Experience Manifesto

Project Natal - MS Brings Motion Control to XBox 360

The long rumored motion controller for the XBox 360 was announced yesterday and so far everyone seems pretty psyched with it. Much like our AudienceGames In-Cinema Experience, they are using motion capture to make you the game controller. Of course, Project Natal is a lot more advanced then what we've been doing in cinema, where we have look at a whole audience of people, and they also added facial & voice recognition, which should add some really cool experience options to what they're doing.

We're just at the beginning of see a entirely new way to engage the computer, in this case for gaming. After all, the QWERTY keyboard that we use today was really created back in the late 1800's and it really is time for a new interface. And in terms of games, both at home and in arcades, this kind of technology will continue what Wii started by bringing in people who might not have been game players before, as well as create new forms of game experiences that we haven't even thought of yet.

Remember, if you want to learn about multitouch, you can join us tomorrow night at Multitouch Maven at the Clo Wine Bar at the Time Warner Center at 7.

Looking around this morning, here's some of the coverage Project Natal received:

Dave Rudden over at GamePro got a demo of Natal and wrote about it at Preview : Milo, Burnout, and Balls: Body-on with Project Natal [Xbox 360] - from GamePro.com.

My first taste of Natal was Ricochet, the hyper-active block-breaking game, demoed by the face of Natal and former Fight Night developer, Kudo Tsunoda. Kudo gave us a brief intro and showed us the ropes before letting the press serve up some damage. I didn't quite get as active as the hyperactive Microsoft employee, or even the surprisingly nimble Kudo, but my first taste of Natal served as proof-this device works. It recognized how far I was from the TV, and limb and head movements were almost instantaneously recognized on TV. Plus, the game once again rocked Ratatat on the soundtrack-they're a very gaming-influenced instrumental band that are definitely work checking out.

CNET has a good overview of both what it can do and the challenges that Microsoft faces in getting Natal to the masses at Microsoft's Project Natal: What does it mean for game industry? | Gaming and Culture - CNET News.

So is Project Natal Microsoft's answer to the Wii-mote?

"And beyond, yeah," said Forrester principal analyst Paul Jackson. "Obviously, we've all got, in the game industry...a huge debt to pay to Nintendo for shaking things up a bit with the Wii, and for moving beyond the 37 button controller. This is taking things to the next extreme. Because even with the Wii, you still have (several) buttons, start and select. It's still a physical controller."

Added Jackson, Project Natal looks likely to "remove that final barrier between you sitting in your room and...what's on your screen."

They also got a good quote from Steven Spielberg:

"I've been asking the crucial question: how can interactive entertainment become as approachable as other forms of entertainment?" Spielberg said. "The vast majority of people are just too intimidated to pick up a video game controller...Despite the size of (the video game) industry, still 60 percent of households do not own a video game console...The only way to bring interactive entertainment to everybody is to make it invisible." (BTW, here's what I said in '95 -- The first lesson for using any technology in marketing, he says, is to make the technology invisible and work on the content, not forgetting that people like to have fun. Not only do I sometimes look like him, I'm just as smart, damn it!)

Matt Peckham said Microsoft's No-Controller "Natal" Steals the Show - PC World. He continued:

What we saw today was unprecedented: True 1-to-1 motion tracking. Wave your arm and your onscreen avatar follows you precisely. Bend, yoga-like, to form cute animal shadow-shapes and a silhouetted image on a virtual canvas curls and contorts picture-perfectly. Shift toe-to-toe, tennis-like, anticipating objects hurled your way and whatever algorithms are intelligently sorting behind the scenes recognize your intentions, filtering out flailing limbs or ignoring unnecessary maneuvers.

Robert Winters has a good overview of how it works at Project Natal, how it could work and it's worth a quick review if you'd like to see some speculation about the technology and the various components involved.

They were equally as excited over at Gizmodo - Xbox 360 Project Natal: Full-Body Motion Control One-Ups the Wii - Project Natal, where they said:

What makes this so damned cool is that it lets you do more than just play games with it. You can also move through menus by swiping your hands back and forth. The camera allows for fun features like facial and voice recognition. When you have it running, your Xbox will recognize your face and sign you in automatically.

You can start to imagine the possibilities already. Everything from Minority Report style menu control to Dance Dance Revolution games that require you to actually dance rather than just hit buttons to videoconferencing in your living room, the thing just feels like the future. And it already makes the Wii seem like a gimpy and outdated piece of tech. There's no way it can touch what this will do.

Xbox.com | Project Natal.

Project Natal: amazing Xbox 360 controller-free gaming (E3) - Computerworld Blogs.

Microsoft announces "Project Natal" motion controller for Xbox 360!.

Kotaku - Spielberg: Natal Changes The Way I Write For Games - E3 2009. E3 2009: Microsoft's No-Controller "Natal" Steals the Show - PC World.

Procrastineering - Project blog for Johnny Chung Lee: Project Natal.

Microsoft's 'Project Natal' Is Vaporware, At Least Until Their E3 Booth Opens (MSFT).

Experience Manifesto: Is AudienceGames a Social Media?.

QWERTY - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

GPS Films

Catching up on my tweets this morning and came across this originally posted by the folks at ydreams (yea, I'm going through their entire twitter feed because they have so many cool ideas listed there!). So here's the deal, it's a location based movie, where your location is both the scene of what you're watching and the trigger for watching the scene. How cool is that! We are so only beginning to tap into these new tools to create stories and way too often, we're just doing the same old stuff using new tools. But think about the content you can create with a city as both the location and the trigger. It could be huge for branded content and I'm guessing that people would really take to it.

Need to really look more deeply into this subject and write a longer piece in the near future.

GPSFILM "The Using Of" from GPSFILM on Vimeo.

Location based mobile cinema - Fast Forward - FWD:labs.

Clicks Or Mortar? at the Pixel Palace

I have a degree in theater and, although I haven't performed in a lot of years, I'm still very curious about how all of these emerging & interactive technologies will impact the role and position of performances. I was a children's theater person, so a lot of the work I did was called participatory in theater language, but what it meant was that there were elements of the show where we expected the children to help move the story along. 

But as we've seen in movie theaters for quite some time, people don't really know how to be an audience any more.  First, you're sitting there in the theater, minding your own business and someone sits down next to you.  You kick off the "elbow waltz, that dance you do to stake out your spot on the arm rest.  Then, as you're trying to watch the movie and the person next to you is on their cell phone talking about their plans for after the movies.  Everyone talks through out the movie (and I don't mean yelling "Don't open that door" to the people in the movie), they're talking to one another.  They're watching a movie like they're in their living room.  This isn't how I was taught be an audience member.

But what happens when the expected level of interactivity moves to other performing environments?  Can everything be interactive?  Don't we sometimes just want to go to the theater and see a really great performance without being asked to twitter ideas to the cast?  Should there be a vote as to whether or not Lady Macbeth kills herself?  Should we vote with the jury of 12 Angry Men?  Should we be expected to play musical instruments on our iPhone at the end of The Music Man?  Wait, that one may actually be a cool idea!  And how does a playwright create content where everything is interactive?  Is there a playwright at all?  (Wow, I'm pretty old school, looking at that list of shows, eh?)

Now, I'm not suggesting that we can't create new mediums from the old, where we add interactivity & audience participation to the mix.  That can work really well.  But when even members of Congress can't stop Twittering and pay attention to what the President is saying, what are we saying to our future audience goers?  

So, I was really interested in this conference happening this week in the UK and certainly wish I could've attended.  I think it's a really fascinating conversation and I love the exploration.  Look at some of the questions they're asking:

• How important are buildings in the digital world? Do we really need to preserve, extend or build cultural spaces or should we let them fade away as we move online?
• If we are to have cultural buildings and cultural spaces, who will decide how they are used and what they contain? Do we want to leave this to the 'wisdom of the crowds' or is there still a role for curators, programmers and other gatekeepers?
• Should cultural buildings try to compete with the home cinema/gaming experience? And if so, how - are the pleasures to be gained online essentially individualist, or can we share them?

Those are pretty big questions if you're job is to run a place like Lincoln Center. But it will also have a real impact on the content that's created, as we try to figure out the right mix of audience involvement.

And from a brand POV, what's the opportunity here?  We talk a lot about branded content, but it's almost all limited to the screen - movie or TV.  Is there a place for live, branded entertainment in our physical places?  Improv Everywhere has done some cool things in public, although I'm not sure they've done it as a sponsored event yet.  But take a look at the 2 videos below and see what you think.  Would you mind if that happened at a place by you, even if it was sponsored by a brand?  Sure, we don't want that every where you go, but it would certainly take the monotony out of a lot of things we do today.

But nothing they're doing is interactive right now, in the true, interactive sense.  Can you improv in a space with everyone there?  What's the process and interface for interacting?  And is there a democracy for participating or are some kind of filters used?

I know that there aren't any answers yet, but I'm sure happy to see that someone has started asking the questions.

Clicks Or Mortar? takes over the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne to explore the potential of digital media in a cultural building. Across three days the Tyneside will present a vast range of work by artists, gamers and filmmakers and on Friday 6 March will host a symposium for cultural creatives, thinkers and planners that will debate the role and challenge the relevance of cultural bricks and mortar buildings in tomorrow’s digitized and networked artistic practice.

Digital technology is already turning some cultural cinemas into spaces that can host an ever widening range of cultural product, from live opera to the National Theatre and an ever expanding diet of participative activity from interactive artists and computer gamers. This digital wave is also crashing over theatres, arts centres, galleries and all other cultural venues, proposing new forms of performance and, most significantly, engaging audiences who may well be turning from passive consumers of culture into active participants in its creation and distribution.

The Pixel Palace. 

View the video at Sangent

US Airways Magazine - Straight Talk

Love what Peter Guber had to say about the in-theatre experience in the current issue of US Airways magazine. This is something that many companies and industries do -- they forget about what they're really about. So theatres try to compete with home theatres, rather then talking about what makes them a different and unique experience. And we watch brand after brand compete with the wrong thing, rather then remember their our unique values. As Mr. Guber says, they forget what they're selling and devalue their own proposition.

“Theaters are crucial in keeping the communal experience alive. But mostly, it’s a pain to park, the queue’s too long, the seats are uncomfortable, the concession person’s indifferent, then there are 20 minutes of commercials. There’s not much creative thinking about the whole theater experience. Instead of recognizing what they’re selling, some theaters are devaluing the proposition.

“Additionally, for around $2,000 you can buy a really first-class theater — plasma screen, surround-sound, HD delivery — and re-create the moviegoing experience at home.

Theaters should be about providing an entertainment experience for the audience. They should deliver a compelling, holistic experience, so that the popcorn is good, the concessions are engaging, the seating is excellent, and the experience is not to be missed. In other words, you’re not just getting a movie — because you can get that at home — but you’re getting a communal experience, you’re having fun with other people, all while being entertained.

“I went to a Korean theater complex and there were kids playing on videogame machines and sports scores were posted in the lobby while they were waiting. The experience made them want to come early. The film, of course, is crucial, but it’s only part of the overall experience.”

BTW, here's something that I wrote back in 2001 about the movie going experience:

“Why go to the movie theatre when you can download the flick for free!” Well, that’s a simple question with a simple answer. When my wife considers sitting on the couch watching a rented video and eating microwaved popcorn a date. When the experience of downloading a flick at home is the same as the experience of going to the movie theatre. And I’m not just speaking about getting a better home projection or sound system. In other words, not anytime soon.

Seeing first-run movies is a horse of a different color (immortalized, of course, in a movie: The Wizard of Oz). Viewing the movie is just one piece of the entire experience. It’s the Sno-Caps (let’s face it, without movie theatres, we wouldn’t eat Sno-Caps at all!) and the theatre itself (especially in the Barcalounger-like stadium seating). And don’t forget the popcorn: I don’t consider it a movie-going experience if I haven’t had popcorn and butter. I’ve gotten to the movies after having just eaten a full big meal and yet I’ll still find a way to eat a big bag of popcorn. In fact, one night when my wife and I decided to stay at home and rent videos, I went to the movie theatre a few blocks from our house, bought popcorn from them and then carried it home for our video rental night!

Link: US Airways Magazine - Straight Talk.

Download 1stperson if you'd like to read my full article about the social experience of going to the theatre.

CMPAA | Stop Pre-Movie Commercials! - Theater ads.

Wow. Now this is taking a stand. You can actually print a sign for your seat that says:

"This patron is avoiding cinema advertising and will return when the feature begins."

This is a great example of the advertising backlash and how the consumer will continue to react to all of the advertising interruptions in their world. Of course, this may have happened on a small, regional basis in the past, the internet allows this to become a global movement. And, as we've seen just recently with the number of ads pulled after the Super Bowl, the people can be heard today!

Given the financial impact that pre-movie ad sales is having on the theatre business, I'm not sure where this will end up, but at least people will be able to express their annoyance at the continue assault of advertising.

An Open Letter to Regal Cinemas and other theater owners:

This is the last straw. You've done a great job conditioning the movie-going public to accept pre-movie billboard ads, your commercial theater radio networks, and nearly every other form of commercialism under the sun. Now, after the lights go down and we're entrenched in our seats, you've decided to expand into pushing TV commercials. It now seems the only difference between a movie screen and a TV screen is size.

We, the captive audience, have had enough.
TV commercials belong on television, not before movies that we pay for.

Movies have traditionally served as an escape from the real world. The movie theater was a portal into different perspectives on the world around us, and sometimes into worlds completely different than our own, be they past, present or future. The motion picture projector no longer serves to promote the business of escapism (as is the case with theatrical trailers), but now is seen as the last resort for advertisers to truly force feed the public video games and SUVs.

CaptiveAudience.org has one primary goal: to urge theater owners to discontinue showing invasive, TV-like commercials before the beginnings of movies. Because many theater chains have a practical monopoly on first-run movies in many areas of the country, we consider these practices to be unfair and intolerable.

CaptiveAudience.org will endeavor to serve as an information center and voice for movie-goers, focused on conveying the clear dissatisfaction audiences have with the movie viewing experience directly to the heads of Regal Entertainment Group and other theater owners engaged in these practices. We hope to show TV-like advertising before movies is well past the line of 'ad-creep', is unprofitable, and will lead to a consumer backlash.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.

Link: CMPAA | Stop Pre-Movie Commercials! - Theater ads..

Advertising Age - Pope Benedict XVI Premieres Hollywood Holiday Movie

Talk about your alternative distribution coups, this is great! And getting the Pope to sign off on your movie will make lots of folks want to go see this movie. Doesn’t say if New Line made any donation to the Catholic Church, but if they did, it was money well spent.

Time Warner's New Line Cinema scored a coup by winning an agreement to show its Christian holiday film, "The Nativity Story," a week before its release to U.S. theaters at an unusual venue: the Vatican. Some 7,000 people -- including Pope Benedict XVI -- were expected to attend, along with members of the movie's cast and crew.

Link: Advertising Age - Pope Benedict XVI Premieres Hollywood Holiday Movie.

The State of the Movie Theatre Biz

Both John Moore from Brand Autopsy (the one other person we know that wears a lab coat!) and Kat Stone have recent posts about the decline of the movie theatre experience. We've been working in this area for a client and they both are hitting the topic head on. It's good reading and back to a basic point for us. Tell a good story, deliver a good experience.

Link: Brand Autopsy: Who's Blame is it Anyway? .

Link: Decent Marketing: It's Not the Gas, People.

Like Coke machine for DVDs - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Personal Tech - Business

This is an interesting brand extension for McDonald's, although I haven't quite made the connection yet. I'll have to do some more noodling on this one.

At a Stop & Shop supermarket here, one of 550 test sites around the country, customers can get DVDs of the most popular movies -- from Clint Eastwood's hit ''Million Dollar Baby" to ''National Treasure" with Nicolas Cage -- from a pair of cylinder-shaped vending machines at the front of the store.

The machines belong to Redbox, a company launched by McDonald's Corp. that executives hope could change the video rental industry almost as much as the Golden Arches changed Americans' eating habits.

For storefront video rental companies like giant Blockbuster Inc., Redbox is the latest competitive headache spawned by the decline of bulky videotape cassettes and the rise of lightweight DVDs. The success of the unheralded start-up Netflix Inc. showed that consumers would rent movies on the Internet and have them delivered by mail. Now Redbox, based in Oak Brook, Ill., will challenge video rental stores by making the process as simple and as cheap as using a Coke machine.

''It's really being seen as another way to make McDonald's convenient and relevant to customers," said Greg Waring, Redbox senior director of marketing. (Emphasis mine)

Redbox charges a dollar a day, plus local sales tax. In Connecticut, it comes to $1.06. There's no need to fill out a registration form before renting. All the user needs is a valid credit card. A renter swipes the card and picks the movie using a touch-screen video monitor. The DVD emerges from a slot, packed in a plastic case.

''We love it," said Rachel Zarrilli, 36, who shops with two young children in tow at the Glastonbury Stop & Shop. Zarrilli dreads visiting the local video rental store with her children. ''They run around, they go crazy," she said. ''And it's $5 to rent a movie."

Redbox charges no late fees. Instead, the customer is charged another dollar every day the movie is out. After 25 days and $25, the renter can keep the disk. To return the movie, people needn't go back to the original location. Redbox disks can be returned at any Redbox in the United States. All of the machines are connected to Redbox headquarters through a broadband digital network, so the company always knows which movies are most popular and which machines need servicing.

McDonald's launched Redbox in Denver last summer. Of the 550 Redboxes now operating, 181 are in Houston and 145 in Minneapolis. Most are located at McDonald's restaurants, but the company is testing them in alternative locations, including drugstores and supermarkets.

So far, users have rented 2.5 million movies through Redbox, and, said Waring, about 80 percent of first-time users have been repeat customers. About half of all renters return their movies after just one night, while only 1 percent of customers pay $25 to keep the movies.

By year's end, Redbox aims to deploy about 1,200 machines nationwide. Massachusetts won't participate in the current test-marketing of the machines, but Waring said Redbox plans to install machines in the Bay State ''as soon as we can."

Redbox is also scaling up the size of its vending machines, to offer consumers a better variety of movies. The current generation of Redbox machines, in use at the Glastonbury story, holds 100 DVDs. But Redbox just signed a deal with the California electronics equipment maker Solectron Corp. to build jumbo versions that will contain 500 disks apiece.

Waring said these larger machines will enable the company to expand its movie offerings. Right now, Redbox machines are stocked with the latest Hollywood releases. These are updated every Tuesday -- the day when movie studios issue their new DVDs. But with larger machines, Redbox might set aside space for older but still-popular films.

Blockbuster said it isn't getting into the vending machine business itself. That's different from how Blockbuster rushed in to Internet-based rentals to compete with Netflix.

''Right now we think it makes more sense for us to invest more money where our customers want to rent, and that's in our stores and increasingly online," said company spokesman Randy Hargrove.

Blockbuster entered the online rental market less than a year ago, and gained 750,000 subscribers in its first seven months, Hargrove said. The company expects 2 million subscribers by the first quarter of 2006. Hargrove estimated that online rentals will soon account for 20 to 30 percent of the market. He doubted that the vending machine rental market would be nearly as big, but added that Blockbuster could move quickly into the market if necessary.

Kara Clarkin is a convert. The 35-year-old said the Redbox machine made it easy for her to grab a video and still keep tabs on her 8-year-old daughter and her 18-month-old son.

''I like it because it's convenient," Clarkin said. ''It's right here."

Link: Like Coke machine for DVDs - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Personal Tech - Business.

Phony Purple Heart Taken Off Film Web Site

Seriously, is this the best use of Congressional time? Sometimes I think we've just lost our sense of humor...

Following complaints from a congressman, the producers of "Wedding Crashers" on Monday yanked from the movie's Web site a printable Purple Heart advertised as a gimmick to pick up women and get free drinks.

The movie characters -- played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn -- use the medals to pick up women. But advocates for a bill introduced by Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., say it's no joke -- impostors also use the fake medals or fraudulent stories of medals to get ahead in business.

"We understand the sensitivity regarding the medals and did not intend to make light of their significance in any way," New Line Cinema spokesman Richard Socarides said Monday.

Wearing, manufacturing, buying, selling or trading a Medal of Honor is a crime. Salazar's Stolen Valor Act, introduced Friday, would expand the law to include more medals and would allow prosecution of anyone who falsely claims to have earned a military medal or a Purple Heart.

His office drew attention to the Web site. On Monday, he claimed victory.

"If any movie-goers take the advice of the 'Wedding Crashers' and try to use fake Purple Hearts to get girls, they may wind up picking up an FBI agent instead," Salazar warned in a statement. "I am pleased that New Line Cinema has agreed to take down offensive parts of the Web site. Our veterans and FBI agents are working hard to make sure that we honor our true heroes, no one should undermine their efforts.

"The movie's Web site included a "Crasher Kit" with instructions on how to win attention at a wedding."Print your own Purple Heart," it invited. "To get one of these babies, some dudes have to prove their physical, mental and spiritual strength with great feats of bravery on the battlefield. All you need to do is press the button below.

"Socarides said it would be removed by the end of the business day. "This is a comedy, and it's intended to be funny," he said. "It's really not intended to offend anyone.

"Advocates for Salazar's bill praised the producers for altering the Web site. In a way, some said, the flap over the movie has helped by bringing attention to a cause they have been working on for years.

"With Hollywood you have to give them a little bit of license," said B.G. Burkett, one of the authors of the book "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History," about fake Vietnam vets. "I'm hopeful Congressman Salazar's bill is going to go through, and it will put a clamp on the people who are doing this."

Link: Phony Purple Heart Taken Off Film Web Site.

Crain's New York Business news, lists, rankings, directory and more

You knew that this was coming!

Moviegoers at Loews Cineplex theaters will soon be able to skip the advertisements and previews, once the chain's owner begins listing the actual start times of featured presentations this month.

The move by Manhattan-based Loews Cineplex Entertainment follows pressure by customers and by legislators: A bill was introduced in the City Council earlier this year calling for fines of as much as $1,000 whenever a movie started after its listed time.

Advertisements and coming attractions can delay actual showtimes for featured movies by as much as 25 minutes after the published times. Starting May 13, Loews will publish the actual start times of featured presentations at its theaters in Connecticut and, over the next month, the theater chain will include the information for its eight Manhattan theaters and all its other locations nationwide.

Link: Crain's New York Business news, lists, rankings, directory and more.