• Transmedia Talk at DALLAS VIDEO FESTIVAL

If you're in Dallas on September 25th at 2pm I'll be giving a talk about Transmedia as part of the 24th Annual Dallas Video Festival, one of the oldest video-focused festivals in the world. Launched by my long-time friend Bart Weiss, a fellow pioneer of the hand-held video revolution, the Dallas Video Festival brings a special twist to the festival circuit, now that film has merged with video and both have been swallowed by digital. 

I'll be building upon a talk I gave in May at Digital Hollywood and the three-part series on transmedia that I wrote in June for Tribeca's Future of Film site, and which has since been widely published on sites around the world. I've also been invited to participate on a panel on Saturday focusing upon The Changing Landscape of Independent Media on Saturday at 2pm. Details here.

I gave second thoughts to including the "transmedia" terminology in the title of my talk. On one hand, there's no denying that the term has buzz, and may help attract an audience more effectively than "the future of multi-platform story-forms" or some such thing. On the other, it's clear that many practitioners continue to air their displeasure at the widespread adoption of the terminology, especially by those without the credentials to do so (as one version has it.) 

I will dispense with the flame war quickly in order to move into why I continue to believe that transmedia storytelling has a strong future, providing further examples of exemplary work that furthers the trend since my earlier research and posts.

Please join me at the talk and the festival. Best part: I'm speaking at the Hyena Comedy Club. I leave it to you to connect THOSE dots.  

Vote for SXSW

I've never managed to attend the annual SXSW conference, despite my strong admiration for the role built by the organizers of the multi-faceted event each spring in Austin. More than any other festival (at least in North America), SXSW gives equal weight to film, music and interactive.

This year Janet Piersen who runs the Film program pinged me to suggest that I should consider proposing a panel, and was very helpful in steering me through the rather arduous process of doing so, articulated in this FAQ.

You see, SXSW is interactive to its bones. While I'm sure certain conference sessions are programmed by staff, there's a healthy dose of user-generated content among the roster of activities. And it starts 9 months prior to the show itself.

Once the submission and speakers have been established (all online), there's a public voting process, which is NOW -- through September 2nd. Public voting and comments comprise a 30% share of the weighted consideration, but obviously a well-crowd-sourced panel does get the attention of the organizers. 

I submitted the following two panels, one in film and one in interactive. Please review, vote and comment, should you be so inclined: 

• INTERACTIVE: Television in the Era of Social Engagement 

• FILM: Can Next-Gen Studios Reinvent Content Models?