The Resume Remixed

In what ways are formats, standards and best practices getting in the way of your creative work?

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.

A couple of friends are working on a project that I encouraged them to pursue together. Every few weeks they share what they’ve created so far and I am always surprised. Even if they are executing something I suggested it is always delivered in a way that is completely different from what I imagined. Part of this process has been an ongoing conversation about formats, standards and why are things the way they are. 

This project has led to a lot of questions: at which point did the formats or the media used change the creative process? Did composers write symphonies because that is what the vision was or because that was the expected form the composition should take? CDs (remember those) held approximately 75 minutes of music, but did albums need to be 75 minutes long, or could they contain less music? In the digital age, what form would an album take? Can the album be reinvented? (One could argue that iTunes LP is the album reinvented, but that is exclusive to iTunes, what would the universal new shape of an album be?) Are plays creative works meant to be read or seen in production? Is the theater of the imagination better than an actual theater? What is a theater? What is a book? A magazine? What is a website? An advertisement? Is an open source environment better than a closed system? Is HTML5 better than Flash?

Restrictions can be very helpful to the creative process. Limitations often yield the best creative solutions because of the discipline they enforce. But I worry that over time we’ve conditioned our creative process to fit the things we know to be true making innovation evolutionary rather than truly visionary. Having true visions devoid of formatting restrictions has become something we are not trained to do. 

It is exciting to be at the threshold of so much change in media and technology. This is a perfect opportunity to not only create smart work, but to also take the time to question the forms the work will inhabit. 

As someone that is currently looking for interesting projects and collaborators I am always asked to submit my resume first. The resume becomes the summary of my career as well as a billboard for my personal brand. The resume is the one thing that determines whether the conversation stops or continues, but there is no way that it could present the full picture. And so, all this thinking about formats, and inspired by remix/mash-up culture I decided to do an experiment. 

I created an EP for my resume. I developed the Antonio Ortiz Resume EP 2010, an interactive PDF which includes my original resume and nine remixes and an EP exclusive. I experimented with content and with format to present a more complete picture of my career and how I work. I’ve already thought of additional remixes to create in the future and have asked some friends to be guest remixers and create their versions of my resume while I return the favor. 



Download the EP PDF here. Please take a look, see what you think. Feel free to share with anyone you think would enjoy it or find it interesting. What other remixes would you suggest? Would you remix your resume? Your personal brand? Would you allow others to do so? 

And if you, or anyone you know, would enjoy collaborating with me, please let me know. 

In what ways are formats, standards and best practices getting in the way of your creative work? 

And what are you doing about it?

TED 2010 Conference Makes for Strange Bedfellows

LONG BEACH, California — Bedfellows were never more strange than those assembling this week for the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference launching Wednesday in Long Beach.

Avatar director James Cameron, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former covert CIA analyst Valerie Plame, 4chan founder and provocateur Christopher “Moot” Poole and potty-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman are among the eclectic mix of speakers that will rock the small harbor town through Saturday.

The four-day, $6,000 a head, invitation-only event, dubbed “Davos for the Digerati set,” will gather industry titans, celebrities, academics and alpha geeks for its 26th year. This year’s overall theme is “What the World Needs Now,” with separate themes listed for each track of speakers.

Gates, who last year made headlines after releasing a handful of mosquitoes on stage to draw attention to malaria, will be speaking in a session dubbed “Boldness” about work being done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to eradicate malaria.

Plame and Poole will both appear in a session dubbed “Provocation.” Poole will discuss 4chan, the online forum he created that serves as a haunt for would-be hackers and members of Anonymous — a motley, loose-knit crew of online rabble-rousers who have launched crusades against the Church of Scientology, the Australian government and others while often missing their mark.

Other speakers include:

• Temple Grandin, an autism activist and designer of livestock facilities, who is the subject of an HBO biopic with actress Claire Danes;
• biologist Cheryl Hayashi will discuss the amazing properties of spider silk and its possible uses in protective armor for soldiers on the battlefield as well as biodegradable surgical sutures;
• legal activist Philip Howard will take on the provocative topic of why the world can do without lawyers;
• cell biologist Mark Roth will discuss the latest research into the possible use of hydrogen sulfide to reduce the metabolism of trauma patients and heart-attack victims to buy time until they can be treated;
• and interface designer John Underkoffler will discuss the point-and-touch interface he invented.

To provide respite from the often rich and heady presentations of TED speakers, an array of musicians and artists will provide palate-cleansing performances — former Talking Heads musician David Byrne, as well as singers Natalie Merchant and Sheryl Crow.

Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson will also be showing attendees the magazine’s new strategy for bringing its content to users of Apple’s new iPad device.

Continuing this year is the TED fellowship program that opens TED’s elite doors to more than three dozen up-and-coming thinkers and doers from developing regions who are invited to attend for free.

Founded in 1984 by architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman as a kind of dream dinner party with interesting people he wanted to meet, the conference was bought by publisher Chris Anderson in 2001 (not Wired’s Chris Anderson). Anderson’s nonprofit, Sapling Foundation, now runs the conference, along with the TED Global conference held in Oxford, England, each year, and the satellite TED Africa and TED India events.

Since taking over eight years ago, Anderson has focused the conference on philanthropy and social consciousness. The primary purpose is to cross-pollinate people from various fields to share knowledge about the latest developments in the sciences and arts and to inspire attendees to think imaginatively about their own contributions to the world.

The conference attracts a wide range of attendees, whose accomplishments and notoriety often rival the speakers -– Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, musician Peter Gabriel and comedian Robin Williams have appeared at past events. Past speakers have included former Vice President Al Gore, filmmaker J.J. Abrams, Sims creator Will Wright and physicist Stephen Hawking.

Generally, one talk stands out each year as the crowd favorite, for varying reasons. In 2008, it was neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor’s riveting account of a stroke she experienced years earlier. In 2006, Hans Rosling, a geeky professor of international health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, became the resident rock star for his surprisingly stunning presentation on statistics and the developing world.

Among the annual features of the conference is the TED prize, generally given to three recipients. This year it will be given only to one — celebrity chef and author Jamie Oliver. The prize is an annual award launched in 2005 to recognize individuals whose work has had and will have a powerful and positive impact on society. It provides each recipient with $100,000 and the chance to ask for help from the TED community in achieving one grand wish to change the world.

Past winners have included U2 singer Bono, former President Bill Clinton, oceanographer Sylvia Earle, astronomer Jill Cornell Tarter, and former economist and trained musician Jose Antonio Abreu.

Oliver will receive his award and reveal his wish at a ceremony Wednesday night.

Those who aren’t invited to TED can see the conference presentations as they’re posted to the web over several weeks after the conference ends. Since TED began posting videos of its talks in 2006, more than 15 million visitors have viewed them.

Earlier this year, TED launched a translation/transcription version of its talks.

The tool combines crowdsourcing with smart language markup to provide translated and transcribed videos in more than 40 languages — from Arabic to Urdu — that can be indexed and searched by keywords. Users can click on any phrase in the transcript of a talk, and jump to that point in the video.

Wired.com will publish stories from the conference all week.

via wired.com

Very much looking forward to this year’s conference. It also features LXD performing.

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski: A Dramatic Interpretation

via youtube.com

This is a brilliant cultural mash-up. You should read the whole play here: http://runleiarun.com/lebowski/

Announcing Transmedia, Hollywood:S/Telling the Story

Conference Overview: 

Transmedia, Hollywood: S/Telling the Story is a one-day public symposium exploring the role of transmedia franchises in today’s entertainment industries. The event brings together top creators, producers, and executives from the entertainment industry and places their critical perspectives in dialogue with scholars pursuing the most current academic research on transmedia studies.

Co-hosted by Denise Mann and Henry Jenkins, from UCLA and USC, two of the most prominent film schools and research centers in Los Angeles, Transmedia, Hollywood will take place on the eve of the annual Society of Cinema & Media Studies conference, the field’s most distinguished gathering of film and media scholars and academics, which will be held this year in Los Angeles from March 17 to 21, 2010.

By coinciding with SCMS, Transmedia, Hollywood hopes to reach the widest possible scholarly audience and thus create a lasting impact in the field. It will give cinema and media scholars from around the world unprecedented access to top industry professionals and insight into their thinking and practices.

Location:

USC Cinematic Arts Complex, Los Angeles

Conference Summary:

Transmedia, Hollywood: S/Telling the Story

As audiences followed stories as diverse as Heroes, Lost, Harry Potter, and Matrix, from one format to another—from traditional television series or films into comics, the Web, alternate reality or video games, toys and other merchandise—Hollywood quickly adopted the academic term “transmedia” and began plastering it above office doors to describe this latest cultural phenomenon. This is not to say that convergent culture and transmedia storytelling are new concepts; instead, the emergence of convergence can be traced to the 19th century when a Barnum and Bailey-style mode of entertainment first took hold, maturing in the mid-1950s with Walt Disney’s visionary multi-platform, cross-promotional, merchandising extravaganza known as Disneyland.

Since then, Hollywood has created countless new transmedia titles, everything from Batman to Star Wars - an evolution only accelerated by the advent of digital convergence. While transmedia, in one way, vindicates the logic of the integrated media conglomerate and activates the synergies long hoped for by the captains of industry in charge of Hollywood’s six big media groups, it may also prove to be more than they bargained for. Engaged, “lean-forward” consumers—coveted by advertisers and entertainers alike—are not content simply to watch traditional media but rather, they produce their own videos, remix other people’s work, seek out those who share their interests, forging concordances and wiki’s, fan fiction, and various forms of interactivity that are still in their infancy and that corporate Hollywood is just beginning to explore. Copyright law, guild rules, and the conventions of audience quantification are frequently operating at cross-purposes with these new, expansive sets of cultural-industrial practices. As the demise of the music industry shows, active audiences and technological advances can create an explosive combination, powerful enough to bring down an entire industry. The entertainment industry wants to embrace this new, active consumer while ensuring its own survival by seeking to recreate familiar rules of what is considered “valuable” and “entertainment” within traditional business models.

Transmedia, Hollywood turns the spotlight on media creators, producers and executives and places them in critical dialogue with top researchers from across a wide spectrum of film, media and cultural studies to provide an interdisciplinary summit for the free interchange of insights about how transmedia works and what it means.

Conference Panels

Topic: Reconfiguring Entertainment
Henry Jenkins, USC, Moderator

The recent news that Disney is buying Marvel Comics has sent shock waves through the entertainment industries as two companies, which have built their fortunes on transmedia experiences but for very different groups of consumers, are being brought together under single ownership. What implications does this merger have for the kinds of entertainment experiences we will be consuming in the next decade? This panel brings together visionaries, people who think deeply about our experiences of play, fun, and entertainment, people whose expertise is rooted in a range of media (games, comics, film, television) to think about the future of entertainment as a concept. Transmedia designers often use the term, “mythologies,” to describe the kinds of information rich environment they seek to build up around media franchise and deploy the term, “Bibles,” to describe the accumulated plans for the unfolding of that serial narrative. Both of these terms link contemporary entertainment back to a much older tradition. So, are we simply talking about a largely timeless practice of storytelling as it gets relayed through new channels and platforms? Or are we seeing the emergence of new modes of expression, new kinds of experiences, which are only possible within a converged media landscape? What does it mean to have “fun” in the early 21st century and will this concept mean something different a decade from now? In what ways will the desire to produce and consume such experiences reconfigure the entertainment industry or conversely, how will the consolidation of media ownership generate or constrain new forms of popular culture? What models of media production, distribution, and consumption are implied by these future visions of entertainment?

Topic: ARG: This is Not a Game…. But is it Always a Promotion?
Denise Mann (UCLA) moderator

Using a collective intelligence model disguised as play, Alternate reality games, or ARGs, give any individual with a computer a means of problem-solving anything from global warming to the true meaning of the Dharma Institute conspiracy. ARGs also give instant “geek cred” to marketers from stuffy firms like Microsoft and McDonalds tasked with selling consumer goods to the Millennials. Are these elaborate scavenger hunts, which send players down an endless series of rabbit-holes in search of clues, teaching them how to think collectively or are they simply the latest in a long series of promotional tools designed to sell products to tech-savvy consumers? Unlike regular computer games, ARGS engage a multitude of players using a multitude of new technologies and social media formats—sending clues via Web sites, email, or just as likely, by means of an old-fashioned phone booth in some dusty, small town in Texas. For ARG creators, the new entertainment format represents rich, new storytelling opportunities, according to Joe DiNunzio, CEO of 42 Entertainment (AI, Halo 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest). However, for the big six media groups, the primary purpose of ARGs is promotional—a new-fangled way of selling Spielberg’s AI (The Beast), WB’s Dark Knight, Microsoft’s Halo 2 (ilovebee’s), or ABC’s Lost (The Lost Experience). In other words, are ARGs simply a novel new way for the big six media groups to prompt several million avid fans to start beating the promotional drum on behalf of their favorite movie, TV series, or computer game or do they represent a new way of harnessing revolutionary thinking? In this panel, ARG creators, entertainment think-tank consultants, and media scholars will debate the social vs. commercial utilities associated with this latest form of social engagement.

Topic: Designing Transmedia Worlds
Henry Jenkins (USC) moderator

Transmedia entertainment relies as much on world-building as it does on traditional storytelling. Transmedia practices use the audience’s fascination with exploring its richly detailed world (and its attendant mythology) to motivate their activities as they seek out and engage with content which has been dispersed across the media landscape. Recent projects, such as Cloverfield, True Blood, and District 9, have relied on transmedia strategies to generate audience interest in previously unknown fictional universes, often combining promotional and expositional functions. Derek Johnson has argued that these fictional worlds are “over-designed,” involving much greater details in their conceptual phase than can be exploited through a single film or television series. This “overdesign” emergences through new kinds of collaborations between artists working both for the “mother ship,” the primary franchise, and those working on media extensions, whether games, websites, “viral” videos, even park benches. In this new system, art directors and script writers end up working together in new ways as they build up credible worlds and manage complex continuities of information. What does it mean to talk about fictional worlds? How has this altered the processes behind conceptualizing, producing, and promoting media texts? What new skills are emerging as production people learn to introduce, refine, and expand these worlds through each installment of serial media texts? And how do they manage audience expectations that they will continue to learn something more about the world in each new text they consume? What does each media platform contribute to the exploration and elaboration of such worlds?

Topic: Who Let the Fans In?: “Next-Gen Digi-Marketing”
Moderator: Denise Mann (UCLA)

Most Hollywood marketing campaigns remain overly reliant on expensive broadcast television commercials to reach a large cross-section of the audience despite growing evidence that avid fans are capable of generating powerful word of mouth. In the decade since The Blair Witch Project’s website became a model for engaging a core audience by creating awareness online, a new generation of marketing executives has emerged, challenging the effectiveness of top-down strategies and advocating “bottom-up,” social media marketing. By fusing storytelling and marketing—ranging from ABC’s low-tech, user-generated aesthetic in “Lost Untangled” to Crispin, Porter + Bogusky’s polished, eye-candy approach to selling Sprite in its “sublymonal advertising” campaign—this next generation of web marketers has upended previous notions about where content ends and the ad begins. Having grown up reading Watchman comics, playing Sims, and surfing the Web for like-minded members of their consumer tribe, these new media professionals come armed with the knowledge of what it means to be a fan; as a result, they are refashioning the processes and structures that inform the relationship between audience members and the culture industry—forcing today’s media conglomerates to adapt to the new realities of the cultural-industrial complex while also ensuring their own survival. Gen-Y consumers’ sophisticated understanding of, but less contentious relationship with brand marketing, invites today’s media marketers to embrace a revolutionary mode of selling that may impact copyright law, guild agreements, professional standards, and the global labor market. What is the future of entertainment? Will the Internet be run by top-down mid-media corporate owners or bottom-up Web-bloggers or some yet to be realized combination of both?

Speakers include:

Ivan Askwith, Senior Content Strategist, Big Spaceship (recent projects include work for NBC, A&E, HBO, EPIX, Second Life and Wrigley).

Danny Bilson, THQ (The Rocketeer, Medal of Honor, The Flash, The Sentinel)

Emmanuelle Borde, Senior Vice-President, Digital Marketing, Sony Imageworks Interactive (her award-winning team of marketers, designers, producers and technologists have developed thousands of websites and digital campaigns for Sony Worldwide products, including Spider-man, 2012, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, etc.)

David Bisbin, Art Director/Production Designer (Twilight, New Moon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Drug Store Cowboy)

Will Brooker, Associate Professor, Kingston University, UK. (selected publications: Star Wars [2009]; Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture [2005]; The Bladerunner Experience [2006];Using the Force [2003]; Batman Unmasked [2001]

John Caldwell, Professor, UCLA Department of Film, TV, Digital Media (selected publications: Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Film/Television Work Worlds [ 2009]; Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film/Television [2008]; New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, [ 2003]; Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television, (1995)

Alan Friel, Partner, Wildman Harrold & Associates

John Hegeman, Chief Marketing Office, New Regency Productions (spearheaded marketing campaigns for: Saw 1 & 2, Crash at Lionsgate; The Blair Witch Project at Artisan, etc.)

Mimi Ito, Associate Researcher, University of California Humanities Research Institute (Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software; Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning With New Media; Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life)

Derek Johnson, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas

Laeta Kalogridis, Screenwriter (Shutter Island, Night Watch, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Battle Angel; Executive Producer, Birds of Prey and Bionic Woman)

Richard Lemarchand, Lead Designer, Naughty Dog Software (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune; Uncharted 2: Among Thieves)

R. Eric Lieb, Editor-in-Chief, Atomic Comics; Director of Development, Fox Atomic (Jennifer’s Body; I Love You Beth Cooper; 28 Weeks Later)

Marti Noxon, Producer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Prison Break; Gray’s Anatomy; Mad Men)

Roberta Pearson, Professor, University of Nottingham (selected publications: Reading Lost [2009]; Cult Television [2004]; The Many Lives of Batman: Critical Approaches [1991], etc.)

Steve Peters and Maureen McHugh, Founding Partners, No Mimes Media (recent credits include: Watchmen, The Dark Knight, Nine Inch Nails, Pirates of the Caribbean II)

Nils Peyron, Executive Vice President and Managing Partner, Blind Winks Productions

Louisa Stein, Head of TV/Film Critical Studies Program, San Diego State University (Limits: New Media, Genre and Fan Texts; Watching Teen TV: Text and Culture)

Jonathon Taplin, Professor, Annenberg School For Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California; CEO, Intertainer.

John Underkoffler , Oblong, G-Speak (technical advisor for Iron Man, Aeon Flux, Hulk, “Taken”, and Minority Report).

Jordan Weisman, Founder, Smith & Tinker (Credits include: The Beast, I Love Bees, Year Zero)

Admission is free to Students and Academics, $25 for general public.

Register now at: http://www2.tft.ucla.edu/RSVP/

via henryjenkins.org

Inexpensive one-day opportunity for an immersive look at transmedia.

In 15 Minutes Ira Glass Will Make You A Better Storyteller

Ira Glass, hosts and produces This American Life. That’s the simple description, but what he really does is find interesting situations and makes them into compelling storytelling, first on radio (and podcasts) and now on television. Here is how he does it:

 
 
 
 

Beyond the ideas on storytelling, it is great to see that Ira is not always the polished version we hear and see on the program. It is great to see such a good storyteller also ramble on and use the work ‘like’ too many times. It reinforces the points he is making on the videos.