If you are happy with what you are seeing on TV, or at the movie theater, or even on YouTube, then I encourage you to sit back, do nothing and trash this email.  If you have more questions, email me.

It is surprising that Google is taking this apparently anti-“Net Neutrality” position considering their previously stated position, and recent endorsement of the FCC’s Third Way policy. I personally believe the Verizon deal is a real and direct threat to the future of the open Internet.  While it may seem like innocent pricing practices (“simply pay more to get more  bandwidth”), it is really another way that providers with more cash will be able to “get above the noise” and provide faster-loading content that will squeeze out everyone else, discouraging independent creators/providers, limiting competition, and reducing consumer choice.

It is no coincidence that this development comes at a time when traditional media distribution channels are being challenged by the open and nearly universal access that the Internet provides to everyone. 

If you are inspired and encouraged by the prospect of more independent storytellers finding a viable and sustainable opportunity to be heard around the world, then I encourage you to take a stand here, and to start by signing the Moveon petition below.  I’ve included some links to the current press/blog reports/commentary, and some background information as well.

Here’s the Moveon link:

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?r_by=22383-315774-Xeqc8Rx&rc=mailto

Net Neutrality FAQ: http://www.savetheinternet.com/frequently-asked-questions?gclid=CMXdhLfpp6MCFRL4iAodKjU64A

NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/technology/05secret.html

HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40668.html

I spent the last 12 days of October in China as a guest of the Animaiton School at Communications University of China (C.U.C.), participating on the short film jury of their 4th annual AniWow International Student Film Festival, conducting a master class for students on the digital pipeline, and addressing a forum they organized on media education.

Additionally, they asked me to deliver a short speech at the opening ceremony of the Festival, and I thought I would post it below:

I have been asked to briefly say a few words on behalf of my fellow visitors, and thought I would take this opportunity to say a little bit about the future.  The young filmmakers whose works we are going to see this week are about to enter a vastly different world from the one that many of us here entered a generation ago.

It is no surprise to anyone in this room that we are in the midst of a seismic shift in the art, practice and business of media and entertainment.  These changes are greater than any previous evolutionary transition that we have witnessed before, whether it was the advent of sound, color, television or home entertainment. 

Many of us are looking at these developments and trying to make sense of them.  In service to furthering our ongoing conversation, and our unfolding understanding, I would offer today for your consideration three new paradigms from which to contemplate this new era.

First, rather than thinking in terms of Movies, TV, Video or the Internet, I would suggest we think in terms of Platforms and Screens. Platforms and Screens shift the perspective away from that of the Content Provider (the Broadcaster, Producer or Distributor), to looking at media from the experience of the End User: the consumer of content.  From this perspective, we are receiving content in a number of different hardware and software venues – from the small screens of our phones and iPods, to the medium size screens of our laptop and desktop computers, to the large screens in our living rooms and bedrooms, to the theatrical screens in our cinemas, and in our stadiums.

 In a world of Platforms and Screens, the sequential “windowed” distribution patterns that we have seen rigidly controlled by the Content Providers are giving way to a simultaneous availability of content that can be played or consumed at the discretion and under the control of the End User at the time of their choosing.

 The second paradigm is the concept of Transmedia.  This term was first coined, as I understand it, by MIT comparative media professor Henry Jenkins in his 2006 book Convergence Culture.  Transmedia is defined as a narrative work that is made available on multiple Platforms.  Further, as distinguished from so-called “derivative” works such as sequels or remakes, or “ancillary” works such as toys, games or books, Transmedia properties all add something to one another.  Each version available on the different Platforms presents a complimentary narrative experience to the user.  Taken as a whole, a Transmedia property creates a synergistic world, where the user can experience and interact with the property in different ways.  Indeed, the user can even add to the content, and that User-generated content may become an integral part of the overall Transmedia work.

 Transmedia changes the relationship between the content creator and the content consumer (or End User) from a one-on-one “binary” relationship, to a multi-point “network” relationship.

 The third paradigm would be to anticipate a new era of content globalization. Over the last century, the U.S. has been the global driver of media storytelling and media culture.  We figured out a language of cinema, and applied that language, refined that language and cloned that language to create movies, short films, cartoons, TV comedies, dramas and game shows, as well as music videos and computer games.  But the world now knows that language.  Indeed, it was artists and visionaries from around the globe who came to the U.S. over the last century to lend their talents to shaping that vision in collaboration with American filmmakers.

 Now, everyone knows this language.  With communication around the world more instantaneous and more pervasive than ever before imagined, everyone, everywhere not only has the means to create content through digital production technology and distribute it instantaneously to the entire world, they also have the same understanding of how this narrative language works, and can feel confident in their ability to compete globally for their voices to be heard.  It is no coincidence that universities all around the world are adding media studies programs to their curricula, and that many countries, including and especially China, are providing serious incentives to spur the development of local media content businesses.

 So this is the world that I believe we are handing over to the young filmmakers we will be celebrating this week, and to their colleagues and counterparts all across the planet.  As someone who welcomes change, I think this is the most exciting time I have ever experienced in this business, and I am looking forward to being amazed and delighted by the new stories and storytelling forms that we will no doubt be seeing in the very near future.

 Thank you!

The Economist ran an article earlier this year to the effect that companies may be considering a return to a Vertical Integration model to insure that supply chains remain steady.  With many suppliers in danger of, or actually going out of business, companies are jumping in to buy up sources of parts and raw materials.

Bad idea.  Take your eye off the ball of your core business, and you risk losing ground to competitors who remain fully focused on the marketplace you’re competing for.

We live in a networked world.  Just because your supplier is shaky doesn’t mean the whole network is going down.  Maybe there are other suppliers.  Maybe you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water and assume their role.

According to The Economist, companies are fearful of losing control over their supply chains. This is typical reactive behavior: the tendency to pull back to what used to work in the face of change.  And it is bad tactics.

Control is the key word here.  Control is illusory.  Go ahead: reach into the jar and try to grab all the marbles and pull them out in one handful.  You can’t do it.

Companies need to surrender control as they promote collaboration.  The article goes on to discuss Toyota’s strategic approach to supply chain management.  They invest in working with their suppliers to insure that they are stable over the long term, developing working relationships that do not include ownership or control, but promote efficiency and mutual win-win results.

This is having your cake and eating it to.

CCAD’s president, Denny Griffith, recently offered a commentary in the Columbus Post Dispatch that summarizes perfectly the dilemma that many academic leaders understand perfectly well, but that State, Federal and Industry officials understand poorly, if at all.

This is the STEM question.  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  It’s an acronym that is supposed to prioritize the U.S. education system towards making us more competitive in the global marketplace.  Unfortunately, STEM ignores what is very arguably the single strongest component in maintaining the U.S.’ competitiveness, and that is the “A” for Arts.  Two years ago, the Conference Board published a study called Ready To Innovate, which demonstrated that more and more companies are looking for skill sets in their new employees that are much more Arts/Creativity-related than Science/Math-related.  Companies want workers who can brainstorm, problem-solve, collaborate creatively, and contribute/communicate new ideas.  And, interestingly, the study shows that there is a dearth of well-prepared creative workers.

“STEM” should be amended to “STEAM,” an idea that has been kicking around with many people for a few years now (including Griffith), and became a key discussion point of the Americans for the Arts  2007 National Policy Roundtable that I attended at Sundance.  (Read the summary report from that conference here).

The bottom line here is that we must integrate the Arts into everything we do, from education to commerce.  Ideas and solutions pop into the spaces created in our consciousness by the alert relaxation that happens when we create and make stuff (dare I say “make art”…).  In the fitness program metaphor for good  Business Development, think of the Arts as the Yoga component.

Remember those silly IBM commercials with people lying on the floor in dark conference rooms “ideating?”  They were made to seem so stupid and ridiculous.  But men in short sleeved white shirts with pocket protectors aren’t making it happen, either!   Remember IBM founder Tom Watson’s famous admonition?  “Think!”  Well, OK.  I’m thinking.  Now what?  How about “Create!”

It makes a lot of sense that colleges and universities are stepping up to help alumni during this downturn.  See the NYTimes article on this subject in the recent SundayStyles section.

Sure, times are tough, but this practice highlights another way in which the digital revolution has fundamentally changed the way we think about roles and identity in our society.

Gone are the days where the college graduate is viewed as the end product, the final iteration of a functioning, self-sufficient adult.  That viewpoint is archaic and needlessly restrictive, today.  We are now a culture that has begun to genuinely embrace the concept of life-long learning.

So it makes perfect (community) sense that life-long learners would continue to be a part of the institutions that spawned them, and that these institutions would continue to welcome and support these alumni.

But this also makes good (business) sense.  In the networked world, we have to do everything we can to build and maintain our networks.  Keeping alumni close at hand, and beholden to their alma mater once the economy turns around (and they’re again able to contribute to the alumni fund) is smart business.

The programs highlighted in this article go a long way towards branding their institutions in a positive light.  No longer will they be perceived as detached ivory towers, inwardly focused on academics alone.  These programs establish them as caring communities that do far more than educate – they are committed to their students for life.

Businesses could learn a thing or two from this approach.

 Under the portentous headline “Transmedia Storytelling is Future of Biz – Studios create mythologies, multimedia worlds” the article reports on various companies’ work with franchise and brand extension under the guise of creating Transmedia content. 

 Well… Not quite.  Here’s my comment to the article on the Variety site:

 ”Brand-extension and franchise-building are NOT Transmedia storytelling. You miss the key point of Transmedia: interactivity. Just because you’re building a world from the beginning doesn’t mean somehow that you are doing anything different from what marketers do in the process of selling traditional media. In your model, media is still just a one-way downstream flow from the creator to the consumer. It’s just a more coordinated vision, taking into account the frailty of current distribution platforms, and recognizing the need to target these platforms more and more simultaneously. Variety recently reported on a venture between the Scott brothers’ Scott Free, and London producer Ag8 on a Bladerunner online series called Purefold. Content is being generated in collaboration with users on an open source “Commons” license. Now THAT’s Transmedia! What you’re reporting on is just smart marketing that’s using a hip buzzword.”

Keep trying, Variety!

And I promise to make my next post about something other than a condescending reference to the Trade Press…!

Maybe I’m pushing my own envelope, but do I detect a fear and loathing of new narrative format wafting from the Thalberg building (on the Sony lot)?  Let’s remember that Steven Soderbergh is one of the most (if not the most) versatile and fearless filmmakers working today.  This is the man who can successfully pull off the masterfully commercial “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise, and at the same time push the limits of narrative with below-the-radar independent films like the current “The Girlfriend Experience,” or “Full Frontal.”

So Amy’s got to be wondering which Soderbergh she’s got on the hook, here.  He’s got Brad Pitt in tow, but the new script apparently is far different from the one she approved.  Silly boy, he probably thought that he could give her an actual shooting script and that she would understand it!  The draft probably reads like the movie is going to look, not some 100-page “See Jane Run”-style pablum that overstressed Studio execs can understand.

Apparently, according to Variety’s article over the weekend, the film is going to combine fictional footage with documentary interviews (a la “Reds”) to tell the fictionalized story of player-turned-manager Billy Beane. Says Variety: “Pascal’s wariness is hardly unfathomable. Even though it was approved by Major League Baseball, the script doesn’t follow the traditional narrative structure of most sports yarns.”

Et voila!  But here’s what I don’t get about Amy, who is one of the most enduring and successful execs in town.  Here’s a chance to work with, to support, one of the smartest directors working today, with one of the top 5 stars everyone wants to work with, in a story about a colorful and unconventional character that could be a tour de force performance and maybe an Oscar nomination.  She can afford to take the chance that this would be an unconventionally-told movie.  She can afford to dine out on the idea that she’s pushing the envelope and make this film a test case for a reality-oriented docu-drama style movie that challenges the medium, the critics and the audience.  And Soderbergh is no enfant terrible.  This is not a Michael Cimino waiting to snub his nose at the studio establishment.  This is a filmmaker who has proven he can work in the mainstream.

Talk to him, Amy!  Don’t cancel his movie!  Trust him.  Work with him.  Make Lemonade.  Maybe there’s something here that Steve knows that you don’t.  Maybe your mind and your instincts have gotten soft from too many franchises and tentpoles.  Here’s a chance to get edgy again.  Feel the fear, Amy.  Feel what it’s like to really take a chance on something creatively.  Feel what it’s like to (maybe) fail brilliantly, vs. standing up at a board meeting and justifying your failure because you were just making a comic book movie and everybody loves comic book movies except just not this one.  Aren’t you bored with living your life like that?

Maybe not.  Easier to just shut the door on storytelling that makes you uncomfortable and hold on to your position.  Yes, I know, you’ve got the world on your shoulders, you have a big responsibility to shareholders, you have many many decisions to make and you just can’t be bothered to spend that much time thinking this one through.  I know, Amy.  I’ve been there.  It sucks. 

On your way to lunch in the car today, why don’t you listen to Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris” – her ode to David Geffen in the days when there was still hope. 

Well, maybe you’ll reconsider all this later this week…   I certainly hope so.  You’ll be doing the future a favor.

Variety reports today (6/11/09) on the World Copyright Summit.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118004774.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

And here’s the link to the conference:

http://www.copyrightsummit.com/

The funny thing about this, and what clearly got Milos the headline in Variety (“Forman Flays Web Pirates”) is how he compares content piracy to Communism.  And, of course, as a refugee so long ago from communist Czechoslovakia (a country, by the way, that doesn’t even exist anymore – how’s that for appropriate irony?), Milos gets to pontificate on this with some self-congratulatory sense of authority.

Wrong, Milos.  Content piracy is not about redistribution of wealth, or state ownership of content.  Hello-oh!

Yes, content pirates and pirate download sites are moronic, self-serving thieves.  I am not defending the theft of intellectual property, or the undoing of the infrastructure that has kept us all in business. 

But here’s the deal: check out this quote:  “Pirates also think everything on the Internet should be free,” Forman continued. “But that is like going into a department store or supermarket, and just because you got a shopping basket for free, everything in the basket should be free, too.”

Wrong, again, Milos: Internet content isn’t at the supermarket.  You don’t have to go out to get it or steal it.  The analogy is flawed, deeply.  The correct analogy is opening your closet, and all sorts of stuff is right there,  revolving on a big, infinite motorized dry-cleaners’ conveyor rack.  All you have to do is grab it.  No one else is there to see it.  If the internet closet that you opened your door to has price tags, then you pay.  If it doesn’t, you don’t. 

Remember, too, that the Internet was not initially set up as a store.  It was set up by scientists who wanted a better way to communicate with one another.  In order to communicate better, and exchange information and link relevant information together, they invented the World Wide Web.  No one had any inkling that commerce would eventually appear on the network.  People forget about this in the face of the “content wants to be free” debate.  We take for granted the notion of copyright, but forget that it is a new phenomenon, dating back only to the beginnings of the 19th century.  The protectors of copyright are not the creators, such as Milos and other individual artists and visionaries, they are the studios, the publishers, the media companies etc.  It is the large commercial players that have the most vested interest in protecting copyrights, and for their own ends, not to protect the continued expression of the artists.

So poor Milos Forman is the unwitting dupe of the bosses.  I’m sure Sumner Redstone (who, by the way, is starting to look more and more like the Emperor from Star Wars…) is thrilled to have the likes of Milos do his bidding.

While the Internet is imperfect, and free access to content is scary because it completely undermines the pre-existing marketplace, the genie is out of the bottle (as I keep saying over and over again!).

Milos: it’s too late!  Stop trying to round up the pirates!  It’s like trying to find out which of your family members and close friends were actually working for the Secret Police in your old Czechoslovakia.

We have to figure out a better business model.  Maybe it is based on hardware and net access.  Why aren’t people talking about this?  I’m paying $120/mo. for cable and internet.  Would I pay $130/mo. if I got all the content I wanted?  Sure.  Has anyone done the math here?  Would I pay $20 more, $50 more for a DVD player or a AV receiver if I knew that I wasn’t going to get charged for content?

How about undercutting the Internet pirates?  How about officially sanctioning free downloads and make them advertiser-supported?

How about undercutting the DVD pirates and distributing DVD’s at the same low-price that you can buy them for on a street corner in Mexico City?  Or Downtown L.A.?

Wrest the market away from the low-quality, low price bandits by leveraging the media industries’ deep(er) pockets and price-war them out of business.  Then, start to build the revenues back up with a new model.

It could be like the new dawn at the end of the third Matrix movie…

We’re wasting too much time on this stupid debate.  Where’s the leadership we need?

  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/web-series-tied-to-blade-runner-is-in-the-works/

It all started, innocently enough, the other day (6/4/09) in the NYT.  And was picked up by SciFi Wire and the Trades the next day.  Ridley and Tony’s company (Scott Free), including Ridley’s son, Luke, are partnering with a new company called Ag8 to create a web series called Purefold.  But wait, it gets better.  The series will be distributed under a Creative Commons license.  This is where the transmedia rubber hits the road.

For those of you who haven’t followed the Creative Commons issues, see Larry Lessig’s blog that is linked to from this blog.  This is all about who gets to contribute content to the content.  Rather than clamp down on the sanctity of their content (much as Warner Bros. famously did to a teenage Harry Potter fan site writer, as recounted in Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture), the Purefold team are saying that their content is not set in stone; that in fact altering the content is expected, intrinsic and desirable.

The creators of the series are maintaining their ownership of the material- just not it in the traditional way narrative content has been owned in the past.  They’re saying that, like open source software, e.g. Linux or the Apache server, users, i.e. “the audience” will be able to add content, write stories, characters etc. to fill out the world that is being built by this project.

So while it’s nice to see “A” talent jumping in with progressive content delivered on the transmedia paradigm, the visionary piece of it is the open license.

According to the report, “Purefold will harvest story input from its viewers, in conjunction with the social media site FriendFeed. 

The Ag8 site has a perfectly concise description of what this thing is:

http://www.ag8.com/purefold

Right.  So they’re using the cultural trope that is BladeRunner, getting Ridley & Co. to legitimize it by participating (no skin off their butts…) and then avoiding any sticky old-school rights issues by not actually using any protected content from the film or the underlying Phil Dick novel.  Very shrewd.

Oh, and they’re turning the name of Ridley & Tony’s company around to “Free Scott,” an appropriately and easily ironic twist that conjures up just the right jab at the tradition of protected content.  This project is “freeing the Scotts” and transforming the Scotts you used to have to pay for into Scotts that you can get for Free.  OK, yeah, I get it.

On the other side of this deal is the company Ag8, based on London.  As you can see from their site, they are very definitely a new order of content company, squarely positioning themselves in the transmedia space.  Co-founder Tom Himpe comes out of the branding world, and I think it is safe to say that his is the kind of mindset that is going to be required to strategize the future of monetizing the Net.  That gets into a whole separate blogpost, but if you stop to think about it, the old school approach to content was: “I’m a creator, not a distributor, not a marketer.  You go sell what I make.”  Today, with everything compressed together in this ontological transmedia bouillabaisse, content is branding is marketing.  Creator is marketer. 

I know, I know, it’s another blogpost, but think about it:  Dan Pink, in his exhortations for a whole new (right-brained) mind, also admonishes us that he is really advocating for a new integration of left brain with right brain.  Ag8 is this idea mad manifest, and it’s springing forward from this generation of storytellers in a very definitive way.  Yes, I can come up with a story, but I can also design it to a developing market, using developing technology.

And finally, here’s some info on the Creative Commons license that this is being created under.  Creative Commons is the non-profit sponsor/promulgator of a broader set of ways to view and work with copyrighted and copyrightable material (co-founded by the aforementioned Larry Lessig…) .  Click on their logo:

The specific flavor of license being used for the Purefold project allows users to “remix” the content as long at they attribute their work to the Purefold project. 

Quite a head-full of stuff here.  Next step will be to follow the project and see how successful it is at drawing viewership, scratch that, users.  ‘Cause this is about interaction and contribution.  And based on that, can the creators make any money at this?  It’s all well and good to talk about branding, and branded content, but let’s see if Mr Himpe and his team are able to work their magic here to good result, attracting paying brands to prey on the madly interacting Bladerunner freaks in their new playground.  Hmmm: will they have a booth at Comic-Con?.  Stay tuned.