The Chutry Experiment

I’m in the midst of two writing projects with relatively immediate deadlines, so I’ve been away from the blog for a few days.  Hoping that I’ll have a little more time to blog in the spring since I will only be teaching three classes (my smallest course load in something like five years).  Also hoping that I will see many of my readers at this year’s SCMS conference in New Orleans.  Here are the links:

• Over at his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner offers a nice overview of some of the key contributors to his recent Distribution U summit in New York.  Because I’ve been doing some research on fan adaptations recently, I was especially intrigued by the video presentation by Timo Vuorensola, maker of the Star Wreck series and the film, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning.  In the video, Vuorensola is discussing his new project, Iron Sky and his very cool “Wreck a Movie” platform.
• Anne Thompson offers an initial report on Amazon’s plans to create what amounts to a crowdsourced movie studio.  Users can submit storyboards, scripts, and even completed projects to the site where they can solicit advice from others.  Amazon, however, retains exclusive rights to all projects submitted to the service.  The one enticement (beyond Amazon’s “first-look” deal with Warner) is that they will be awarding monthly and yearly prizes.  Liz Miller of NewTeeVee reacts and warns aspiring filmmakers to read those rights agreements carefully.  Scott Macauley is also skeptical and uses the Amazon announcement to raise some red flags about crowdsourcing in general.
• I’ve really been enjoying the interview series on the state of political remix videos that Henry Jenkins has been posting over the last few days.  I wrote about political remix videos quite a bit during and after the 2008 election and may be returning to the topic for a conference paper (and maybe a journal article) this spring.  Here is part three of Henry’s series.
• According to research cited by NewTeeVee, viewers may be watching online video on anywhere from five to ten screens per household, thanks to smart phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices.
• On a semi-related note, Time Warner is now experimenting with a new, cheaper cable bundle that would cost only $40 a month but would cut out some basic cable staples such as ESPN.
• Finally, one of the sections of the book that makes me cringe a little is my discussion of interactive movies, in part because I lost track of how digital video could be used to create interactive features.  With that in mind, I really liked the recent Choose Your Own Adventure-style “Night of the Living Dead,” which repurposes footage from the original Night of the Living Dead (currently in the public domain, apparently). For people familiar with the original film (or even the plot devices of zombie films in general), it will likely be easy to steer the lead characters to safety; although it might be equally fun to create a little mayhem.  You can always backtrack later.  On a related note, here is a discussion of an interactive cinema iPhone app.