tim wright: digital writer

You Shall Go To The Ball: Getting Them in Ones & Twos

I spent some time over the last couple of months helping to develop, script and deploy http://youshallgototheball.com, a storytelling game for people planning to watch the Royal Opera House’s production of Cinderella for free on BBC Big Screens around the UK on July 13th 2011.

This, I have to tell you, is not a massive audience to play to. There were probably only about 10,000(ish) people turning up on the night across 12 screens, most of them in Trafalgar Square  - and a very small percentage of those are interested in both opera, outdoor events *and* social media.

The goal then was not to grab a massive number of ‘hits’ or ‘likes’, but rather to build a storyworld which delivered  to active users simple ways of enhancing their enjoyment of their night out at the Big Screen Ball (taking pics, sharing comments, dressing up, roleplaying, winning comfy cushions).

The more we could then reflect back to the wider (more passive) audience signs of this core group having fun, the better. And then *everyone* could enjoy the animations on the Big Screen that were built up using some of the assets generated by the online audience.

In the end, what will stick with me most of all about this project is the smiley faces of these people holding up their ‘crown’ badges or their cushions, won by joining in a country-wide #crownhunt:

 

A lot of talented people working together just to produce one or two smiley faces might not seem like a great economic or artistic model to you. But for me, this is becoming a rather compelling model for this kind of work – an audience & a production team striving to conjure up a magic moment for just one person THAT ISN’T YOU.

I first cottoned on to this idea with the Kidmapped project, which was a lot of walking, filming, editing, blogging & audience participation that really culminated in one very poor quality image of two people – previously strangers – looking very chuffed with themselves after an unexpected sailing trip.

I’m not sure this measurement of success is going to persuade the ROH to have another go at this kind of work. You Shall Go To The Ball, though, was a very interesting experiment in how to extend a ROH production online in various playful, social ways. And it spurs me on to think of other projects that might grab audiences in ones & twos, rather than hundreds & thousands.

Oh - and, as usual, it was great  to work with a really talented bunch of people drawn from different disciplines: Rachel Coldicutt on development & scripts; JoyceDiDonato on voice-over; and the *mega*-talented animation team of Carol Soutar and Si Clark who responded so creatively & energetically to the user generated content  elicited from the audience (cf #tidying, #partyshoes etc).

Last.fm’s user-generated club

"All Last.fm users going to the party will help decide the setlist for the upstairs room, DJed by Ninja Tune’s Sparky. They’ll register their intention to attend at the club’s event page on the Last.fm website, and on the night Sparky will play tracks drawn from music listened to by those users in the preceding weeks."

Global Cool recruits Jim Morrison

XPT is doing quite a lot of work with The Climate Group at the moment (well, Rob is - and I'm helping a bit). Online campaigning about this issue is definitely on the rise and probably the most prominent example at the moment is Global Cool, which seems to be signing up most of the pop stars of the world to its cause.

Following in the footsteps of the mighty Mount Kristos, it's a good to see that The Doors' Jim Morrison has been raised from the dead in order to inspire the 'kids' about global warming. Cool!

bowie on youtube

My word there’s a lot of great material here: pirated clips from every Bowie era, in every language, documentaries, adverts, karaoke performances, tributes, pastiches, cover versions and on and on and on...  My personal favourites? This:

and this:

It’s heartening to discover how keen people (well, some people) are to sing, dress up, perform and play given the right creative stimulus.

Eno & Byrne mutilation

This is fab: all the multitracks from two songs from 'My Life In The Bush of Ghosts' are now available under a Creative Commons license to do with what you will. Complete and total access - this is the future of music making and sharing. Check out the results at http://bush-of-ghosts.com/remix/bush_of_ghosts.htm

God bless the fall

God knows why but The Fall have been playing a residency at a crappy little club in West Croydon this week.

Such a sucker am I for this band that I've gone along not once, but twice.

Not exactly vintage performances, I'm afraid - but enough done to make me go out and buy the new album.

Who else can get a crowd chanting along to a song about Harold Shipman and East Germans rabbits, eh?!

Anyway, it's all a good excuse to share this link to two classic Mark E Smith on the BBC moments - he reads the football results on Final Score AND gurns disrespectfully on Newsnight.

"Are you the new dee-jay?"

Brad Mehldau

A stunning gig at the Barbican (see review). I thought it might be a bit too 'jazz' for me, but I found my mind reeling at the beauty and the intricacy created by just three people (piano, bass drums - that's it). I was completely mesmerised and in a bit of a daze by the end. Bach meets Bill Evans... check out Brad M web site for streamed tracks.

Backing tracks for karaoke nuts everywhere

http://sbiglobal.com/pl/

This has got to be the best site I've come across so far for karaoke backing tracks. At last I can order the whole of 'Waiting For the Sun' (at a price) and sing those Mount Kristos songs for real. I feel a private podcast coming on...

I'm a genius too, Brian

Never work with your parents... http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/10/im_a_genius_too.html

House of Leaves has a soundtrack

Thanks to Rob for this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004Y6J1/202-2343224-1591064

"This IS a concept album of sorts. It was written and recorded in parallel with her brother, Mark Z. Danielewski, writing his extraordinary novel House of Leaves and references many of the themes considered within, and imagery generated by the novel, but does so without creating any sort of interdependency. Both novel and album stand up well on their own - there is no need to read the book to appreciate the album - but if you get time to check out House of Leaves you will discover an extra layer of meaning contained within Haunted, (as well as having read a very, very unusual book indeed.) "

This is something that Rob & I have been thinking about for The Nuuk - a fridge that prints out books pages and generates music according to your personal inputs and interactions.