A true visual discussion?

It has been a while since I have been stimulated to blog in a work capacity, but something has dragged me out of my stupor. Story and digital merge to create motion picture. Whilst this blog has recently been focused on my creative adventuring/creating currency, or whatever you want to call it, my professional background is, lets not forget, digital, whilst my passion is moving picture and story, and something I am constantly actively cultivating, so it is not a surprise that this did the trick…

One reason I ever blog is to get my thoughts together when I am unsure about them, and Purefold definitely is something that you can’t grasp straight away and something that has flicked a switch.

The premise if I surmise correctly, we have a topic: What does it mean to be human? This is seemingly topical having watched the pointless Terminator Salvation’s attempts to deal with this same question last weekend. This topic is to be the centre of an open media franchise. Here brands, platforms, filmmakers, product developers and communities can collaboratively imagine our near future.

Interpreting this; we have a topic, let’s get everyones thoughts on the matter and create some compelling content. The content, webisodes initially, are interlinked and the story continually evolves… Essentially this is creating a visual discussion.


There are several things that strike me:
1. Informed by real time conversation: The integration of the subject to the method.
The audience's thoughts regarding the topic are integrated by listening to conversation online, currently friendfeed is quoted. This is effectively using intelligence to groom our thoughts from across the web, distil them into a story and reprocess them for our consumption. This is potentially a much deeper web (spiders not internet) than just using digital to integrate the user, it is topic starting to become embedded into the process.
Given that it runs for 8 years we have no idea how the user thoughts will be groomed and integrated, and it would not surprise me if these issues were not all intertwined in some capacity into the actual content.

2. Getting user participation: The promise
Practically one thing intrigues me, which is personal reward. One of the reasons that the web is highly interactive is gratification:
• Instant involvement, I can see I have had an effect i.e. my picture is involved on a site, or
• Self actualisation / ego. I push out my thoughts but they never go anywhere get judged etc but I feel important
Here lays the problem and something I blogged about a couple of years ago, the promise.

What is the audience promise? That you can shape the content? Now this is what I am interested in, how feasible is it for me as an individual to shape it? And if I can’t do this do I feel cheated, not valued and resent the concept?

As I wrote this and redrafted it I feel that this is less about direct interaction but more passive interaction and that the loyalty will be due to the creativity.

Personally I think that it is interesting because it puts digital and potentially the semantic web at the heart of a visual discussion on what it means to be human. The only question is how do you have a visual discussion rather than a visual feast where my voice isn’t heard but just consumed and repurposed? The ride looks like it will be fun…

As for the ‘brand involvement’ and potential negative views on this. If it is a true visual discussion and the brands are committed to the creative then they will get welcomed by its community. The integrity can’t be compromised else there will be no community.

In a time when everyone wants to be doing ‘engagement’ projects and things that involve ‘participation’ we create fads, things that come and go but don’t have longevity or actually contribute, they become meaningless and not memorable. The power of digital is to connect it is not changing what is the most powerful content which is motion picture.

I look forward to consuming my own thoughts via a minority style experience booth soon…