Happy Friday! Welcome to Issue 18 of Rerun, your weekly digest of digital storytelling, interactive media and the future of TV curated by Axonista.
A monster issue this week! Inspiration from Pixar's Chief Creative John Lasseter, Chicago's "Netflix tax", Facebook sharing ad revenue with creators, Meerkat + Discovery Channel + sharks, vertical video, the story of Sony Pictures' hack, Pac-Man's 35th birthday... lets get straight to it!
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Top Pick
Technology and The Evolution of Storytelling
It’s not the technology that entertains people, it’s what you do with the technology ... When you start doing something that’s truly new you will hear, “It’s not going to work.”
On May 12th this year Pixar's Chief Creative Officer, John Lasseter, gave an inspiring presentation to an Academy event. The broad theme of his speech is one that has been around as long as media itself. Namely that whenever new technology comes along there are always people who say "it'll never work" or "it can't be done". Inevitably though there will be a pioneer who uses it to tell the perfect story, and overnight the new technology becomes accepted.
It's something Lasseter is deeply familiar with, having been told that CG was too 'cold' and 'sterile' for animation. Then he made Toy Story. So as the pace of technological change becomes faster and faster, it's important to keep that thought in mind! If lots of people are saying something isn't going to work, it's almost a sure sign that it eventually will.
Future of TV
Chicago’s 'cloud tax' makes Netflix and other streaming services more expensive
Earlier this week Chicago introduced a 9% tax levy on "electronically delivered amusements" and "nonpossessory computer leases". It's essentially a new tax on online streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, as well as more general cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services.
Basically it looks like they're trying to make up for the local tax income they lost through closures of many local business like Blockbuster. If other cities follow suit with their own taxes it could quickly become quite a mess for streaming services in the U.S.
Meerkat dives into embedded streaming on Discovery's Shark Week
A new chapter in the live streaming app saga unfolds. Discovery Channel is experimenting with the newly launched Meerkat embeddable player during Shark Week. Experts in all things shark will live stream alongside the live TV broadcast on the Sharkweek.com website, adding an extra layer of shark stats for viewers who really want to get their teeth into it. Will it sync, or sink?
YouTube Beware: Facebook Will Start Sharing Ad Revenue With Video Creators
Kurt Wagner talks us through Facebook video's teething phase as Facebook launches a further attack on the YouTube revenue model, offering content creators like NBA, Fox Sports and Funny or Die a share in ad sales.
Facebook has been able to attract content creators because of its massive reach, but now it’s offering them the one thing YouTube has offered for years: Money.
OTT & TV will coexist and it will be beautiful
"In the case of OTT and TV, history has already foreshadowed the future. When cable came onto the scene, the industry all but sounded the death knell for television. But look where we are now: Cable ultimately evolved television to the point where we make no distinction between the two. It’s all simply TV."
Dermot Mc Cormack, President of AOL Video and friend of Rerun, shares some wise thoughts on TV, OTT and the evolution of storytelling with re/code
What agency creatives really think about vertical video
There seems to be a vertical line separating people who work in the media. On one side are creatives who embrace new ways to tell stories, one the other side are creatives who are more like 'purists' and stick firmly to traditional ways.
“Your eyes move side to side, not up and down,” he said. “It’s unnatural.”
Colour film was supposed to be 'too distracting' compared to black and white! It's a familiar line that appears whenever change occurs, and when the debate gets going you know the result has really already been decided; all in favour of the new thing. Vertical video on mobile is the new thing.
Interactive Media
Odd Division's live transmedia experience for Little Dragon
"How do we get a band to tell a compelling story about our new device?"
Maybe keep the $100m and the "free" album, and try this...
Swedish electro band Little Dragon and transmedia specialists Odd Division collaborate to deliver a stunning, interactive audio visual experience, not incidentally powered by 18 Samsung Galaxy S6 edge phones and a bunch of custom kit and software. All on the rooftop of New York’s New Museum.
"Yeah, that's better."
Storytelling
Live: From North Korea
I had the feeling that North Korea was not real. That it was a facade, like ‘The Truman Show.’ That’s what most people still think about North Korea - David Guttenfelder
Photo-journalist, David Guttenfelder set out to capture the candid, day-to-day moments in North Korean life to dispel misconceptions about the country. Guttenfelder decided to employ Periscope to live stream and document the everyday in North Korea, filming out the window of his hotel and his car. His stream was immediately blitzed with tweets from a curious Western audience, who had only ever seen the staged images distributed by the state as propaganda.
There are universal things to discover in a photo
Advancements in technology and communication are opening up the lines of communication between journalists and their audience and the world. Rerun recommends a look at some of David Guttenfelder’s photos and videos in Illuminating North Korea
Sony Pictures: Inside the hack of the century
The Sony Pictures Entertainment hack was one of, if not the biggest stories in our industry last year. Fortune Magazine have published an exclusive three-part feature detailing the whole story, with incredible depth and colour. It's understandably a very long read so if you don't have the time right now then definitely bookmark it to read later!
Briefs
- New HBO shows airing on Facebook for limited time
- Getty Images teams up with Oculus for 360-degree VR viewing
- Cricket World Cup draws 1.5bn TV viewers
- BBC3 set to go online only as trust backs plans to scrap TV channel
- Vivendi buys 80% of Dailymotion, valuing the YouTube rival at $295M
- Magic Leap names Vevo Co-Founder as Chief Content Officer
Space stunt marks Pac-Man's 35th birthday
Pac-Man is launched into space in celebration of his 35th birthday, via a helium balloon attached to a GoPro!