!F Lab will not happen this year. The training programme that I started in 2015 with the collaboration of innovation agency iDrops, the creative help of Mike Robbins and the financial support of Creative Europe[1], has not obtained the necessary EU funding to continue its activity. This is partially due to the fact that we had proposed to transform it …
A few personal reflections before hosting a panel on methodologies of production at i-Docs 2018 (21-23 of March, Bristol). Our application to the IF Lab 2018 workshop, a training in interactive storytelling, is opened till mid February. But why should you apply? What is !F Lab, and what are we trying to do? While I am waiting for challenging and inquisitive …
Every year, Sheffield welcomes la crème de la crème of the documentary world to its Doc/Fest – digital factual included. So for the past ten years, it has been a handy way for me to sense the evolution of the interactive factual market and reflect on where it might go next. This year I could only go for one day and …
When directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney were working on their documentary Notes on Blindness, their attention was on finding a filming style that could convey the deepest emotions sensed in John Hull’s voice – a professor of religious education at Birmingham University that went blind in 1983 and spent much of a decade recording his journal on tape as …
I have just returned from the Doc Tank Laboratory in Prague, where I was invited to mentor 5 interactive projects and lead them from concept to pitch in 4 days. Luckily enough, organizer Miriam Ryndová had lined up a great team of experts: William Uricchio (MIT Open Doc Lab), Arnau Gifreu (Transmedia Expert), Suzanna Lotz (Transmedia Expert), Bruno Choiniere (Akufen Studio), John MacFarlane (POV Digital). Christian Popp (Zuzu Productions) and Arjanne Laan (William de Kooning …
As we are launching a brand new MA/lab in digital and interactive storytelling (disLAB) at Westminster University, we have been internally debating which are the essential skills that the next generation of storytellers will need in order to succeed in our digital media landscape. The disLAB team, Dr David Dunkley Gyimah, Dr Massimiliano Fusari and myself, are having weekly brainstorms to map out the core values …
Launched on the 4th of October by Al Jazeera, #Hacked is a web app that invites users to investigative a deadly cyber war in Syria, while the clock is ticking. Through mobile interviews, internet searches, and investigations, users need to un-tangle a network of cyber criminals without having their own phones hacked. Designed for mobile and tablets, but also playable …
Al Jazeera English launches a mobile game about the Syrian cyberwar: #HACKED – Syria’s Electronic Armies. Learning from her experience while producing Pirate Fishing in 2012, Juliana Ruhfus, senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s People & Power investigative and current affairs strand, has decided to go mobile for her second interactive investigation. Pushing the boundaries of traditional journalism, #HACKED is Al Jazeera’s latest experiment …
It is amazing how much one can learn in 5 days. I am just back from Santiago del Chile, where I spent 5 days far from “other things to do” and free to listen, observe, absorb and let connections happen. Mike Robbins and myself were invited by Maria Court (remember The Quipu Project?), Enrique Rivera (Director of the Media Art …
Just when you thought that European countries are not investing enough in interactive content, Domenico La Porta, Head of Transmedia at Wallimage and Director of the R/O Institute, announces that the R/O Institute will open the doors in October in Charleroi (Belgium), and offer a free 6 to 9 months immersive training to selected transmedia projects. An accelerator for interactive stories at our …
If you have worked in film/tv production you will know that the industry sourcebook is your bible: this is the place you go to to find where to hire your equipment, what is the date of the next film festival and how to get to the freelancers you need in your team. Now… we don’t have an i-doc sourcebook – is this a problem? …
VR and 360 video projects have dominated the festival landscape this year, and small and big players want to catch the train while they can. Similar to the effect of The arrival of a train at La Ciotat (1895), the illusion of “being there” is associated with a wave of enthusiasm. Immersion and empathy are the new keywords, and the hope …
I was at IDFA DocLab earlier in the week and my head is still spinning with VR experiences that showed me the limit between the so called 2D “screen media” and the 3D “immersive media”. I have to admit: I find it difficult to get my own prospective on this change of canvas. What is this extra 3rd dimension adding …
Digital Me is now live on BBC Taster. By entering it, you start a conversation with your digital alter ego in the world wide web. The entity that you have been building since you started your online social live is now somehow alive and wants to meet you. What can it tell you about yourself? Will your perception of yourself be influenced by this …
When stories go interactive it is not only the story that gets fragmented, but the whole production process that needs to accept a new redistribution of roles and creative responsibilities. We now have to include some crucial new players: the designers, the creative technologists, the coders, of course, but also the users – which are now active members of this living new …
