Dare to Write

Attention Writers. If you have something to write, I know somebody who can help. My friend, teacher and editor Dan Nussbaum is now available to all. A new slate of workshops begins this week in L.A., with more to follow.

Dan is now available to any writer needing editorial services, in person or via Skype and the web. Dan is a spectacular teacher and a very fine editor. On top of that, his background as a meditation teacher gives Dan special powers of attention and compassion that makes the process of working with him a truly heart-centered experience.

For years Dan’s writing workshops were offered privately by groups and word-of-mouth. Now he is doing the marketing himself, in order to make his very special workshops available to all. Check out his new website  “Dare to Write, L.A.”  for the details of his current and upcoming offerings.And please pass this note along to other writers you may know who could benefit from meeting and working with a truly gifted teacher who can help writers at any stage of their development, experienced, newbies or periodically frenzied like me. Dan helped me overcome my own resistance and doubt and has dislodged my writers blocks more than once.

If you want to learn more, send me a message and I'd be glad to set up a time to chat. Or contact Dan directly from his website. 

• L.A. Transmedia Meet-up: A Wealth of Talent and their Projects in Development

I attended a meeting of the LA Transmedia Meet-up for the first time last night and I lucked out, because the program featured rapid-fire sharing by members of the group, 20 of us all told, and quite a variety was on display. The group, founded in late 2009 and coordinated by Scott Walker, Jay Bushman, Tara Brown, claims more than 200 members via the Meet-up site.

Some tidbits I gleaned in the meeting are worth sharing with the world:

• Brown kicked it off, describing some of her work helping record label 50/50 Konvict.
• Andrew Fogel described his work with the League of S.T.E.A.M., a steampunk-themed performance group which is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for the second season. 
• Mike Minadeo of MineField Productions described "The Los Journal of Commodore Claude D. Ledger," an ARG scavenger hunt that took place in San Diego's Gaslight District during ComiCon -- complete with lessons learned from this, his first such effort.
• Nedra Weinreich described two "transmedia for good" projects she's involved with: one focusing upon Indian health; the other using fiction and transmedia elements to teach health care literacy to teens, in conjunction with the UCLA School of Public Health and Health Net. 
• Rich Silverman, who worked on HEROES and other transmedia projects, described a new story world called Society Twins  he's launching with British author Michael Brant, who wrote the young adult series "Gone"  and publisher Egmont UK. Another project is Nexus Humanus 
• Attorney Bruce Lazarus who worked in Biz Affairs for Disney and other studios described a transmedia project he's helping to develop around author Troy Byer's self-help book Ex-Free.
• Robert Chapin described The Hunted, a web-series with social links that is being pitched as a movie via another Kickstarter campaign. 
• James Denning discussed Jamabi, his early-stage startup that embeds commerce and other functions into video via a posting and sharing site.
• Rick Baumgartner's early-stage venture is the 3D Music Company,which offers bands the chance to create 3D videos for their original performances. Built upon HTML5 standards, the company offers an innovation in business and revenue sharing with the artist.
• Kate McCallum has used her writing and mainstream TV background in a transition to transmedia, working on producing a "Bible" for a Chinese-backed multi-media rollout. She's also involved with 360-degree storytelling with a dome at Los Angeles Center Studios, and the Center for Conscious Creativity, which is hold a tribute to Tim Kring on Sept. 15th at the DGA as part of "Producing Change."
• Kirsten Olsen is a "anthropologist," eg. she consults with studios about behavior, likes and dislikes of the fans of various properties and story worlds. She described a new movie project with roots in China, a new challenge.
• Wally O., a recent winner in Script Frenzy, described her "death trilogy" web series.
• April Arrglington described her involvement with a multi-platform story from Spain (translation: The Super Coffeemaker), as well as the beginnings of her own sci-fi project.
• Kent Nichols (co-producer of the early YouTube hit "Ask A Ninja") just came off a long Honeymoon at many national parks, and is consulting with Blip.tv and teaching at USC. He described the recent re-booting of AAN, which btw has a total of 150 million views (!), and the push-pull relationship with fans.
• Alistair Jeffs has a day job in distribution, and works with passion on projects with Oil, the London-based creator of the award-winning Routes, the Channel 4-backed show and game about DNA. He is also working on a project code named WHI that involves driving a car from within a video (?) and a children's music project called Nelson and the Hollow Trees. 
• Aaron Vanek is a passionate member of the Live Action Role Playing (LARP) community which has fueled his belief that the experiences from role-playing can be educational. He's developing Seekers Unlimited as a LARP for Education start-up. 

• Stephanie Argy & Alec Boehm described their journey from filmmaking to transmedia in a three-act structure, starting with their short newsreel Gandhi at the Bat,  then to a feature The Red Machine, which has just come off the festival circuit, and finally to their current project, a Civil War spy transmedia adventure, A Person Known to Me.
• Travis Carter and Brad Lusher of One 3 Productions outlined "Fury" and "City of Refuge," two transmedia franchises they are developing.
• Phil Gable, a producer with ITV and BBC experience, has a company called Witch Factory Productions that is developing "Adore", a transmedia world developed using the Starlight Runner methodology, and a slate of ten projects they hope to launch using the licensing model.
• Marcello Picone, with a background in television and interactive, is working on a project called "101 Ways to Die." He discussed the aha moment for him, which was ten years ago in the AFI Enhanced Television Workshop, when he was part of the team that incubated an interactive version of KCET's "American Family" 
• JayBushman is a transmedia writer/designer with Fourth Wall, which has a lot of secret projects underway (he couldn't discuss). He did ask for coding help for a former project of his that he wants to bring back: a Twitter version of a short story by Melville (I think). He also gave a shout-out to "The Floating City", http://www.floatingcity.com/ an online game around the new Thomas Dolby album. 

I was also happy to discuss my recent deep-dive into the transmedia and ARG community, which started with the posts I wrote for Tribeca, and the presentation I gave at Digital Hollywood. It all began way back in the 90s when we incubated so many multi-screen projects at the AFI Enhanced TV Workshop and the Digital Content Lab. So many folks mentioned that they had been up to AFI over the course of their careers. Made me proud!

BTW> Please correct any wrong names or project data or links. This is all from my notes, and our friends at Google.