Perhaps you have already come across this video – it seems to be a quickly growing Internet sensation. The creative agency Conscious Minds created a stop motion video of a guy walking across America using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a “MacGyver-style” protractor designed in Photoshop. Over two weeks a crew of six traveled across America and took 2,770 still frames – all meticulously shot. What’s even cooler in my mind is that they created both a behind-the-scenes video as well as a google map charting their trek.

Update: Unfortunately they made their behind-the-scenes video private after this post published – what a shame!

Comically enough, the producers noted that they pitched the idea to Levi’s to obtain sponsorship for their trip, but that it was not done as an advertisement for the company. Rather, it was a concept dreamed up by employees at Conscious Minds and fully carried out in-house.

“You can call it what you want, but to us it’s flattering to hear people call it a Levi’s viral ad,” producer Peter Cote told ABC News.

First, watch the video:

Next, check out their trip itinerary on Google Maps to see how extensive this shoot was:

Lastly, watch this interview with ABC News to learn more about how this project came together:

Other posts that might interest you:

• Toyota launches user-submitted multimedia interface “Beyond Cars”
• AVA Colorado Rafting company creatively puts users in the raft to navigate site
• II’s picks for 2010 Webbys – Interactive Advertising

Soul of Athens 2010

An impressive array of student-run multimedia projects have hit the internet in recent years and one of the most well-known is Ohio University’s Soul of Athens. Now in its fourth year, the 2010 iteration has recently been released and (II) asked me to take a look.

Wanting to know more about the project I started a conversation with Stan Alost, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Visual Communications program at OU.

Stan runs the Soul of Athens “company,” a word they use for a specific purpose that I’ll get into later.

First a little background. Soul began in 2007 with an insanely talented group that included Zach Wise, Chad A. Stevens, Bob Sacha, Bruce Strong and many others. That first project set the parameters of finding stories that worked within certain themes, and illuminated certain aspects of the Athens Ohio community.

That idea has continued, but the management and creation of the project has evolved. Current students must apply to be a part of what is now a 10-week, variable credit class, and they are chosen based on the skill sets they can bring and for those they would like to work on during the project.

Once the course begins Alost said, “we quit calling it a class and talk instead of the media company we have created. Then we focus on creating, designing and producing another publication from scratch in less than 10 weeks. Our goal is to provide students with a chance to practice what we preach, to provide a model for the industry, to push the envelope of communication and to serve our community.”

This struck me as one of the most interesting aspects of the Soul project. Ohio University (and others) have recognized the big role that small publications play in this changing media environment. Small, collaborative groups that leverage teamwork and creativity are an increasingly viable model for journalism (see ProPubilica, MediaStorm, Duck Rabbit, etc). In replicating that environment OU has created a course that will better prepare their students for life outside of academia.

The creative environment of this project sounds like a collaborative dream. Students pitch stories to one another, work individually or with teams on those stories and discuss design and web development issues over weekly meetings. Discussions range from user interface and coding issues to ethics and content ideas.

“We empower students and it is wonderful to see them step up and wrestle with the real world,” Alost said.

That wrestling develops into a massive project with dozens of stories wrapped within many thousands of lines of code. The organization of the project has always been a challenge for Soul, and this year’s team worked out a simple and elegant solution.

In years past the site was launched with each theme given a prominent position on the landing page. The user would then parse through each category looking for a story. It worked for sure, but the amount of content could at times be overwhelming.

This year the Soul team decided on a staggered launch of the site, choosing to release each theme in two week intervals. The most recent theme is the default landing page, and all previous themes are given a link in the menu bar. Each page is given a color scheme that helps distinguish it from the others, and I found the overall look and feel to be much simpler and easier to digest.

Each theme of the Soul of Athens 2010 site is given its own color scheme.

With this new design certain stories are given prominence as “Featured Projects,” and I appreciated that they decided to more actively curate their work. Additionally, the team decided to make use of some of the interactive qualities of a .pdf, and have included magazine-style downloadable layouts of their projects that leverage print, graphic design, photography and, in some cases, video. It’s an interesting option that will hopefully better incorporate print journalism into this largely visual project.

Social networking is given its due with the capability of “liking” or commenting via Facebook. Twitter makes an appearance via a continually updating feed of tweets about Athens, Ohio. Surprisingly, there is no direct way of sharing a project, either by providing a link or an embed code. While it’s simple enough to copy the url, I think making it easy for the user to share such wonderful content is important.

While neither the player nor the website include direct links or embeds of their projects, the site’s projects work on both mobile and desktop browsers.

Those projects are wrapped in a player that, with a quick check of the code, have the ability to work on both mobile and desktop browsers. As an iPad owner, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this accessibility.

In general I appreciated the layout and simplicity of the new design, and furthermore the level of care and attention that this group of students has taken in creating a truly important archive of stories. At its heart, this project is about the small community of Athens, Ohio, and it has additionally become a vessel for students to experience an increasingly relevant model of journalism. Both are lofty and important goals, and I hope to see this project continue to develop over the course of many years to come.

The most recent edition of the Soul project, titled “Experience,” was released today.

Here are some of my favorite projects from the 2010 Soul of Athens project:

• What You Have
• Wee Wrestling
• The Walls Speak

About the author: Currently the Director of Multimedia at the Maine Media Workshops and Maine Media College, Tim McLaughlin is a photographer, multimedia documentarian and educator located in Rockport, ME. Originally from Louisville KY., Tim has his masters of fine arts from the University of Florida and a bachelors from Centre College, but owes a great deal to the two years he spent at Western Kentucky University. Tim has worked with MediaStorm, the Eddie Adams Workshop, the Rocky Mountain News, the Mountain Workshops and most recently shot a film for the Rotterdam Film Festival.
Other posts that might interest you:

• Ohio University launches Soul of Athens 2009
• UNC launches latest multimedia project, “Living Galapagos”
• University of Miami students personify United Nations Millennium Development Goals in documentary project “My Story, My Goal”

Twelve students at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spent their summers working tirelessly on stories about energy issues in America as a part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education known as News21. UNC is one of eight schools participating in this initiative and I am proud to say that I was honored to be a part of the UNC team. We recently launched our stories about topics such as the BP oil spill and the nation’s nuclear controversy and I would love to hear your feedback on our work!

Videographer Lauren Frohne created a short trailer as a preview of the stories that we reported on this year:

Using text, photos, video, graphics and alternative story formats, we focused on documenting “the political, economic, and scientific tensions behind US energy.” It’s a tough topic to say the least, and we quickly realized that everyone has an opinion on the matter.

I actually began my research for my story “The power of water” on the intrinsic connection between energy and water back in January and slowly worked on it over the past six months. The other students had a much faster turn-around time – 10 weeks – but were able to dedicate their entire summers to the reporting and production whereas I had to balance my work with summer courses at Kenan-Flagler Business School.

The biggest take-away I learned throughout this project was the power of teamwork. In comparison to my project last summer on malnutrition where I did not receive any coaching on the story elements, this year was all about collaboration. My text article was revised more than 10 times by six different editors. I received advice on my video story from Chad A. Stevens, Bob Sacha, Brian Storm and Nacho Corbella – arguably four of the most talented visual storytellers out there. I teamed with videographer Mike Ehrlich to get priceless water footage for our video “Quenching Americans’ thirst.” I tossed around gaming ideas with graphic artist Anna Carrington who then designed and programmed “Balancing act: the energy/water challenge,” a fun game similar to Sim City where the user has to manage water and energy supplies while expanding a town.

2010 multimedia stories from UNC’s site Powering a Nation

While I am pleased with my story, I am even more proud of the culmination of all of our hard work seen throughout all of the stories.

The videographers teamed together to produce “Spilling over,” a heart-wrenching story about a family affected by the oil spill. Writers and graphic artists collaborated on “Blackout on the hill,” an in-depth report on the politics of energy. One team of students researched the conflict surrounding nuclear energy for the well-rounded package “Nuclear properties,” while another team documented one man’s entrepreneurial efforts in the alternative energy sector for the story “Manufacturing change.” Lastly, researchers and programmers analyzed U.S. carbon emissions data, energy costs and demand statistics to construct an “energy cocktail” where users attempt to balance U.S.’s energy portfolio in 2020.

We had an excellent team of coaches, editors, and staff throughout the project so a big thanks goes out to everyone involved!

Another big lesson I learned is that when you put a bunch of passionate people in one room together, exceptional things are bound to happen. I personally believe that this was the case for our group, and I look forward to seeing if the same was true from the other seven schools involved in the grant.
Other posts that might interest you:

• UNC launches News21 multimedia project
• Multimedia reviews from fresh eyes
• UNC tackles After Effects for News21 promotional video

Lauren Clifford-Holmes

With all of the flurry that came and went with the 2010 World Cup games, it made me wonder what technology South Africa offered in order to adequately document the games. Lauren Clifford-Holmes, multimedia editor of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Online, pondered the same thing three years ago over at her old blog, The Soap Box. “What are the implications for those living on the poorer side of the ‘digital divide’?”, she questioned.

Since then, she worked diligently with major digital news organizations throughout the country to prepare them for the games. In honor of her tireless efforts to introduce and promote multimedia storytelling in South Africa, we are happy to acknowledge her as this week’s “Innovative Individual.”

Keep up with Lauren by following her on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr.

Q) How do you drive innovation in your work?

A) I explore, discover, watch and learn from what others are doing and try to apply this within the South African online news environment. I constantly strive for the best quality multimedia product while always prioritising immediacy and relevancy. Innovation is really just part of the territory here because multimedia is a relatively new and unexplored area in South Africa. This means people like me are driving the change and determining the course of what happens; the type of content that is available to people online as well as the manner in which it is presented and the way in which the audience can interact with it. I also feel innovation is stimulated by traversing several different beats and not getting stuck in one topic area. I shoot everything from news to features to arts and even some sports – it keeps me on my toes! I also believe in throwing oneself in the deep end – when you force yourself out of your comfort zone it provides the opportunity for steep, rewarding learning curves.

Q) What piece in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

A) That is a difficult question for me because my career is still so young and I feel my work needs a lot of improvement and has much room to grow – particularly in the execution and editing of the pieces. However, there are a few projects which were great to work on: during my time at News24 it was the Mandela 90th project, the covering of the 2008 xenophobic attacks and the 2009 national elections. Since being with Mail & Guardian it has been our Mandela tribute site, my refugee video series and an on-going audio slideshow series I launched on photographers and their latest exhibition work. These pieces have been very well received: Gordon Clarke’s Transcend & Transgress, Jessica Hilltout’s Amen & Zwelethu Mthethwa’s Balancing Act are some examples of these.

Q) Please provide a brief educational and professional history.

A) I completed a four-year Bachelor of Journalism degree at Rhodes University in South Africa, during which time I grew my photographic experience in my free time. I freelanced everywhere I could, from working with Aids NGOs to becoming the in-house photographer for the university theatre. This meant that by the time I left university I had been published in several newspapers in the country.

In my fourth year of my journalism degree I specialised in New Media; a course which helped form the foundations of my online experience and knowledge and gave me a brief introduction to everything from theory to web video.

Leaving university I landed a great first job – starting the multimedia section at News24, the biggest online news provider in South Africa. During my time there we launched a basic multimedia section and introduced video, slideshows, and regular galleries. One of the most memorable experiences of working there was shooting the Mandela 90th video series which meant I got to interview some real South African icons like George Bizos, Ahmed Kathrada and Francois Pienaar, all of which certainly threw me in the deep end!

Eight months ago I moved to the Mail & Guardian as the Multimedia Editor to start driving multimedia on the site and ultimately to launch a brand new multimedia section. Currently we are hosting our content on a basic multimedia page, but we will be relaunching the whole site and the section at the end of 2010, and we’re really aiming to make it a first for South Africa on many different levels; we want to set new standards for news multimedia in the country.

Q) Where do you believe multimedia fits into today’s society and how will that role change over time?

A) I believe visual storytelling is an increasingly important medium for online news, and the role of multimedia is only going to become more important over time. The modern world is a visual one – we like to see and hear and interact with things, and it is easy to see that the internet is an ever-growing space where we increasingly live out our lives. Multimedia is such a rich form through which to tell stories – from videos to powerful audio slideshows – or even just large scale picture galleries, which really allow us to celebrate the worth of an image. Infographics like those produced by the New York Times or others are able to explain a story in a way that no one else can and no other medium could do as effectively. I think people are really seeing the value of multimedia packages: written content can be hugely enriched by the addition of videos or slideshows or infographics. Multimedia will feature more and more prominently in the future.

Q) Whose work do you admire?

A) In terms of online news providers, I really like the multimedia on offer by the Boston Globe. Their Big Picture galleries are something I visit weekly – it’s such a simple idea, but they maintain a fantastically high standard and the photos are always worth viewing. I also think The Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post all have a great multimedia offering. I really like special projects like the 1 in 8 million series by the New York Times and my favourite site of all time is Media Storm. I think the stories on offer are an outstanding example of what can be achieved when meaningful stories are perfectly executed in multimedia format.

Photography is my first love and I have a long list of photographers, both local and international whose work I admire. Particularly those who have been able to move with the times – those who have adapted from being straight print photographers and have made a significant space for themselves online. South African photojournalist Greg Marinovich is a good example of this. He has been recently involved with the editing of work produced for Africa Media Online – they have been producing some great stuff.

Q) Where do you find inspiration for your ideas?

A) Everywhere really – including all the sites and resources listed above! There are ideas everywhere; both for content itself as well as for new ways in which to present this. I get ideas while reading, watching, visiting a host of different sites and certainly from people I talk to. Being part of an active newsroom, surrounded by some of the best journalists in the country is also a source of constant inspiration for new multimedia stories, and we are really trying to encourage our newspaper journos to think more along multimedia lines and to foster a greater environment of collaboration with the newspaper. The Mail & Guardian is a truly inspiring place to work; a quality weekly paper with a strong political and investigative focus. The site too maintains this high quality standard while also exploring the added value options available in the online environment.

I also like to browse sites like Flickr and Duckrabbit just to keep the love and fire for powerful images and videos alive. I try and stay on top of what’s happening in the industry at large through sites like 10,000 words, Multimedia Shooter, Adam Westbrook and Colin Mulvany’s multimedia advice on Mastering Multimedia.

Q) What specific resources do you recommend for A) beginners, B) novices and C) experts to improve their skills in multimedia storytelling?

A) The biggest thing for me is to get out and practice. While it is great to spend time online reading and absorbing everyone else’s work and ideas, the reality is most of my day is spent planning, shooting and editing content, and that’s where I learn the most.

Q) What is one thing on your “To-Do” list?

A) I am currently completing a refugee multimedia series to illustrate the issue of xenophobia in South Africa. We want to draw attention to the issue as a whole – the reality refugees and foreigners face in South Africa, as there is speculation that there could be a resurgence of xenophobic violence in the wake of the World Cup, although nothing on a large scale has occurred as yet.

We are also working on some great content celebrating the 150-year anniversary of the first arrival of Indians in South Africa. In fact, it’s just been confirmed that I’ll be flying to India next week to shoot in Hyderabad and Chennai – immensely exciting stuff and the first job where I’m heading overseas. We really want to explore both sides of the story – how Indians have worked their way up from being indentured labourers in South Africa to becoming successful in business, deeply involved in the apartheid struggle and contributing to the establishment of democracy in SA. In India we want to explore how the villages that these indentured labourers first came from have fared over time – moving forward or frozen in time. It’s a really great story.

But really the biggest project I’m focusing on in future months is building and launching the Mail & Guardian’s new multimedia platform. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say that there is no other site like it in the country right now. We’re taking inspiration from some of our favourite multimedia sections belonging to sites both locally and overseas, and plan on presenting, packaging and promoting our content in modern and effective ways. We want to build a real community of multimedia lovers here in South Africa. The beauty of launching this now is that we can learn from their mistakes, giving us a better chance of launching a successful product – so stay tuned!

Want to nominate a deserving colleague, friend or inspirational figure to be highlighted in this series? Confidential nominations can be emailed to innovativeinteractivity@gmail.com on an ongoing basis. Self nominations are also welcome. A person will be featured every Friday, so look for the next “innovative individual” Friday, July 30th!
Other posts that might interest you:

• Innovative Individuals: Bjarke Myrthu
• Innovative Individuals: Evelio Contreras
• Innovative Individuals: Dai Sugano

My Story My Goal by University of Miami students

In an effort to give voices to those targeted by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, executive producers Rich Beckman and Tom Kennedy sent 14 young journalists from the University of Miami around the world with a mission to encapsulate arguably the most complex and ambitious humanitarian feats of our lifetime.

With only two weeks in the field to adequately document the situation, seven teams of two Miami storytellers partnered with students at partner universities to collaborate on the research, filming and translations of each story for the project, “My Story, My Goal,” which was funded by the Knight Center for International Media.

“This was a truly international cooperation of students of all ages coming together to tell what they as native citizens believed was an important story in their home country,” student Lauren Santa Cruz wrote me.

In January, the students began researching the story topics to determine their game plan such as shooting techniques and strategies. The filming took place in March and the post production consumed the last three months.

“The most challenging part was definitely the language barrier and having to translate and transcribe everything before editing the piece for English speakers,” Lauren said.

Tom, former managing editor of multimedia at The Washington Post, served as an editing coach during the post production.

“The obvious challenge was to determine if the material was good enough to tell the story that they were trying to tell,” he said.

He admitted that a lot of post production edits had to be made “on the fly” to rearrange scenes and even change the fundamental character in one story. Of the seven videos, Tom liked several different ones for specific reasons noting that those shot in Sierra Leone and Nigeria had the best quality footage, whereas those in Thailand and Hong Kong had the strongest story lines.

In addition to the seven individual stories, several students integrated all of the footage into a nearly 27-minute documentary. One student who helped produce the feature-length film, Nick Maslow, emailed me saying that “the documentary was by far the most challenging, rewarding and eye-opening project I’ve ever attempted.”

My personal favorite was the story “Where Every Pregnancy is a Gamble” by producers Lauren Malkani and Ami Vitale. I also really enjoyed the feature-length documentary, and was surprised at how they were able to seamlessly integrate seven drastically different topics from opposite ends of the globe into a tightly-edited narrative. That, in my opinion, proves the importance of a strongly written script.

During the post production, web designer Nick Harbaugh perused countless websites to determine the right look and feel for these stories.

“Our desire was to build an experience that would really give you the feel of having been to these countries and heard the stories with your own ears,” he wrote.

Nick said that the programming and design of the site was “slow going at times” since they had to learn many of the programming concepts needed in real-time.

I like how they played up the photos large on the homepage and fit all of the navigation around the edges of the screen. One room for improvement, though, would be to use more descriptive headers for their content rather than distinguishing it just by media type (video-graphics-photo).

As Tom heads to Syracuse University to begin teaching and Rich continues to build his multimedia community in Miami and around the world, it excites me to know that regardless what happens in the media industry these types of large-scale student projects will continue to inspire us. I hope you can find some time to watch a story or two from this site – you won’t be disappointed!

Home page photo credit: Lauren Santa Cruz
Other posts that might interest you:

• University of Miami students promo projects on VisualJournalism blog
• Special Olympics uses twitter, multimedia to document Winter Games
• Multimedia Standards launches beta site

Regina McCombs recently emailed me about an upcoming seminar from August 25-27 at The Poynter Institute that II readers may be interested in attending. Titled “Programming for Journalists / Journalism for Programmers,” attendees will gain a concrete understanding of how programmers and journalists can work effectively together to visualize data-rich content, such as the upcoming 2010 Census.

Image from New York Times’ “Open” blog

If you read the behind-the-scenes post of how The New York Times’ reported the 2010 World Cup, you would understand the importance of integrating programming into storytelling.

Impressed by the interactive development that you have seen at the Times? Why not learn from one of the best – Aron Pilhofer – who will be leading the seminar! Aron is editor of Interactive News Technologies at the Times, and will be joined by several other great teachers including Matt Waite, senior news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times and developer of the Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact.com.

“Rather than try to teach a particular programming language, since there are a number of reasons to choose various different ones, we’re teaching programming principles that would be equally applicable to anyone diving into Django or Ruby, and we’re going to teach best practices in database design and development,” Regina wrote.

The seminar is ideal for both programmers hoping to enter journalism and journalists hoping to start programming.

“Journalists will learn the programmer’s mindset, and programmers will learn how to see the world through a journalist’s eyes. Programmers will teach journalists how to turn data into usable information and share great examples of efforts that worked.”

The two-day seminar costs $795 plus flight, food and lodging. In an effort to make it more affordable for attendees, Poynter is offering a “buy one, get half off” sale where organizations that send two employees only pay half for the second. They also have several half tuition scholarships available for which you simply indicate interest in obtaining when you apply.

Even better, Hacks/Hackers is offering a scholarship to attend the seminar for FREE:

“To apply for the scholarship, we’re making this super easy. Please write a pitch of up to 500 words on what you’d like to do/report on/hack together based on what you’ll learn at the seminar. The deadline is July 24. We might have follow-up questions. We’ll notify everyone by the end of July.”

I can vouch for Poynter from the invaluable summer fellowship I did there in 2007, and I can also attest that learning the basics of database development is crucial after taking a year’s worth of database courses in my Information Science master’s program. It is all well worth it!

So, don’t delay – the scholarship deadline is this Saturday and the last day to register for the seminar is Monday.
Other posts that might interest you:

• NewsU seminar on Wednesday to cover interactive data visualization
• 15 multimedia training opportunities for 2010
• The importance of professional organizations in our industry

Two interactive multimedia studios, Tool of North America and Domani Studios, teamed together to build an interactive storytelling app designed specifically for the iPad.

In the free app, directors Sean Ehringer, Erich Joiner, Tom Routson, Geordie Stephens and Jason Zada shot four short interactive documentaries and combined them into one storytelling interface called “Touching Stories.” The end result? An exhilarating choose-your-own-adventure where “you will be able to peel back more layers of the story by how you interact.”

According to Tool of North America:

“By touching, shaking and turning your iPad, you can navigate, unlock and reveal unexpected variations in each of these stories. Shot by 5 different directors, these interactive, live-action, short stories evolve storytelling in ways that haven’t been done before on the iPad. ”

Make sure to watch the behind-the-scenes video to learn how the technical aspects and creative design was developed for this project. I am fascinated by the innovation of this piece!

You can read more about each of the four short films over at Fast Company:

Exclusive: The New Touching Stories App Brings Four Interactive Films to the iPad

So, if you own an iPad make sure to download the free app and let us know what you think about it!

HT: Interactive Multimedia Technology
Other posts that might interest you:

• II’s picks for 2010 Webbys – Interactive Advertising
• II’s picks for 2010 Webbys – Online Film & Video
• Multimedia Must-See: Prison Valley

Gary Hayes

Sixteen months ago I wrote a blog post titled “FlarToolkit introduces augmented reality using Flash.” Thus began a side interest in learning more about augmented reality (AR) and transmedia storytelling. As technology advances, it is extremely important that we learn more about these storytelling capabilities to elevate our delivery potential. No longer does it suffice to throw up a passive video on YouTube – our viewers are increasingly eager for more. I am extremely excited to announce Gary Hayes as this week’s “Innovative Individual” for truly understanding this notion and breaking into the fields of AR and virtual worlds throughout his rich and impressive professional history.

After working for eight years as senior development producer at BBC’s Interactive New Media department, Gary founded the Laboratory of Advanced Media Production (LAMP), which was widely known as “Australia’s premier emerging media R&D production lab.” Now serving as CCO and Head of Virtual Worlds at MUVEDesign, a company he founded in 2006, he continues to push the potential of innovative storytelling.

I have been tracking Gary for awhile now and I suggest you do as well if you are interested in learning more about alternative multimedia formats and social virtual worlds. Make sure to subscribe to his blog Personalizemedia (and read his recent post “What makes the perfect Transmedia Producer?“), check out his company’s website, follow him on Twitter, watch his YouTube videos, and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Q) How do you drive innovation in your work?

A) Standing back is very important. Being extremely aware of what you and others have done in the past and then walking away from it and thinking laterally about the direction things are really heading. Once you see this heading, then you can innovate the future better – vs minor incremental adjustments to what is already there, align your compass and take a couple of big steps!

Q) What piece in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

A) Even though at the time it is the bleeding edge technical ones that are most satisfying, getting over the barriers to actually get something delivered to users over a longer period it has been the ones that have had social significance. I devised, produced and headed up for example the BBC Musical Nomad project – in 1997 ahead of its time in that we were filming, recording and telling daily stories on the web, meetings with Shaman, Central Asian musicians, normal people and uploading them via a small satellite to the main BBC website. Most importantly for me was the feedback loop – receiving mails from around the world about what and where to go next on a daily basis. A tough project but one I feel we will see more and more of as the world becomes wireless, rich media connected.

In a similar realm I founded the build and in 2007 launched of one of the biggest branded areas in Second Life (The Pond, Telstra Islands) very stimulating in the first few weeks as I quickly found out the real challenges of managing and responding to a virtual community. As sole developer and having several thousands a day come into a space, it was satisfying doing rapid changes based on usage – that resonance and iteration became almost immediate and I learned a lot about how rewarded you can be from listening and instantly giving back to a community, especially a real time one like Second Life.

Q) Please provide a brief educational and professional history.

A) There is a lot more in my bio but the one line version – 80s Manchester UK recording engineer, film composer/editor and in bands, Degree in Music & Physics, 90s London – multi media & music lecturer, Guildhall, BRIT School, composer then 8 years as BBC Senior Dev Producer across all new media departments, 03 US LA, interactive TV producer/consultant, composer 05 Sydney – Innovation Lab Director, LAMP, Founded company MUVEDesign, Virtual, Alternate Reality & Augmented Worlds, Now developing ‘Story Labs‘ Training & Incubator Labs.

Q) Where do you believe multimedia fits into today’s society and how will that role change over time?

A) Transmedia and Multi Platform Social Media together, for me, make up what we still call multimedia and I feel since 2005 we are finally seeing it embed itself in our lives vs being something we ‘go to’ or ‘switch on’, the social aspect has made the multiple channels of web and mobile become a way to communicate vs the multimedia 1993 – 2005 which was a poor peripheral ‘pushed’ activity to the main media channels of TV, film, radio, press. Now it has come of age and two way, real time co-creation, collaboration and creativity means pushed or broadcast media really has to have a reason to be appointment to view. But 2010 and beyond my key area of work and research is pervasive mobile & social entertainment – so as our central computing & communication device goes with us wherever we are the big change in society will be about contextual connection. Objects connected to their data in the cloud, places connected to stories/reviews people have attached to them and taking rich media games away from the locked down screen and into open space. The interface to everything we need will be personalized and everyone will be producers of transmedia stories by the very nature of being part of multiple social networks and sharing portals.

Q) Whose work do you admire?

A) I admire everyone who pushed the envelope vs copying. So without firstly naming names we have a digital industry (agencies etc) who are 2-5 years behind innovation who simply monetize anything and everything, then we have a grass roots social media & open source community who are pioneering for very altruistic reasons and creating an ecosystem for great storytellers. These great storytellers though are not going to come from traditional areas, it is more and more about collective storytelling, how to nurture the principle that everyone has one good book in them and pull forth authentically originate story vs contrived and artificial. So great respect for people like Jane McGonigal who with projects like World Without Oil, Superstruct and Emote is attempting to develop alternate ways to tell community based stories but also developing new forms of gameplay. But I also admire companies, especially linked to educational labs pioneering our AR future, such as Oceania based HitLabNz.org and MagicVisionLab.com eventually of course which will be picked up by the digital agencies down the track.

Q) Where do you find inspiration for your ideas?

A) As expected there is never one place but it is a combination of routine around: 1 – A great batch of RSS feeds, at least 130 I regularly follow to pick up on the zeitgeist, quality live conferences and online watching the worlds best speakers on podcasts like TED talks, often great ideas come from tangential areas like science or psychology 2 – Getting out more, so I make sure I have time for photography & cycling, to take the mind elsewhere at least once a day 3 – Music. I still compose and create both film scores as well as a passion area of progressive trance which provides a great counterpoint to high tech development, as I find high tech music composition very similar to a typical transmedia, complex layered project. 4 – Trying anything. By that I mean by attempting to develop something yourself often gives you insights under the bonnet that a ‘proper’ developer might not see. So I make time to ‘fiddle’ with the lower levels of the tech and see what possibilities there are.

Q) What specific resources do you recommend for A) beginners, B) novices and C) experts to improve their skills in augmented reality?

A) This is not just about AR but works across transmedia, social media and other dev areas too –
a) Watch videos, research/read blogs in the area, make your own decision about what you think is actually valuable to people
b) Get in there and play. In AR for example, download the flAR toolkit and play with markers, sign up as a Layar or Junaio developer and make things work or have a play with open source visual recognition engines. Then start to develop a few fully finished products that you can use in a portfolio
c) Simple, create your own voice. It is hard in any professional area to become recognised by doing what everyone else is – so look across at other fields and think if there is something critical missing, something so obvious that everyone has missed it already or simply look at your own real life and see what can be enhanced by new tech delivered utility, story or education.

Q) What is one thing on your “To-Do” list?

A) I have around 356 items currently on my list, but one I might not get to in the next few months? Teleportation

Want to nominate a deserving colleague, friend or inspirational figure to be highlighted in this series? Confidential nominations can be emailed to innovativeinteractivity@gmail.com on an ongoing basis. Self nominations are also welcome. A person will be featured every Friday, so look for the next “innovative individual” Friday, July 23rd!

Table of contents for 3D Technology

1. 3D TV: Are we there yet?
2. Inside the 3D industry with 3D Guy Al Caudullo
3. Evolution of 3D: Stereoscopic 3D Gaming

NVDIA released information about two exciting developments in 3D technologies. The first press release was about NVIDIA’s 3D Vision system, which supports 2D to 3D games as well as games designed with 3D stereoscopic interaction from the start.

The second release was about the Total Immersion NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Technology that provides stereoscopic gaming across three 1080p HD displays. This development had me wondering about how 3D interaction takes place in stereoscopic 3D space.

I had a chance to get input about stereoscopic 3D and gaming from Jonathan Brill, a UX designer who is on top of emerging technologies. In his opinion, 2D to 3D conversion process still needs some serious love. Johnathan finds that the Batman game is a good example of 2D to 3D, but great examples are few.

According to Johnathan, 3D UI (user interaction) is difficult to do well. The question is whether or not the 3D should come out at you from the monitor, or if it should be experienced behind it. The gold standard of stereoscopic 3D is the movie Avatar. Jonathan points out that much of the imagery in the scenes appears to be behind the screen, and most of the interesting 3D elements in the movie that appear to come out of the front of the screen are centrally located.

3D interaction of existing games was planned and developed from the standpoint of interaction with a 2D display, with features to trick the gamer into thinking he or she is interacting in an immersive 3D space. For that reason, the games often require interaction around the periphery of the screen, something that doesn’t translate well to stereoscopic 3D.

The video clip below highlights how the game company Ubisoft worked with closely James Cameron, the director of the 3D movie Avatar, create Avatar: The Game.

Below is a partial transcript of the video in which Rebecca Brayton, of watchmojo.com, interviews Henri Guay, of Ubisoft, about the evolution of 3D gaming:

Guay: “…3D is a great part of the game, because as a gamer, it really puts you in the situation. You know, all video games are in 3D, but that stereoscopic 3D really pulls away and separates the elements so that you feel an atmosphere around you, you see things coming from far, from close, and have an idea of what those relationships are in space.”

Brayton: “Would you say this represents the future in 3D gaming?”

Guay: “It really is an evolution of 3D as we’re bringing it to the home, to the living room. We’ve probably all seen some of the 3D movies, especially in animation that have come out recently in theaters. We’re giving people an opportunity to take this experience home. It is really an HD experience, but in 3D.

My trip to Best Buy in search of the ultimate stereoscopic 3D experience

As soon as I got to Best Buy, I made a bee-line to the comfy sofa, courtesy of Samsung, and started to
explore the 3D glasses. In my opinion, 3D content is perfect for couch-potato moments.

The Samsung 3D glasses didn’t fit well over my prescription glasses. There was duct-tape holding the
cord in place, which leads me to believe that they aren’t very durable.

The Samsung 3D promotional display at Best Buy was not impressive.

The Samsung 3D Starter Kit includes the Monster Aliens game and 3D Glasses. If it came with Avatar
3D, I might be more inclined to go with a purchase!

These are the remotes used to control Samsung’s 3D system. The Best Buy salesman said that all of
this could be programmed for just one remote control, but I didn’t really believe him.

The salesman noticed my prescription glasses and suggested that I give the Panasonic system a try.
Futuristic, in a retro sort of way.

Here I am, with “pool hair” and a smile. The Panasonic glasses fit perfectly!

After all of my information-gathering, I looked forward to a trip to my local Best Buy.

I was disappointed that Best Buy only had the Samsung and Panasonic systems for demonstration, since I recently saw the Sony video about their 3D system (see below).

Samsung’s demo consisted of some 2D to 3D converted content. In my opinion, the fast-action moves in the converted video were not well-suited for 3D stereoscopic viewing. I preferred smoother, slower scenes. I imagined the 3D content as if it were in a video game, and thought that it would be quite a challenge to navigate, at least in its present form. Since the glasses didn’t quite fit over my prescription glasses, the experience was slightly uncomfortable. The comfy couch was a plus, at least for my Best Buy 3D viewing experience.

Panasonic’s demo consisted of content that was created for stereoscopic 3D viewing only, as the company does not believe that 2D to 3D conversion is the best use of the technology. The glasses slid easily over my prescription glasses, and I was pleased with the quality of what I saw on the Panasonic display.

In some cases, it appeared that only portions of the video frames were in stereographic 3D, especially during the views of the Grand Canyon. In these scenes, there was a feeling that I was exploring a high-quality diorama. The demo that I liked the best was the one of underwater life. I could sit for an hour and swim with the fish. Just add some ambient-chill music and a comfortable sofa, and I’d be on the road to relaxation. If Panasonic wants to sell 3D displays, it should provide Best Buy with at least a recliner!

I was crestfallen to find out that NVDIA hadn’t provided Best Buy with a demo of their 3D Vision System or multi-display 3D system. I found out that I’d have to make a 3 hour trip to get my hands on one. I guess there’s an evolution in 3D technologies, hopefully coming to a store near me – or you!

About the author: Lynn Marentette has over 20 years of professional experience as a school psychologist, and has used interactive multimedia applications and games with students who have disabilities since the early 1990’s. She is passionate about emerging collaborative technologies, natural user interactions and interfaces, and how the power of interactive multimedia can be harnessed in education. In addition to her work as a psychologist, she blogs about accessible off-the-desktop natural-user interfaces at “Interactive Multimedia Technology.”
Other posts that might interest you:

• The 3D Evolution: Part I, Introduction
• 3D TV: Are we there yet?
• Got Milk? uses interactivity and games in successful advertising campaign

MSNBC website redesign, photo courtesy of Vu Nguyen

I was recently notified about MSNBC’s major overhaul with their digital presence so I decided to check it out. I will be upfront in disclosing that I do not read MSNBC so I am mainly curious to hear from the web designers, UI specialists, usability experts and loyal MSNBC readers out there who can provide their feedback regarding the site changes.

As Creative Director Ashley Wells (and former Innovative Individual) stated, “We’ve made some big changes to our stories. Bigger pictures. Bigger video. Bigger text. Combined on a page, they tell bigger stories.” So, let’s dissect these changes and determine for ourselves if they succeeded in their goals.

First, check out this video detailing the changes. Even more so, examine the new video player that they custom built.

They now provide both transcripts and subtitles of all videos. This enables both search capability and the option to quickly move the playhead to a certain spot. Here is what broadcaster Lester Holt had to say about their new video capabilities:

“Some of the coolest changes are right here in this video player. Watch the news right on the page, go full screen, or pop the player up in a new window. Move your mouse off the video player for a clean, big picture viewing experience. Move your mouse back onto the player to see all your options. It’s easy to find more video clips that relate to the story-they’re right here, with more to choose from down below. You can also follow the biggest stories with our new text features. Want to watch, but can’t listen? Now, for the first time, click “subtitles” to read along. Or click “transcript,” select the part you want to watch, and just click the words to play them. Search for a term inside the video to see every time it appears in the clip, and to go right to it.”

Wow! Talk about a ton of cool features for the next generation of video players. Unfortunately, my first experience with the player (in Firefox 3.6.6) was not the best.

MSNBC video player bugs when viewed with Firefox 3.6.6

As you can see from these screengrabs, both the splash image with the play button overlay and the right-hand bar were cut off. Once I pressed play, the “Clip & Share” button didn’t fully display, and the scrubber bar was also cut off. I quickly moved to Safari 4.1 where everything displayed fine, so I’d be interested to hear your experiences on different browsers. What happens in Opera, Chrome, and dare I say it IE?

UPDATE: I was unknowingly writing my review based on my interaction with the player in Firefox zoomed in slightly – all looks good once the zoom is reset!

Furthermore, they provide embed code, but it apparently doesn’t work in WordPress as I attempted to embed the intro video mentioned above but nothing displayed. Anyone else have this issue?

Vu Nguyen, UNC alumnus and MSNBC inter­ac­tive edi­tor said, “What we are doing is incredibly big because we are not only changing the user facing design, but also rebuild our back-end completely from scratch using a new MVC based framework. On top of that we are building our own framework which will allow us to expand in the future and make development much faster and easier.”

As is anything in life, most of the comments regarding the changes were complaints. After scanning some of them, it is evident that the readers are annoyed that the end of text stories are hidden initially, requiring them to click a “Show More Text” button. Others griped about the navigation, the usability, the aesthetics, and several other issues with the video player and the video ads.

Unfortunately, only few offered constructive criticism. I’m hoping you can help fill that void. You know about web design and usability, so what are your thoughts on the redesign and how can they improve it?
Other posts that might interest you:

• MSNBC takes the lead in innovation efforts for multimedia presentations