“Twitter has fundamentally changed the way I make films,” Edward Burns and the Socialization of Indie Cinema

Excerpt from an excellent interview on mashable.com

"The Growing Importance of Social


Edward Burns credits Ted Hope for convincing him to join Twitter. Hope, a prominent independent film producer in New York City, explained to Burns it was crucial that he find 500 followers to share and promote his message. Hope’s thesis — which he has since revised to include 5,000 fans — is that connecting with the people that really care about your work is the most effective way of getting things seen.

Hope was right. Since joining Twitter, Burns has found numerous opportunities to answer questions from fans, share insights about his filmmaking process and, of course, promote his projects.

For his last project, Nice Guy Johnny, Burns was able to crack the top six in iTunes the week it was released. “This was a film with no budget, absolutely no money for marketing — outside of traditional morning show press stuff — that appeared next to major box office hits.”

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of 2011 | TorrentFreak

Most Downloaded Movies on BitTorrent, 2011
rank movie downloads worldwide grosses
torrentfreak.com
1 Fast Five 9,260,000 $626,137,675
2 The Hangover II 8,840,000 $581,464,305
3 Thor 8,330,000 $449,326,618
4 Source Code 7,910,000 $123,278,618
5 I Am Number Four 7,670,000 $144,500,437
6 Sucker Punch 7,200,000 $89,792,502
7 127 Hours 6,910,000 $60,738,797
8 Rango 6,480,000 $245,155,348
9 The King’s Speech 6,250,000 $414,211,549
10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 6,030,000 $1,328,111,219

Really interesting numbers when you look at what's not on this list: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Like - ZINK | Zero Ink Printer - Technology–How it works

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From the site:

"How it works.

ZINK® stands for Zero Ink® - an amazing new way to print in full color without the need for ink cartridges or ribbons. ZINK Technology encompasses both the ZINK Paper® and the intelligence embedded in every ZINK-enabled device. ZINK enables a new category of color printing devices and paper that work as a system to print in a whole new way.

Based on advances in chemistry, engineering, physics, image science, and manufacturing, the development of ZINK has generated an IP portfolio that includes over 180 patents and patents pending. At the heart of the technology is ZINK Paper which looks like regular white photo paper before printing. Heat from a ZINK-enabled device activates the color-forming chemistry within the ZINK Paper, forming all the colors of the rainbow. The printing process is now radically simple. Just add ZINK Paper™."

Janko Roettgers on: Will 2012 be the year of hypermedia? — Excerpt from Tech News and Analysis

"Radiolab and Al Jazeera

The Hyperaudio Radiolab experiment is an interesting mashup between audio, text and pictures that is based on Soundcloud's API and the Popcorn.js HTML5 media framework.

Boas started playing with synchronizing text and audio in HTML5 about a year ago. A few months later, he stumbled across a blog post by Henrik Moltke about the use of open web technologies to advance radio, an idea Moltke coined Hyperaudio. The two of them started collaborating, got some support from the Mozilla Foundation, and soon after, they had done some really interesting demos that show how powerful the combination of audio, text and the web can be (make sure to take a look at the demo for WNYC’s Radiolab if you haven’t seen it yet.)

Both Boas and Moltke come from the intersection of audio and HTML, which explains the moniker Hyperaudio. But that doesn’t mean that the Hyperaudio Pad and the ideas behind the technology will be restricted to radio programs only. “This can be applied to video as well as audio,” Boas assured me, and there’s a good chance that we will soon see some of the first hypermedia use cases for online video in action..."

Read the full post here:

http://gigaom.com/2011/12/27/hypermedia-hyperaudio-mark-boas/

WITCHFACTORY PRODUCTIONS | Transmedia Franchise: Adore

Excerpts from the site - see http://witchfactory.com/projects/adore/ for more details

"Adore is an original 360° Transmedia franchise, composed of interwoven narratives that are told through multiple media platforms designed to immerse the user in a unique and magical universe....

Adore is an innovative transmedia franchise currently in the packaging and pre-production phase of development. Adore will release core internet interaction, graphic novels and merchandising and evolve into film, musical theatre, toys and gaming. We have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the media and online technology industries and an agile business model where each transmedia franchise will be its own legal entity consisting of Witchfactory Productions, strategic partners and investors. In this model funds will flow back into Witchfactory Productions through original rights assignments, licenses, royalties, consultancy fees and share dividends...."

TorinoFilmLab | Transmedia Project for Kids| The Tower of Fables

See Torino FilmLab's site for a full description of this transmedia project for kids:

Excerpt describing the transmedia elements!

"Animation movie

At the core of the project lies an animation movie. The story will revolve around Tim Tom’s efforts to save the Tower of Fables, Storyville and its inhabitants from the clutches of Utrek, the evil wizard.

Interactive website / App

However the project will start with the creation of a web based portal where kids are introduced to Storyville, its inhabitants and most of all to the magical Tower of Fables.
Children will be asked to create an avatar... Once this is done, children are allowed to roam freely around the whole of Story Town. They can play free games and meet many of the characters of this universe. The mythology and the back story of the place are introduced slowly. Children will be able to understand the history of the place by playing various games with many of their favourite characters... Like helping Little Red Riding Hood cross the woods etc.. However the children will always be directed towards visiting the magical tower. There they can read, listen and even write their own fairy tales.

Publishing

A series of books about the history of the Tower and the inhabitants of Story Town will be released in conjunction with the site...

Live Events

Various events will be organized where a PHYSICAL TOWER is taken to various schools where children will listen to stories as actors act them out but also they will have the possibility to leave the books they have finished reading for others to make use of.

Game
A Wii game will bring the story arc to a conclusion as children will be able to don the uniform and go on a quest to defeat the evil wizard who has returned and is keeping Little Bo Peep hostage...

Very cool use of Arduino in Shop Window Installation: All Eyes On You

Description on vimeo.com:

"First edition of Britzpetermanns shop window installation project.

The series is starting with “All Eyes On You”, a bunch of different sized eyes who follow the passers-by. Simple concept, but the effect was immense. The passers-by loved it especially the kids react with the installation without any inhibitions."