Lance Weiler :: Writer, Director & Experience Designer for Film, TV, and Games.

Cronenberg Project

admin — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:18:16 +0000

I was asked to design and provide creative direction on an immersive storytelling experience that places viewers / players in David Cronenberg’s world. Utilizing state of the art technology and innovative methods of storytelling, the project explores various themes found within Cronenberg’s work. I can’t go into full details just yet but I can say the project is layered, subversive and at times unnerving.

Story as Utility?

admin — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 20:21:56 +0000

Ext: Night – Suburban Cul-De-Sac – In the not-so-distant future

Welcome to the quintessential suburban neighborhood — manicured lawns, two cars in each driveway and a bluish hue flickering from each window. Inside, families watch screens in a state of entertainment bliss, enjoying vast catalogs of content as they shop to their hearts content inspired by what they see onscreen.

For well over a decade, this has been the dream of cable, telcos and satellite companies. The promise of merging the best of what the Internet and TV have to offer has been attempted by players big and small — as if awkward keyboards, bulky remotes and a seemingly never-ending stream of peripheral devices could conquer the living room. But in 2012, Google started a rollout — Google Fiber — that in less than five years has disrupted the industry. Gone are cable, telco and satellite’s stranglehold on the living room. Consumers appear to be the immediate winners with faster access, more options and better prices. Users bask in the glow of personalized entertainment shaped by their preferences, friends’ recommendations and purchasing habits. Google has harnessed the power of their data collection and analytics to efficiently create a personalized recommendation AI (artificial intelligence) that supports your viewing habits and needs. It is possible to build your own channels by stringing together content that mixes formats and running times. Media has become ubiquitous as consumers can easily share the content between their various devices, accessing it instantly anywhere.

Meanwhile the value of stories distributed through traditional film, publishing and music platforms has diminished. Content that was once owned is now only available via the “cloud,” where consumers pay for the privilege of vast catalogs on demand. And, by default, story is now disposable, having become merely a pathway to various transactions for related and unrelated goods and services. Traditional commercial breaks that once placed brand messages within programs have faded away and TV subscription bundles have been replaced. Now media is measured in bandwidth consumption, enabling consumers to only pay for what they watch, listen to or read across all the devices they own.

Numerous theater chains have shuttered as the windows of release have collapsed and studios have found new streams of revenue within the living room by flipping what they call the “convenience to cost” equation. Previously, consumers paid to travel to a theater to see first-run titles, but now they happily pay double for the convenience to watch them at home. In fact, it is possible to get a free large-screen smart TV with higher-tier Google Fiber plans thanks to their bundled personalized sets. For those willing to share additional data by taking surveys or joining virtual focus groups, it is possible to unlock additional goods, services and deals.

But all this “convenience” does not stop at home, as your personalized recommendation AI is constantly collecting data across all your devices. Make a purchase with your mobile phone or see something with your Google Glass (eyewear) and it is all captured and filed away. Or go into discovery mode and turn on the augmented layer (supported in most phones, tablets and glasses) and enable instant discovery based on your geolocation or perceived needs at the moment. Welcome to a world of convenience and consumption fueled by walled gardens of content and media/tech consolidation. The old Internet, with its browser-based promise of a direct channel to audience, has become a nomadic wasteland of billions of sites long made inefficient by the app-ification of goods, services and content across devices.

But there is a potential silver lining to this tale, as the future it describes has not been fully written.

Storytellers need not fall prey to a clichéd dystopian digital future where creativity is devalued by those who control the gateways. They need not be pushed aside and exploited by the commoditization of entertainment and the way content is delivered, personalized and monetized. By taking an active interest in the UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) design of emerging technologies, storytellers can not only educate themselves to 21st-century realities, they can also make themselves a valuable part of the process. Story has the potential to drive the next generation of mobile and social applications, but how that is done is currently an open opportunity. Data advocates are currently pushing back against the Faustian bargains that run rampant, enticing consumers to trade critical data in exchange for convenience. For instance, how many people read the iTunes 42-page Terms of Service agreement prior to clicking away their digital soul? “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read” is aiming to fix the biggest lie on the Internet by providing a rating system around TOS, making it human-friendly so a user understands fully what they are granting.

But if artists do not take further action, it is entirely possible that story could become simply a utility used to fuel discovery, personalization and social connections between consumers and brands. In this scenario, films, books and music would become nothing more than loss leaders within a series of financial transactions.

As the opportunities for creative sustainability continue to erode for artists of all stripes, it becomes critical that storytellers become involved in the shaping of their own collective future. There is currently an unprecedented window of opportunity for them to do this, but for how long it remains open, only time will tell.

Originally published in the 2013 Winter issue of Filmmaker Magazine

Black Box

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:23:43 +0000

Chuck Wendig and myself are collaborating with Ch 4/ Film 4.0 and the NFB digital studio on an exciting big data Faustian bargain project. A mix of fiction and fact, the project looks at our relationship with data. The immersive storytelling experience will play out in living rooms, online, via mobile devices and at a number of special live events. The project was announced recently at Power to the Pixel. Currently in development the film portion of the project will be shot later this year.

Tribeca New Media Fund

admin — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 06:40:15 +0000

Thrilled to announce that Laika’s Adventure was awarded one of six prestigious Tribeca New Media Fund grants.

Six interactive, non-fiction, transmedia projects have received grants for the 2012 TFI New Media Fund totaling $400,000. The fund, which is in partnership with the Ford Foundation, focus on projects that cover issues of contemporary social justice and equality.

Exploring everything from Guatemalan street gangs to rural West Virginia community issues to collaborative problem-solving facilitated by a robot named Laika, these six projects from around the world will be awarded between $50,000 and $100,000 apiece, with funding effective immediately. Grantees will also take part in regular peer-to-peer meetings as well as a lab to help them develop their projects and build an audience.

Wish for the Future

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 05:38:51 +0000

Last week at SXSW interactive I unveiled a new project I’ve created and designed entitled Wish for the Future in a special presentation in the Digital Domain section of the festival.

ABOUT THE PROJECT
How do we make the world work for 100% of humanity?

Wish for the Future mixes participatory storytelling and design science to envision a better world. Participants make a wish for the future. Wishes are granted through a creative act such as writing a story, making a piece of art, sharing a song, or creating a video. Then granted wishes are prototyped using 3D printers and software hacks in an effort to create a tangible artifact. Afterward, wishes, creative expressions and prototypes will be placed in multiple time capsules and buried for 100 years.

Inspired by the Voyager Golden Records that were sent into space in 1977 and the work of Buckminster Fuller, Wish for the Future is an effort to ignite the imagination of many through experiential learning, creative expression and collaboration.

A Reboot Stories prototype created by Lance Weiler and produced by Janine Saunders, Wish for the Future is released under a creative commons license and is intended to be shared, remixed and expanded.

Godfrey’s Flower

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:20:15 +0000

Over the last year or so I’ve started providing Story Architecture and Experience Design services to brands, agencies and studios. I’ve had the pleasure of working on some amazing projects. One such project launched this past week at the Sundance Film Festival. Together with the Coca Cola company, McCann-Erickson and Mirada Studios, I helped to create and design a rich collaborative storyworld entitled Godfrey’s Flower. The project is a dynamic storytelling project that embraces the Coca Cola company’s Content 2020 initiative. Here’s what Fast Company had to say about the collaboration.

A description of the project from the Godfrey site.

Godfrey’s Flower is a dynamic storytelling project, curated by The Coca-Cola Company, McCann-Erickson, and Mirada Studios. Premiering at Sundance within the New Frontier program, Godfrey’s Flower will push the boundaries of classic narrative tradition and explore the outer edges on how stories could be well told, in an era where technology is evolving the way we all connect to each other.

Story R&D – a look at building stories for 21c

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:29:44 +0000

I made the following presentation in London this past fall.

From the Power to the Pixel program
“Lance shares his first hand experience in what it takes to build original storyworlds. From Pandemic 1.0 which invaded the Sundance Film Festival this year, to his new participatory storytelling trilogy, Reboot Stories, which kicked off this year with an actual space launch – Lance pulled back the curtain on the process and shared his experience at Power to the Pixel’s Cross-Media Forum, October 2011.”

Here’s a recent article from WIRED that provides some insight into Robot Heart Stories and what some of the takeaways of the experience were.

Robot Heart Stories Sends Kids on Cross-Country Trek Fueled by Imagination

By Mildred I Lewis

Image by Mike Hedge and Tiffani Bearup

“Lance Weiler’s most recent project began with a simple yet provocative question: can a robot reboot education? To answer that question, Weiler collaborated with fellow Workbook Project contributor Janine Saunders in creating Robot Heart Stories with a team of more than 50 creative professionals.

For the project, students in a Los Angeles elementary school class and a Montreal media workshop teamed up to send Laika, a small female robot scientist, from Canada to California. As a team of award-winning photographers drove the robot across country, the 42 students fueled Laika’s journey with stories, videos and letters. Photographers and other artists brought the children’s work to life and, in turn, uploaded their work to the website.”
Read More

Bears, Robots and travel

admin — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:32:50 +0000

I’m excited to be part of the creative team working on Bear 71, a wonderful project from Leanne Allison & Jeremy Mendes. I’m co-creating the installation and doing experience design in conjunction with the National Film Board of Canada. Bear 71 unfolds at Sundance as an official selection of New Frontier this coming January.

From the Sundance site:

Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison’s poignant interactive documentary about a bear in the Canadian Rockies illuminates the way humans engage with wildlife in the age of networks, satellites, and digital surveillance. Audiences from around the world can use their smartphones to become part of an interactive forest environment rich with bears, cougars, sheep, deer, and people as they follow an emotional story of a grizzly bear tagged and monitored by Banff National Park rangers.

Special engagements

Nov 29th in Melbourne
Screen Australia and StoryLabs are teaming up for a special day entitled MULTI-PLATFORM STORYTELLING – FROM IDEA TO MARKET. I’m the opening keynote for the event which is a gathering of top storytellers from around the world.

Dec 7th in NYC
I’ve been invited to do a special day long workshop at the Writer’s Guild of America on the future of storytelling. I’ll be joined by my writing partner Chuck Wendig. The day will explore how to design stories and social experiences that are positioned for the connected world that we live in.

Robot Heart Stories

Over 10 days in October, the beta release of Robot Heart Stories took place. It far exceeded my expectations. With over 50 collaborators in 8 countries the project reached students around the world. Robot Heart Stories engaged two main classrooms (one in Montreal and one in LA) but also spread to mix of students working across different subjects in various grades. Together the students helped Laika (the robot they named!) to travel from Montreal to LA. Early next year, we’ll launch Laika along with copies of the student’s artwork and stories into space. For more on the project visit www.robotheartstories.com

Some coverage
Discovery News
Good Magazine

I wrote about co-creation and participatory storytelling in my Fall Column for Filmmaker Magazine

Robot Heart Stories

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:13:51 +0000

This fall I’ll be releasing an exciting new participatory storytelling project focused on experiential education, storytelling and creative collaboration.

A robot has crash landed in Montreal and now must make her way to LA in order to find her space craft and return home. Two third grade classes in underprivileged neighborhoods, one in Montreal (French speaking) and the other in LA (English speaking) engage in an experiential learning project that utilizes math, science, history, geography and creative writing to place education directly in the hands of students. By using collaborative problem solving and creative writing the students help the Robot make her way across North America. The project concludes with an actual space launch! That’s right the robot along with copies of the students stories and artwork will board a commercial rocket that is headed to the space station later this fall.

Exciting News

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:42:23 +0000

A number of exciting things are in the works…

This fall I’ll be teaching a graduate course at Columbia University. The course is tied to a book that I’m releasing entitled “Building Storyworlds – the art and craft of storytelling in 21C.” I’m looking forward to discussing the present and future of the media industry.

World Economic Forum
I’ve been working with the World Economic Forum as part of a steering committee on the “Future of Content Creation.” As authorship changes and the democratization of the tools to create spread, the line between amateur and professional continue to blur. The steering committee looks at the impact of content creation in regards to access, emerging business models and its effect on global policy.

New Column
My upcoming column in Filmmaker Magazine’s Summer issue focuses on Story Hacks as I share a first hand account of going through TechCrunch’s Disrupt Hackathon. Over 24 hours myself, a developer and designer go from concept to prototype to presenting on stage in front an audience.

Upcoming speaking
Power to the Pixel Labs – Berlin, Germany
Merging Media Conference – Vancouver, Canada
StoryWorld – San Francisco
DIY Days – LA

Recent Press
Moviescope May/June issue

The feature article looks at Pandemic 1.0 and the current state of Transmedia Storytelling.

Mediabistro – interview
I sat down with Mediabistro to discuss the Sundance Pandemic experience.