Des Temps

Category: Our World

  • Betting On Shorts

    Betting On Shorts

    On November 14th, the film festival Betting On Shorts will screen its program simultaneously in London, Athens, Barcelona, Bucharest, Maribor, Naples, Novi Sad, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Stockholm and Wiesbaden. And the short film Windows Vista: Predator Edition by Desedoian Paul Kamuf is in that mix.


    Betting On Shorts is unique not only for it’s dispersed distribution, but also that:

    So the audience can have some fun as well, we invite everyone to bet on which film will win. Bets must be placed before the screening. But no worries: trailers of all participating films are screened in all participating venues and on the website a week in advance of the competition. Those who have placed their bet well, can win cinema tickets, dvds, books and the like.

    I think that a festival giving additional and unique value to the audience is in sync with Brian Newman’s talk Better Than Free. Former CEO of the Tribeca Film Festival and a film industry consultant, Newman engages this issue:

    As the wealth and survival of traditional media businesses are built on selling precious copies, the free flow of free copies is undermining the established order. If reproductions of media are free, how can we keep on financing films and how can we find value in the media we create and sell?

    Given that we can now see short form content online, it also behooves film festivals to re-think their USP and value exchange with audiences, and I believe Betting On Shorts is doing just that.

    predator

  • The Heidelberg Project

    Noah

    I am in Detroit.

    I think I have a crush on Detroit.

    Last night, I realized that I always fall for cities in a state of remix and change. Witnessed this in the economic rise of Mumbai, the empty spaces of Berlin, the shifting socio- cultural politics of CapeTown/Joburg. My previous life of urban planning has stuck with.

    Intro

    Detroit has become quite the media darling, rather than me add my two cents, I suggest you read this very smart essay from New Geography, and some snark from Viceland.

    dosbirditos

    In the meantime, here are some pics from Tyree Guyton’s mind boggling Heidelberg Project.

    candylandy

    The color and the scale reminds me of Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden, built in empty Tuscany. Both pieces are simultaneously audacious and humble; both artists are defined by these singular works.

    dosbirditos

    Both pieces are so emotionally open that walking within them is overwhelming. You see, but moreso, you feel.

    homeric

    I know I’ll be going back to Heidelberg tomorrow.

    tickled

  • Help Wanted: Game Developer

    casual game

    We need a freelance video game developer to help Desedo make the Cutest Casual Game Ever. Email your resume and portfolio to michael@desedo.com.

  • City Secrets

    idotu

    When I first heard Jay-Z’s new song Empire State of Mind, which is a personal map of our hometown, I began to visualize the locations as data points: Stash spot @560 State. Tribeca Grill. MSG. Turns out I was not alone, as Tyler Gray of FastCompany placed Hov’s lyrics to Google Maps. Cool, novel, and any other adjective that can be used to explain how we remix stories within new media.

    locations

    I asked myself – how could this become even more entertaining? And then, via the Google Geo Developers Blog, I learned that Japanese designer Katsuomi Kobayashi created a driving simulator that uses Google Maps – so that you can drive around any city via the interwebs. Like GTA. 2D or 3D. OMFG.

    Perspective

    What if we could meld the two? Therein lies a game of some sort. Alternate or augmented or awesome. Via your computer screen or handheld device, sit in Jay-Z’s SUV and drive around his NYC. It’s like a dash of 2nd Life, and a pinch of ARG and heap of reality to mix it all together. Where can we put this thinking to use for transmedia elements of a narrative, an album release or an advertising campaign? Perhaps, within Heart of the City?

    —-
    (Written by erstwhile Desedo intern Jeff Slawsky, a strategist, NYC native and rabid UMich fan.)

  • Cross Media Business Models

    Kirill2
    At the Power to the Pixel conference last week in London, Ben Grass of Pure Grass Films gave a brilliant talk that addressed this topic:

    Extending stories across multiple platforms not only helps build an engaged fan base but also extends the potential of new revenue generating possibilities. As traditional financing dries up, how can producers leverage new types of cross-media partners to expand the value of their properties?

    Leading cross-media producer and digital innovator Ben Grass explains how, with current case studies of brand new projects Shadowline and Circle of 8.

  • Heart of the City

    What if Kanye West met Lord of the Rings…?

    we don't just dream of flying...
    we don’t just dream of flying…

    The Story
    Our transmedia story Heart of the City is a narrative set in the surreal world of urban teens, rife with mischief, rabbit holes and romance. The storyworld encompasses a web series, ARGs, original products and a feature film.

    magic hides infront of eyes
    magic hides infront of eyes

    It all begins one hot day in Brooklyn when our two heroes, Jai and Sash, buy a dusty talisman from the back wall of their local bodega, thinking it might hang nicely from Jai’s chain. But when they discover that it has the power to unlock daydreams – turning them into flashes of reality – the boys find their lives and their path forever changed.

    In their mind’s eye and on our screen, they now skate with Tony Hawk, smooch Santogold and freestyle with Pharrell. New York City morphs into a vast playground as Jai and Sash explore its nooks and secrets, joined by a purple sasquatch-dragon and bold fashionistas.

    But something’s missing.

    They must find the meaning of the talisman – what are its rules, how can it help them, how long will this magic last?

    Just as heroes before them have learned, from Dorothy Gale to Peter Parker, with great power, comes great responsibility. Time is fleeting. Evil lurks. And so begins their quest.

    mischief in the man and the dog
    mischief in the man and the dog

    The Market
    At Desedo HQ, we are excited. (we just won the Pixel Pitch:))

    In creating Heart of the City, we wanted to make new heroes for a massive, multiracial audience. Jai and Sash are from the optimistic youth of the Obama generation, from a new era in American history.

    These teens are at the vanguard of digital, mobile and gaming. It’s a group whose hobbies include comic books, skateboarding, and fashion. And they were weaned on hip-hop.

    As we wrote in Ad Age, most advertising and entertainment that targets this audience does not reflect their many interests. It overlooks both their depth and digital smarts. Yet in a shrinking economy, these minority markets are growing in both size and spending power. It’s a demographic we see reflected and refracted in spaces like Grey’s Anatomy and Kanye West’s collaboration with Takashi Murakami, Disney’s Cheetah Girls and our 44th president.

    Heart of the City is the first transmedia property built to engage multiple minority markets. Our heroes and our audience hail from the same world of early adopters, one encompassing Black Nerds, Asian BBoys and Wassup Rockers.

    As our characters plumb the city for adventures, our audience sees itself reflected in values and style, in language and in attitude. Jai and Sash are the heroes they’ve been waiting to see onscreen.

    Heart of the City is the new hero narrative for this generation.

    —
    Photos by Jason Lewis and The Brink

  • Asian Efficiency

    Digitizing Race

    One of the best books I’ve read in ’09 is Digitizing Race by Lisa Nakamura. In her essay The Social Optics of Race, she writes that

    the racio-visual logic of…science fiction films that depict interface use set up distinct roles for particular races, and distinct ways of conceptualizing the racialized body as informational property… [and that] Asians and Asian-Americans function as the material base for technologies of digitized vision….

    I was reminded of it when seeing this Palm Pre commercial from Modernista! in which masses of Asian bodies signify supreme technology. While I doubt that this was overtly outlined as such, I do think it is a product of Western subconscious.

    1ywUwca8tSY
    HT:Sociological Images for the clip and Erin Lamberty for noting it.