ScreenACT Project Pod

ScreenACT Project Pod has 24 places available for the first phase in helping Canberra based digital content developers, with entries closing 10.00am 29th March 2010. The project is designed along similar lines to the InnovationACT annual event run by the ANU. There is a nine page "Project Pod: Application Form and Guidelines" avialable, as well as Key Dates and FAQs about the project.

ScreenAct Vision

ScreenACT offers support with the general aim of helping to develop the local screen industry, thereby enhancing the ACT production industry’s capabilities and employment opportunities.

Project Pod Aim

Project Pod is a professional and project development opportunity that aims to build capability in screen project development, increase networks, and support a group of targeted projects through to a market-­‐ready stage.

The program has four main phases, which start with broad learning goals, then narrow down, focussing on key teams to help them refine their projects to the point that they are ready to take to market. As part of this, several top projects will receive extra funding.

Guiding Principles Screen

ACT supports:

• the film, video production, TV and digital media industries.
• projects that are intended to result in commercial or business focused outcomes.
• applicants who have started their careers and can demonstrate professional experience.

ScreenACT will give preference to:

• participants who show a commitment to the six-­‐month process.
• projects intended for production and post production in the ACT and Capital Region.
• applications that are professional in their presentation, thought and execution.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

About ScreenAct Project Pod

The ScreenACT Project Pod is a six-­‐month program that is open to all professional screen practitioners (individuals and teams) in the ACT/Capital Region. It consists of four phases:

• Phase One – Two workshops
• Phase Two – One-­‐on-­‐one project development
• Phase Three – Industry Feedback and future project plans
• Phase Four – ScreenACT Grants allocated to as many as four selected projects Selection for the Project Pod is competitive.

Phase One will include up to 24 participants. Phases Two through Four will have up to ten participants.

Project Pod will be led by a number of different providers, and tailored to the needs of the individual participants based on their project’s format and genre.

• Phase One will be delivered by Stephen Cleary, who is an international script consultant and developer, and by ScreenACT
• Phases Two and Three to be delivered by local developers with oversight and input from Stephen Cleary and
  ScreenACT.
• Phase Four delivered by ScreenACT.

All participants for all phases to be selected by an industry panel, with ScreenACT acting as secretariat, and with the sign-­‐off of the CEO of Canberra Business Council on final participants and funding.

Phase One costs participants $600 for the two workshops. The first workshop is over four days, and the second over two. Phases Two through Four have no participation cost.

The program covers narrative and story, introduction to development practice, pitching and presentation skills, introduction to producing, networking with industry professionals and Screen Australia representatives, and one-­‐on-­‐one professional development assistance on a project basis.

Project Pod projects can come from film, television or digital media industries. ScreenACT will consider projects that include but are not limited to:

• Feature films, television drama series, mini-­‐series, telemovies, broadcast length documentary, television documentary series, reality TV series and digital media projects.
• ScreenACT will NOT consider the development or production of TV commercials, corporate videos, or training videos

PLEASE NOTE: As this is the pilot ScreenACT Project Pod, ScreenACT reserves the rights to make changes to the project as deemed necessary. ...

Eligibility Criteria

Applicants must be residents of the ACT or Capital Region (as shown on the map on ScreenACT’s website: http://www.screenact.com.au/content.php?id=8)

Applicants must have started their careers and be able to demonstrate some degree of professional experience.

Applicants must be Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia, and be 18 years old or older.

Applicants can be individuals or up to a team of two. The team leader must attend all sessions. The second team member is expected to attend all sessions, however there is some flexibility on this issue.

Applicants must be the producer, director, and/or writer of the project. Applicants must also be the copyright holder, or have an option to the rights in any and all works on which the project is based. The charge for phase one is per person regardless of individual or team status....

Key Dates

ITEM	DATE
Applications open	Friday, 19th March, 2010
Applications close	Monday 29th March, 2010 – 10.00am
Phase One successful applications announced	Thursday 1st April, 2010
Phase One: First Project Pod Workshop (4 days)	Friday 23rd – Monday 26th April, 2010
Phase One: Second Project Pod Workshop (2 days)	Saturday 1st – Sunday 2nd May, 2010
Revised treatment due	Friday 14th May, 2010 – 5.00pm
Phase Two successful applications announced	Friday, 28th May, 2010
Phase Three Workshop (1 day)	Saturday, 19th June, 2010
Delivery of agreed project deliverables	Friday 1st October, 2010 – 5.00pm
Phase Four Workshop (3 days)	Friday 22nd – Sunday 24th October, 2010

...

Assessment Criteria

In assessing applications, the ScreenACT Assessment Committee will mark applications against the following criteria:

• Qualification under the general guidelines and guiding principles
• Originality and strength of concept
• Commercial viability of the project
• The strength of the creative team
• Commitment to the entire process
• Likelihood of the project proceeding into production

...

From: Project Pod: Application Form and Guidelines, ScreenACT, 19 March 2010

Learning to stream fine music from Canberra

Greetings from the School of Music at the Australian National University in Canberra. The ANU just had its fist concert "streamed" live to the Internet from Llewellyn Hall "CLARINET.BALLISTIX Concert". This featured Alan Vivian (clarinet), David Pereira (cello, Alan Hicks and Katherine Day ( piano) with works by Verdi, Gershwin, Kats-Chernin and Bukovsky. The technology is being incorporated into the teaching of musicians, both to help teaching (with master classes by video) and as a subject the students learn about (how to set up an online event).

In addition to the live performance, the ANU web site has program notes, background, interviews, rehearsal out-takes, places for adding questions and reviews.

The ANU is essentially adapting the format of a live TV broadcast for the streaming concert. Experienced ABC Radio Classic FM presenter Colin Fox of acted as MC at the side of the stage. He briefed the live audience before the streaming started. They then introduced the Vice chancellor and other speakers. Then there was a briefing about the music and the performers.

There were two cameras apparent in the hall: one in the middle of the front of the stage and one on a crane at the side, over the audience. The ANU has obviously put a considerable effort into arrangements for the streaming. This is intended to promote new courses at the university, which go beyond just being able to play a musical instrument, but be able to cope with the complexity of providing online content and being a being in the online entertainment business.

The ANU is also installing a video conference suite for distance education in music (a challenging application which business orientated equipment can't handle). The new Bachelor of Professional Music Practice will place a heavy emphasis on the use of such technology.

At the School of Computer Science I help teach fine arts students in web technology. An interesting aspect of this is how technology, business and art combine to produce online content which is of cultural and business value. Currently I am working up a proposal for a new e-learning unit on how to interact online, to expand and teach the techniques used in the ANU course COMP7310: Green ICT Strategies. This was intended for scientists and business people, but now I see it may also be of use to the performing arts. I will be talking about some aspects of this in a series of talks in the next few months: "Social Networking for Business: The Year It All Changes - 2010",

To the audience there is little indication of the online aspects of the concert. There are no screens showing what is online. Some incorporation of the online into the live event would be of value. The ANU could adopt aspects of Senator Lundy's Public Sphere event format, with web, blogs, wikis and instant messaging, before, during and after the event. It might be interesting for some of the materials the online audience saw in advance of the work and for some of the blog comments to be shown on screen between works.

One of the works performed incorporated recorded sounds of fax modems. It might be interesting to incorporate some vision into some works possibly be interactive.

The crane camera was intrusive in the performance,at times appearing to be performing its own modern ballet, swooping in over the performers and at time apparently at times caressing them. For later performances it may be worth equipping the hall with permanent cameras. Most of the motions of the camera crane could be duplicated by multiple cameras. These could be mounted in tinted hemispherical covers, as used for security cameras, so as not to distract the performers or audience when they pan.

A permanent camera system could also be used for degree award ceremonies, so that relatives and friends could watch the ceremony. This would be particularly useful for the many overseas students, so their relatives and friends could watch.

It was an honour to sit next to the composer of one of the pieces performed (I am the one sitting next to him with the netbook). In amongst all the technology it is worth pointing out that these were works and performances of the highest standard, at least to my non-expert ears.

This first concert was an experiment which seemed to be successful. If used routinely, the cost and complexity of the initial exercise would need to be reduced. This could be done partly by building the cameras into the room and partly by using the same computer infrastructure the ANU uses for teaching. The ANU's new Wattle system is capable of being used for providing the information about the performances and the Digital Lecture Delivery system handling the audio visual files.

A concert or ceremony could then be recorded and simulcast live, much in the same way as when I routinely record a lecture: I walk up to the lectern, enter my university user-id and password. The system automatically identifies the scheduled event from the ANU calendar and starts recording. At the end of the lecture, I press "stop" and the event is podcast.

This system would need some upgrades to handle a concert performance or awards ceremony. The quality of sound would need to be improved for music. There would need to be provision for use of multiple cameras. There would need to be provision for events to be streamed live as well as recorded. But the system could be designed so that, by default, it would use the same interface as other teaching spaces.

The key to the long term use of the technology is to incorporate it into the normal research and teaching work of the university. In addition to the ANU's Wattle teaching system, there are several initiatives for indexing, publishing and archiving publications and research data. These same systems can be sued for music and visual arts. Dr David Prosser, Director of SPARC Europe, discussed this when he visited ANU last week and later talked at the NLA.

ps: The video of me at the keyboard during the performance are fake: I found that the WiFi signal did not penetrate through the concrete floor of the concert hall from the library below. I had to wait until after the performance to blog. Normally I would be expected to turn my computer off during a concert, but in this case I was asked to leave it on, as it added a hi-tech ambiance, with the camera panned the audience.

Kogan Agora Netbook Pro Java, Flash, Audio and Video

It was a surprise to find that my Kogan Agora Netbook Pro did not come with Java, Adobe Flash, or audio/video formats installed. In some ways it is pleasant to surf the web without Java or Flash, as a lot of annoying interactive ads and applets disappear. But I need Java, as that is what OpenOffice.org uses to create generate XHML documents from word processing files (very useful to clean up the formatting Microsoft Word documents). And Flash is needed to play some useful videos on the web. Also I would like to play audio and video in popular formats.

Installing flash was relatively easy, I just had to click a box to say it was okay to install this non-open source application on my open source computer. To tame Flash I also installed the "Flashblock" add-on, which stops Flash files playing in the web browser, apart from those sites where I have okay-ed it.

Java proved more difficult. I tried installing a Java run time kit, but this didn't seem to talk to Open Office. So then I un-installed that and instead installed the full OpenOffice suite, which comes with Java. That worked.

Installing audio and video playback codecs was very easy. In the provided player application I was told a format was not available and offered a download, which then started the application installation process. A few seconds later the codecs were installed and the audio playing.

The hardest part of this process for someone used to working with Microsoft Windows is to relax and let the package management system sort out if your system has all the needed components. Normally with Microsoft Windows you have to worry if the package you are about to install is going to overwrite some new libraries with old versions and break something. With Linux, that is taken care of for you (as much as it can be).