My interest in interactive documentaries has grown more than ever in the last couple of month.
At first it was a way to redefine my way of doing journalism, slowly it became a technological interest (I confess, I’m a geek). After a while, convergence of technologies and storytelling made me think of the experience. Not the lonely interaction that each of us can get when we visit a website, but the true & genuine interaction which goes both ways and creates a dialog between the “spectactor” and the author/creator.

Years ago, when the digital landscape was yet looking like the primitive earth, connection with the internaut was virtually impossible to create without spending an insane sum of money and the chances of succes was too little to be attractive for both creators and investors (whether they were from the public or the private sector).

Nowadays the whole picture has shifted from an isolated world to an interconnected world, opening new frontiers, new opportunities and new areas for studies, innovative thoughts and experimentations.

It is my profond belief that i-docs are made to deepen the understanding of a story by using the metaphoric language of an interface. I strongly believe that 5 or 10 years from now, interactive documentaries will be a natural part of our media landscape as movies & books are today. Anyone interested in that matter should definitively engage himself in that collective work, for the sake of the stories we share and the connections they create between people.

I’m glad to be part of the “Occupy Wall Street, as captured by photojournalists” exhibition at the Museum of the city of New York,  South Street Seaport. This exhibition also features work from Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv,  John Stanmeyer, Allan Tannenbaum, Natan Dvir and Erica McDonald among others.

I wish you a Happy New Year! May 2012 be full of pictures (whether they’ll be interactive or not), full of stories and creativity! Let’s have fun and see ya around soon! Cheers

Now, watch this one!

The poet in question quoted by Herman Cain was actually Donna Summers who’s singing “The power of One“, an exclusive song part of the soundtrack of the Pokemon Movie. At that time no one really noticed the trick, including Maddow and other high level journalists, nonetheless, Cain indicated on his blog that he heard the song during the 2010 Olympic games ceremony (which is not possible, the song has never been played anywhere else but in the Pokemon movie). It turned out there was more to come.

Last October, I remember that my eyes was caught by this headline on the Huffington Post: “Herman Cain 999 plan: Did it come from Simcity?“.
I’ve spent my childhood playing Simcity, then Simcity 2000 & 3000, and I’m still a Simcity4 player. The HuffPo post was fun to read, and the analogy was certainly well done, but I couldn’t believe that Cain was actually proposing a serious economic plan based on a non so serious city-building game.In her segment, Maddow goes on and put the light on another troubling fact. In the chapter 9 of his book “This is Herman Cain!”, the Republican candidate explains how the number “45″ is special to him. Indeed, according to his Wikipedia page the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza was born in 1945.

The list of what could be called c”gaffes” goes on and on, but recently, in a Koch brother event in Washington D.C, Herman Cain declared this: I’m the Koch Brothers’ brother from another mother! (watch the video, it starts at 01.03).

It seems we’ve actually seen that before… in Rush Hour 3!

I think you get the point and I suggest you to watch the full explanation from Rachel Maddow here.

There’s no doubt in my mind that, if this is all true and that Cain is actually some sort of fake candidate, there’s a genius behind this campaign! Sure, the potential effect of such campaign could be devastating for the political class, especially in these time when only 30% of American people votes and when 75% of the population don’t trust politicians. It would be a shame for such candidacy to be part of a race which could lead to the vice-presidency of the United States (especially since Rick Perry, who shot himself in the foot in the last Presidential debate, left a huge space for Cain to be the only “statistically credible” candidate for a vice presidency among the remaining candidate).

In the other hand, if we look at it from a storyteller point of view, it takes a lot of technical skills to stay under the radar that long without anyone noticing. It’s even more remarkable when Cain makes references to pop culture phenomenon such as Pokemon or Rush Hour 3, making it easier for hard core fans to detect the trickery. The last developments regarding the alleged sexual harassment are even more troubling, if we consider for example, the date of the settlement between Cain and one of the plaintiff (September 1999 or… 9-99).

This whole campaign seems too be constructed as a transmedia project where the main narrative is riddled by rabbit holes, leading to the actual story: the journey of Herman Cain as an art performance. The use of different channels to leak what could be evidences of the  fictitious nature of the Cain campaign and the real performances of Cain himself (acting like doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he refers to rush hours 3) reveal a strategy which is really close to a transmedia strategy.

We’ll see what happens to Cain and if he’s able to get out of this political scandal without loosing his chances to get nominated for 2012 (which is doubtful), but so much converging evidence about the unlikely truthfulness of his candidacy will probably make of Herman Cain an interesting study case for the years to come. What’s your thoughts?

The last couple of month I had to make things converge in my professional life. I had to sum up three different activities and rethink how I wanted to practice them. My love for photography is still strong, and the last trip to New York reminded me that I’ll always be a photojournalist. I went to NY for “business”, trying to catch peoples who might be interested in my transmedia documentary project, professionals in the transmedia community who would be willing to share feed-backs, advises or more than that. I ended up covering the #occupywallstreet movement with my friend and partner Jean Nicholas Guillo. I must confess that I was like a kid playing with the toys I love. News is something really captivating, and once you’ve got the virus, it seems it’ll be in your bloodstream forever.

The two other activities – or field of work – I’m interested in, are transmedia storytelling and interactive documentary (i-docs). Catching up with these two was a really a challenge when I started to look at it more than 2 years ago. Coming from the editorial field, having no “official” background in what seems to be the preeminent art in these domains  (documentary), I had to learn a lot… but at the end of day, again, it was worth it. I litteraly discovered a new frontier, a new space where I could use my knowledge in photography and journalism to create more compelling work.

It was also a revelation to me. I always felt like a patchwork. As a child and later, as a teenager, I was creating games, inventing stuffs, designing shoes or making short films. As a student, I was more interested in art than in law, working in a local radio time to time, writing novels and taking photos. I’ve never been interested in one field or in one medium and was really tempted to pursue all this different careers at the same time. I was told it was humanly impossible of course.

Well, it seems that transmedia storytelling and interactive documentaries are the answers to my multitasking “problem”.
So here’s how I’ve reorganized the way I will work from now on.

Bulb becomes the central blog of my two activities which are Photography (including photojournalism & corporate photography) and Behavioral storytelling (I’ll write more about that, but basically it’s transmedia storytelling and Interactive documentaries) . These two poles are respectively on two different platforms (www.gholubowicz.com & www.o2creation.org) but share the same identity.

I’ve launched a new website – still to be completed – which is the online presence of “Chewbahat, storytelling lab” a company I’ve created with Jean Nicholas. I will communicate more about this new adventure later, but in one word, it’s all about fun, creativity and storytelling.

As you can see, change takes time and a lot of thinking. It took me more than I thought to rewire my brain and accept these new challenges. But I think I’m now ready to go full throttle ahead.

Cheers

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET is a people powered movement for democracy that began in America on September 17 with an encampment in the financial district of New York City. Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy .

Here’s the slides I’ve used to give a presentation at the world biggest photojournalism festival in Perpignan (Visa pour l’image), an introduction to transmedia storytelling for photojournalists.

I was invited by the french association “Freelens” to curate a debate about New Media and Innovative Storytelling techniques. Three different workshop were organized: “Behavior and use of interactive documentaries” hosted by Alexis Sarini and Louis Villers, “The new economy of medias” hosted by Wilfrid Esteve and finally “Transmedia storytelling and photojournalism” was my part. Around table was among others, Olivier Laurent (British Journal of Photography), Chantal Soler (ex- Rapho) or Dimitri Beck (Polka).

His work was recognized as one of the ‘Top 10 New Media Groundbreakers’ according to the Bell Broadcast & New Media Fund. Evan’s international clients include Microsoft, Disney, FOX, CBC, Bell, Discovery and The Movie Network.
He has taught ‘Rich Media Production’, ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ and ‘Extending TV Drama Experiences’ around the world at the Canadian Film Centre, the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and the University of Southern California with Dr. Henry Jenkins.

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