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Warren Spector in the panel of the first italian “Cross-media Summit”

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:00:30 +0000

Warren Spector, creator of Junction Point Studios (recently acquired by Disney Interactive), one of the most original and determinant role-playing game designer and video game designer n the world, best known for the cyberpuk video games System Shock and Deus Ex and also for the Disney adventure game Epic Mickey, will be one of the special guest of the italian “Cartoon on the bay Festival” organized by RAI (the italian, national broadcaster) and speaker for the first “CROSS-MEDIA AND INTERACTIVE ANIMATION SUMMIT” hold there next 9, april.

Transmedia evangelist at “Cross-media Summit”: Stephen Dinehart

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:43:27 +0000

Stephen Erin Dinehart IV is Chief Wizard at NarrWare, a transmedia story studio, and founder of The Narrative Designer’s Network, a global communitythat fosters the burgeoning craft of interactive narrative design. Dinehart also serves as Game Design Department Chair for Brown College, and will be interviewed by Max Giovagnoli for the “CROSS-MEDIA AND INTERACTIVE ANIMATION SUMMIT” held at the Cartoons on the bay Festival in Italy (Rapallo/Portofino) April 9th. The video interview will be shown during the conference and focusing on the amazing experiences of Stephen, a transmedia stoytelling evangelist, having worked on properties ranging from “F.E.A.R.”, “Batman”, and “The Lord of the Rings”, to “Warhammer 40,000″ and “Company of Heroes”. Dinehart’s projects have won and been nominated for various awards including “Best Writing for a Game Production” at the Canadian Awards for the Electronic & Animated Arts and “Internet Download Game of the Month” from Edge Magazine. This will be his first “virtual” participation in an italian conference.

Italian “Cross-media Summit” on animation and games: Henry Jenkins

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:25:02 +0000

Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, will be interviewed by Max Giovagnoli for the “CROSS-MEDIA AND INTERACTIVE ANIMATION SUMMIT” hold on Cartoons on the bay Festival, next 9, april. The videointerview will be shown as the official introduction of the conference. Prof. Jenkins is the best-known aca-fan in the world, and he has written and edited more than a dozen books on media and popular culture, including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006). His other published works reflect the wide range of his research interests, touching on democracy and new media, the “wow factor” of popular culture, science-fiction fan communities, and the early history of film comedy. As one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, Jenkins has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics, and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of social-networking Web sites, networked computer games, online fan communities, and other advocacy organizations, as well as emerging news media outlets. Prior to joining USC, Jenkins spent nearly two decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the Peter de Florez Professor in the Humanities. While there, he directed MIT’s Comparative Media Studies graduate degree program from 1999-2009, setting an innovative research agenda during a time of fundamental change in communication, journalism, and entertainment.

US Top 20 best social media marketing campaigns

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:48:42 +0000

US magazine “Forbes” launched the top 20 best social media marketign campaings. And the winner is (still)… “The Blair Witch Project”, the low budget motion picture produced in the far far 1999, when “social network” was still less than an utopia. And then? Burger King, Smirnoff, Pepsi, Ikea, Volkswagen and still brands, brands, brands… See the video on Comunika.tv!

Unheard (european) voices?

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:17:09 +0000

It’s undoubted: the academic community ought to speak a common language to share contents in real time; and, nowadays, this esperanto can be the “global english” only. It’s pacific: to share their researches and contents throughout the world: professors, advocates, researchers and students love to use english to make their messages and projects public and easy to share. And this is valid and true in particular for the cross-mediality as object and discipline. But… what if also the publishing houses would use the same parameter, that is to publish just books written in english?

More than the 70% of the essays and handbooks focusing on Media Studies published in Italy, for example, are books originally written in another language: english, french, deutch, spanish, polish, portuguese… Even the smallest corporate in our market translate and publish foreign texts regularly to help people learning better and knowing more about communications, media techniques and imaginery. But… as you know them, how many US publishing house, for example, have an in-house reader that can judge french, italian, spanish etc… titles? So, how to compensate this absence? Are you sure that literary agents are the best solution actually?

Just a personal example: since Cross-media communication is such a young discipline, I wrote the first book focusing on cross-media in the world here in Italy in 2005. Then, I published the second one (one of the 5 published all over Europe today) in 2009, and it got published by one of the most important corporates in Italy (mutatis mutandis, the same that published the optimum Henry Jenkin’s “Convergence Culture”…). Dozens of students and young researchers studied them and today I’m so proud they are at owrk for majors and european broadcasters. But… did any US publishing house notice it?

Yes, many and complicated are the reasons of the fact: the small dimensions of the italian market, the “big risk” of the scouting activity, the absence of translators from italian to english in US for example, the low quality of many texts (like my books, probably!) etc.! So, I’ll write my next essay using my global (and incorrect) English and my students will study it in that language, ok! But… are you sure that this would be the real, ultimate and best solution for the audience too? And not just for Italians, or Europeans… [Max Giovagnoli]

Henry Jenkins on the “Trans-media Producer”

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:14:50 +0000

The bestknown Acafan in the world, Prof. Henry Jenkins, commented some days ago the born of the “transmedia producer” credit in his blog. Here his words about the great role played by the first transmedia producer, Jeff Gomez and Starlight Runner Entertainment in this difficult match.

“From the beginning, transmedia has been a site of experimentation, innovation, and exploration at the heart of the mainstream media. Many of us have seen the signs of transmedia practices emerging from some time — mostly taking shape around forms of marketing because that’s how such projects could get funded, mostly reflecting the logic of a more integrated media industry with strong economic imperatives for creating entertainment experiences across platforms. [...] From my perspective, there is a use within the academic world for clearer, more precise definitions, but there is also a value more generally for a more slippery conception, at least while we are still undergoing such rapid evolution. My hope is that the definition and borders of the concept will be debate everytime two or more transmedia advocates have gathered.”

Here in Italy, the definition of “cross-media” is still more used than “trans-media”, as it is in many european countries, but soon, as Prof. Jenkins says too, I believe academic world and industry will match better also in the use of the phrases, to contribute better to the lifelong experience of merging media all around the world. And it doesn’t matter if some of us… like me, first of all, will have to update the “titles” of their books. Its the hard part of the job of any pioneer, isn’t it? But I’ll write more about it in my next short essay published on “Script”, the most important magazine for screenwriters in Italy, which will be published in june. [Max Giovagnoli]

“Star Wars”: an animated sitcom, soon?

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:23:40 +0000

After ”Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, second season of the animated series of the saga, and after the tv serial recently announced and in production in Australia, Lucasfilm Animation is developing an animated series (probably a sitcom?)based on Star Wars. Seth Green e Matthew Senreich, as “Variety” says, creators and producers of “Robot Chicken” the stop motion tv series, would be already at work on it, and Jennifer Hill (tv producers) and the director Todd Grimes could be soon involved in the project, that “will look at Star Wars Universe in a relaly new perspective, actually”.

Cartoons on the Bay 2009: festival cross-mediale

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:19:53 +0000

La 14° edizione di Cartoons on the Bay, il Festival Internazionale dell’Animazione Televisiva e Multimediale, promosso da Rai e organizzato da Rai Trade in associazione con Rai Fiction, si terrà dal 15 al 18 aprile, tra Rapallo, Portofino e Santa Margherita Ligure. E’ online il nuovo regolamento per partecipare al festival, aperto a opere in animazione di qualsiasi nazionalità realizzate per la televisione e per le piattaforme multimediali ed interattive. Tra tutte le opere pervenute entro il 15 gennaio 2010 il Direttore Artistico, Roberto, e la giuria, sceglieranno le più rappresentative di ogni Paese. Le novità di quest’anno sono molte, dagli “Arlecchino Award”, alla categoria di concorso “Miglior serie cross-mediale”.

Un nuovo “Dizionario degli eventi”, in libreria

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:21:08 +0000

Pubblicitario, docente di comunicazione e creatore di eventi, Alfredo Accatino torna in libreria con un testo a metà strada tra il vocabolario professionale e il manuale pratico.

Convinto che per imparare il mestiere del “creativo di eventi” sia necessario partire dalla nomenclatura, nel suo “Dizionario degli eventi” l’autore spiega e usa il “gergo” dei professionisti come working knowledge e unico metodo possibile per mettere ordine nel caos magmatico dell’organizzazione di eventi per il business e lo spettacolo.

Ne esce un dizionario di settore e un “prodotto antistress” dedicato ai giovani professionisti della comunicazione e del marketing. Uno strumento per muoversi agilmente tra gli addetti ai lavori e per non perdersi nel “chi fa cosa” delle agenzie e dei numerosissimi partner impegnati nella genesi di un evento. Dal brief alle uscite sulla stampa, il dizionario di Accatino propone diversi percorsi di lavoro e somma alle voci del suo vocabolario un ricco apparato di fonti e contatti utili per tutti gli aspiranti creativi di eventi di oggi.

Lo strano caso della “Realtà Aumentata”

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:37:42 +0000

Sono originali e numerose, ma ancora non del tutto compiute e mature sotto l’aspetto narrativo, le esperienze di “realtà aumentata” proposte dall’advertising di fine 2009 con una ricca proliferazione di prodotti e sperimentazioni. Tra i brand che sovrappongono alla quotidianità percepita dal loro pubblico realtà generate ad hoc via computer spiccano marchi quali BMW e Mattel, Toyota e Apple, Malwee e Sony, mentre le applicazioni della realtà aumentata trovano spazi di mercato e nuove forme di sperimentazione ormai praticamente in ogni settore, dalla strategia militare alla sanità, dall’industria automobilistica al marketing, dagli eventi culturali all’intrattenimento (link a performing roma in comunika heritage).

Eyepet, il nuovo "augmented toy" di Sony

Eppure, guardando i prodotti e i servizi attivati in tutto il mondo in questi mesi, non si trovano ancora idee che favoriscano l’incrocio di più media né forme di racconto capaci di passare da un mezzo di comunicazione agli altri, per rinforzarsi e guadagnare proverbialmente “più pubblici al prezzo di uno”.