Girls In Tech

Being a digital strategist and content producer working in Entertainment Media, I constantly find myself in LA for business. During my visits I am continuously impressed by the limitless number of film events taking place on any given night of the week. And I think, “Of course, it’s Hollywood”, but a part of me always wonders why San Francisco couldn’t do the same since we are on the forefront of using emerging technologies as a narrative platform in game and content development.

Last week, while covering Digital Hollywood in Santa Monica (more posts on this event later), I was thrilled to learn about a new film event, The 2010 New Media Film Festival featuring The Best in New Media Storytelling: What’s New, What’s Next, taking place this week-end, November 5-6 at the VizCinema (1746 Post St, cross street Geary Blvd) in San Francisco.

Why am I excited about this? It’s a quintessential San Francisco style event that focuses on the innovative use of technology in the art of storytelling and showcases creators from outside and within the Bay Area. Furthermore The New Media Film Festival premiered in Los Angeles in June 2010 with great success enabling the producers to bring this same event to San Francisco with an expanded forum and line up of industry executives & content creators. Last the event is produced with support from both LA and SF creative organizations — the Producers Guild of America, NATPE, IAWTV and San Francisco Writers Conference, San Francisco Film Commission & San Francisco Film Society.

The New Media Film Festival brings together Industry Professionals and Content Creators across Film, TV, Games, Publishing, Mobile, Web and Tech for two days of dynamic programming including panel discussions, Q&A, networking, mini-workshops, demos, and film screenings from Sundance, Cannes, Los Angeles and World Premieres as well as the best local SF Bay Area talent working in new media in these categories: Web Series, Shot on RED, Animation, Documentary, Feature, SRC-Socially Responsible Content.

SESSIONS INCLUDE:

• New Dialogue, Voices & Avenues and Finding Where You Fit In
• Challenges & Victories of Producing Content That Can Change the World
• Television Academy of Arts & Sciences Presents: The Future of TV
• Monetizing The Crowd: Crowd Sourcing, Crowd Funding & Fan Building
• Storytellers & Coders Unite: Creating Content for Mobile, ePublishing, iApps, iPad, Games, Interactive TV & Web

In addition, attendees will get the opportunity to meet and speak with:

• Award winning game, film, book, show, web series & app creators such as Will Wright, Creator of Bar Karma on Current TV and original designer for “The Sims” games series which, as of 2009, is the best-selling PC game in history and Jaime Wilkinson, Producer, “Star Wars: Uncut” (2010 Primetime Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media – Fiction).
• Panelists from the Producers Guild of America-Northwest (PGA-NW), Writers Guild of America (WGA), IndieGoGo, San Francisco Film Society, Red Planet Studios, Movieset.com, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, TV.com, Code and Theory, Creative Convergence, Select Services Films Inc., Larsen Pomada Literary Agency, Manic D Press, Red Wheel/Weiser Books/Conari Press, Women’s National Book Association SF Chapter, AuthorsTeam, Credit the Edit, Flingo.tv, Unity Technology, Babelgum.com, Sharethrough, Tongal, Motorola, Magnicode and more!

Event Details:

Register: http://bit.ly/newmediaff
Location: VizCinema at 1746 Post St. (at Geary) in SF
Dates: Friday, Nov 5 & Saturday, Nov 6
Time: 9AM – 7PM & 7PM – Midnight
Website: www.newmediafilmfestival.com
Program Details: http://www.newmediafilmfestival.com/newmediatickets.php

It’s not too late to get tickets to this event. Visit, http://www.eventbrite.com/event/871483631 to purchase your tickets. As an added bonus, The New Media Film Festival is offering Girls in Tech readers a 30% discount off any of the passes using discount code goldengate30.

See you there!

Tags: Cross Platform Storytelling, Digital Content, Film, Film Festival, Hollywood, Narrative platforms, new media, Transmedia
Posted in All Chapters | 4 Comments »

Well, as more grim Economic data appears with rising unemployment rates, furor over bailout funds, increasing jobless claims and more, it looks as though Hollywood is still providing the best escape for Americans who are looking to forget their problems by heading to the multiplexes.  Audiences are crowding theaters for films that provide easy laughs such as “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” which has sold over $163 in worldwide ticket sales or action-packed fare such as “Fast and the Furious,” which broke box office records for Universal Pictures this past weekend with a $72.5 million opening.

Hollywood did grow the most during the Great Depression of the 1930’s where audiences went to escape their everyday worries.  But we’re in a different time now as audiences now have interactive Entertainment from Rock Band/Guitar Hero, social networking sites, and youtube to satisfy their Entertainment needs.  Though all the Big Networks have added full episodes of their popular shows to their websites, one particular website, Hulu.com, has been growing steadily in viewership and even using TV advertising as a way of saying, “We’re taking over.”

Though Ad revenues are down and cost-cutting is the new reality, everyone is still looking to see where all the eyeballs are headed.  Paid Content recently reported that Hulu and Disney are in negotiations to sign on as a partner along with NBC Universal and News Corp. And the truth of the matter is that eyeballs and thus traffic will go where there is quality content. 

But in terms of finding the perfect Hollywood revenue model for the Internet, no one knows the answer yet, so what happens next?  You try new things.  Enter “Section 8, “ a new made-for-Internet series that Paramount Digital Entertainment and Gaumont are making, which will premiere on Myspace.  The show will have an interactive element and viewers will be able to vote on the outcome of the series.

For right now here in Hollywood, no one has the answer yet on how to game the Internet.  But one thing is more certain than not, just like in the classic film, “Field of Dreams,” if you build it, they will come.  If you create a site that has the content that your audience values, you will have a loyal following.

Tags: Box Office, Disney, Hollywood, hulu, Internet, Section 8, web
Posted in Los Angeles | No Comments »