Happy Friday! Welcome to Issue 38 of Rerun, your weekly digest of digital storytelling, interactive media and the future of TV curated by Axonista.
In this week's Top Pick, we look at what Story Studio at Oculus have dubbed 'The Swayze Effect' - the sensation of having no tangible relationship with your surroundings despite feeling present in the world.
We also have lessons the media industry can learn from PC gaming; YouTube's Kid's App; AOL's state of European video industry report; the Lion King Broadway musical goes VR; SnapChat partners with The Wall Street Journal and so much more!
Let's get straight to it!
Top Pick
The Swayze Effect
The Swayze Effect describes the sensation of having no tangible relationship with your surroundings despite feeling present in the world. Basically, itâs the feeling of yelling âIâm here! Iâm here!â when no one or nothing else around seems to acknowledge it.
The Oculus Story Studio are at the forefront of storytelling in VR and have already produced two animated VR films; Lost and Henry. They've been documenting their discoveries in their blog and the latest one is about the interesting conflict between presence and narrative. You can engage the viewer in amazing narrative, but then they lose the sense of immersion in the VR environment. Conversely, if the VR environment is too distracting then they won't be paying attention to the story.
Why does it matter how the main character feels about his dog if you canât get over this coffee cup sitting right here in front of you⊠itâs right here and oh man, look at it. Itâs right THERE, you can just reach out and pick it up and â there you go. Youâve lost the narrative.
As more and more storytellers start producing actual story-driven content in VR, and not just content that places you in the middle of an environment, we can see this becoming a much talked about topic. Despite the Pixar experience in the Oculus Story Studio, they still don't have an answer or a solution for this delicate balancing act. It just goes to show what a fundamentally new experience VR is; it requires a complete rethink about how you tell a story.
Features
Why if you're interested in media, you should be interested in PC gaming
Even if you have no interest in video games, if you are interested in media, you should be interested in PC gaming. Over the past decade, PC gaming has, for a variety of reasons, become a hotbed of experimentation. These experiments have resulted in a new practices and business modelsâââsome of them surprising and counterintuitiveâââthat provide valuable lessons for the rest of the media industry.
Years ago, the PC gaming industry found itself losing in a battle with its living room cousins the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and on another front it was facing huge problems with piracy. Developers were forced to experiment and innovate to survive.
The solutions were in fostering community and empowering the players to connect with games in other ways. They don't just sell games anymore, they reach out and connect with players, such as allowing users to create their own content, creating live events, or relaxing rules about IP (which has led to the explosion of video game streaming on sites like YouTube and Twitch).
What was once a struggling industry is now exploding in popularity, with loyal, passionate and engaged players. The rest of the media industry should take note.
PC games are so popular they can also make money from live events. Live gaming competitions have become huge: over 32M people watched the League of Legends championship this year, almost double the number of people who watched the NBA finals.
What the PC game industry figured out is that in a world of abundant media, users have endless choices; instead of fighting for scarcity, fight for attention. Maximize user engagement and money willâââwith enough experimentsâââinevitably follow.
Future of TV
âWhat should I watchâ: 5 examples of the area where Netflix is forgetting all about your experience
Jake Cohn on the state of recommendations today. The Rerun Team felt compelled to add our own list of bugbears about Netflix's Recommendations & Content Discovery.
- âNew Releasesâ is more like "Popular shows that people have been watching over the past 18 months"
- Why isn't the last thing I was watching my Top Pick?
- Just cos I like animation, doesn't mean I want to watch Dora
- Genres are a black hole - the comedy genre includes standup, TV and film
- Just cos you made it Netflix, doesn't mean it's that popular!
YouTube is the new childrenâs TV â hereâs why that matters
This week YouTube launched its Kids app in the UK and Ireland, a child-friendly, filtered and comment-free app specially for the tens of millions of kids who regularly watch content on YouTube.
The 20 top childrenâs channels had more than 5.2bn views in October alone, from Little Baby Bumâs 428.5m to Toys and Funny Kids Surprise Eggsâ 164.7m
Despite the undoubted benefits of a filtered child-friendly version of YouTube, it has still come under fire from some consumer groups in the U.S., who see it as YouTube's way of targeting kids for advertising. However, one could argue that much of the content itself is already advertising; when kids are watching entire shows based on Barbie, Lego or My Little Pony, why worry about a 20 second ad?
What YouTube Kids does do is provide a safe platform for kids to engage in the wealth of creative and interesting new kids TV on YouTube--although they don't consider it 'TV' anymore, it's just 'video'. With Netflix, Amazon and BBC planning to create their own original content and apps for kids, and other services like PlayKids and Hopster already out there, it's looking like the next generation will be spoilt for choice on their screens.
Report: TV budgets being reallocated to video advertising
AOL recently released their 2015 State of European Video Industry Report and it shows the strong continuation of trends we've been seeing for the past few years. Mobile and digital advertising are seeing explosive growth, and mobile video is the strongest growth area.
Mobile video is the strongest growth area with more than half of buyers planning an increase in mobile video ad spend, but cross-device targeting and attribution/measurement are the key pain points for agencies and advertisers.
Although TV ad revenues are not declining in Europe, nearly two-thirds of the video buyers (61 per cent) in our survey who have seen an increase in their digital video budgets say that broadcast TV budgets are being reallocated to video advertising.
Snapchat signs The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is going after a new audience. So, apparently, is Snapchat.
The Wall Street Journal will soon join Snapchat Discover, being the first âmajor business publicationâ to join since Snapchat launched its Discover page in January.
Both parties will benefit from a new audience demographic, as long as Snapchat remains cool with millenials :)
If youâll remember, there was a stretch where Facebook started to lose its coolness factor after users discovered Mom and Dad were sending them friend requests.
Storytelling
The tricky terrain of virtual reality
There is a whole host of ethical considerations and standards issues that have to be grappled with - Jake Silverstein - editor New York Times
The New York Times' experiment with VR a few weeks ago has re-awakened the debate of journalistic integrity in storytelling. When the newspaper released a VR film, The Displaced, on Google Cardboard, the editor and standards editor went through the film with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it fairly represented reality. The integrity of the film was met with mixed reactions.
Robert Kaiser, the former managing editor of The Washington Post, questioned the truth behind VR storytelling in the representation of news stories and accused the NYT of touting a process âthat will often be based on tricks and deceptions by photographers / cameramen.â
Virtual reality involves careful coordination between filmmaker and subject and as a result could alter the truth in its selection and preparation of a scene to reflect the author's bias, rather than fact.
Since V.R. films a scene in 360 degrees, in every direction at the same time, there is no place for the photographer or filmmaker to stand unless they become a constant character in the scene. In traditional photo or video, they stand behind their camera and craft scenes so they do not appear to be present.â So, he said, âwe had to hide.â - Ben C. Solomon - VR videographer
The NYT team recognises that virtual reality may not be "appropriate at all for some journalistic purposes."
YouTube helps creators shoot their dream videos
Launched in May 2015, YouTube's Field Day Channel collaborates with talented content creators like freestyle dancer Amymarie Gaertner, to experiment with new types of content and create their dream videos. A win-win partnership for YouTube and content creators, and ultimately a high quality viewing experience.
The result, ideally, is happier creators and higher-quality content. âWeâre really trying to push to the edge of what you can do on the platform, where a viewer might go, âThatâs not what weâre used to seeing on YouTube." Andrew Geller, Executive producer, 1stAveMachine
The Lion King is Broadway's first play shot for VR
To me, this is an ambitious piece, a one-of-a-kind piece... in terms of the language of storytelling in virtual reality, itâs really sort of pushing the limits - Craig Gilbert, co-founder, Total Cinema 360
The Lion King is Broadway's first musical to be shot in VR in an interesting feat of storytelling. The 360 video gives the audience a viewpoint, not possible in traditional theatre, and allows them to move around within the performance, view actors and gazelles as they wait in the wings before they burst on stage. The perspective is one that even some actors are not privvy to, such as the steep climb to the top of Pride Rock!
Virtual Reality
WWE fans can now get ringside seats through virtual reality
Using Samsung MILK VR, WWE are creating a virtual reality channel with 360-degree cameras which will allow fans to enjoy the action from the comfort of their own homes.
Michelle Wilson, chief revenue and marketing officer from WWE says that this will be the âfirst stepâ for virtual reality within the company while bringing fans a different perspective that hasnât been possible before.
6 learnings from the first VRX conference
The first VRX conference was held last week, a VR-focused event bringing together 500 of the top executives in the VR space. Nick Ochoa is the co-founder of VR news site Upload VR and he's put together an article outline the six key takeaways from VRX.
- Sony PlayStation VR will likely dominate 2016.
- Social VR is going to be huge, and where most revenues will come from.
- VR goes way beyond gaming.
- VR content creators need tools optimized for VR.
- Most investors think VR is cool, some are starting to put their money where their mouth is.
- We have come a long way in just 3 years.
Artist Alix Briskham talks Tilt Brush on the HTC Vive
Opposable VR artist Alix Briskham chats about creating VR art with Tilt Brush and the HTC Vive. All while watching her create an amazing creature from Opposable's upcoming VR game, Salvaged and the result looks awesome!
Alix explains how the Tilt Brush enables her to enter an immersive world of drawing with no guides or limits that sketching with pencil on paper has. The Tilt Brush has multiple tools for creating magical sketches in VR with mirroring techniques to replicate brush strokes on multiple sides.
The limits of drawing are stripped away with this new tool allowing this artist to really dive into the 3D world of drawing.
Briefs
- Bill Murrayâs Netflix Christmas Special looks delightful!
- This iPhone case is also a VR viewer
- The first full trailer for Zoolander 2 shows the return of Mugatu (and it's hilarious)
- Sky reinvents itself with Sky Q
30 years ago today, Mr. Snuffleupagus shocked 'Sesame Street'
Mr. Snuffleupagus was Big Bird's friend on Sesame Street that seemingly, only Big Bird could see. He was quite a large but shy creature and disappeared whenever Big Bird introduced him to anyone. Whether he was real or imaginary was left up to the viewers to decide. Until 14 years into the show, when national media attention on child abuse cases caused show producers to reconsider Mr. Snuffleupagus's imaginary status, and set the record straight. This is their story.
We started getting some letters from people who worked with children who had experienced some kind of abuse, and what we were told was that they often donât think theyâll be believed because the stories are so fantastic in their minds. Norman Stiles (Writer/Head Writer, Sesame Street 1971-1995)