Bill Sobel, friend of the PGA NMCe, will be hosting one of his fantastic NY:mieg breakfasts on Thursday, February 28th. If you haven’t been to one of his events, definitely check it out… and this looks to be a good one.

Broadband-delivered video represents a paradigm change for all of the players in today’s video distribution value chain. For the first time in history, video content providers have the technical ability to deliver high-quality video directly to their intended audiences, without a business relationship involving a third-party distributor. Our panel of industry veterans will look at the many opportunities and challenges and help define the future of this exciting and ever changing medium.

Featuring

Fred Seibert, Mike Hudack & Kevin Shively
Fred Seibert/Co-Founder of NextNewNetworks

Fred makes cartoons and television networks. In 1998 former Hanna-Barbera Cartoons president Fred Seibert formed Frederator Studios. He is the executive producer of seven animated series on Nickelodeon. He is a founder of Channel Frederator, and Next New Networks.. Seibert began his career in college radio, produced jazz records, and started in television as the first creative director of MTV: Music Television. He co-founded Fred/Alan Inc. with Alan Goodman as the first branding agency in television, where they created Nick-at-Nite and relaunched Nickelodeon as the #1 network in cable television.

Mike Hudack/CEO of blip.tv

Mike Hudack is a co-founder of blip.tv and serves as the company’s president and CEO. He is responsible for blip.tv’s overall business strategy, focusing in particular on community relations along with syndication, distribution and advertising partnerships.Prior to blip.tv, Mike worked as a developer and administrator for the National Hockey League, where he managed the team responsible for one of the biggest IT projects in the history of the League — consolidating and re-developing the NHL’s internal applications, which serve hundreds of employees using dozens of technologies.

Kevin Shively/EVP of TVWorldwide, Inc.
Kevin Shively has spent the last decade working to develop revenue streams for streaming media companies. He initially spent several years developing the Internet radio industry with Beethoven.com and Net Radio Sales, where he helped negotiate the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002 and brought many Fortune 500 advertisers to the medium. In 2003 he was named one of the top 100 people in digital media by Digital Media Magazine. Currently, Kevin is responsible for developing new business and revenue streams for TV Worldwide through advertising and sponsorship sales and developing new Internet TV channels with clients and partners.
7:30am – 10:00am

SobelMedia World Headquarters
4 West 43rd Street
(just west of 5th Avenue)
New York, NY

View the February 13 National Film Board newsletter featuring Madame Tutli-Putli, and read the February 16 Globe and Mail Review article profiling the NFB producer of Madame Tutli-Putli, entitled “Marcy Page: She Walks Talk Among the Shorts”.

THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 7 – Cross Media Methodologies

By Brian Seth Hurst

“Welcome back.” A phrase that has been used in television since it began. But these days it has a whole new meaning when it relates to a persistent active and dynamic community built around a television property. When the show is not on the air, its life and the life of its fans can continue across a number of distribution platforms.

Previous posts presented examples of cross media production includingNBC’s Heroes 360 Experience, The Jericho Experience, ABC Family’s Primetime Emmy® winning Fallen Alternate Reality Game, and Showtime’s The L World. These examples are really just the beginning of a growing trend that may actually provide new programming genres: part drama, part interactive mystery, part game, part social network. And, though these examples are anchored in television, new and compelling storytelling can begin on any platform — Comedy Central’s Lil’ Bush was born on mobile and there are many examples of original programming born or reborn as both linear and cross media programming on broadband including Prom Queen, Kate Modern and Quarterlife.

Mapping out and producing cross media programming is a challenge. And, just as television production companies specialize in producing television, there are new cross media production companies teaming with television and film producers that are the experts in the planning and production of cross platform storytelling. It is challenging, but as production processes in film and television have become standardized over time, so too will cross media methodologies.

In most cases now, it is a chaotic world of experimentation – like the early days of any medium – but speaking for cross media producers I can say that we are rapidly and of necessity quickly finding our way. We are responsible for defining not only what is possible on each platform but what story or content will live on those platforms while remaining true to the creator’s and producer’s vision and the audience. After all, the audience has to have an authentic and engaging experience regardless of platform. If it’s too complicated, or not complex enough, not true to the story, not organic, or they feel manipulated we will lose them. We have to be more audience-centric than your traditional television producer. We really need to know who they are and how they behave with technology and each other. We are profilers of a sort, mapping and predicting their behavior with content, technology and each other. Finally we are responsible for selecting the right technologies, partners and best of breed vendors to execute the vision. And like any production we must remain on time and on budget.

When dealing with a specific show we begin the process with a strategy. Traditional producers might call it preproduction, but to Cross Media producers it’s that and more. It’s blueprinting. It is an audience experience “flowchart” of how fans will move through and interact with the story. We found it necessary to create a workflow methodology that maximizes efficiency, facilitates integration, communication and quality assurance… but leaves plenty of room for creativity and the “secret sauce” that makes it delicious to the audience. And so our planning stage — whether we are coming in before a show has even been produced or coming in after the fact — has to have a process.

Previous “Birth of Cross Media Production” post
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.