Zombie v.s. Shark

Polish low-tech reactable

This is a low tech version of the reactable. Imagine having it at a bar... soo good.

Crowd sourcing... and more

Just read an article by Lance Weiler in Filmmaker magazine. The article is about crowd sourcing in the filmindustry and is called "WHEN THE AUDIENCE TAKES CONTROL" The article focuses on building an audience and lists 6 good tools for doing just that.

Interesting, yes but I believe there is something much bigger than free web-based communication tools to think about here.

...fan-based productions in the sci-fi genre is generally frowned upon and the people involved are treated badly...

- by the filmindustry (Lucasfilm seem more worried about the copyright infringement than about supporting their fans.)
- by the filmfestivals (as they can't charge an entry fee they won't show fan-productions)
- by the filmschools (who don't even mention them)
- by the critics and media (who rarely mention them)

...well, some of the fan-productions are really crap but, proffessional soccerplayers don't treat amateurs like crap and neither should the pro's in film. Based on the same idea I think the government should start investigating how to support amateur filmmakers. What I am talking about here is of course pro-ams.

Download and read the full report on Pro-ams from Demos: The pro-am revolution - How enthusiasts are changing our economy and society by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller.

The-eXperience: Stockholm (Round2)

For a while I've been talking to Jens at Roskilde eSport to bring The eXperience to Stockholm. I had seen pictures from last years' event, this year they had an awesome trailer and the event was a success. Would be soo cool to bring them to Botkyrka.

The question is: Can Scandinavian esport get to where it is in South Korea?

www.thefinalcollective.com

Just found this futuristic appocalyptic marketing campaign for... eh?

Someone, please tell me what this is.

DIY-Vampires

Ok, I admit. I am totally hooked on these films and filmmakers that keep finding alternative ways to finance, produce and distribute their work. Here is the teaser for the swedish film "Vampyrer" by Peter Pontikis that was made without support from the Swedish Film Institute.

Intelligent job advertisment (swedish only... sorry)

Today I went out to buy myself a pair of shoes and met Johanna in the shoe store. She had her office in the back room and I got some good perk while she checked her e-mails. In her inbox she had one of the better Wanted/Job Ads I've read in a long time. The booking agency (and label?) Monstera managed to skip all the standard clichés and instead gave the add a tone that people-like-us can relate too...

Hej.

Monstera ska tillsätta ytterligare en bokare/agent-tjänst. Tjänsten är under provanställning/inskolning(om det behövs) 60-80% med fast ingångslön och efter förlängning tänkt som en 100%are.

Vi söker dig som: framför allt har några av nedan nämnda egenskaper, eller känner igen någon av situationerna

kör en framgångsrik pop/dans-klubb och sett hur man arrangerar fester och hur turnélivet kan te sig för ett band/djs och vill kunna sluta på ditt extrakneg

skriver spaltmeter om innovativa remixar av artister från Lautzenhausen för någon nördig webbsida och surar över journlisttjänsten du blivit utlasad från

sitter på något bokningsbolag/produktionsbolag men ledsnat på att jobba med ointressanta gamla rockband, kanske är trött på dina arbetskamrater eller helt enkelt inte tjänar tillräckligt med pengar motsvarande din fantastiska kreativitet

jobbat på något skivbolag och känner till alla intressanta internationella och svenska artister inom dans & elektropop-scenen. Men blivit nedskuren och fått kicken eftersom du inte är över 40 och blev anställd innan mp3-filen dök upp

drivit ditt eget lilla bokningsbolag som vi inte känner till för att vi blivit insnöade och arroganta, men du vill komma vidare och kunna tjäna riktiga pengar

Sedan måste du vara avslappnad, lite av en arbetsnarkoman, inte vara rädd för att ringa främmande folk hela dagarna och vara skön att hänga med. Gilla att gå ut på klubb och kika på dina artister och gilla att resa runt i världen på möten, töntiga branschmässor och softa festivaler med jämna mellanrum. Vi sitter i Stockholm, och det gör du med om du jobbar här.

Hör av dig till: info@monstera.se

Vi ses!
monstera

Not only did I manage to find this great ad to pass onto my friends but I also found a good pair of shoes.

...and the job?

- Well sure, I like music but... It ain't me babe.

Pro-ams & Gatekeeper development

The coverage of Star Wars Revelations on MSNBC Live gives a good idea of what a fan-based project can be today and how it works.

There are many terms used for the growing group of people that in an economic sense are amateurs but pursue something to a professional standard, be it programming, filmmaking or city planing. In the book "The pro-am revolution" published by DEMOS, Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller describes the term "pro-am":

Pro-Ams - people pursuing amateur activities to professional standards - are an increasingly important part of our society and economy. For Pro-Ams, leisure is not passive consumerism but active and participatory, it involves the deployment of publicly accredited knowledge and skills, often built up over a long career, which has involved sacrifices and frustrations. The 20th century witnessed the rise of professionals in medicine, science, education, and politics. In one field after another, amateurs and their ramshackle organizations were driven out by people who knew what they were doing and had certificates to prove it. The Pro-Am Revolution argues this historic shift is reversing. We're witnessing the flowering of Pro-Am, bottom-up self-organisation and the crude, all or nothing, categories of professional or amateur will need to be rethought. Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse range of Pro-Ams and containing new data about the extent of Pro-Am activity in the UK, this report proposes new policies to support and encourage valuable Pro-Am activity.

The latest partner joining forces in the Scandinavian Sci-Fi mega-project "Gatekeeper" is the crew behind the pro-am production "Star Wars: Threads of Destiny". Thomas Dahl from the 4Fathers has made their new poster.

In "The Making of Star wars: Threads of Destiny" you get a feeling of how the global collaboration works. The clip features many of the 3D-artists who have now agreed to join the Scandinavian Sci-Fi mega-project Gatekeeper - The Nexus.

Star Trek: Phase II (aka "New Voyages"), the biggest Fanbased Star Trek production with a large number of professional actors in supporting roles has agreed to supply the gatekeeperproject with actors.

Iron Sky: Latest News from the production...

The team working with the film Iron Sky has a great way to involve their fans. Every now and then they release a video where they inform the world about the project.

In the second issue of Iron Sky news Mariel, Timo and Samuli gives the latest news:
- Wanted: a production designer
- Casting has started
- Remixpack of the teaser is released (can be downloaded from www.ironsky.net)
- A challenge for fans
...and the field report.



It is absoluteley brilliant how they go to all the events where their fans are - gaming and computer festivals, film festivals and roleplaying events. I am sure it will pay off. They are really connecting with their subculture to create and distribute, this is exactly what books like "The long tail" and "The pro-am revolution" is about.

I really believe in their way of making films and will definently invite them to lecture on alternative production, alternative financing and eventually alternative distribution.

Life, self organization and feedback

I am currently exploring the field of feedback. What it is and how it is done in a good way. Along the way I have met with a large number of definitions and method discussions.

First I was a bit bored with all the technical descriptions of feedback such as this one:



In writing it would be expressed like this:

Feedback is a process whereby some proportion of the output signal of a system is passed (fed back) to the input. This is often used to control the dynamic behavior of the system. Examples of feedback can be found in most complex systems, such as engineering, architecture, economics, thermodynamics, and biology.

A really interesting discovery is that feedback in engineering (such as a video feedback loop)renders fractal patterns very similar to fractal patterns in biology.

Feedback is at the core of all dynamic systems, that is systems that can deal with both change and growth. I have been very inspired by the work of Margaret Wheatley and her study of life and living systems as an ideal for how people can organize.

I have not been able to express the link between life and feedback but when I saw the fractal patterns on the videos that were generated through feedback loops, and recognized them from the fractals in nature (and Meg Wheatleys books)I felt I was on to something. Eventually, after reading a bunch of wikipedia entries I found a cybernetic definition of life focusing on feedback.

A definition of life (a living individual) in cybernetic terms is proposed. In this formulation, life (a living individual) is defined as a network of inferior negative feedbacks (regulatory mechanisms) subordinated to (being at service of) a superior positive feedback (potential of expansion).

and eventually I was spot on...

Leary argues that feedback (i.e., self-reference) in cybernetic organization leads to "fractal forms." What is a fractal form? The term "fractal" (coined by chaos mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot) is used to describe "a shape whose details resemble the whole thing.

This link between Life, living systems, self organization and feedback is a great discovery for me which I intend to explore further.