Blank page

DIGITAL ODYSSEY 2010

by Martin Anaya

In spite of the forcast demise of the Motion picture industry at the hands of illegal piracy as fortold by the MPAA, the truth is that In 2009, Hollywood made more movies and more revenue than ever before.

Still, In the year of 2009, Video Games nearly doubled the film revenue! What does this mean? One thing is for certain: with the advent of more and more interrelated technologies, your grandkids' entertainment will bare a scant resemblence to yours. And for those of us who call ourselves producers or content creators, the world of inter-active media bares a closer look.

Sales Brett Walton
BioShock 2 and Dante's Inferno are the big releases

So what is this "Digital Odyssey" anyway? With the advent of media convergence, one way to describe it is as "Transmedia" or what Wikipedia says is media content that "becomes invasive and permeates fully the audience's lifestyle"

Continuing from Wiki: "Henry Jenkins in his 2006 book Convergence Culture^[4], describes transmedia storytelling as storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a viewer/user/player's understanding of the story world."

Sounds great but why should we as film makers care? Many traditional forms of funding are drying up or becoming tighter. Understanding transmedia enables storytellers to find new audiences, speak in new ways and find new ways to monotize their content.

In a transmedia paradygm you use multiple media formats to create multiple portals through which your audience will become exposed to your world. By immersing your audience you create a level of "engagement" (key word) with what you are selling.

General News Kirolos Fam

This is a completely new business model that employs technology to help solve the main question that advertisers and distributors have always had. "How do we reach and engage an audience?"

"Here’s what we already know: pulling in an audience is tough but pulling in finance is tougher." - Robert Pratten of Culture Hacker

Our Digital Odyssey confernce is intended to challenge film, internet, game and other media creators to think in new ways about their product. It's not just a single product. It's an entire experience!