MIPCOM 2010 Cross-Media Wrap-up session by Elias Ribeiro

The next MIPCOM happens in Cannes from the 3rd to the 6th of october 2011. It is the world's entertainment market and it is where producers, commissioners, networks, broadcasters, advertisers come together to sell, buy and discuss what is next in the industry. The market also has a rich programme of conferences with the creme de la creme in terms of speakers and avant guard thinking.

This blog post is a summary of what was said on the wrap up session themed Cross-Media. It was presented by Gavin McGary, President of Jumpwire Media.

MIPCOM's blog is written like a newspaper, it is full of videos of the sessions, very worth checking out.

Hot Topics:

APPS

Everyone has an ipad in the industry.
Free X Paid Apps. Most people are paying for their content, which goes against what the industry believed in initially. It is not about ad supported content. 80% of apps being downloaded are paid apps. 10 million ipads have been sold. According to Gavin the ideal solution is a hybrid between ad supported and paid apps.


WEBVIDEO

This new medium must be understood. Everyday you postpone it, you are one day more behind. The way view counts are accounted seem to be the biggest problem. It is necessary to standardize the way it is done so that scientific reliable data will be created. People, as they do with TV, first watch a few seconds of a few different videos before they settle to watch one for longer, hence the average time people spend on one video is being diluted. This gives the impression the audience prefers short form content. When analyzed more empirically, it is noticed that this trend isn't necessarily true. The TV business doesn't want the web to good at long form content, this is what the TV is for.


PIRACY

What pirates are doing is what is going to become mainstream. TV shows are gaining popularity in bit torrent year after year. In 2009 a new milestone was reached by two shows in the top 10, Heroes and Dexter. The number of downloads has exceeded the average viewership on US television. This among other things represents the number of people around the world who could not get access to the shows on TV. Despite the massive piracy there is plenty of opportunities for distributors and broadcasters to win viewers back. The figures show that TV viewing habits are changing. There is enormous interest in on-demand TV and millions of viewers who can potentially bring millions of dollars of revenue. Instead of suing bit torrent, the industry should be considering some sort of collaboration. The fact that content can be found on bit torrent doesn't mean it is performing poorly on TV.

SOCIAL MEDIA

If you don't have a social media strategy, you need one.


BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

Is a big part of what is happening.

TRANSMEDIA

It is still being figured out!

GAMING

There is a big opportunity for producers to move into gaming. For instance there are companies in India make a game a day.  900 to 1500 dollars. They are not the most elaborate games, but their use in a site have proven to double the amount of traffic as well as the amount of time people will spend on your site. Not about building huge giant games. It is about building games that interact with your environment.

Storm Surfers Case Study by Elias Ribeiro

Storm Surfers produced by Firelight and powered by Red Level follows two-time world champion Tom Carroll and big wave tow-in pioneer Ross Clarke-Jones as they hunt down and ride the world’s biggest waves.

The show was originally commissioned by discovery channel, since then it has been translated into multiple platforms. Why? 


To increase ratings for Discovery channel. To create a subscription channel and above all form as much engagement as possible. It is a tricky task, it requires a huge amount of energy and resources to keep talking to an audience. They had to hire webproducer and a freelancer to facilitate the weekly engagement.


Networks such as Facebook have been a huge ally for data mining and collection. As soon as you have a friend, you can look at all of their friends. 9 million Ozzies on FB. They are the nation who spend the biggest avarage of time on FB. Six times more than any other country.


Original package of content was a one hour feature documentary, 6 x 3 minutes micro documentaries, a website, DVD distribution, and they carved out rights for news and current affairs separately  (intentionally to help promote series). 


One million viewers on news story on ABC news, it certainly helped raise finance for the feature. 


They were sponsored Red Bull and Quicksilver.

The website repeats the pitch and the narrative structure of the documentary. The team and crew (heroes), the mission (their goals) and weather (what are their obstacles). The micro documentaries help create the universe around which this story is going to be told. It is important as it starts to give clues on how to turn the doco into a series. They also introduce secondary themes that are explored through the narrative.


The VIP room area. Subscription base. 3000 subscribers, Goal is 10000 subscribers. Photo galery is the most popular thing.


When going for finance pitch, an obstacle is that people still do not know what the internet is. So apart from pitching the story it is important to clarify how and what is going to be done.


Currently Storm Surfers was broadcast to over a million viewers across the world. 190,000 online views from which 130,000 were unique visits data from google analytics. 4.2 million views on TV news publicity. 3.8 million readers on print publicity.

 

Micro documentaries are a completely separate property from the primary property (feature documentary). The latter belongs to Discovery Channel, they sell it to other networks around the world. The producer can exploit the sales of micro documentaries rights separately. Red Lever bought the option in cash to represent Storm Surfers to all-media content to online advertisers. Plus the producer gets 35% of sales before anybody else.

Their goal is to have 10000 FB friends in their group. They have hired a FB specialist to help achieve that. They are concerned about spreading their content too far and would like to draw people back to use their website as the primary space.

There will be 9.5 milion page impressions with expandable banner micro-sites. Each banner with 5 videos, 10 stills, 4 downloadable stills for free and information on the heroes of the show. While downloading you will get the opportunity to also download free ipad, iphone and ipod Storm Surfers app. Anywhere you click on that banner the viewer will be linked to the Storm Surfers Website. This initiative producers expect to generate a million video views. This was largest sale of any of Storm Surfers properties, even  more substantial than television sale. It was achieved in partnership with Red Level.

The apps are used to enlarge engagement with audience. They createded a funny quizz for both ipod, iphone and ipad. There is an extra feature for the ipad app, a link to itunes store where you can download the feature documentary for five dollars. 

A few years back, what one could have done in order to make that diagram look a bit more impressive would be more broadcaster pre-sales. Resulting in reduced investment required from private investors or the government.

To qualify for a rebate the producer must make a one hour documentary with a minimum budget of U$ 250,000 to get 20% rebate. That could be used to borrow money to leverage against, or just make the film and get the rebate.

The main difference fromt he traditional model is the investment component or recoupable component. In other words, the money you have to pay back to people when income comes in, money you are sharing when you get your royalty check. It has been reduced from 50 to 25%. And a big part of that is the online, or all-media pre-sales.

All together very innovative and promising business model. This article was written based on Marcus Gillezeau's from Firelight presentation at Transmedia Victoria in January 2011.

Resonance Case Study by Elias Ribeiro

Resonance is a 6 x 60 mins sci-fi drama. They plan to use the web for main distribution. The reason being they want to keep creative control and not have to compromise to fit into a networks grade, having to cater to a specific demographic. They want their audience to dictate where the show is going. They will make use of data mining to monitor who is watching the series and always keep that in mind when creating new content.

It is their objective to launch in multiple platforms, such as Episodic Video ( online distribution is their number one goal ) ARG (alternate reality games), animation, graphic novels and music.

The idea is to host story conferences once the bulk of the storyline is stablished. Every narrative needs structure in order to work. Once that is achieved they will open up for audience input. Viewers will be given a set of rules and asserts (eg. locations, characters, objects)  so they can then help weave the story, hence contributing to the narrative.

Resonance creators want to explore the so talked about transmedia approach and have encountered some challenges. The fact they want an open dialogue with the audience makes the legalities of Intellectual Property much more complicated.  Being a totally independent initiative it is hard to be able to afford the legal fees to draw up contracts and consequently get private equity in place.

They are looking at different ways to monetize their concept. Private equity, pre-sales, get sponsorship by a brand and the most promising of all in this new universe of abundance rather than scarcity: micro payments by vast audience.

It is observed that currently all successful transmedia enterprises are either brand or broadcast funded. That paradigm needs to be broken. Power to the people! Producers need to find a way to be earning their money independently, eliminating the gate keepers from this equation. This is the whole point of this revolution!

Another new concept that differs from the past linear distribution model is: launch early, change quickly. The web gives us the chance to get feedback from audience fast and it is important to take that feedback into consideration, listen to your fan base and make the changes to satisfy your viewer.

A good example of data mining, which is part of their strategy: Jamiroquai is planning his world tour based on his Facebook fan page. Territories with the biggest amount of fans are getting prioritized for concerts. Digital distribution and marketing arms producers with all the data you need, and you can do a qualitative campaign instead of quantitative one. By that i mean instead of targeting 1000 people to reach 5, with the information you have you can target the right audience for your IP. You can probably target 10 of the right prospective people to reach the same 5. The conversion rate is much greater.

Please check out their website to watch a trailer and learn more about their project.

Transmedia Producer X Creative Producer in a Transmedia World by Elias Ribeiro

The more I read about the topic, the more intrigued I am by it. But one thing I am sure off. My passion is for filmmaking, telling compelling stories, in other words i do not intend to become solely a transmedia producer.

What I am concerned about is how this new trend affects the job of a Creative Producer. What needs to come into place in my mindset while developing a new concept or intellectual property. I believe i found some great advice on Kendall Allen's article for Online Spin

Laura Michalchysyn, president and general manager, Discovery Communications' Planet Green and formerly from Sundance Channel, where she is credited with doubling original programming hours and tripling the number of programming hours on the network overall. She highlights how different things are becoming for producers. The minimum point of entry for getting into this playground is unchained imagination and integrated perspective. These are questions Michalchysyn will ask at a pitch:

How does this story tell across channels? 

How does talent play a part channel by channel? 

What specifically is the digital extension, and how does it work? 

What kind of relationships do you bring that we can harness? 

What is the community play? How do we enroll the people?

Kendall Allen serves as a vice president for Laredo Group, where she trains and consults with executives on digital marketing and media. She is also vice president of the board of directors for 212NYC.org. She believes the producer has always had a heavy role, embodying strategy, execution and an extraordinary accountability for not only outcome, but for finesse start to finish. Because this role is so pivotal, a more channel-inclusive scope is a good thing. The consumer marketplace has been calling for cross-platform play for a while. Brands are stepping up and empowering those who    produce with the bigger picture in mind.

1. Experiential goes digital. Events producers and those in the trenches on experiential programs are increasingly embracing digital tools and applications for data capture. Sure, this has an engineering bent -- from more advanced kiosks to the integration of sleeker, more useful hand-held devices. But, there is an acknowledgment that data dexterity is what truly fuels the quality and scale of these networks. This backbone in turn strengthens the marketing opportunity. We finally have gotten beyond believing that capturing a visitor's email on a clipboard at an event counts as ROI. More robust data capture, mobile executions and crossmedia play have gotten this realm closer to where it needs to be to work hand in hand with social networking and conversational marketing.

2. Blooming producers. A trend more apparent to most of us is the transition within traditional: the traditional marketing strategist or media maven who is not only asked more often to consider the digital extension, but to really flesh out cross-platform story-telling. The call is for characters, a story, a conversation, channel by channel. In fact, even those already digitally inclined are in effect being asked to be producers as much as strategists and planners.

3. Multimedia is less awkward. Quality increases as TV producers and Web developers and producers collaborate, with multimedia becoming more of a reality, and stories brought across platforms. The intersection of multimedia and Web brings a higher level of polish. So we trust that we will see less and less of, "let's just slap the commercial up on the Web."

A Creative Producer is highly involved in the conceptualization and shaping of a script. Therefore he is able to make practical decisions and ensure the portability to transmedia platforms is a creative execution. Hence it is crucial to listen to your team. If a specialist brings something to your attention, the producer should evaluate the issue and decide on what route to take in order to make the best out of that situation. Be it technical, conceptual or  economical, it is the producer's responsibility to insure the final product is ready for today's needs.

Jeff Gomez inspired Transmedia by Elias Ribeiro

After listening to great interview with Jeff Gomez on "Transmedia Talk Podcast" by "Culture Hacker", episode 13, I felt very inspired. Bellow are some amazing insights by this very knowledgable guru. He runs Starlight Runner, one of the leading companies in multi platform story telling out there. They are based in NYC and have helped Intellectual Properties such as Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dungeons and Dragons and also Coca Cola among many others to come up with their strategy on transmedia expansion.

I'm going to start with the end of the podcast, which shows very practically that transmedia isn't just a fad, nor that it is a geeks game. It is not going to go anywhere, anytime soon... It is here to stay!

According to Jeff, large media conglomerates around the globe are building transmedia engines within the conglomerate to allow for Intellectual Properties to be developed for a transmedia implementation. That includes Rede Globo in Brazil as well as Televisa in Mexico. Both networks believe this will expand their advertising possibilities as well as re-capture some of the audience who slipped away, moving on to the internet and mobile.

Brazil's economy is booming and it became a profitable and stable over the past few years. They are decided to get ahead of the transmedia curve and become specialists. In Brazil it is a little easier to break paradigms. They are more open to change as there isn't a very strong built in legacy culture. The same is observed in Australia, China and one should ask, why not in South Africa?

The US government is issuing grants for transmedia research and education. 

There are many non-profit organizations and corporations with the budget and content to go on a transmedia expansion. There are not enough professionals available. The few specialists are hovering around Hollywood, entertainment and advertising industries. There are only 3 dozens of transmedia producers registered with the Producer's Guild of America.

Another very important point Jeff makes is that transmedia much more than ARG (alternate reality games). It is about audience participation, the possibility to communicate with characters online, to offer their audiences the opportunity to “live the lifestyle” of the show, providing them with rich content accessible across an array of media distribution channels. It is about connecting story lines between comics, video and blogs.

Transmedia is also not the only way forward. Each media platform in itself can create and tell fantastic stories, as it has been done over the years.  It is just an extra option, a new way of doing things and it should be seen as an opportunity to maximize revenues and form a loyal fan base with a desire to share the experience. Moreover, it is a bigger canvas for visionaries to create their worlds in.

The first time a multi platform expansion was made was in the 1960's with Japanese Manga. They turned it into TV shows, feature films and toys. Their stories where compelling enough to their audience to make them want to chase and collect it.

A transmedia implementation is a multi step process. The first step is to analyze the Intellectual Property in order to identify strengths and weaknesses. Once those barriers are identified it is important to find a way to minimize or remove them. This is called incubation.

The second step is the development of the mythology. That involves deep brand analyses .  The next step is production. It is very extensive on the scope of the Intellectual Property as it must accommodate hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of content. That makes it a very expensive process.

The 4^th and last step is a very crucial one, the roll off. Only a Transmedia specialist can implement it in order to maximize the potential of the intellectual property, and make it robust enough to be expandable into multiple platforms. That link is necessary to enable the dialogue between audience and your Intellectual Property.

One of the biggest challenges one faces in transmedia is the legal aspect. The contracts sometimes take 6 to 8 months to be drawn, before all parts involved feel happy about it. The reason being is that this is all so new. There are very few precedents.

Another challenge is that most of the times one is working directly with the creator of an Intellectual Property. They are not necessarily transmedia literate.  It takes time to earn their trust and be allowed to make changes to their concept in order to make it transmedia friendly.

There has been a shift in the dynamics of how transmedia professionals are perceived. They are no longer an adjunct of the marketing department. They have become integral part of the development process. That certainly avoids blockages to transmedia expansion and implamentation.

Localization is the implementation of a transmedia strategy internationally. It must take into account local culture, language among other things.

Jeff believes that a well-planned and executed implementation should not compromise the narrative or dilute it. The opposite, it should only make it more solid and that universe more interesting. He also points out that you can tap into different demographics and markets by making use of different mediums.

Starlight Runner has 10 to 12 in house professionals. They are very selective about what work they take on as they deal with large implementations and a lot of costumization. They have an editorial as well as a production team. They are leading creators and producers of highly successful transmedia franchises. The entertainment industry, the advertising industry and consumer product corporations call upon them to maximize the value of entertainment properties and leading brands by extending their narratives and preparing them to be accessed through an array of media touch points. 

Convergence Culture by Elias Ribeiro

Transmedia is here to stay.  Convergence culture has been weaving into our everyday lives. In the course of one day, most citizens of our postmodern world will be transiting, communicating, watching, blogging, tweeting, facebooking, through a variety of mediums and medias. 


Have you looked around your living room lately? The amount of black boxes laying around? It is a TV, a DVD player, a satellite receiver, a game console, a sound system, 4 or 5 remote controls and the "i"s. iphone, ipad, itv, imac... This is a clear reflection of how incompatible and dysfunctional different media technologies are. Will there be one black box in the future that does everything? Would that mean convergence maturity? The answer is no, convergence is about the content and not about the hardware.


"Thanks to the proliferation of channels and the portability of new computing and telecommunications technologies, we are entering an era where media will be everywhere... Ready or not we are living within a convergence culture." (Jenkins, 2006, p.16).


Apart from using our phones as communication devices we also use it to play games, watch videos, take and send pictures as well as videos or even to watch a live rock concert from a remote location. You can listen to that same concert through your radio in the car, your DVD player at home, at your computer through a web radio, your ipod, or a good old walkman. 


According to Jenkins (2006: 2) convergence is the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kind of entertainment experiences they want. 


A student nowadays will digitize an image through a scanner, email it to his classmate, who will then ad some text to it. Then he will print a poster for the classroom presentation or even just bring it to school in a flash drive, plug it to the PC and project it. The same way a follower of a TV series will tweet about the last episode, post an exclusive webvideo on his facebook wall. He will then access the director's blog or play the RPG game that the network developed along with the series to help expand on the different ways the story can be told and how that universe can be explored in order to form a loyal fan base.


Jeff Gomez (2010), responsible for the "transmedialization" of the likes of Avatar, Tron, Coca-Cola, Pirates of the Caribean and Dungeons and Draggons states: "Transmedia narratives invite dialog with the audience. Technology allows producers to remain in listening with our viewers, our participants, allowing them to express themselves and allowing us to act on that expression. The possibilities are gorgeous."


Producers who fail to embrace this new participatory culture will be challenged by declining audience and shrunk revenues. " The resulting struggles and compromises will define the public culture of the future" (Jenkins, 2008, p. 24).


This text was inspired by amazing book by  Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture - Where Old and New Media Collide. New York and London: 2006


On the video bellow, see how Heroes made use of transmedia story telling in order to consolidate the series as one of the biggest phenomena's of today.

Looking to produce cross-media content? Here are 10 THINGS TO REMEMBER.

1. PICK YOUR SPOT
Not every film / TV project needs an interactive game, original webisodes, extended interviews, director’s blog, a mobile app, mash-up tools, user-generated content, podcasts, online chats, screensavers. Avoid spreading yourself thinly across multiple platforms and play to the strengths of your project: one thing done very well is usually better for your audiences and for your budget.
2. INVOLVE THE AUDIENCE
Capitalize on the unique opportunity to engage audiences more deeply through forms of interactivity – non-linear narratives, customization of content, remixing and sharing tools, community-building features that increase dialogue and discussion.
3. PEOPLE CONNECT WITH PEOPLE
Digital or otherwise, audiences connect with stories through people. The more you work to humanize and add emotion to digital programming, the more you’ll connect with audiences. Avoid over-focusing on the details of specific technologies at the expense of injecting personality and creativity into your content. A blog is nothing without a blogger.
4. DISTRIBUTION AS DESTINATION
Let your audience put your content in front of other audiences. Make it pluckable, shareable, embeddable, likable and mobile. They will seed their networks with your stories, increase reach and impact, and in the end deliver even more people to your content.
5. THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Notions of development, production, and post-production do not accurately define the realities of digital production. Putting your content online or on a mobile device is only the beginning of your relationship with your audience, not the end. Where you take it from there is up to you, your audience and your budget. Just remember: in a world of bandwidth and moderation costs, success can be expensive.

6. TAILOR PRODUCTION VALUES TO CONTEXT
Do your business and your audience a favour: don’t apply film or TV production budgeting to digital programming. Think about the platform, the delivery device and the mind-set of the audience, and then take advantage of lower-cost digital production technologies.
7. PAY ATTENTION TO MARKETERS
The most innovative and engaging programming happening in the digital medium today is being led by marketers and interactive ad agencies. Their work has a lot to teach us about the possibilities for telling stories and growing audiences in the digital space.
8. TELL THE WHOLE STORY
Or at least a digital version of the whole story. You can’t assume people who visit your website or install your app have seen – or will ever see – your film or TV program. Don’t miss an opportunity to fully engage your audiences creatively, no matter when and where you find them.
9. MEASURE AND REPORT METICULOUSLY
The only way to improve on what you’re doing today is to know if your content is being used at all. Unique visitors, time on site, app installs and uninstalls: establish your measures for success before launch and be honest about reporting back results. It’s not necessarily how many people experience your story, it’s how many of the right people do.
10. STAY IN THE GAME
Avoid bleeding edge. Focus on content that you think can deliver value. And as you step outside a tried-and-true creative process, be willing to get it wrong a few times before you get it right.

National Fim Board of Canada, Website. http://interactive.nfb.ca/10things.pdf. 18 February 2011