercury to strike network deals with TV4 in Sweden, Planete Poland, Israel's Noga and MBC. Belgium's VRT will run some of the film's content for 9/11 fifth anniversary specials, as will Vara in Holland. Norway's TV2 is looking at it, as are Five and ITV4 in the UK.

"The internet is particularly suited to documentaries, and especially suited to docs that are not funded by a broadcaster," says Sparke. "There are literally hundreds of doc producers out there just doing it because they want to, but we're not in a position to put money into docs on the same basis."

Loose Change 2's success has also prompted Mercury to showcase its documentaries on a new website called Joining the Dots, launching in October. "We're going to have upwards of 100 documentaries in what is essentially a club," says Sparke. "It's out of the experience of Loose Change 2 that we've decided to set this up, because we feel that there's a massive audience out there that just isn't served - people who want to access all the one-off documentaries but can't get them."

In the US, Louder Than Words - still driven by its grassroots support - is deciding which of the four movie studios it will partner with to make Loose Change Final Edition. "If this film's as big as we think it could be then it could rival Fahrenheit 9/11 as a commercial property," says Sparke.

Not bad going for a factual film that cost just US$10,000 to produce and nothing to distribute.

The ZTudio What IF? Competitions for Best Unproduced Screenplay

2006-07-24T11:35:00.000+10:00

CLOSING FRIDAY 28th JULY The ZTudio What IF? Competition for Best Unproduced Screenplay Entries close in less than two weeks

This competition aims to discover a writer and script with enormous potential. We look for screenwriters who have been enthusiastic and proactive in getting their screenplay developed, but have not yet been successful in getting this work from script to screen. The winner is flown to a country of their choice to meet with agents and / or producers to pitch their script and themselves. More details at www.ifawards.com

CLOSING THURSDAY 31 AUGUST The ZTudio 3 Minute Opportunity

This unique opportunity aims to discover, develop and produce a feature film. Here’s the challenge ... do you have a feature script that you can express in 3 minutes of footage? If you are selected, ZTudio will develop, finance, produce and market a 10-20 minute short film with a view to producing the feature. More details at www.ztudio.com

Both of these initiatives are part of ZTudio’s commitment to develop independent opportunities for film, television and theatre for the global market.

ENQUIRIES – Emma Woolley, ZTudio T +613 9645 9181 E info@ztudio.com

Assignment #4

2006-07-10T12:36:00.000+10:00

You will find the details of your new assignment here >>

Note that you MUST have a proposal to me by class next week!

Writing for interactivity

2006-06-24T22:43:00.000+10:00

Terry Borst: Three Cheers for eTV >>
Enhanced television offers instant gratification to writers and viewers.(From the December 2005 issue of "Written By")

...in the future we might redefine screenwriting as something more immediate, far more of a real-time performance, akin to what an orchestra conductor does. Staff writers for Goldpocket Interactive programming already offer us a glimpse into this evolution, collaborating with networks and production companies to create “enhanced” television (eTV) programming.

Jack Feldstein, Interactive Scriptwriting Part 1 >>
Interactive scriptwriting (storytelling) is new and exciting. It's also challenging because not only does the writer have to write a good script - no easy feat - but it must also be interactively compelling.

Paul Saffo, Consumers and Interactive New Media: A Hierarchy of Desires >>
From the 1993 Ten-Year Forecast,Institute for the Future (c. December 1992)

Pixar Art Director Presentation -Tia Kratter

2006-06-22T00:28:00.000+10:00

Saturday 8th July . 3pm Victorian College of the Arts - FederationHall
Grant st Southbank.
entry is free but seats are limited- further info- 9685 9020 , r.stephenson@vca.unimelb.edu.au or p.fletcher@vca.unimelb.edu.au
Tia Kratter will talk about her experiences as a digital painter and art director at Pixar. Tia joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1993 as a Digital Painter during production of the studio's first feature film, Toy Story. She has subsequently held the Shader Art Director role on four other films, including the upcoming Disney presentation of a Pixar film Cars.

Class Monday 19th June

2006-06-14T22:26:00.000+10:00

Don’t forget: there is a class this Monday as per the outline. Please bring as much material as possible for your assignment. At a minimum, you should have

Site structure/site plan -- what kind of information you are going to have and how each relates to the others.

A name and some general ideas about content.

You should leave next Monday’s class with a template you can plug text and images into over the holidays.

Lost in Transition: From Post-Network to Post-Television

2006-06-05T14:07:00.000+10:00

A Lecture by Professor Roberta Pearson
7th June, 6.30pm, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Theatre A, University of Melbourne

The mega-global hit Lost emerged from the relatively stable industrial conditions of the post-network era of the last part of the 20th century, when television, even if no longer broadcasting to mass audiences, still retained its centrality as a domestic medium. But Lost also reflects the increasingly unstable industrial conditions of the post-television era of the early 21st century, when the continual convergence of platforms and fragmenting of audiences morphs the medium into something rich and strange. In exploring this new territory, Roberta Pearson likens the plight of media industry executives to that of Lost’s castaways, both faced with the uncertainties of unknown environments. Television studies scholars face similar uncertainties, as the post-television era transforms the well-known industrial landscapes of the network and post-network ages out of all recognition.

Roberta Pearson is Professor of Film and Television Studies & Director of the Institute of Film and Television Studies (School of American and Canadian Studies) at the University of Nottingham. Professor Pearson's research interests range from Batman to the American television drama, to cult or genre television, and her publications include Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films (University of California Press, 1992) and Reframing Culture: The Case of the Vitagraph Quality Films (co written with William Uricchio, Princeton University Press, 1993). She is also co-editor of Cult Television (University of Minnesota Press, 2004), The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media (Routledge, 1991), American Cultural Studies: A Reader (Oxford UP, 2000) and the forthcoming book Small Screen, Big Universe: Star Trek as Television (California UP).

Monday class

2006-06-04T22:09:00.000+10:00

Show and Tell : Image series mini -site

Exercise #5: Good & Bad Sites

Writing for the Internet
Nielsen, Jakob, Be succinct! (Writing for the Web)
REF : http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html
Writing for the Web
REF : http://www.a-website.org/mnemosyne/advice/writing.html
10 Tips on Writing the Living Web by Mark Bernstein
REF : http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writeliving

YOUR LIFE IS GRAND - Video Competition

2006-05-30T16:30:00.000+10:00

Submit your 15 minute video (or shorter) of an average day in your life to be in the running to win...
1000BUCKS$$$

All entries will be shown at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) as part of the PAPER exhibition (6 July - 6 August) and we the public vote for our favourite - so beg/borrow a camera and start filming.
Entries close 6 June so make haste!
Drop/post your edited film (on mini dv tape) AND a photo of the star AND your name and contact details AND a brief description of what happens in the film AND ten dollars entry fee to PICA attention SIMON PERICICH (the coordinating artist)

Be there or be square!!

PAPER: Kate Cotching, Annabel Dixon, Matthew Gardiner, Nicholas Jones, Tom Muller, Simon Pericich, Koji Ryui, Sandra Selig
curated by Hannah Mathews
opening Wednesday 5 July, 6pm
exhibition Thursday 6 July - 6 August
www.pica.org.au

Imaginary Country Assignment Resources

2006-05-28T23:48:00.000+10:00

Assignment 3 Brief here >>

There are further links from the brief and the course outline to help with html, web design and writing for online. We will start working on the project from next week, so come along with some ideas.

Please note the due date is 10.07.06 -- first week of the new semester.

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing." Oscar Wilde

Bergonia

Bergonia is a complex and multi-faceted island-continent situated in the North Atlantic Ocean… a multi-party socialist utopia.

"We stand against the worship of things, money, and progress, against frenetic activity, against waste, against mammon," trumpeted the Harmony Alliance chairman Piesha Aziron in 1982, the year her party first attained a majority in Congress. Aziron became Speaker of Congress. "We celebrate a revolution of cabinet-makers and potters, people who earnestly pray, lazy people, hikers, people who enjoy beauty, people who want to take walks at the end of the day. This revolution opposes those who want to keep the bulldozers going day and night."

Bergonia’s name is borrowed from a 50s episode of Superman and has been developing over many years.

Bergonia >>

The Island of Ephemera
An island city whose leading industries are winemaking and bookbinding… Its attractions include a Vegetation Museum, the world's largest flea market, 'Pools of Certitude,' and a natural feature known as the Subterranean Honey Baths. 46% of its citizens are secular humanists. Residents believe that people who don’t read, can’tbe trusted. The description on the glossy travel brochure handed out at New York’s Central Station sounds too good to be true. It was too good to exist. In fact it was a school assignment.

"Can Design Touch Someone's Heart?" taught by the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister--assigned students to touch a community of people using design. While other students created murals and public-service posters, Spielman decided to bring a moment of levity to morning commuters and hit on the idea of a spoof travel brochure. Amanda Spielman’s project was deemed risky – but had unexpected results. More than 2 dozen people contacted her, wanting to know how they could buy tickets for a holiday on the island. "The best call was from this woman who said her husband is a big game hunter and he's looking for the largest moose he can find and does our island offer anything like that?"
Metropolis Magazine, The Ephemeral City >>
Via BLDGBlog >>
Download PDF brochure >>

Umbagollah
Umbagollah is written as a kind of travel diary / letters home / reference boook / non-linear fiction – the travels of a ypoung woman called Mariel Hatstand. Although not intended as a role-playing site, it has grown to become one.

The population of Umbagollah is quite small, and almost half of it lives in one of the two major cities. Ex is substantially more crowded than Gum Gooloo Gum Jublet, with the seaside port of Jail third and the underground town of Cumber Poidy running a distant fourth. Jail is Cumber Poidy's main point of contact with the mainland. An uncounted number of ferrypeople live on the River Fly. Most other Umbagollians live as farmers around Gum Gooloo or in the North-west Flatlands. Some make their homes in the forest, in the mountains or in the Falling Hills; many of these are mystics, hermits and outcasts.
The Great Big Book of Umbagollah," by Daens Resought, HG, Sc.Ast

Umbagollah >>
Imaginary Countries WebRing >>

Micronations
Micronations – sometimes also referred to as cybernations, fantasy countries, model countries, and new country projects – are entities that resemble independent nations or states, but which are unrecognized by them, and for the most part exist only on paper, on the Internet, or in the minds of their creators.

Micronations also differ from secession and self-determination movements in that they are largely viewed as being eccentric and ephemeral in nature, and are often created and maintained by a single person or family group.

Some micronations have managed to extend some of their operations into the physical world by issuing coins, flags, postage stamps, passports, medals and other items. Such trappings of "real" sovereign states are created as a way of seeking to legitimize the micronations that produce them.

The term "micronation" is a neologism originating in the 1990s to describe the many thousands of small, unrecognised state-like entities that have mostly arisen since that time. The term has since also come to be used retroactively to refer to earlier ephemeral unrecognised entities, some of which date as far back as the early 19th century.

The term "micropatrology" has been used to a limited extent since the 1970s to describe the study of both micronations and microstates. Micronational hobbyists sometimes refer to real sovereign nation-states as "macronations".

Micronations in Australia
Micronational activities were disproportionately common throughout Australia in the final three decades of the 20th century. The still-thriving Hutt River Province Principality was the first manifestation of the phenomenon; it was founded in 1970, when Leonard George Casley declared his farming property independent - and himself "Prince Leonard" - after a dispute over wheat quotas. 1976 witnessed the creation of the Province of Bumbunga on a rural property near Snowtown, South Australia, by an eccentric British monarchist named Alex Brackstone, while a German immigrant named Robert Neuman created the Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina in 1978 in a hamlet on the New South Wales north coast, before later relocating to a large rural property near Cooma. At around the same time an eccentric anti-taxation campaigner named John Charlton Rudge founded the Duchy of Avram in western Tasmania; "His Grace the Duke of Avram" later went on to become an elected member of the Tasmanian Parliament. In Victoria, a long-running dispute over flood damage to farm properties led to the creation of the Independent State of Rainbow Creek in the state's northeast by Tom Barnes in 1979, and mortgage foreclosure dispute led George and Stephanie Muirhead of Rockhampton, Queensland, to briefly and abortively secede as the Principality of Marlborough in 1993.

Another Australian secessionist state came into existence on 1 May 2003, when Peter Gillies declared the independence of his sixty-six-hectare northern New South Wales farm as the Principality of United Oceania after an unresolved year-long dispute with Port Stephens Council over Gillies's plans to construct a private residence on the property (see United Oceania).

The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands is a micronation established in 2004 as a symbolic political protest by a group of gay rights activists based in southeast Queensland Australia.

From Wikipedia on Micronations >>

Experimenta New Visions Commissions 2006

2006-05-23T18:23:00.000+10:00

Call for applications

For the 2007 exhibition Experimenta Play, Experimenta is commissioning new interactive works that allow the audience to play, and be played upon.

Up to $6,000 per project is available for emerging and mid-career Australian artists to create new interactive media art works for an exhibition of Australian and international media artworks to be launched in Melbourne in September 2007.

Extending ‘play’ beyond the realm of games, Experimenta is looking to commission works that have humorous and unexpected outcomes, involve an element of chance, toy with preconceptions and assumptions, provide a journey or an opportunity for discovery. Within this playfulness lies the potential for deviousness, trickery, teasing, surprise, humour, inversion/subversion and delight. What are the possibilities for playful new media artworks? How can we play with technology to create new experiences?

Sources of inspiration might come from traditional narratives, labyrinths, puzzles, everyday environments, re-imagined objects or activities, re-purposed toys. The commissions are for interactive media artworks that can be: audio/visual, installations that play with scale and perspective, immersive environments or small, intimate and object based.

Please visit www.experimenta.org to download the Guidelines and Application Form. Contact Emma McRae, Experimenta’s Curatorial and Project Coordinator to discuss your projects. emma@experimenta.org

There is no cost to apply and applicants need not be members of Experimenta Media Arts.

The closing date for applications is Friday 21 July 2006

www.experimenta.org

Experimenta is supported by the Australia Council, Australian Film Commission, Film Victoria, Arts Victoria, The City of Melbourne and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory governments.

Lynda #2

2006-05-20T19:51:00.000+10:00

Daniel #2

2006-05-20T19:33:00.000+10:00

Andrea #2

2006-05-20T19:16:00.000+10:00

Pablo #2

2006-05-20T19:04:00.000+10:00

Jo #2: I to eye

2006-05-16T15:30:00.000+10:00

Erin #2

2006-05-16T15:13:00.000+10:00

New assignment

2006-05-15T04:42:00.000+10:00

Please note that you can view assignment #3 from today's entry on your course outline. Please remember to brinjg along your images from assignment #2 -- we'll neeed theem for the class exercise and then you'll present them...

Nicole #2

2006-05-15T00:01:00.000+10:00

Callum #2:

2006-05-11T20:50:00.000+10:00

Bottled

On-tap

Rained-after

Fountain

Tears

Cameron #2

2006-05-11T17:49:00.000+10:00

Leisl #2

2006-05-11T17:42:00.000+10:00

Nick #2

2006-05-11T17:35:00.000+10:00

Yuko #2

2006-05-11T17:30:00.000+10:00

Suzi #2

2006-05-11T17:20:00.000+10:00

Julianna #2

2006-05-11T15:51:00.000+10:00

Lara #2

2006-05-11T15:45:00.000+10:00

Claire #2

2006-05-11T15:39:00.000+10:00

Class cancelled tonight!

2006-05-08T12:04:00.000+10:00

Please email me your assignments as 800 pixels longest side jpegs and I'll post them asap.

Many apologies for the last minute notice!

Chimaeras exercise

2006-04-26T00:01:00.000+10:00

ROLE PLAYING GAMES by Jo

2006-04-24T13:02:00.000+10:00

Playing games is a natural part of human development. They create, among other things, a platform within which to explore our imagination.
Role Playing Games (RPG) give people the opportunity to escape reality, into a world without disease, violence, oppression, poverty and suffering (if one chooses) and the possibility to role play situations one could not assume, or wish to play out, in real life. These games are a form of interactive & collaborative storytelling, deriving from children’s games such as ‘cops and robbers’, ‘families’, ‘doctors and nurses’ etc.
‘Adult’ RPG are based on this idea, but are more sophisticated through the development of character, plot and narrative.

COMPUTER ROLE PLAYING GAMES
Early beginnings in computer generated role playing games brought the creation of such games as ‘Adventure’ by Atari. By popular demand, the development of more complex games evolved into a massive gaming industry, which today encompasses over 50 virtual worlds and millions of users/players.
Players pay a subscription fee, per month, to the game company of their choice withsome users skilled enough to create their own income. For example; in Korea, games have been televised on cable tv, and the players have received prize money and sponsorship deals.

MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES (MMOG)
MMOG or Massively multiplayer online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) can be played in a variety of settings and users can play alone, or in LAN parties (local area network parties). The most popular, or biggest MMOG, is World of Warcraft (check out www.worldofwarcraft.com) with over 4 million players worldwide, with almost the same amount playing LINEAGE 2 in South Korean alone.
Online text based role playing games are accessed through internet forums and sometimes email or chat programs. These are games where characters are created and weaved into a story and are proving popular amongst the writing community. They can also lead to a form of ‘fan fiction’ where users can role play characters from books, tv and film.

EXAMPLE:
Searching through google site, I eventually came across this game which I logged into and am now a ‘punter’. It is called CANTR 11 (www.cantr.net) It was pretty easy to log into and it is free. It’s a game where one can play whatever character one chooses, as part of a society. Here is a quick introduction of the game (which I copied and pasted) It will help to give you an idea of how the game works.

There is a lot of reading involved to get to the first steps, and as noted in the above text, it is a slow-paced game and many players ‘only play for a few minutes per character each day’.
I named my first character Pa Honkey, a male. It takes some time to build characters, and as part of this, you can add some history (inventory) to the characters’ ‘file’. Here’s what I started with:

Pa also introduced himself to the other players and now awaits a reply.
The first few days of playing the game, so the information says, is a little slow, so it will take some time for ‘Pa’ to get on his feet, so to speak. I am looking forward to his progress.
To be continued………http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Voiceworks: No 64 Autumn 2006
Wikipedia.or/wiki/history_of_role-playing_games – 11/04/06
www.cantr.net
wikipedia.org/wiki/role-playing_game – 11/04/06
www.lordoflords.com

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Mesh #19 Global/ Regional Perspectives

2006-04-20T18:40:00.000+10:00

Experimenta’s annual media arts journal (online) will be launched on the Experimenta website in September 2006.

MESH #19 will be an online issue providing a global overview of contemporary media arts practice and the creative application of new technological developments through articles that focus on local practice in specific regions. This issue will focus on the critical, aesthetic and technological aspects related to screen culture and media arts practice, balancing the conceptual issues facing media arts culture with the social/cultural, economic and political contexts in which the practices exist.

Articles are sought from curators, artists, academics, media commentators and theorists about practices in the following regions:
• West & East Europe
• Africa
• Middle East
• Asia Pacific
• The Americas

Criteria
• maximum word length: 2000 words;
• the article should use plain language as it is for a general readership;
• the article must cite at least 3 recent media artworks;
• images with copyright clearance are to be sourced by the author.

Deadline: Friday 5 May 2006 for the submission of 100 word abstracts

Payment
An honorarium is available. Academics are eligible to have their paper refereed.

For examples of previous online and printed issues of MESH, please visit: www.experimenta.org

Detailed brief
We are seeking to publish articles on contemporary Media Arts that are an expression of current cultural movements in each region. Typically artworks evolve from the socio/cultural/political environment and provide an insight into cultural phenomena. We are looking for articles that explore current trends in the creative applications of technological development, the cultural contexts from which media art practice emerges, and cultural reactions to the practice and exhibition of media art.

The following are some guidelines indicating the structure, language and content of the articles we are seeking.

Articles should be;
• In English;
• Comprehensive and the result of thorough research;
• About a range of media artforms including hybrid practices;
• Focussed on particular artworks;
• About current practices;
• Providing commentary and analysis;
• Using plain language with minimal jargon;
• Describing the experience for the audience and could include specific audience responses and perspectives.

Articles should not be;
• Reviewing only one individual artist or artwork;
• An exhibition review or book review;
• About Media Arts in general;
• A comparison of practices in two or more regions;
• Presenting solely an historical focus, although some reference to previous New Media works may be required for commentary and comparison.

Contact Maria Rizzo for submissions, more information and for a copy of Experimenta’s writers’ style guide; maria@experimenta.org

Appeal for immediate action

2006-04-19T13:50:00.000+10:00

Appeal to the editorial boards participating in documenta 12 magazines as well as to other joint magazines, editors, writers etc.

My name is Keiko Sei, I am a researcher and coordinator for “documenta 12 magazines” with responsibility for the Southeast Asian region.

This letter is being sent to you as a coordinated appeal in agreement with the editor in chief of “documenta 12 magazines,” Georg Schöllhammer. We herewith call upon the editorial boards participating in this project as well as upon other magazines, editors, and writers to form a campaign group, “Friends of Fa Diew Kan” in an immediate action. We intend to demand that the Thai government lift its ban on the political quarterly “Fah Diew Kan” (Under the same sky), a contributor to “documenta 12 magazines,” whose editor, Thanapol Eawsakul, is facing charges of lèse-majesté.

“documenta 12 magazines” is not simply a publication; it also intends to create a network of editorial boards of periodicals and online media such as yours, as well as a forum of long-term exchange. I have learned that the participating magazines are renowned and highly prolific publications from different countries that are doing extremely important work. During my research in Southeast Asia, I’ve come across many brilliant and intelligent editors who are striving to serve the community by providing citizens with accurate information, critical analysis and educational materials in a region where democracy is not yet the norm—not one of the ASEAN nations has an impeccable reputation for democracy, and freedom of expression is extremely restricted.

Thailand, however, has been on a good course toward developing a decent democracy, especially after the big movements in 1974, 1976, and 1992—a long battle that required many sacrifices and tremendous efforts of different civic groups and people in the media and in education. These efforts made it possible for people to grow up as educated and informed citizens. It is these educated citizens, who have started to question the long-term effect of what is called Thaksinomics under Prime Minster Thaksin Shinawatra. They form the core of the recent campaign to oust the prime minister. At the same time, these same citizens are debating what methods are appropriate, because some methods would be counter to democracy. Debates, discussions and forums have sprung up in numerous places. It was a great pleasure for me to meet the editors of printed periodicals and online media who have provided the citizens with the basis for those forums, and the basis for thought. The team of “documenta 12
magazines” has been looking forward to work with them for the documenta magazine project.

One of those magazine editors, however, has recently been charged by the Thai police with lèse-majesté. His political quarterly, “Fah Diew Kan” (Under the same sky), has been banned. The latest issue of the magazine is about the Thai monarchy and this issue was targeted (see
the enclosed news articles from the English daily “Bangkok Post” and “The Nation”). The charge of lèse-majesté has been used recently by both pro-Thaksin and anti-Thaksin groups with increasing frequency as a way to damage each other. Some pro-Thaksin groups recently harassed the Nation publishing group under the pretext that one article constituted lèse-majesté and forced the Thai language daily “Kom Chad Luek” to close for five days. The same group is said to be behind the charge against “Fah Diew Kan” and its publisher and editor, Thanapol Eawsakul (the magazine was banned on an earlier occasion when it
criticized government policy in the south and distributed a VCD of the Tak Bai incident*). Lèse-majesté has become a political tool, and the magazine and its publisher/editor has fallen victim to it. Most of the countries in the world today do not prosecute their citizens
for lèse-majesté. Thailand is thus an exception, and this charge against our fellow editor is an exceptional one as well.

When I researched the situation of printed periodicals and online media in Thailand, I found that magazines that address thought-provoking topics and contain serious articles of quality are a strong asset of, and for, the country. The same publisher publishes books on peace studies and designed a highly educational exhibition about the political history of Thailand. The issue focusing on the Thai monarchy was also intended to educate citizens and to provide
information on that institution from perspectives very different from the very official one—a topic that is usually avoided by most of the publishers and editors, who prefer to play it safe. It was thus courageous for the publisher to take on the issue, and now he is
paying a price.

But does he have to? If we step up the pressure from the international community, it will surely affect the decision of the Thai Ministry of Interior. In the past, the prominent case of lèse-majesté charges against the prominent thinker and committed Buddhist Sulak Sivaraksa, whose interview article on the monarchy has been published in the banned edition of “Fah Diew Kan,” caught international attention and he won the cases with the help of international pressure (the latest report says that because of the interview article he is now facing a third charge of lèse-majesté). In Thailand, four journalistic associations—the Thai Journalists
Association, the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, the Press Council of Thailand, and the Economic Reporters Association—have launched a campaign to bolster press freedom and freedom of expression, and in this particular case of “Fah Diew Kan,” Asian Human Rights Commission has launched an urgent action (see http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2006/1631/) and Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) expressed dismay (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16956) over this and other similar cases in Thailand.

Georg Schöllhammer, the chief editor of the “documenta magazines” and I agreed to form a campaign group “Friends of Fa Diew Kan” in an immediate action. We would like to appeal to the fellow editors, publishers, writers,and scholars to join the group in order to exert pressure to the Thai government to lift the ban of the magazine and the charge against its publisher/editor. Therefore, we ask you to please send:
1. your name
2. the name of your magazine
3. your contact address
4. your statement, if you have any, to the Thai government
5. your message, if you have any, to the publisher/editor Thanapol Eawsakul to this e-mail address: publications@documenta.de

We will forward your statements and the petition to the Ministry of Interior and other concerned agencies as well as to the Thai press, and your message to the publisher/editor. We would also be very grateful if you could inform fellow publishers and editors in your
community to join the campaign as well. Please note, however, that the aim of this campaign is not to raise the question of whether or not Thailand should cease to punish lèse-majesté as a crime. The issue we would like to raise is rather the authorities’ abuse of the law as a way to suppress freedom of the press for political ends (the Thaksin government has used charges of defamation, as well as lèse-majesté, many times).

The goal of this campaign is not only to support the general principle of press freedom and freedom of expression; both Georg Schöllhammer and I would also like to demonstrate our responsibility to all the editors and publishers with whom we are working. We would like to ensure as best we can that they are able work in a safe and free environment.
Keiko Sei : Coordinating Editor
documenta 12 magazines
Bangkok, April 4, 2006

* A summary of the Tak Bai incident is available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Thailand_insurgency

Check Course Outline

2006-04-19T12:52:00.000+10:00

I have updated your course outline to reflect the extension for the assignment. Please note that I will be adjusting it further as we go along to reflect the needs of the majority of the class as they are conveyed to me. So don't hesitate to let me know if you think that the pace that we are getting through stuff is too fast/slow

Machinima Film Festival

2006-04-19T12:49:00.000+10:00

Saturday 6 and Sunday 7th May ACMI Cinemas

Complimenting the Games Lab Machinima exhibition, ACMI Cinemas will present, direct from New York, the 2006 Machinima Film Festival including a screening of Red vs. Blue Season 3 followed by a Q&A with Burnie Burns, Gus Sorola, Matt Hullum, Jason Saldana and Kathleen Zuelch from Rooster Teeth.

Saturday 6th May 2.30pm > Full $13 Concession $10
Red Vs Blue Season 3
Following 2004's sell-out screenings of the phenomenon that is Red vs. Blue, ACMI screens Season 3, plus a Q&A with Burnie Burns, Gus Sorola, Matt Hullum, Jason Saldana and Kathleen Zuelch from Rooster Teeth.

Saturday 6th May 5pm > Full $13 Concession $10
Machinima 101
Sample the delights of the Machinima Film Festival in this selection of work presented by festival director, Paul Marino.

Sunday 7th May 10am > Full $20 Concession $15
Machinima Film Festival Showcase
Join Paul Marino, Director of the Machinima Film Festival, and members from Rooster Teeth for a full day featuring screenings of current award-winning work, a master class and a panel discussion which examines machinima's wider cultural, and aesthetic ramifications. Screening highlights include 2005 Festival Winner for Best Series This Spartan Life, a talk show set in Halo (online), Rooster Teeth's P.A.N.I.C.S, winner of Excellence in Machinima Writing plus obscure new gems in this exciting new medium.

The Machinima Film Festival is presented by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Science.

For more festival details and tickets visit http://www.acmi.net.au/playingthemovies.jsp or phone ACMI box office on (+61 3) 8663 2583 between 10am - 6pm AEST. Please Note: These sessions are Unclassified 15+ so people under the age of 15 will need to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

If cartoon caharacters had skeletons

2006-04-14T23:19:00.000+10:00

Michael Paulus is a multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon.

Assignment extension

2006-04-11T17:51:00.000+10:00

There is a general extension on assignment #2 until the 8th May. You are, of course, very welcome to hand it in earlier if you wish.

I'll be re-jigging the course outline to include 2 more photoshop classes after Easter.

Visual Text Exercise

2006-04-10T15:49:00.000+10:00

Tonight

2006-04-10T15:22:00.000+10:00

Sorry all -- I should have got to this earlier... tonight we'll be finishing the exercise from last week and working on your assignments so bring along any source files you might have so far...

THE FOURTH ANGRY FILM FESTIVAL CALL FOR ENTRIES

2006-04-06T13:16:00.000+10:00

Entry Deadline is 14th April. Download entry forms. Email Tom if you have any problems at vogeldesign@optusnet.com.au. The only criteria is that films need to be under 15 min and DVD format is preferred.

Entries received so far can be viewed at the web site. So get busy and send in your short film so that they can be added to the entry page. The finalists will be chosen from what you see there.

MUSRUM: Extracts from the Original Documents

2006-04-02T14:57:00.000+10:00

¶There was little excuse for the invention of the name MUSRUM. It was already known in sixteen principalities and native states.

¶There were, however, several religious reasons, but these are unlikely to become evident in what follows.

¶Musrum is terribly afraid of sponge-cats.

¶Keep your sponge-cats under control…

¶The kingdom of Intersol slopes down for a hundred miles through blue flax plantations to the sea and oblivion.

¶The Tran-Siberian Railway was established to facilitate the construction of the Far East.

¶Every hour, on the precise stroke, trains leave Moscow bearing Musrum and his relations in tears.

¶Gilvis wrote a Book of Life for the dead.

¶He is probably writing your biography at this moment.

¶A sponge-cat weeps after the Moscovite trains. Musrum also weeps, but in another room.

¶Sudden prayers make God jump.

From Musrum by Eric Thacker aand Anthony Earnshaw

Monday --Typography

2006-04-02T14:42:00.000+10:00

No need to bring anything this week -- we'll be constructing on the spot.

'MySpace' by Cameron

2006-03-28T21:24:00.000+11:00

My Space is a social networking website ‘for friends’ which allows users an interactive network of photos, blogs, user profiles, groups and an email system. It is the fifth most popular English speaking website in the world. It has had a huge impact on communication and digital technology. People don’t even need to pick up the phone; instead using MySpace they can have written conversations for free. MySpace has contributed to booming sales in digital cameras in the U.S.

It was originally an online storage website before it became the My Space we know today founded in July 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. The site was bought by Fox Broadcasting in July 2005 for $580 million so its nice to know when we use MySpace we are supporting an American corporation.

Once you have signed up to the site you have to write a profile about yourself, there is no limit to how much you can write. The standard profile has a ‘about me,’ ‘who I would like to meet,’ ‘general interests,’ ‘basic details,’ ‘profile picture’ and ‘blogs’. This creates the allusion that you have your own personal ‘space’ among the billions of Internet and MySpace users. This is perhaps were the addiction begins were people hope to escape the troubles of the world. You then add other profiles to try and build up a network of friends. Then you and your friends put comments on each other’s profiles, which are conversational, statements, well wishes or complements. You can also comment on peoples profile pictures. This reflects the real world of social popularity, the more friends you have and comments the better you are, so it’s not much of an escape.

The good thing about MySpace is that gives a chance for independent artist such as musicians and filmmakers to publicly show their work in a cross media online environment. Filmmakers can put their films and screening dates on a ‘filmmakers profile’. Musicians can put their music on their ‘music profile’ and promote upcoming gigs. People can upload these films and tracks onto their own profile, which provides even more exposure.

The problem with MySpace is that you are able to customize your profiles text, background, images etc. using html coding. Most users aren’t experienced with html coding so when viewing their profiles it causes web browsers to run slow or even crash because they put to many high bandwidth objects such as videos and flash in their profiles. Some profiles are so badly coded that the text doesn’t even appear and has to be read by highlighting it.

It seems nothing is sacred in today’s world of technology. MySpace users provide detailed information of their lives in ‘cute’ surveys and write online diaries. People’s written conversations are open to every one to view ranging from love problems to meaningless chitchat. Although it’s your own space anyone can come in and look and comment. This has caused many problems in schools resulting in malicious gossip about students resulting in the banning of the website. Some schools have even tried to ban students from using the site at home.

Although MySpace is rough around the edges it is an excellent way to get your work viewed. It is also a fun way to have written conversations with strangers and a good way to meet unique individuals that you wouldn’t normally meet. It’s also a good way to keep in touch with old friends. MySpace is criticized for pervert and petafile offences but that will always happen online on any website. But MySpace breaks its own rules when in its online agreement that user must agree with before signing up. It states that you are not allowed to upload offensive material. This happens anyway but MySpace does nothing about it. MySpace can be addictive but if you don’t take it to seriously and see it for what it is the networking site can be fun at times.

• For an example of a Filmmaker MySpace profile follow this link:
http://www.myspace.com/phonographproductions

• For an example of a Music MySpace profile follow this link:
http://www.myspace.com/bachelorsonline

• For an example of a Standard MySpace profile follow this link:
http://www.myspace.com/cameronkeleher

CALL FOR ENTRIES: INTERNATIONAL PORTABLE FILM FESTIVAL

2006-03-28T12:40:00.000+11:00

Compact, detachable, private and shareable, this is a film festival like no other. Film for Apple iPod. Film for Sony PlayStation Portable. Film for 3G Phones. Download them, take them away with you. Plug them into your friend's TV.

The International Portable Film Festival is calling for challenging and inspiring film and video content for pre-selection in the 2006 IPFF Competition which will take place in July 2006. This is the perfect forum for new ideas and new directions in film and we actively encourage those filmmakers who are unafraid to venture into the deep, beyond the known boundaries of film and the cinema, to submit. We are not about rehashing old content for a new medium: those films that best express themselves through the portable medium will be considered for pre-selection.

Entry to the competition is free and is now open until the 28th of May 2006.
A range of prizes will be announced in late April. Films will be judged under the following categories:

DESKTOP EXPERIMENT:will explore new directions and innovations in animation, and digital filmmaking.
POSTCARD:will present short documentaries that look into the fascinations of real life on film.
NEW WORLD ORDER:will showcase short narrative films that charter new waters in brave new ways.
WATCH MY MOVES:will present independently produced music video clips that inspire this intriguing new genre of filmmaking.
GENERATIONAL EYE :will profile new work by filmmakers under the age of 18.
GENERAL : is open to all film submissions.

LAYER EFFECTS

2006-03-28T00:40:00.001+11:00

DANDY WARHOLS

2006-03-28T00:26:00.000+11:00

' MYSPACE' by Nicholas

2006-03-27T14:29:00.000+11:00

When the internet first came screaming onto our computers in the mid 90’s, earlier if you’re a nerd, it made great promises of offering us information and networking possibilities greater than our imaginations could possibly conjure even under the influence of the wildest mind-altering hallucinogens from the depths of the Amazon forest. What it delivered was vast ranges of pornography, pop-ups and episode guides (*SPOILER ALERT*) to TV shows we either couldn’t be bothered watching or were so enamored with, watching it once just wasn’t enough; we needed to read a digest version the very next morning before discussing it over doughnuts and Callipos in high school corridors across the planet.

Sure there were bulletin boards aplenty and newsgroups on topics ranging from ‘how to make an American quilt’ to ‘what happened to that old actress off Beverly Hills 90210 who wasn’t fooling anyone by claiming to be a teenager’, but let’s face it, you only access those sites when you have to, unless you have a problem with direct sunlight and a tendency to listen to more than one The Cure album a year.

But years of electronic evolution and vast amounts of funding being pumped into hypertext development have finally lead to Generation Y’s dizzying pinnacle and it’s name is My Space – http://www.myspace.com to be exact.

My Space lists its official purposes as:

• Friends who want to talk Online
• Single people who want to meet other Singles
• Matchmakers who want to connect their friends with other friends
• Families who want to keep in touch--map your Family Tree
• Business people and co-workers interested in networking
• Classmates and study partners
• Anyone looking for long lost friends!

So hands up if you’re mapping your family tree? Nobody? Oh wait… nope nobody. Thought so!

No, we diet Cokeheads aren’t interested in mapping our bloodlines so much as we’re into wasting time but more importantly, and the main purpose of this essay, is to explain how we’re using My Space to get our work out into the big bad world.

Singer/songwriters who claim they’ve been drawn by the muse to create music ever since they heard Joni Mitchell’s Blue at the tender age of 13 are no longer resigned to playing in the backrooms of Brunswick St bars on Tuesday nights. They can now put their mp3s on their My Space profiles and have their music heard across the Canadian prairies.. maybe even reaching the nicotine-muffled ears of one Ms. Mitchell.

Similarly, filmmakers (i.e. Dad owns a mini DV camera he bought duty free on his last business trip to Hong Kong) can create triumphant works of cinema, the likes of which are sure to have DeMille, Eisenstein and Spielberg rolling in their respective graves muttering, “why didn’t I think of that? One dude on his skateboard crashing into a brick wall while wearing a chicken outfit. Genius!”

As of March 2006, MySpace is, according to my dear dear friends at Wikipedia, the world's fifth most popular English-language website (no doubt behind www.bible.com and www.agathachristie.com). So where did it all come from?

MySpace started its humble origins as an online storage and file-sharing firm. Registration was free and users obtained a small online disk quota, which would increase if they referred new members to the site. It was like a cross between a Hotmail account and a Tupperware party… or Scientology. But the service was slow and nobody was foolish enough to put money into it so it folded in 2001.

But in July 2003, two young Californian college graduates, Tom Anderson and current president, Chris DeWolfe enlisted a small team of programmers and a newly rejuvenated MySpace was born.

Social networking pages are nothing new. Friendster and Hi5 are two such examples, or you could even look at a site such as Gaydar for all my fellas in the 10% minority. But what MySpace did that made it rise above the rest and ultimately led to its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million, was its emphasis on career networking, particularly for artists all striving for their elusive 15 minutes.

Services include:

• User-supplied support forum
• User-friendly
• Blogging
• Community forums
• Instant messaging
• Exchanging comments
• Writing a personal profile
• Adding photos
• Customizing the profile -- background color or images, music, photos
• Rating/ranking users based on their profile, pictures, and written personality
• Allowing users to add friends from other services

There are 3 basic profile types:

- MySpace (the regular meet and greet profile – “Albino loving Goth seeks nookie in South Carolina. Likes Tori Amos. Dislikes Jimmy Barnes. Mail me now!”)
- MySpaceMusic (see below)
- MySpaceFilm (and below that)

So independent musicians, like our afore-mentioned Brunswick St dwelling, Big Yellow Taxi loving songstress, create their MySpaceMusic profile presenting themselves as they see fit, post example of their work and then invite people to see their work, slowly expanding their network until they reach the sort of world fame known only by icons such as Jesus or Paris Hilton.

For example:

Musicians can post their gigs, their influences, maintain a blog as to what esoteric gifts from the universe are currently inspiring them and send out bulletins to everyone on their “Friend List” (i.e. Please request my song on the Triple J Super Request show so that I can become rich and famous). Their friends can also post comments to the page such as “You rock!” or “Even your mama wouldn’t call that good!” Many artists now see MySpace as an invaluable tool, especially for local artists trying to tap into international markets without international distribution deals. As CD sales decline and online downloads skyrocket, MySpace empowers the artist to distribute their product on their own terms. Record companies who specialize in distribution, rather than licensing, may soon find themselves out of a job.

MySpaceFilm works in a similar way where people can post their shorts for the viewing pleasure of others. One filmmaker, David Lehre, posted his short, “MySpace: The Movie” in February 2006 and has already registered 6 million hits. This equates to about a third of the amount of people who have seen Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Not bad for an amateur filmmaker. All you have to do is make a film, do some quick networking on MySpace and it could be seen all over the world faster than you can say Atom Films.

The site earns revenue through advertisements though there are fears that our pal, Rupert, may introduce a charge for the service or some form of censorship so people are advised to jump in fast and make the most of it before it all goes to hell. For example, in January, all mentions to YouTube, another website dedicated to sharing online video content, mysteriously vanished. After much controversy from MySpace members, the links were returned but I’m sure Rupes isn’t done with his fiendish scheme for world dominations.

Other people who have benefited from the MySpace revolution are website designer/creator applications. “Do it yourself HTML” thrives on MySpace with people inserting animations, colours, sounds and quizzes – “Which Buffy character ARE you??”

So yes, it’s a pretty sweet package that can be useful for artists everywhere. But allow me to leave you with one downside:

On November 7, 2005 only 400 out of 3,000 students of Warren High School in San Antonio, Texas showed up after two male students posted that they were going to bring guns to school. Officials saw the threat and the students were arrested before anything could happen. Nice one Texas!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Alexa Internet Alexa Web Search - top 500 English-language websites. March 20, 2006.
• The Daily News, Washington, January 22, 2006. The MySpace case.
• MySpace, http://www.myspace.com, March 20 2006
• Intermix Media, July 18, 2005. News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc, March 20 2006
• http://www.hi5.com/
• http://www.friendster.com/useropen.php?uid=1496496
• http://www.gaydar.com.au
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Monday Class -- Photoshop sampler

2006-03-26T16:54:00.000+11:00

Don't forget to bring along 1x scan of full colour continuous-tone image (eg colour illustration from a book, a photograph or a scan of analoge source material such as a painting or colour drawing, scan of objects etc from your environment), and 1x black and white line art (eg scan of a b&w drawing, engraving or etching, typography etc). Images should be at least 1200 pixels width or height.

'Playing the Movies'

2006-03-23T19:12:00.000+11:00

Checkout Helen Stucky's essay 'Playing the Movies' about the relationship between games and cinema and the development of machinima. This is the catalogue essay to the exhibtion which has just opened at GamesLab ACMI. Both the essay and the exhibition are well worth checking out -- esp. in looking at new forms of writing in and for digital media.
Essay on the acmi site

Experimenta call for freelance writers

2006-03-22T18:26:00.000+11:00

We are keen to hear from those of you who are artists and writers who would like to review Experimenta’s forthcoming national and international exhibitions. Regrettably, we can’t pay you but publications including RealTime, Broadsheet do pay for commissioned articles. Please call Maria on 03 9525 5025 or email maria@experimenta.org

Call for student placements, interns and volunteers
Need experience that can only be gained from working in a successful, dynamic and fun arts organisation?

We are currently recruiting volunteers to start immediately and students from various disciplines to start in second semester. There are opportunities for a number of dedicated people to gain experience in areas such as publicity & marketing, web authoring, image archiving, publishing & editing, and the development of innovative physical and electronic storage solutions. Projects are negotiable. Please call Maria on 03 9525 5025 or email: maria@experimenta.org

Person 2184 -- machinima

2006-03-22T14:51:00.000+11:00

Person 2184 is a three part machinima series running inside the game unreal tournament 2004 from epicgames. It shows strange happenings in an urban environment not very far from here and now. Gifted people, ubiquitous media and loneliness inside a crowd of people drive the stories behind these short visual tales.

Friedrich Kirschner’s machinima series Person 2184 won him awards for best Technical Achievement and best Visual Design at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival, and has been showcased at numerous others. Friedrich is one of the pioneers who is transforming the practice of machinima. His work breaks out of the game context and enters the realm of filmmaking.

Either watch in-game if you have Unreal or download the wmp or qtime files.

INCOMMUNICADO

2006-03-22T12:36:00.000+11:00

OPENS FRIDAY 24 MARCH, 6pm
Launch is at Sticky, Shop 10, Campbell Arcade, Melbourne

Uncommon tales from around the Commonwealth. Incommunicado is a collection of writing from young Commonwealth writers, published in a fold-out book-map format. Incommunicado combines tweaked cartography with super-short fiction to create a visually stunning, deliciously awkward literary treat.

SPRINGER AUDIENCES 1984-2004

2006-03-22T12:29:00.000+11:00

Portraits of Jerry Springer talk show audience members by Melbourne media artist/vj, Emile Zile

The waiting room is almost full. Everyone here wants to be on television.
Springer Audiences 84-04 is an exhibition of portraits.
I am so fucking excited. Jerry is a dude.
Springer Audiences 84-04 is made with video stills.
Here we go. We are moving into the studio now.
Springer Audiences 84-04 is Hillbilly Love Triangle: Update
You can see me if I freeze-frame here. I am sitting next to the woman in red.

opening March 24 6pm - until April 15
hours: 3 - 6pm Wed - Fri. 12 - 6pm Sat

Kings ARI
Level 1/171 King St
Melbourne Vic 3000
AUSTRALIA

a flyer: an interview: directions:

'Edublogs and their value as professional development tools for teachers' by Andrea

2006-03-22T11:50:00.000+11:00

Definition
'A blog (weblog) is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images and links to other web pages and to video, audio (podcasts) and other files. Often blogs focus on a particular ‘area of interest’. Some blogs discuss personal experiences’. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Blog jargon
Blogger: someone who creates a blog, posts entries.
Blogging: authoring, maintaining, adding an article to an existing blog
Blogroll: list of blogs that a blogger reads-written on side of their blog.
Edublog: educational blog.
Sitemeter: meter that records where hits come from.
Post: a blog entry, blog post, post.
Blogspert: expert on blogging (‘I made that term up, can’t help myself.’ A.Hayes)

Blog history
• ‘The term ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997.
• Firstly broadly popular blogs appeared in America in 2001, followed by ‘How to ‘ manuals.
• In 2004, TV journalist Dan Rather presented documents (CBS show 60 Minutes) that conflicted with accepted accounts of president Bush’s military service record and many bloggers view this scandal as the advent of blogs’ acceptance by the mass media.
• ‘It is estimated there are now more than 28 million blogs in the world.’ (The Age 25/2/06)

Edublogs (Educational blogging)
There are many applications for Edublogs:
• Professional development for teachers. Eg., Discussions on curriculum, classroom practice etc (my interest).
• Way of introducing/ publishing new classroom resources to a specific audience (my interest).
• Students improving writing skills via blogging etc.

Case study
Interview with Jo McLeay, English Co-ordinator and author of blog,
http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com 1/3/06.

What do you think is the value of blogs?
The value of blogs lies in them being an interactive space around which communities can form. They are a form of publication of content to a specific audience (decided by the creator) thus giving people a voice in important matters socially and generating a form of identity not possible otherwise. This is because blogs can be individualized by the author of the content in a way that discussion forums etc can’t.

How did you get into blogs?
Basically I read some blogs and I loved reading them because I could relate to them. Then just by chance I listened to an educational podcast by Steve Dembo (Teach 42). He referred to David Warlick and Will Richardson and they were the door into the edublogging community. I just kept reading them and their blogrolls. I came trust them so I knew I could trust their blogroll.

What’s the purpose of your blog?
It’s a great reflective teaching and learning tool. It’s been the best professional development I have ever done.
Whose the audience for your blog?
The audience for my blog is teachers, mainly English teachers and those in the edublogging community. I know who visits my blog by visiting my sitemeter.

Describe the process you go through before you post?
I saw a t-shirt once that said “I’m blogging this.” That’s how I feel.
Anything I read or do in school or my study could become the subject of a post. But so many of my posts are in response to the other blogs I read.

I’m often thinking for a day or two what I want to write about. Sometimes I jot down some notes. Sometimes I keep a running file of thoughts that could be developed as blog posts in a word document on my computer.

I always write a draft in word and copy and paste the links at the end of the post, and then copy it into Wordpad to get rid of formatting. Then I copy and paste into my blogger dashboard and put in the hyperlinks.

I would feel funny doing a post without hyperlinks although I have done one, I think. I would read it through at each stage and maybe alter it a bit but sometimes I go check it as it appears on the site and there’s still a typo, so then I edit it.

Does your blog site have any rules?
No, but as far as I’m concerned I don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do to someone’s face.

Conclusions
Edublogs can be valuable professional development tools for teachers.
They can be used by an international community to reflect on and discuss:
• Teaching practices
• Approaches to classroom problems
• Curriculum
• New/needed resources

Edublogs don’t cost money but you can spend a lot of time blogging and reading blogs –not all of which may be helpful. As with anything on the Net teachers need to check authenticity and not to assume that anyone who blogs represents an ‘expert’ opinion.

Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blog 2/28/2006
http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com 20/3/06
email interview with Jo McLeay 1/3/06
The Age 25/2/06

'DEFINE INVENTION: What is Machinima?' by Claire

2006-03-21T22:50:00.000+11:00

Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) can be loosely translated to mean Machine Cinema or Machine Animation.

It is, moreover, film making in virtual reality. This revolution in 3D animation allows film making to occur in a real time virtual environment using 3D video game technology. Spawned from the once unpopular game replay videos, Machinima is now a legitimate art form and method of creating animation films with a wide cult following.

Using tools published by game developers designed to extend the playability of games (eg. to import new characters and create additional levels) Machinima uses these tools to turn off-the-shelf games into small Machinima studios.

Machinima developers have combined pre-existing game software with principles of film-making, animation and game development to hatch a formula allowing animations to be created whereby characters are controlled by humans, scripts and artificial intelligence within high profile computer game engines. The animation is recorded live, thus speeding up the production process.

One of the latest Machinima animations to be created is The Strangerhood, an ongoing series developed with the game software of The Sims 2 . Created by the Rooster Teeth Productions crew, famous for the highly regarded RedVsBlue Machinima, the team has developed their own production process and technique for creating the drama series. Using the multi player game technology, 3D characters are created and their basic movement animation, props and sets are designed.

In production, the dialogue is recorded, edited and then played back, acting as the script. The game ‘puppeteers’ match the action of the characters to this story as they play the game and record it live.

In post-production non linear editing software is employed to edit select takes and refine the character movement, position and camera angles.

This method is a rapid departure from the traditional key-frame animation process. Now animation directors can direct puppeteers as they manipulate the character models in real-time. This eliminates the need for the time intensive process of software rendering, amounting to a much more time effective and cost efficient way of making films.

To put this into perspective, the 3D Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) animation, pioneered in the 80’s and utilized in such films as Pixar’s Toy Story and Monsters Inc. is very labour and equipment intensive. CGI requires each frame to be rendered individually, meaning that each background is created separately, and the individually animated characters are added later to complete the shot. Due to the large amount of 3D model, lighting and animation information in each frame it requires a very fast bank of computers hours if not days to render each shot. Some frames in Monsters Inc. took over 90 hours to process using upward of 400 computers banked together. Hence the entire feature took 4 years to complete.

The real time aspect of Machinima eliminates the rendering process and allows total control over the representation and movement of characters. It provides an interactive environment where real world physics can be reproduced. Best of all, it can take place in individual homes. The recordings take place at data level negating the need to capture several gigabytes of video footage. In addition, hardware driven playback is independent of resolution and can playback within the game engine itself.

While the animation itself is not yet of highest quality, the continued development of this technology will mean that as more powerful hardware rendering becomes available, PC users will be able to receive Machinima films at the data level via the internet. The cost element of Machinima means that it can be used for complicated effects and historical recreation.

It is yet another way in which people can create visual stories and communicate digitally.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.machinima.org/ Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, Inc. webmaster@machinima.org, accessed19-03-2006
http://www.illclan.com/contact.htm accessed 19-03-2006
http://sh.roosterteeth.com/faq/ Rooster Teeth Productions, accessed 19-03-2006
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/ Rooster Teeth Productions, accessed 19-03-2006
http://m3.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/strangerhood2.gif m3.typepad.com,accessed 19-03-2006
http://bwplanet.idnes.cz/.../tsvidea/strangerhood.html, accessed 19-03-2006

'FRIENDSTER' by Callum Lukita

2006-03-21T13:55:00.000+11:00

I first discovered FRIENDSTER on the NET over two years back when I received an INVITATION from a friend to join, sent to my e-mail address. At the time, net communities and chat rooms were already well established. Friendster entered the scene in a different and refreshing manner as it offered a more real expansion to the interactive net community genre. Significantly visual in presentation, real identities are posted worldwide as you, as the user, interact within Friendster as yourselves, not an anonymous.

Upon entering you are required to SIGN UP with a personal private password for LOGIN IN each time, then creating MY PROFILE of your own self with personal photos and fun details. This profile represents your true form, status, age, whereabouts, and interests. And whalla, quite simply you have your own little HOMEPAGE within Friendster.

Consequently, you are then able to view profiles in other members’ homepages within this online program, as you are now free to roam across friend communities, starting with that very one friend who invited you in the first place. The program today holds over 24 million members, or friends, that you are able to browse. That is, if you can find them all. Users are updated of their friends’ activities, birthdates, recent profile and photo changes.

You are expected to invite others in the community to become your friend, thus creating your direct friend relations located in your MY FRIENDS archive. This record is then displayed and stored on your homepage. To date I only have 136 friends ☹.
Another feature is where each member may write a TESTIMONIAL about a friend member who may or may not approve this text to be posted on their homepage. To date I only have 11 testimonials, excluding one or two I just had to reject. Accordingly, you are then able to read testimonial statements of others as you browse; getting a better sense of the people you are viewing.

Another prominent feature allows you to send and receive short text messages to and from friends, supplied in your own message INBOX – therefore combining a practical e-mail service to this program.

Also, in MEET PEOPLE there is a handy search engine that allows you to find missing or wanted friends.

Upon the first 6 months of joining, after getting the hang of it, and despite using a painstakingly slow dial-up connection, I went berserk – going through friends of friends of friends and of their friends, getting absolutely lost at times, tracking my way back, finding long lost friends as far back as primary school friends, inviting and sending messages all over the place. Exciting indeed. The program today has since been expanded in size and is constantly updated. Hundreds of personal pictures can now be uploaded into your photo profile, compared to the restriction limit of only 5 photos (jpegs) two years back. Furthermore, you can now create and view your own personal BLOGS, post BULLETINS, join DISCUSSION GROUPS, as well as upload and share personal VIDEOS (Mpegs) on your homepage.

Many similar communities have since been established in competition, making Friendster today not in anyway exceptional in its form and functions as an interactive net community program – Hi5 and Yahoo Messenger to name a couple.
Nevertheless, being as popular as ever, Friendster will still continue to grow with joining members (some members even own up to two or three Friendster homepage accounts), as it acts and serves an interactive social medium within a very social context. Thus it is self-reliant in its growth. As do thriving communities in real life gradually expand and develop, popular communities in cyberspace will also grow and span to all its ability.

http://www.friendster.com

'What is a Blog?' by Yuko

2006-03-21T13:50:00.000+11:00

Since its first appearance in 1995, blogs or blogging as a form of activity, becomes a very popular and alternative way to communicate and express ourselves. The word ‘blog’ derived from the words web log, which was found by Jorn Barger on December 1997, which then called blog by Peter Merholz two years later.

Basically, a blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. A blog contains of texts, hyperlinks, pictures, sometimes videos and other media related to certain topics. Same as other media, topics on blogs could focus on politics, food or local news. One factor that differs blogs from forums is, in forums we can only talk about one topic set up by the author or authoring group; whilst in blog, you can set your own topic and your own discussion. It is not difficult to create your own blogs, because normally website for blogs uses dedicated server-based system which allow users to access from anywhere on the Internet, and enable them to create blogs without having to maintain their own server. There are blogs used as online diaries, where people put their opinions, their daily activities and experiences, their thoughts, poems or their traveling journal into online blog, and open the chance for people to read and give comments on them. The main user for this type of blog is college students and teenagers in general. They use blogs to keep up-to-date information, also to communicate with each others.

One example of a website which dedicated its content for blogging is www.opendiary.com. This website was introduced in October 19, 1998, created by Bruce Ableson, the first blog that innovates allowance for other readers to give comments to others’ blogs. Seven years after the opening, online diaries recorded in www.opendiary.com reached 400,000 items. The success leaded the website to be featured in Net Success Interview, as well as the creator’s interview in "40 successful CEOs/founders of revolutionary internet companies." In this website, it is offered two types of services if you want to join the community, one is a free open diaries where you only need to complete the free join form. You will need to give your user name which rule is not to give your real name or anything that describes your identity, a password then some general questions such as gender, location and a valid email address then you can start writing your blogs. The other service, introduced in 2001, is a paid join diary, called “Open Diary Plus”, which gives users extra functions e.g. you can block other users from reading your diary, diary chapters and the ability to view other diarists’ notes.

On September 11, 2004, the online diary was attacked by hacker, losing its entire diary content started from July 2004 to the time of the attack. This tragedy leaded to the introduction of a new join facility in February 2006. It is called “Lifetime Membership”, which costs USD$100. The money will be used to support the website due to decreasing rates after the 2004 attack and put Open Diary into debt. The life of opendiary.com is still uncertain, as Bruce Ableson, a.k.a the DiaryMaster (his username) commented that "We are all working hard to pay off this debt, but what may happen is still up in the air."

In a nut shell, blog is another medium to express and cater the needs of human as social beings. Along with the growth of technology and digital media in the world, this community can indulge the practicality and efficiency of communicating.

Bibliography
• “A Maze that Leads to Healing”, MazeWalker, Lets Take A Left Here. Available at: http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D636850&entry=10007 [18 March 2006] Access : 21 March 2006.
• “Blog” Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog [20 March 2006]
• “Open Diary” Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Diary [20 March 2006]

'Collaborative Fiction' by Leisl

2006-03-21T13:44:00.000+11:00

Collaborative Fiction is the process of multiple writers each contributing to a single story. This form of story telling has changed and evolved due to the introduction of the internet, but still maintains its traditional form. Collaborative Fiction now covers such mediums as Interactive Fiction, Hypertext Fiction, Storytelling Games, and Role Playing Games. In the process of Collaborative Fiction, each contributor writes a portion of the story, and then passes the story onto the next writer for further additions or a change in focus. There are no rules or enforced structures as the story moves from author to author, save for some forums adopting a set of guidelines on what is or what is not acceptable.

Interactive Fiction refers to software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as computer games. Whilst there is theme and storyline the players must adhere to, the character development and actions are there own choice.

Hypertext Fiction is a form of electronic literature found mostly online, characterized by the use of Hypertext which provides a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one group of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories.

A Storytelling Game is where two or more persons collaborate on telling a spontaneous story. Usually, each player takes care of one or more characters in the developing story. The “story teller” or “narrator” takes the roles of various supporting characters, as well as introducing non-character forces (e.g. a flood). The most popular story telling games originated from role paying games, where the game rules and statistics made it hard to create a believable story and immersive experience. In a storytelling game each player must play within their characters traits, and any wish to develop the action of the character must be put to the story teller, who sets the scene of the story.

A Role Playing Game is a type of game in which players assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create narratives. The game progresses according to a system of rules and guidelines already in place, within which players may improvise freely. Player choices shape the direction shape the direction and outcome of role playing games. At their core, role playing games are a form of interactive and collaborative story telling. Simple forms of role playing exist in children’s games such as “Cowboys and Indians”. Participants in a Wild West role playing game will generate specific detailed characters and an involved plot. Their goal is to reproduce the themes and enjoyment of a Western Film or a Western novel.
The most obvious form of Collaborative Fiction still exists in Writers Forums, where a story is begun and each contributor will take up a thread or a character and continue the tale. Many authors use this medium to take on suggestions from their readers, who may suggest new characters or subplots. This form of Collaborative Fiction is perhaps the most popular of all, being able to reach a wide range of contributors.

Source:
1. www.wikipedia.org
2.www.freecia.blog.com

'Online documentary' by Erin

2006-03-21T13:38:00.000+11:00

Online documentary is an interactive form a documentary that is developed and presented online. Tradition Documentary is defined as ‘a work such as a film or television programme, presenting political, social or historical subject matter accompanied by narration’ and online documentaries both follow and deviate from this traditional model in a couple of ways.

Like tradition documentaries they can use the same primary and secondary evidence modes such as interviews, archival footage, and the same presentational modes such as dramatisation and voice-overs but due to the interactive nature of the internet, online documentaries can expand on these traditional modes by providing extra access to primary and secondary evidence contained within the documentaries interface and extra information such as links to other relevant websites, discussion boards, and email addresses for contact details.

Online documentaries can function like websites, as the user is able to navigate their own journey, and traditional narrative structures of documentaries can be played with. They can offer guidelines on how to read through the material, but the user can map their own journey. Some documentaries let you record your journey to make your own documentary, and some you can add your own story.

Excellent examples of Online Documentaries can be found at the Australian Broadcasting Corporations (ABC) website – abc.net.au/documentaryonline/defult.htm
They are developed through the department of New Media and Digital Services and were established ‘to encourage exciting and adventurous projects that exploit the possibilities of the Internet and challenge conventional documentary forms’ .

The ABC have produced documentaries that cover a broad range of subjects such has Long Journey, Young Lives, which though interviews with both Australian and refugee children, maps the journeys of young refugees from Sri Lanka, Iraq and Southeast Asia. A Year on the Wing, charts a year in the life of migratory eastern curlew birds as they travel from Russia to Australia.
The Wrong Crowd, explores police corruption in Queensland in the 70’s, told from the perspective of a young woman growing up with links to both sides.
The most comprehensive of these is Black Friday, which documents the Victorian bushfires of 1939 -http://abc.net.au/blackfriday/home/default.htm

The documentary is broken down into seven sections on the website, which is indicated by a line of ‘tabs’ running along the top of the home page. The first of these, The Story, is the most traditional part of the online documentary being a film told with narration, interviews and reconstructed footage that charts the history of the bushfires. The second section, Timeline, charts through interactive images, the bushfires that have devastated this region from the beginning of white settlement up until 2003.

The next is the, Interactive Map, which lets the user select a particular area of the region and hear and read more detailed stories.

Newspapers, lets you select by date or place both Regional and City newspaper, read the stories from that were being published, giving the user a greater understanding of the attitudes and feelings of the community and the country. Oral History, is further interviewed evidence of the people that remembered and lived through the Bushfires.Royal Commission presents detailed reports of findings from the enquiry and the recommendations that arose from it. The final section, Aftermath, contains scores of interviews with community group leaders and professionals involved with bushfires about their thoughts and ideas about how we can deal with this yearly concern.

Black Friday contains a wealth of information that extends beyond the normal bounds of a traditional documentary and for this reason online documentaries are seen as a great educational tool.

One of the challenges that this new mode of documentary brings is the break with traditional documentary continuity and narrative structures. With a film or TV programme the director/writer is able to shape the perception of the user by what they choose to reveal and at what time. Because of the users ability to self-direct their own learning, these structures breakdown and the question of authenticity arises. One can argue that online documentaries offer a greater sense of authenticity as the user is presented a greater wealth or wall of factual evidence and can learn at their own leisure, but because of this ability to pick and chose the user can miss pieces of information that may inform a different reading. However as history itself is always subjective, the medium of Online Documentary by its very form demonstrates this most effectively.

Online documentary offer an exciting way to play with the medium and to challenge old notions of presentation and narration while still telling real and important stories.

Bibliography.
AFC- ABC Documentary online home page - abc.net.au/documentaryonline.defult.htm

Australian Film Commission website (2003) First Australian Online Documentary selected for HotDocs,afc.gov.au/newsandevents/mediarelease/2003/release_19.aspx

Beattie, D & Toadshow , The Wrong Crowd, abc.net.au/wrongcrowd

Beegun, P & Ferrier, S. A Journey through Central Asis – Detours along the Silk Route, waikato.ac.nz/film/student/hypermedia/silkroute/Pg1.htm

Design Interact, Week July 6 ‘Detours along the Silk Route’ designinteract.com/sow/070698

Fahy, M (2004) Black Friday, abc.net.au/blacfriday/home/defult.htm,

Goldi Dahdal (2004) Long Journey Young Lives, abc.net.au/longjourney

Lexico Publishing Group (2006) dictionary.com

Pockley, S (2006) Flight of Ducks, www.duckdigital.net/FOD

Reid, B & Smith, K, Hypermedia Analysis,
shiva.smst.waikato.ac.nz/~br13/doco306defining.htm

White, N (2002) A Year on the Wing, abc.net.au/wing/ayowflash.htm , Consuello PTY

'Us Mob' by Suzi

2006-03-21T13:29:00.000+11:00

Most people will never set foot in an Aboriginal town camp of Alice Springs. But that doesn’t mean you won’t ever get to visit one…..

‘Us Mob’ is Australia’s first Aboriginal children’s television series and interactive website. You are transported into the real-life Aboriginal town camp of Hidden Valley, on the outskirts of Alice Springs in Central Australia. You are embedded in the challenges and daily lives of Harry, Della, Charlie, Jacquita and their Aboriginal bush community friends and family. The site features 8 short films with multi-path endings, designed to be received once per week over 8 weeks to fit into a school term. The films are supported by video and text diaries, interactive forums, virtual self-guided tours, games and comprehensive info sheets on everything from Aboriginal history to skin names. The website was designed to create community and cross-cultural understanding between school children around the world (Ginsberg, 1).

Background: Cyber Storytelling

As this website features multiple different avenues for interactivity, the focus for this report will be on the on-line storytelling component, delivered via the 8 short films. The site is centred around these films, with the other elements supporting the content and encouraging discussion surrounding them.

Typically, on-line storytelling is created either as text or video, and requires the user to register before being able to access it. They then receive downloads of episodes. Interactivity commonly comes into play via ‘choose your own endings’ and/or web forums, games and email correspondence.

Meadows has observed the current, untapped potential for web-based storytelling, observing that most website designers seem to consider the internet as ‘little more than a globally-distributed brochure’ (Meadows, 2). Cloninger has also argued that a compelling, engaging ‘narrative voice’ is frequently absent from interactive media, and he considers this factor even more important than style and content (Cloninger, 3). Storytelling, he argues, is still the most powerful way of emotionally impacting people – whether the ends is to sell a product or service, or create a new art form. Meadows touched on the key to the potential inherent in interactive narrative when he commented that ‘the more power a user has to control the narrative himself, the more a user will ‘own’ that narrative’ (Meadows, 2). In other words, by creating an on-line story with compelling characters and narrative, then by involving users in the direction of that tale, they become a part of the story itself.

The creators of Us Mob drew inspiration from one of the world’s first on-line drama series, initiated by trailblazer UK organisation, XPT. Entitled ‘On-line Caroline’ (XPT), it focussed on the exploits of a young, hip English-Greek woman, Caroline. Remember how one of the first ever public film screenings, of an approaching train, prompted audiences to bolt from the theatre in fright? Quaint as those reactions seem, history repeats when it comes to embracing the Brave New World of cyber-technology. ‘Online Caroline’ featured an early episode where Caroline was being robbed, resulting in earnest people around the UK calling police to help their cyber friend, unable to offer more than her email address! This left Us Mob web producer Chris Joyner and director, David Vadiveloo, in no doubt as to the potential impact of this new storytelling medium (Joyner, 17/03/06).

Us Mob in Focus……

Whereas film and documentary traditionally created a ‘window’ into another world, Us Mob creates the window then pushes you through it and into that world.

Us Mob was created at a time when mainstream media discourses largely represent Indigenous Australians in the context of various Indigenous malaises – lack of health, lack of money, lack of jobs, lack of housing, and so on. It was created in the context of an education discourse in which Aboriginal culture, perspectives and history is still, quite often, not even represented at all.

Vadiveloo explained that the objective of Us Mob was to build a ‘dynamic communication bridge’ between Arrernte kids of Alice Springs, and children around the world (Ginsberg, 1). Us Mob derives its power not just from the engaging characters and realistic stories, but also from the way these tales are embedded so completely in an extensive range of additional interactive features. What better way to break down perceptual barriers, than to literally navigate yourself around an Aboriginal town camp home on a cyber-tour? You can travel alongside the kids in the films and they become like friends – you learn about their families and hobbies through their ‘scrapbooks’, watch their video diaries, email them letters and post your own info on the web. The discussion forum features messages posted from other Indigenous kids around Australia, from a Zibi in Poland and a Queensland Mununjali woman now living in Germany! The computer games such as ‘Bush Survivor’ drop you in the middle of the desert and challenge you to learn how to survive, Aboriginal way! (A refreshing alternative to the abundance of video games online, characterised by violence, competition and destruction.)

The website’s prime audience is school children in late primary and early to middle secondary years. It is, by nature, well-aligned with classroom use, as the shift from linear to interactive approaches in media is paralleled in contemporary education theory and practice as well. Students, like audiences, are no longer broadcasted or taught to, in a traditional didactic way. They are now challenged to access, interact and engage with knowledge as critical, savvy agents rather than as passive, unquestioning recipients.

The Flipside of the ‘Digital Age’

There are two flipsides to the emergence of this sophisticated technology, and the creators of Us Mob have created strong precedents for ways to address them both.

Firstly, as long as the Internet exists, there will be issues associated with unbridled access to information. How can digital storytellers ensure that their content is appropriately accessed and disseminated? When you’re providing content that’s free, how do you ensure that your work doesn’t get de-valued, by default? In the first encounter with the Us Mob home page, you are invited in but, as it would be if you visited the Arrernte kids on their town camp in Alice Springs, it notifies you that you need a permit to visit. Us Mob and Hidden Valley suggest another perspective on the digital age that invites kids from "elsewhere" to come over and play on their side (Ginsberg, 2). In other ways, Us Mob subverts the historically ethnocentric legacy of Indigenous discourse by foregrounding the Aboriginal experience and voice. The stories and content come straight from the community themselves – Vadiveloo’s community consultation had an overall gestation period of around 7 years. It is relevant that the elders requested that one of the films, which deals with the issue of petrol sniffing, only be accessed by people who have demonstrated a commitment to viewing the preceding films, so that they approach this particular film with a deeper understanding of the broader context in which this kind of substance abuse occurs (Joyner, 17/3/06). It’s an Aboriginal approach to knowledge which so much of the Internet is at odds with– where sharing knowledge is considered a privilege, a gift – not an assumed right – and there is the expectation that it’s given and received responsibly.

Secondly, despite the utopian promises of the ‘global village’ bringing people together, the flipside to the ‘digital age’ is the ‘digital divide’, creating further social stratification around the world between those who are ‘in’ the cyber community and those who get ‘left behind’ (Ginsberg, 1). In this more sombre light, projects like Us Mob which equip a highly marginalised group of people with the voice and skills to create the content and keep abreast of the technology, are of particular importance.

Conclusion

Us Mob exemplifies one of many exciting future paths for powerful storytelling using digital technology. It opens up many possibilities as to the future of media – and, for that matter, education - that is truly interactive in every sense of the word. Already, there is a whisper that in just a couple of years, classrooms will only exist in cyberspace, with students following internet-based curriculum from the comfort of their own homes. And just around the corner, we will find interactive storytelling replacing the television set on every home’s PC, where people will be able to choose from a range of stories (dramas, soaps, films, news) when they want and have the option of engaging with associated video games, correspondence and on-line forums, not unlike the current Us Mob site.

FOOTNOTES
1. One of the Us Mob films is as follows:
On screen, an Aboriginal boy piggybacks a friend on an old bike past a sacred site near a golf course in Alice Springs. The sky is clear and the landscape beautifully lit as they stop at a tap to drink. Looking around, they notice a shiny, expensive bike, unattended. Together they make a decision that could change everything . . . fade to black (Ginsberg, 1). At this point, the user must choose from alternative endings. In one scenario, the police are involved and in the other, friends fight as one boy challenges the other. It creates instant engagement with the story and characters, and a strong place to launch discussion about consequences and community.

2. The creators of Us Mob are currently seeking funding for on-going employment of Aboriginal people, through Alice Springs’ Tangentyere Council, to be responsible for the maintenance and development of the Us Mob website (Joyner, 17/03.06). Additionally, they run workshops in communities around Australia on basic video and web production.

Bibliography
1. Clonginger, C., ‘A Case for Web Storytelling’, 13/08/05 in www.alistapart.com/articles/storytelling (Accessed: 14/3/06)
2. Debelle, P., ‘Living Next Door to Alice’, in www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/ 10/15/1097784032642.html?oneclick=true, (18.10.04)
3. Dorner, J., ‘Writing for the Internet’, Oxford University Press, 2002, UK. 1-20.
4. Ginsberg, F., ‘Rethinking the Digital Age’, in Flow, Critical Forum on TV and Media Culture; www.jot.communication.utexas.edu/flow/?jot=view&id=528 1, (Accessed: 13/3/06)
5. Joyner, C., Interview with Suzi Taylor, 17/03/06
6. Meadows, M.S., “Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative’, p2 exerpts available at www.pause-effect.com (accessed 16/3/06)
7. Telstra Broadband Fund Overview; www.broadbandfund.telstra.com (accessed 14.3.06)
8. Us Mob: www.usmob.com.au (accessed 20/03/06)
9. XPT, ‘Online Caroline’, www.onlinecaroline.com, (Accessed 14/3/06)
10. Zion, L., ‘Projecting its own Image’, in European Network for Indigenous Australians; www.eniar.org/news/usmob.html

'THE ONLINE MUSIC COMMUNITY' by Julieanna

2006-03-21T13:17:00.000+11:00

In this modern era of digital revolution, the continuous technological advances have created a wide range of possibilities that play a major impact in connecting society from different areas all over the world. Since the discovery of the Internet in 1969, the emergence of a variety of digital communication forms began to take place. Today, one of the online communication forms that have reached millions of users is referred to as online music community. This report covers aspects of the online music community in terms of its major defining features and how it differs from traditional basis, with special focus on one of the most active online music sites, “American Idol Underground”.

According to Bruce and Marty Fries in The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook, music has long been an essential tool in ‘connecting people to the rest of the world’ , entertaining them and adding flavors to their daily lives. However, the book points out a problem that in traditional pattern, the music genres people listen to are determined by recording labels, since they support bands and singers who release their albums with song genres according to commercial demand and the popularity of the genre at that particular time. This disadvantages listeners with different music tastes and prevents new musicians from sharing their type of music to the public, considering the complex recording companies which only accept music that ‘sell.’

Driven by the necessity of an individual to share his/her thoughts with society, the innovations in technology and the availability of the Internet has resulted in the formation of music community websites. These sites are dedicated to music fans from different countries, allowing them to interact with other music lovers in an online message board within the site. It’s possible to discuss about a specific topic on the board, knowing there are different sections provided (for example: jazz, rock). In addition, band members and solo singers who wish to launch their career or are just enjoying their leisure time are given the unlimited opportunity to upload their work to the sites, sharing them with other users and may even be discovered by an independent recording company. The ArtistLaunch.com, team states that the website they provided offers a medium for new artists to showcase their music, which can be discovered by independent labels . The shift of this digital communication form from the classic antecedents is marked by the tendency of the online music community to unite music fans and create an active music club rather than leaving them as passive listeners with no connection to people who share their musical interests.

Following the worldwide success of the Idol contest (which, according to Jason R. Rich, is the largest singing talent competition on reality TV with over 33.5 million viewers every year ) is a site created by the producer of American Idol and other Idol shows, FremantleMedia (with assistance by Fluid Audio Networks, an Internet start-up company), known as “American Idol Underground”. Josh Grossberg from E-Online addresses that using the same format as the show, where the audience determines the success or failure of a singer, the site provides a medium for ordinary people across the United States and other worldwide regions who want to showcase their musical abilities without having to audition for national TV . The structure is flexible. They record their own songs or music videos, upload their work to the computer and transfer them to the site, in which their songs will be listed according to the appropriate category (if the genre is considered to be folk, the songs can be browsed in the Folk section by listeners). Submitting remake songs that have been done by other artists is allowed, as long as the artist/band obtains copyrights from the producers of the original track. There is a cost for every song submission. However, this is the professionalism of the site, so every artist has the copyrights to his/her work. The songs will constantly be on airplay on the online radio at the same site. Users may comment and rate the work of all artists. They are able to join a regular voting contest and also have access to a free e-mail if they register as members (no registration fee is required). Contacting artists directly is also possible (since the site encourages connection among users), and a message board for interacting with other users regarding any topic that deals with music is available. Regular contests are held, where a selected panel of celebrity judges picks the best artist/song at a particular time, and users who participate in voting will also have the chance to win prizes. The active and strong community within American Idol Underground is a factor that draws a large number of music lovers to the site.

To summarize, the online music community has been one of the emerging digital communication forms that attracts Internet users. The movement of the community from traditional formats allows music fans from all over the world to freely access the music genres of their choice as well as provides career-seeking artists, bands and musicians with unlimited opportunity to showcase their talents. This creates an active and interactive medium for music lovers, which reflects this era of digital revolution.

FOOTNOTES
1. Bruce Fries & Marty Fries, The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook, TeamCom Books, Maryland, 1999 (http://www.teamcombooks.com/mp3handbook/1.htm)
2. ArtistLaunch, ArtistLaunch.com, 1999-2005

3. Jason R. Rich, American Idol Season 4: Official Behind-the-Scenes Fan Book, Prima Games, California, 2005, p. 4
4. ‘Idol’ Going Underground Online, E-Online, Josh Grossberg, June 20 2005

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bruce Fries & Marty Fries, The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook, TeamCom Books, Maryland, 1999 (http://www.teamcombooks.com/mp3handbook/1.htm)

Jason R. Rich, American Idol Season 4: Official Behind-the-Scenes Fan Book, Prima Games, California, 2005, p. 4

‘Idol’ Going Underground Online, E-Online, Josh Grossberg, June 20 2005
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,16789,00.html

Idol Launches Online Version of Its Contest, Reality Blurred, Andy Dehnart, June 20 2005
http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/american_idol_5/2005_Jun_20_underground_radio

Innovations: The Digital Revolution –Media, Think Quest Library, Oracles Foundation, March 14 2006
http://library.thinkquest.org/25744/media.htm

A Brief History of the Internet, Walt Howe’s Internet Learning Centre, Walt Howe, November 7 2005
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

Wire.Fm –Upload Your Music & Be Heard!, Jeroen, 2003-2004
http://www.wire.fm/board/two-index.php

Sonic Garden: The Online Music Community, Pine Beach Entertainment Inc., 2003-2005
http://www.sonicgarden.com

ArtistLaunch, ArtistLaunch.com, 1999-2005
http://www.artistlaunch.com/

'Machinima: Red vs. Blue' by Daniel

2006-03-21T13:09:00.000+11:00

Machinima (a portmanteau word for machine cinema or machine animation) is both a collection of associated production techniques and a film genre (film created by such production techniques). As stated in the Wikipedia.

To the mass of the world’s population Machinima is a new form of film genre, which has been brought to our attention by a company called “Rooster and Teeth Productions”. For who are the creators of the highly successful “Red V’s Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles”. The creators Michael Burns, Geoffrey Ramsey and Gustavo Sorola thought they were the pioneers of this new evolution. Not knowing that Machinima had originated as far back as the 1970’s and 80’s. The genre really came to the fore when true 3D game worlds were created in the early 90’s. Games such as Doom, Star Wars: X-Wing, MechWarriors 2 and the popular Quake had all limited recording features with the use of a controllable camera. The term Machinima was not born until early 1998.

Michael Burns had a burning question that needed to be answered. “Do you ever wonder why they call it a Warthog?” This question paved the way for an idea of a movie inside a video game, that game being Halo. The success that followed has just gone from strength to strength. Now currently in their forth season of “Red V’s Blue” and have created two new shows for our viewing pleasure. “Strangerhood” which was born in the year 2004 from the game Sims 2 and their latest epic “P.A.N.I.C.” which emerged from the game F.E.A.R.

Not only has it created a whole new genre for which writers and gamers can explore. But the possibilities are endless, with websites galore and forums for the fans to voice their opinions. The most famous being “Sponsors V’s Freeloaders” which is a fan-created video series based upon the “RvB” series. The series started because there were a lot of fans who were complaining because they weren’t given as much access to the video files as paying sponsors were. The RvB message board is where in the first episode was created.

As I’ve was looking through the information I stumbled across Production Company called “Raven’s Eye”. Who are going to make a movie from the new game Max Payne 2. On their website I’ve found jobs in all categories of Machinima. There were jobs from story design/story writers and story boarders to male and female voices.

The genre has also created Awards Ceremonies which have been hosted by Gamespy Magazine (highly regarded computer magazine) and the up coming 2006 Machinima Festival. There is even an Academy of Machinima Arts & Science which is a non-profit organisation. In which the board of directors meet once a month to discuss the best way to promote and increase the growth of this new genre.

Just by checking out the website www.machinima.com you can see how much this new genre has grown. There are communities and forums for people with all kinds of interest. With the games graphics and use of 3D imagery only getting better by the game, you can only imagine that the story lines will also be just as impressive. There is only one direction that Machinima can go and that is up.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.machinima.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sponsors_vs_freeloadrers
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/machinima
http://www.machinima.com
http://www.freewebs.com/maxpaynemovie/peopleneeded.htm

'The Flight of Ducks' by Lara

2006-03-20T15:51:00.000+11:00

Archived on Internet 'shelves' is the extraordinary online documentary The Flight of Ducks, a site chronicling three journeys into central Australia. The first journey details a 1933 camel trek undertaken by John Pockley, the father of site author, Simon Pockley. The second is the father's return to central Australia as a much older man, and the third a journey the author undertook with his children retracing his father's footsteps. The Flight of Ducks is also a journey across a database, and an exploration of original documents using digital technology.

Online interpretations of actual events using facts and original documentation are a natural, digital progression from traditional medium documentaries. The most commonly recognised traditional form is the film documentary, where moving pictures, narration, archival footage, interviews, photographs and shots of original textual documents (such as newspapers) are combined to create a subjective narrative of an event, person, phenomena etc. In online documentaries, parallel and interwoven narratives can be presented using the same or similar factual evidence as in film documentaries – photographs, newspaper articles, academic papers, and audio and video clips – but this evidence can be utilised and presented in different ways. For instance, an original newspaper article can be clearly viewed online and a user, not constrained by time or visual limitations, can choose to read the article in full (see below); and photographs can be animated to aid a story. For example, in The Flight of Ducks a photograph of a footprint in the sand illustrating the impermanence of events and memory disappears into nothingness.

Although the structure of an online documentary is created and limited by the site author, within the structure's boundaries the user has the flexibility to follow different narrative trails, and to approach the content of the site from differing angles. Simon Pockley has presented the narrative text of his father's journeys in at least two ways: as unpretentious, but tastefully designed web pages with hyperlinks directing the user to original documents (including scans of the pages of his father's journals and photographs) or as laid-out book chapters suitable for printing (which include photographs embedded in text and photo captions, see below). Simon also employs different forms of text such as transcribed journal entries, academic papers, emails, and media questions. He opens one story thread with a sonnet, cleverly placing himself within the story and establishing another link to his father, who is revealed elsewhere as a poetry aficionado.

The information within the site can be accessed from numerous directions: via the database index, by following threads joined by hyperlinks, and by clicking icons including a donkey linked to the overland trek narrative, a camera for photographs, and a duck to gain a bird's-eye view of site content.

Demonstrating an organic nature, The Flight of Ducks allows users to actively participate in the evolution of the site. Emails sent to Pockley are posted to the site with his responses, and media questions are also posted, giving a sense of transparency and inclusion. Pockley also addresses criticisms of the site and attempts to find solutions, as demonstrated by warnings he has implemented to denote sensitive cultural issues. According to Pockley, "Like the stories of journeys in oral epic poetry, [The Flight of Ducks] has evolved into a proliferating organism, shaped by its participants, [and] by a continuous refinement of the poetics of the medium".

At more than a 1000 pages, The Flight of Ducks is a substantial online documentary, not easily digested in a single sitting. It creates a participatory environment that supplements the users' physical interaction with perceptual interaction. It follows multiple narratives and themes, and archives digital images of original source material making it accessible to a wide audience. As aptly summarised by Simon Pockley: "It is no longer just about past and present expeditions into Central Australia. It has evolved into a journey into the use of a new medium for which we have yet to develop a descriptive language. It is part history, part novel, part data-base, part postcard, part diary, part museum, part pilot, part poem, part conversation, part shed".

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Kendall, Robert The Hypertexts of Yesteryear (Accessed 1 March, 2006)

Leary, Pippa & Long, Benjamin "The Hype on Hyper Text” 21C, Volume 3, 1996

McGann, Jerome The Rationale of HyperText (Accessed 13 March, 2006)

Pockley, Simon The Flight of Ducks (Accessed 20 March, 2006)

Seigl, David Severe Tire Damage on the Information Superhighway (Accessed 20 March, 2006)

'Hopkin Green Frog' by Nicole

2006-03-20T15:05:00.000+11:00

In September of 2003 several fliers were posted around a district of Seattle. The flyers desperately appealed to anyone who had come across a lost frog. It seemed a young boy had lost his beloved pet. The plea was signed, ‘Terry’.

These fliers were noted in a couple of Seattle-based weblogs. On September 7th 2003, a blogger known as Samantha posted a picture of the flier at http://www.fotolog.com/gingerly/?photo_id=935490 . Several months later, on May 31st 2004, Jeff Sharman wrote in his online diary, ‘A poster next to the bus stop describes a lost pet, a frog named Hopkin.’

In November 2004, over a year after the flyer was initially seen in Seattle, people began commenting on the case of the lost frog on the community weblog, MetaFilter. Everyone seemed to have an opinion and, since these comments appeared in November 2004, hundreds of other comments have appeared on other sites. Terry’s little lost frog flyer created a blogstorm:

I've cried multiple times over this Hopkin thing, and have even considered sending him money.
posted by Ryvar at 4:14 AM PST on November 7

It's interesting that the kid chose to portray Hopkin visually in the style of a police mugshot.
posted by sklero at 2:44 AM PST on November 7

I say we buy like 100 hopkins and UPS them to Terry in Seattle. Someone here can set up a dropcash thingamajig; if anyone tells me where I can buy them, I'll be happy to pay for shipping.
posted by luriete at 6:14 PM PST on November 7

Around the same time a photo of the original flyer appeared on an online image sharing community. Others began to create unique and humorous images in reference to the story. The Hopkin saga had taken on a life of its own. A domain name – lostfrog.org – was registered by Harold Ike. Over 100 images are currently posted on the site.

This case is an example of the profound and immediate power of the internet and of blogging in particular.

Blogging began around ten years ago and soon became a popular way for online communities to share ideas and opinions on topics ranging from the mundane to the political. A derivative of online communications such as Usenet, email lists and bulletin board systems, early blogs were mostly in the form of diaries . In these online diaries, the blogger relates details about their life and posts it on a site for anyone to see. Today, blogs come in many variations. There are Political blogs, Cultural blogs, Educational blogs, Business blogs, Topical blogs, Collaborative blogs and the list goes on… Community blogs, such as MetaFilter, invite anyone to comment and lengthy conversations (‘threads’) regularly ensue. Photoblogs are often part of a Personal blog or online diary, where the blogger will take random photos, like Samantha did of Terry’s lost frog flyer, and post it on their site. The http://lostfrog.org/ site is an example of a purely visual blog site. Here, the postings are responsive but not in a written format. The site exists as a mystifying, absurd and amusing phenomenon unless you know the story behind its inception.

So, back to Terry and his poor lost frog, Hopkin. Mike Whybark posts an interesting development to the saga on his website, http://mike.whybark.com. A Seattle resident himself and frequent contributor to MetaFilter, Mike had become intrigued by the lost frog story. After learning (from another blogger on MetaFilter) that the frog was actually a free toy given away by McDonalds, Mike engaged in some investigative journalism. Bravely, he phoned the number on the flyer and, after several attempts, spoke with a David Chen, Terry’s father. David’s revelations were unexpected. Terry, his son, was, in fact, a 16 year-old boy with autism. When his toy frog was lost Terry was devastated. This explains the desperate and forceful tone of the flyer. When Mike offered a version of the toy he had bought on ebay, the father declined, saying the new toy would only stir up bad memories for his sensitive son. Mike had solved the mystery of the missing toy, but the bloggers weren’t satisfied.

Subsequent to Mike’s post on November 22nd 2004 , he received numerous comments on his site:

After thinking about this for a bit, i am annoyed that this couldn't be left as a fun mystery, a bit of absurdity.
Posted by: harold_ikes at November 22, 2004 07:33 PM

I think that it is more than absurdity which allows Hopkin G. Frog to attract us; I think it has something to do with the universal experience of loss… As adults, that loss is comparatively trivial, but as children, it's so powerful. How much more so it must be for Terry, that his father feels it necessary to protect him from the memory of it.
Posted by: onouris at December 3, 2004 02:40 AM

The father is wrong to think that "Terry has forgotten about the frog… I'd bet money that "returning" the frog would please Terry.
Posted by: clarifier at November 23, 2004 10:58 AM

The far-reaching effects of this tiny incident and the subsequent virtual buzz are amazing.

hi, i just want to tell you that Hopkin story came to europe, poland. i'm seating in a small mountain village in south-west of poland and wondering about Hopkin, Terry and whole this story... it's hard to belive how powerful internet is...
Posted by: michal stambulski at December 2, 2004 04:58 PM

The humble blog continues to evolve and develop in new and exciting ways.

Bibliography
Ps. I’ll find my frog, http://lostfrog.org/

Wikipedia – Blog, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog 18 March 2004

Jeff Sharman blog, ‘Lost Pet’ http://www.struat.com/here/002343.php 31 May 2004
and ‘Still Lost’ http://www.struat.com/here/002998.php 8 November 2004, at http://www.beansforbreakfast.com/

Samantha blog 7 September 2003 at, http://www.fotolog.com/gingerly

Mike Whybark blog, ‘Hopkin Saga Unfolds’ 8 November 2004 and ‘Hopkin Explained’ 22 November 2004, at http://mike.whybark.com

MetaFilter, ‘Him Name is Hopkin Green Frog’ 2 November 2004, at http://www.metafilter.com/

MetaFilter, ‘A Ribbeting Story’ 6 November 2004, at http://www.metafilter.com/

Punk princess: overly caffeinated, ‘ps. I’ll find my frog’ 19 June 2005, at http://www.punkprincess.com/

Machinima by Pablo

2006-03-20T14:24:00.000+11:00

Introduction.

Machinima a mix of word texts, cinema and animation, is a flourishing art form where videogame players use characters, scenarios and tools within games to create animated short movies. It’s a way of producing animation in real-time that is exceedingly flexible and cost-effective, and gives the audience a chance to collaborate actively in the creation of content with more possibilities than limitations. Machinima is possibly the easier and cheapest way of creating an animated film.

Definition.

Machinima is filmmaking within real time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video game technologies. In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development. Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence.
By combining the techniques of filmmaking, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a very cost- and time-efficient way to produce films, with a large amount of creative control.

Creating Machinima.

There are basically two ways of producing Machinima. One is that can be driven by script, where everything related to filmmaking as cameras, SFX, characters are scripted for playback in real-time. In this case the scripting is driven by the events, instead of keyframes.

The other way of producing Machinima is that can be recorded in real-time within the virtual environment. The majority of game-specific Machinima pieces are produced in this fashion.

Advantages.

Because Machinima can be shot live in real-time, it is way faster to create that normal CGI animation. For the animation director would be easier, as he wouldn’t have to rely on key frames. Many takes can be made in real-time or just a few depending on the director’s style.

As well instead of rendering frames of animation or video streams, Machinima can be recorded at data level. That means it can be edited at data level, where you can add characters, adjust camera angels and create camera shots, fine-tune the animation. It’s very like doing extra shots without the need of the entire crew.

Machinima gives you:

• the real-time recording of human/scripted performances and events
• the creative flexibility of artistic assets moved over time – akin to animation; allows total control over visual representation of characters, events
• an interactive environment
• Hardware driven playback is resolution independent

Also shooting with Machinima can reduce costs of production. And is a radical departure from the traditional key frame animation process. Animation directors can direct puppeteers as they manipulate the character models in real-time. An action director can relate what happens in real time. It reduces cost by eliminating the time intensive process of software rendering.

Disadvantages.

• Limited capability. because game engines were primarily designed for game-playing, not for making movies, the movie-making capabilities of game engines (and, consequently, the quality of the produced movies) tend to be limited, when compared to 3D animation software used by professionals
• High playback hardware requirements. Unless the entire rendered movie is distributed, in order to play a movie ,the viewer needs the same rendering engine as the one used by the producer, and a computer with capable hardware (to run the movie scripts to view the movie), depending on the complexity of the rendering engine (the game, that is) and movie.

Machinima will eventually become yet one more way to produce visually-based stories.

As Machinima matures, so will its market, its audience, and the tools that define it. However, it's the filmmakers that will ultimately determine its course. Based on the works that have been produced in the last few years (comedies, dramas, music videos, even documentaries), I would say that Machinima is well on the way to becoming its own form of creative expression.

Examples of Machinima.

No License (Short Fuze): A great short made with Battlefield 1942, No License focuses on a well-known international agent. Using pages ripped out of “how to create a great action film”, this team exploits machinima to its fullest, using the characters and environment as if they were shooting a live-action film.

The Journey (Friedrich Kirschner) – Falling into the “art house” machinima category is The Journey, a remarkable machinima film focusing on a lone figure who chooses a different path in life in order to find himself. Friedrich has made a unique machinima piece that looks very unlike the 3D game engine it was created with, Unreal Tournament 2004.

Game On (Game On): This recently-produced machinima short is the first to incorporate machinima with live-action film. Shot entirely in HD, this blend of live-action and machinima tells the tale of Larry, an architect who finds himself in the mix of a video game he has been obsessively playing.

Bibliography.

Ideas Factory Scotland.
http://scotland.ideasfactory.com/film_tv/features/feature56.htm

The Machinima FAQ Page.
http://www.machinima.org/machinima-faq.html#future

Wikipedia Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima

O’Reilly Digital Media
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2004/09/08/machinima.html

G4 Feature. The Wonderful World of Machinima.
http://www.g4tv.com/screensavers/features/49874/The_Wonderful_World_of_Machinima.html

Can blogging be funny? By Andrzej

2006-03-20T13:12:00.000+11:00

According to Wikimedia a blog (defined as a “portmanteau made by contracting the phrase web log”) 1 is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs can focus on a variety of subjects including food, politics, theatre, local news or merely be the lonely ravings of some sad sack from Nebraska who thinks the world needs to find out about how mean the check-out chick was to him that morning.

It is generally accepted that blogs existed from the mid 1990’s and after a slow start the number of blogging sites around the world grew exponentially. For instance the Blogging Software site Xanga, which hosted 100 online diaries in 1997, had grown to over 50,000,000 as at December 2005. 2.

Prior to blogging becoming popular, Internet writers had to direct their rambles to the specific email sites of their recipients, which could be limited if they had no friends or if they did not have their address book handy. With blogging anyone in the world who is interested can view a blogger’s web site. The handy attributes of a blog site are that it allows for easy creation of new pages, filtering of content by either date or subject matter and allowing content from other authors.

Having said all the above the question must remain – are there any blog sites worth reading? Or more specifically, as far as my personal bent is concerned, are there any which are funny or entertaining?

Sadly after many hours of dredging the World Wide Web it appears harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is to find a teaspoon of laughter amongst the veritable series of mountain ranges of dross and dribble.

Searching Google under the title of “Comedy Blogs” I was directed to www.top-blogs.com. This led to a great comedy site “Dumbshit of the week” which highlighted the stupidity of certain members of the human species however it was mere reportage rather than any funny insights. Attached to this site were a number of blogger’s sites including funnyjpm.com and shutuped.com. Funnyjpm seems to specialise in recycling lame and tired old jokes, which should be taken out and shot. Further most jokes require the use of media player applications, which I can’t be bothered downloading just to read a joke. Shut up Ed is a site hosted by some pimply-faced jerk (and I’m being kind) who thinks that puerile, pornographic and paedophiliac jokes are hilarious. Sorry, I don’t.

Given my annoyance with American sites I crossed the Atlantic to Australia’s motherland, home of the Queen of Australia, and birthplace of Monty Python, the Black Adder, Alf Garnett, Steptoe and Son et al –surely they know about funny? I tried www.britlog.com and searched the various offerings under the category humour only to find they were either not funny or did not open at all (in fact 3 out of 4 failed to open).

I next tried the site www.bbc.co.wk./comedy however the blogs on offer were news items from various journos – they were interesting (such as finding out that Issac Hayes has quit South Park because he doesn’t find jokes about scientologists funny or appropriate but reckons jokes about Jews, Christians and Muslims are) but hardly mirthful.

Closer to home I found our very own Melbourne based blogger and fellow screenwriter Ms Fits, who has been revealed to be none other than the grand-daughter of Frank Hardy, Marieke Hardy. She provides the following photo and blurb about herself from her blog site reasonsyouwillhateme.blogspot.com 3:

About Me

ms fits -- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

“ Irritatingly smug 29 year-old television writer who yearns to be Bob Ellis but will settle for Bob Hart. At least he gets free meals. Fat cunt.”

Her site is a cheeky and irreverent view of the world from a woman who doesn’t care what others think of her. As befits the granddaughter of Frank Hardy her diatribes are against the Howard Government in particular and Liberals and conservatives in general. She certainly is provocative and frequently hilarious and occasionally has a Danny Katz like whimsy about her. For instance on the 17/3/2006 she replies to an admirer as follows:

“Anonymous said...

dear ms fits,
do you think it's ok for me to have developed, in the manner of coolsie funster, a debilitating crush and an undying devotion to you even though i've never seen you?
yours sincerely,
hopelessly devoted

That's a lovely thing to write, Anon. Although it could turn out terribly bad for both of us. What if you see me and you are instantly repulsed by my unsightly hunchback and Wendy Harmer-esque cleft palate? You will be awfully disappointed. And how will I feel? Briefly feted and then once again rejected due to my physical hideousness. I will most likely turn to drink and/or free-form jazz. THIS IS A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN.
p.s. call me.”

Ms.Fits sure is good and amazingly prolific (she appears to do about 20 blogs a day mainly in response to reader’s comments) but her political tirades can sometimes be tiresome and if that annoys you I can recommend my favourite site. After much searching I found (or rather blundered upon, since every site screams at you that they are the one real funny site) a vein of gold in the form of comedysoapbox.com. You gotta check it out – a blog site written by stand-up comedians for other stand-up comedians. I mean these guys have to know about funny – if they don’t get a laugh, they don’t eat and have to slink back to their day job as an insolvency CPA or insurance adjuster (the horror).

So far my favourite was Harris Bloom.

On the 15 March 2006 he told the world that he had a marvellous routine about introducing other comics as he hosted an Open Mic at the NY Comedy Club and the various intros he gave to the comedians who were in the wings about to appear. My favourites would have to be:
“ Our first comic eats breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Cubans who are trained to kill him. He is…”
“Goddamit, this next comic uses his tongue purdier than a $20 whore. He is…”
“Our next comic believes there is nothing like a shorn scrotum. Its breathtaking, he suggests you try it. He is…”

Further on the 13 March 2006 he slagged off against his creative writing classmates (I presume past) by using the form of a Japanese haiku poem since he thought they were short and pretty much perfect for insults. Samples are:

Your stories are lame
But they do serve a purpose
No more sleeping pills.

Your story moves me
In an unexpected way
I must throw up now.

Man this is one funny blog site.

Another good thing about the site is that it has some tips on blog etiquette from the editing comedian and comedy world mover and shaker Steve Hofstetter

Please Read Before You Blog
Posted on 11/01/2015 at 07:20 PM

“ It's awesome to see so many people blogging. But I wanted to throw in a few notes about the proccess and etiquette:

1) Please do not blog so soon after you've already blogged (i.e. less than an hour apart). If you think of something else to say, append your earlier blog. Blogging multiple times is kind of a cheap way to get hits.

2) Please post all discussion questions to the messageboard. The blog is read by fans as well. In fact, the majority of people reading the blogs are NOT comedians. That's why the blogs about people's lives (and not careers) get the most hits. (If you want to know what I mean, Adam Sank and Greg Manuel are positive examples).

3) Please blog when you have something to say, not when you want attention. "Guys, what do you think of this joke" is kind of needy. That's up to you if you want to come off that way, but if you just write what you're feeling, your audience will come to you.

We'll eventually be adding a feature where the blogs that make the main page will be hand selected. But until then, please just follow positive blogging etiquette so no one pulls their hair out over this. (No offense to our bald contingent).”4

In summary there is gold out there in blogland but you have to know where to dig. I am not as scathing as the Sydney Morning Herald’s Literary Editor Malcolm Knox who wrote “When was I last moved by something I read on a website?.. when did I last feel renewed by something I read on my phone?” But even he admitted, “The medium is less important than the urge to look at things afresh.” 6. And who would disagree with that?

References:
1. http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog 12/3/2006
2. http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog 12/3/2006
3. http://reasonsyouwillhateme.blogspot.com/
4. http://www.comedysoapbox.com/comedianstemplate.cfm?comedianID=88
5. Melbourne Weekly 15/3/2006 – “The world of log on and blog off.”
6. Sydney Morning Herald 14/1/2006, “Fiction as reality check.”

A FRACTION TOO MUCH FICTION? The Blog Fiction Debate by Lynda

2006-03-20T13:00:00.000+11:00

Remember the diary you kept as a teenager? Or the one you have now? Where you record your most intimate thoughts. Your frustrations. The turbulence of your everyday life.

Imagine publishing your regular diary entries straight onto the internet. Imagine having people all over the globe read your regular entries and give you instantaneous written comment on them. Well, that’s essentially what blogging is.

Now imagine that some comments you receive are accusing you of making your blog up. Or consider the reverse: you have made up all these thoughts and doings in the guise of a fictional character and your readers believe the character is real. In the latter case, you are creating blog fiction - but are you morally obliged to clarify this to your audience?

There is some debate about how many blogs are fact, fiction or a blend of both, and whether a blog’s fictional status should be public knowledge. Let’s track a strand of this debate and watch it arrive full circle.

In an article in 2004, digital writer and commentator Tim Wright observed, “there are only a handful of writers… experimenting with the idea of the fictional blog… (who) have been careful to avoid the accusation that they are deliberately wasting the reader's time”.

Wright links this behaviour to an infamous online hoax. Kaycee, a teenager dying of cancer, kept an online blog of her daily struggle with the disease. When Kaycee’s mother revealed in the blog that Kaycee had succumbed to the disease, there was mass grief and sympathy from the blog’s online readers until some sleuthing by doubting readers revealed Kaycee was not a real person.

In the post-Kaycee era, the definition of “blog fiction” is up for debate, or at least elastic, depending on the blog in question.

Take the example of She's A Flight Risk. The blog opens with:

On March 2, 2003 at 4:12 pm, I disappeared.
My name is isabella v.
I’m twentysomething and I am an international fugitive.
My name is isabella v. But it isn’t.

In his article Wright identifies She’s A Flight Risk as a fictional blog pitching itself as fact. But he argues that because of its fantastical fugitive element we don’t connect to it on the same emotional depth as we would to the blog of a teenage cancer victim: “it is not critical for the reader to know or even wonder whether this person is real or not.”

Wright’s observations have been questioned on Grand Text Auto’s online forum. How can we ever be certain of a blog being fact or fiction? How many fictional blogs are being passed off as reality? It could be thousands. Indeed, as discerning digital users and ever evolving in our scepticism, do we need blogs to declare their fictional status?

In this forum, Wright acknowledged these criticisms. And in an interesting twist he posted:

BTW I’ve been contacted by the author of She’s A Flight Risk to assure me that she’s a real person that that (sic) her blog is not fiction at all. Details of my correspondence with her can be found at the trAce forum.

Isabelle’s initial comment to Wright was:

…it is pretty clear that you haven't bothered to read my diaries (even if you are quite happy to critique them). "...funded by various online share deals..." ? What ever does that mean?…Certainly it bears no resemblance to anything I've ever written. As for failing to make attempts to have people "believe" me- that's not why I write…I do so love how various reviewers constantly call my work "fiction" without even…bothering to contact me…for an interview.
-isa

Wright and Isabelle’s resulting conversation ended amicably. But it seems Isabelle fights a continuing battle to prove to the blog community that she is real. Two years on from her protests to Wright, Blogfic lists She’s A Flight Risk under the heading “Other Blogfic”. In the end, we have to ask ourselves if we should denounce Isabella’s story because we are unsure it is fact or fiction? Or merely enjoy the ride she - or the author - is sharing with us? Perhaps we have to face facts about ourselves as digital consumers. We can convince ourselves of anything without hard, cold facts. That is both the delight and downfall of our own imaginations. Is getting duped by Kaycee’s story any different to being taken in by a convincing chain letter? We have developed scepticism for traditional media – “don’t believe everything you read”. The blog fiction debate is simply a result of us learning to apply this adage to a brave new medium.

Sources and Bibliography

http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=91 accessed 7 March 2006
http://rootnode.org/article.php?sid=26 accessed 11 March 2006
http://shes.aflightrisk.org/ accessed 9, 12, 13, 18 March 2006
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=91 accessed 7 March 2006
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2004/01/29/blog-fiction/ accessed 7 March 2006
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2004/01/29/blog-fiction/ created February 2, 2004, posting by Tim Wright
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=843 created Monday February 02, 2004
http://www.blogfic.com/ accessed 18 March 2006

http://www.blogfic.com/category/defining-blogfic/ created Friday, April 29th, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_fiction last updated 29 January 2006
http://www.google.com.au/ accessed 7, 9, 11-13, 18 March 2006
http://fictionblogs2.blogspot.com/ accessed 9,10 March 2006
http://www.geocities.com/matthewrpratter/ created 29 December 2004
http://reasonsyouwillhateme.blogspot.com/ accessed 7,9 March 2006

More Warholing

2006-03-12T19:41:00.000+11:00

Given that we didn't get very far with the Dandy Warhol exercise -- and that I think most of you are just very confused by all the different methods of doing things (sorry about that) -- I think we'll (mostly) start over again next week. So don't worry about bringing scans... we'll move onto them the week after...

Mail me if you're not sure about your research assignment topic.

Dandy Warhols

2006-02-28T23:23:00.000+11:00

Remember that if you don't bring an image along to warholify on Monday... I'll provide one.

Class exercise: Dandy Warhols

Next Monday

2006-02-21T14:53:00.000+11:00

We will be exploring the wonderful world of image capturing and image formats.

Please bring along some raw material for capturing : black and white line art (eg a drawing or text), a dot-screened colour image (eg a pic from a magazine or book), and an analogue object (e.g vegetation, small object or piece of clothing).

Welcome class of 2006!

2006-02-20T12:09:00.000+11:00

Welcome to the 2006 'Designing for Multimedia' class!

I will be posting updates of the course, its materials and links to any resources here. So check the blog often.

This is also a space for you to communicate with each other. Your assignments will be posted here for peer comment and feedback -- the best kind there is.