‘
John Banks and Peter Giles interview Matt Costello in two parts at the LAMP: Story of the Future Residential held at Couran Cove, Queensland, Australia in December 2007.

Matt talks about story worlds and how the game play is very dependent on the underlying story and how more importantly they really need to be developed in parallel. He uses Bioshock and the first Halo as examples of how story is really starting to permeate games in a more integrated way. Matt also refers to two games he recently wrote, Rage and Pirates of Caribbean as how the iterative and creative process work from first hand experience, but points out that each game development and production is often different from the last.

“There is a heightened awareness that the story is important. Not that the narrative has to be linear or has to drive the gameplay, its just that the way the next generation machines look, the graphics and the new engines that are being developed, it has to be treated as a very serious thing…do I find that a lot of people create that bubble of time to sort of play with those ideas? Sometimes yes and sometimes no but often it can show in a project. But if there is one suggestion I would make to the industry in general is make that time, do the retreat, go for a week in the mountains, and come back and have in paper form the world and the story and the gameplay you want to have.”

The discussion moves to adaptations of games using existing properties like Aladdin, the aesthetics of games and in part two the cross-over form between film and game and the skills required by future creatives. Matt thinks that screenwriters are not being given the opportunities at film schools to immerse themselves in interactive media and visa-versa interactive students do not learn the deep storytelling skills. This doesn’t create the opportunity to create a new kind of person – a talented script writer who understands non-linear and interactive. Matt uses the examples of early animation when writing stories for cartoons seemed quite odd at the time of early Disney and then about games leading the film writing and Matt’s work informing the story for the next Pirates of the Caribbean film. The interview finishes with a discussion about the lack of courses looking specifically at growing story worlds and writing for games.

MP3 recording time 24:38 (10MB) Click to listen
MP4 recording time 24:38 (126.5MB) Click to download

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes - click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

This podcast presentation produced and presented by LAMP @ AFTRS.

Filmed by Fadia Abboud, Sound by Peter Giles and Fadia Abboud
Podcast description, editing, processing and publishing by Gary Hayes

MATT COSTELLO - Writer and Games Designer, Polar Productions
Matt Costello is based in New York, London and LA and has written ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games, and television. Matt has scripted dozens of best-selling games and of one Time Magazine said, “The story is delivered with unusual art.” He wrote the groundbreaking Pirates of the Caribbean 3 game across all platforms and has been commissioned to do the fourth in the series.

Since writing the critically acclaimed classic game The 7th Guest, he has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ‘67 (Guerrilla Games and Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005’s Doom 3 winner of an unprecedented five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: Best of E3. Just Cause, co-written for Eidos, debuted as the #1 game for Xbox 360 in the UK. Named ‘Best Adventure Game’ at the 2006 E3, it premiered on the US best-seller lists as the #2 Xbox 360 game.

He has written a major new game for Eidos and Rage a new game for ID Software and other notable games include:

• Hercules, for Disney Interactive
• The Dark Half, for MGM.
• Derelict, for The Sci-Fi Channel
• Fatal Illusion -The Clue Chronicles – for Hasbro
• Barbie’s Riding Adventure–for Mattel
• Clifford’s Reading– for Scholastic
• Starsky & Hutch – for Empire
• The Italian Job - Eidos

Matt also specialises in the kid’s genre and has created many award-winning games for children. Several years ago he co-created one of the first major experiments in ‘two-way TV’, called ZoogDisney. Branded as ‘TV you do’ - for two years the ZoogDisney weekend bloc re-shaped the Disney channel, bringing it squarely into the interactive and ‘tweens world. He has written a kids book series for Scholastic , The Kids of Einstein Elementary, which blends adventure and math and also scripted episodes of the award-winning PBS animated series, Cyberchase. Other awards include the landmark Aladdin’s Mathquest with math expert Marilyn Burns for Disney, as well as A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam).

Matt is a designer of many role-playing and board games, including Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Batman, Lone Wolf & Cub, and many others. He also co-wrote episodes of the BBC/Disney series Microsoap, winner of the Prix de Jeunesse and is currently creating an MMOG using Multiverse which integrates its story world with an animated Childrens BBC TV series. Penguin published his latest novel, Nowhere, in 2007.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The next residential is LAMP’s first official international event with three teams from New Zealand and four from Australia. The intensive week of development will be held at Marysville in Victoria from 24-29 February 2008, is part sponsored by the New Zealand Screen Council and is the eighth live-in development lab that LAMP has conducted in just over 2 years.

LAMP received around 25 extremely high quality entries from teams in each country. LAMP mentors and Screen New Zealand representatives selected the most compelling, innovative and audience centric projects.

“We normally get forty to fifty entries but given the call for submissions was only four weeks ago and with the holiday season in-between we were staggered by the number of really clued up projects. It was really hard to differentiate from probably the most focused and audience aware ideas we have seen.” said LAMP Director Gary Hayes.

The selected projects are a compelling mix of emerging media forms and the successful teams are:

• Portable Ghosts NZ - The best way to solve ghost mysteries is to have ghosts helping you!
• Catalyst (ABC) NSW - Science that Excites and makes a difference.
• Aftershock NZ - “When disaster strikes, will we pull together or will we fall apart?”
• Virtual Roadside Memorials SA - Community for collective healing and remembrance and co-created documentary.
• Sea Patrol 2 (Chn 9) NSW - An interactive, cross-media platform, user-generated hub.
• Master Raindrop Cross-Media World NSW - Not just a drop in the ocean.
• Podscape NZ - Social virtual world networking where ‘Your in the Band’, a revolutionary new way to interact with friends and strangers alike.

The 6-day live in lab will see seven teams working with around talented new media professional mentors (an updated list here), developing digital media projects for distribution on broadband web, mobile devices, advanced television, games platforms, virtual worlds and beyond.

Popularity: 12% [?]

‘
A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

Podcast - Marissa Cooke ‘Extending Narrative: The Emmerdale Experience’

Marissa talks through her experiences of extending stories into online and other platforms looking specifically at her work on the enigmatic cross-media service created by Hoodlum for Emmerdale. She talks about call-to-actions, multiple entry points, point-of-view, story worlds, gameplay and trail heads as part of this experience creation for the audience. One technique she uses is thinking about how you want them to feel, their role and giving them ownership and a feeling of importance. Something overlooked in many cross-media services is actually giving them stuff to do and Marissa talks about the many and various activities the non-passive, participants in Emmerdale could take part in. There are still places for linear moments in these and more subversive ARG services as that is part of the reward if the players achieve significant progress. She wraps up by saying that the audience needs to know this exists so meticulous planning of the marketing is as important as the service itself.

MP3 recording time 18:27 (6.4MB) Click to listen

MARISSA COOKE - TV, new media and advertising writer, new media producer

Marissa has worked extensively in television, cross-platform entertainment and interactive advertising over the past 10 years as a writer, creative strategist and content producer on a diverse range of innovative, award-winning cross-media projects.

As a new media content producer and senior interactive writer for Australia’s first interactive television series produced by Hoodlum Active, Fat Cow Motel (ABC, Austar), Marissa was responsible for developing an immersive, cross-platform game and producing interactive content across web, iTV, email, mobile and dial-up channels that delivered unprecedented results for the ABC becoming the most visited TV website ever for ABC Online. Marissa also worked on an innovative pre-broadcast viral media campaign delivered via print, radio, email, SMS and web. Marissa won the inaugural Australian Writers’ Guild Interactive Media Award in 2005 for her work on Fat Cow Motel.

Marissa was also a scriptwriter on the AFI award-winning first series of the Foxtel drama series Love My Way (Southern Star), as well as the Australian-German co-production Blue Water High (Southern Star) and the SBSTV Mockumentary Series, S(truth).

Marissa’s recent work includes roles as Interactive Content Producer and co-writer for the Yahoo! 7 interactive drama series and game, PS Trixi produced by Hoodlum Active – a world-first 12 episode new media ‘event’ delivered across web, Instant Messenger, email, mobile and video platforms.

Most recently, Marissa worked as creative strategist, concept and gameplay designer for Emmerdale Online, a new interactive, cross-platform channel and narrative-based game produced by Hoodlum Active for the hugely popular UK television series, Emmerdale. Emmerdale Online has recently been nominated for several prestigous international awards including Best Drama in the MIPCOM Mobile, Internet and CrossMedia TV Awards, and Best TV online channel for the 2007 Pixel Awards.

Marissa is currently developing several of her own cross-platform projects as well as consulting for a range of clients including television programme producers and award winning interactive advertising agency Tribal DDB as a digital content developer and copywriter across campaigns for Volkswagen, NIKE, Gatorade and McDonalds, three of which were awarded Gold Medals at the prestigious Montruex International Advertising & Multimedia Festival in 2006 & 2007.

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes - click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Popularity: 12% [?]

‘
A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

Podcast - Jennifer Wilson ‘Generation C and Z’

A sadly highly abridged 6 minute recording of a great talk by Jennifer looking at upcoming demo/psycho graphics particularly generation C (12-24) that she thinks stands for community, creativity and content. They are non-watch wearers as they have some many devices who needs it. She looks at their current modes of communication and bizarrely they see email as out-dated and have moved on. Exploring social networks, Jennifer points out the four layers of connection within generation C and how the upper limit of 150 is similar to corporate thresholds of efficiency. She finishes, before being cut off, on explaining why email is an issue for this group.

MP3 recording time 6:00 (2.2MB) Click to listen

JENNIFER WILSON - Head of Innovation, Nine MSN

Jennifer Wilson has over 20 years in interactive consumer content and information services, from first building interactive voice response systems in the UK, through voting, banking, gambling and marketing services; online and on all forms of telephone, fixed and mobile.

She was previously Managing Director of HWW, a specialist content aggregation, syndication and digital publishing company, which provides the yourTime™ products (yourMovies, yourTV etc). HWW is also a major developer of mobile sites, providing mobile publishing tools for hard-to-source content as well as building third-party mobile (and web) sites. HWW was recently purchased by ninemsn.

Jennifer holds a patent in the delivery of TV to mobile phones. She has a keen interest in social networking, digital public spaces, tribes, blogs and forums and the interesting digital world of Gen-C.

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes - click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Popularity: 12% [?]

‘
A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

Andrew Apostola ‘How to Make Money from Online Content’

Andrew looks at the nuts and bolts of making money with your content online. He looks at a range of emerging online portals setup to aggregate and share revenues with independent content providers and talks about examples including Revver, Grouper, BlipTV and Crackle. To create a sustainable business you have to connect with interest groups across social networks and existing portals setup to focus a global niche towards your content. “What makes aggregators take notice, audience” leads Andrew to explore that all content put in-front of distributors has to come hand in hand with an existing following. Creative examples investigated are LonelyGirl15, Ask a Ninja, Rocketboom, Afterworld and other notables who were clear about defining their audience and meeting that need. For most content providers nowadays there are two clear paths, sell your audience to a big media group or sell to advertisers who want to reach your audience.

MP3 recording time 14:54 (5.2MB) Click to listen

ANDREW APOSTOLA - Creative Director Portable Content

Andrew Apostola is the co-founder and Creative Director of Portable Content, an Australian based digital studio that designs and manages innovative web applications for a range of clients in the online space.

In 2006 the company successfully launched portablefilmfestival.com, a user generated video site that distributes video to users through portable video platforms including iPods, mobile phones and laptops. In 2007 the project expanded internationally and was recently launched in the United States at the South By South-West Film and Interactive in Austin Texas.

Andrew has worked for a range of broadcasters and media providers and is well known for successfully launching the Student Youth Network alongside Portable Content co-founder Simon Goodich in Melbourne in 2003. The network is the largest youth media orgnanisation in South-East Asia, operating a full-time terrestrial radio license and broadcasting on television and the web.

As Creative Director of Portable Content Andrew follows the emerging online video sector closely and develops and implements innovative video components for the company and its clients. These include the creation of classnet, a video sharing community for educators and students and syn.org.au, an online distribution platform for independent mediamakers.

Andrew has completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), a Post Graduate Diploma in English Literature at the University of Melbourne and Film and Television Production at Ryerson University in Toronto.

ABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes - click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Popularity: 13% [?]

‘
A series of podcasts of short presentations given by mentors at the LAMP VII: Story of the Future at Couran Cove Eco Resort in December 2007.

John Banks ‘Propogating Social Networks and MMOG Development’

John explores the intersection of online games and games communities and highlights key techniques in drawing traffic and communities to your property. He uses Fury developed by Auran games as one example and how the relationships with key influencers were nurtured, using genuine and authentic dialogue and co-creation. He is clear pointing out that the wisdom of crowds of key influencers are the best resource for anyone developing a creative service and you must see them as a market and even consider a transparent commercial relationship. Finally he cites Henry Jenkins and says you must be careful and not treat this community as a free resource, it is very easy for it to be counter productive if not managed properly.

MP3 recording time 17:55 (6.2MB) Click to listen

Dr. JOHN BANKS - Researcher & Games Manager

Dr John Banks is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Federation Fellowship program, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology. His research interests focus on the emerging relations between media corporations, educational and cultural institutions, and user-led innovation and consumer co-creation in participatory culture networks. He has a particular interest in videogames.

From 2000-2005 John worked in the videogames industry for Brisbane based Auran Games as an online community manager, focusing on the development of user-led content creation networks within the context of game development projects; he has published widely on research grounded in this industry background. He was also a researcher and project leader at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID). His background also includes research and tutoring in literary theory and cultural studies at the University of Queensland (School of English, Media Studies and Art History).

John’s current research & consultancy continues to work at the interface of game developers and gamers as they negotiate emerging co-creation relations. He is currently working with Auran Games on social network strategies for their forthcoming massively multiplayer online game, Fury. In April 2007, John gave an invited presentation to the Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT, addressing the challenges of co-creation relationships (“Navigating Co-Creator Relationships: How do you make this Damned thing Work?”) You can see John’s recent presentation on these issues for AFTRS Centre for Screen BusinessABOUT LAMP PODCASTS

All LAMP podcasts are published through iTunes - click on the icon below if you have iTunes to subscribe now!

This podcast presentation produced and presented by Gary Hayes for LAMP @ AFTRS.

Audio recorded, edited and processed by Brett Robertson and Gary Hayes

Popularity: 12% [?]

Don’t Just Sit Around this Christmas Holidays -
the next LAMP residential is just around the corner

Have you got what it takes to apply?

We are looking for six to eight professional teams with groundbreaking new media ideas to attend our leading R&D production lab from Feb 24 -29, 2008.

Facilitated by the AFTRS, the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) has run hundreds of workshops, seminars and live-in-residentials and developed over 54 projects. LAMP assists production teams in developing innovative emerging media projects including Sharing Web 2.0 Services, Advanced TV, 360 Entertainment, Serious Games and Social Virtual Worlds.

Over our six day LAMP residential, you and internationally recognised industry mentors live and work together in a creative hothouse environment for five days straight.

What a privilege! We were challenged to reach for and achieve
far reaching goals but were also totally supported in the endeavour
by a united team of razor sharp professionals.

You will experience engaging presentations from world class practitioners, evolve the business, technical and creative aspects of your project, and create a dynamic visual proof of concept.

This was a highly productive, intensive session
whereby all outside distractions
were eliminated letting us focus solely on the job

At the end of the residential you are given the opportunity to present your visual proof of concept to a panel of media industry experts, gaining invaluable feedback, insight and advice. Past panels have included representatives from the ABC, Bigpond, NineMSN, yahoo7, SBS, the AFC, Film Victoria, NSWFTO PFTC, Alcatel, Southern Star and Nickelodeon.

I was transformed and uplifted with new confidence,
a new sense of possibility

Our residentials work because participants get to accelerate their ideas rapidly from concept development through to proof of concept while being challenged by a wide range of ideas relevant to the growing creative industries sector.

The next LAMP Residential is being held in collaboration with the New Zealand Screen Council and is set to take place Sun 24 February - Fri 29 February, 2008 in Victoria.

This has definitely been one of the best experiences of my life.
Thankyou!

So get to work today on your application and getting a team together, so you don’t miss out being a part of the first LAMP residential for 2008.

Applications are open now and close on January 10, 2008
Go to www.lamp.edu.au/apply to see criteria and download an application form today

We are happy to receive submissions to attend the next lab in the following areas.

• Advanced TV - Projects that are targeted to local ‘OpenTV-like’ interactive TV over satellite and cable TV (Foxtel and Sky New Zealand) with a mobile phone component. These can include synchronous enhanced TV alongside the programming, simple casual games or multi stream formats
• Social Virtual Worlds - Rich story based virtual worlds that can be built in existing large 3D social multi user environments like Second Life, Multiverse or There.com. These must have a strong community aspect and include co-creative elements.
• 360 Entertainment - Cross-media, collaborative play services. Often called Extended Entertainment or Alternate Reality Games these will be strong narratives played out across many websites, mobile, physical locations, TV and print. Themes are usually investigative and draw audiences into complex scavenger hunts that blur the line between fact or fiction.
• Serious Games - Specifically interested in rich gameplay on consoles, pc or mobile that delivers real learning. The range can be short form flash/sms type games that require brief periods of play spread over many weeks or continuous online games that involve collaboration with others in Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) environments.
• Sharing Web 2.0 - Applications and services that draw together communities on web and mobile with the purpose of sharing and growing around a niche interest. This could be mash-ups of iconic web 2.0 services such as flickr, YouTube, Facebook or something completely new and original that will activate key interest groups.

Popularity: 27% [?]

,
Title: Faction Comics - NSW

Tagline: Where the comic world comes to create, share and rate.

Project Description: Faction comics is a global online comic community with ongoing user generated publications.

Target Media: Web, Mobile, Film/TV

Team Members © Leader/Writer Sam Clayton, Designer Nat Jones, Designer Rob Wilby. Strict Copyright 2007

Guardian Mentor: Andrew Apostola

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

Popularity: 27% [?]

,
Title: Detective Dale - TAS

Tagline: In a town with no hope, one no hoper dares to hope.

Project Description: Interactive crime/courtroom drama set in the sleepy backwater town of Jordanville “The Best Place in Tasmania to Live, Work and Play”. Rich local characters and relatively strange going’s on create an enigma spread across the web including the “Church of New Hope: Speed to Salvation”, where the audience are invited to join forces with Dale and uncover a truth stranger than fiction.

Target Media: Web, TV

Team Members © Producer Andy Wilson, Writer Ryk Goddard, Writer/Developer Shaun Wilson . Strict Copyright 2007

Guardian Mentor: Arse

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

Popularity: 27% [?]

,
Title: Stalker’s Ink - QLD

Tagline: Decent Obsession’s

Project Description: An online social networking service for romantic adventurists to facilitate magic, mystery and unique romantic experiences in the real world.

Target Media: Web, Mobile, Locative Environments

Team Members © Co-creators Sarah-Jane Woulahan, Rachel O’Reilly, David Campbell. Designer David Campbell. Strict Copyright 2007

Guardian Mentor: Marissa Cooke

LAMP Lab: Couran Cove, Queensland, November 2007

Popularity: 27% [?]