The Evolving Media Podcast

Episode 013: Where are you going, public service? - a talk with Kåre Poulsen

"We’re throwing all the money at news and social media, which I think is like pissing your pants. If you put all your money into creating content for social media channels, you’re just sleeping with the enemy.

We’re turning our audience - who should be regarded as citizens we work for - into products."

Kåre V Poulsen is a producer and manager of interactive and cross platform projects at Danish public service broadcaster DR and the director of the Festival of Digital Narratives. Public service has been a reliable power, especially in the Nordic countries, and has also been the fertile soil for a great number of projects that have explored new ways of telling stories and of interacting with audiences. But where is public service media heading today? How can it compete in the changing media landscape, and does it even have to?

Join us for a interesting talk and a look at what we all can learn from the successes and challenges the public service broadcasters in the Nordics are facing.

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 012: 20 Years of Blair Witch - a talk with Mike Monello

The year 1999 saw a lot of things, from people freaking out over Y2K to the debut of music downloading service Napster and many many other things. It also saw a small horror film with a small budget but a huge buzz making its premiere at Sundance.

Twenty years later "The Blair Witch Project" had its 20th anniversary screening at Sundance. A first on many levels, it was also - as one journalist put it - "the first film to go viral, before anyone knew what 'viral' was". 

Joining us for this podcast is Mike Monello of Campfire NYC, one of the producers of "Blair Witch". We'll talk about the film and the phenomenon, how it came to be, what Mike learned from it that he then took on to Campfire, if it would stand any chance of reaching the same success today, and a lot more. Enjoy!

 

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 011: Designing the audience transformation - a talk with Christy Dena

In this episode Christy Dena stops by for an in-depth talk about a crucial aspect of today's reality for storytellers and creators - the need to look at what the audience will be experiencing and designing with the audience transformation in mind, a process and a way of creating that puts some quite unique demands on the creative minds of us all. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a minute to subscribe, rate and / or comment - it all helps!

Links to resources we talk about in the episode:

 The Four Steps to the Epiphany

https://thestorydepartment.com/the-sequence-approach/

Blake Snyder's Save The Cat

The Artist's Way

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 010: Exploring new storytelling platforms - a talk with Bernie Su

In this episode of the Evolving Media podcast I'm joined by Bernie Su, known for creating and running projects like The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, Emma Approved and Vanity. As audiences' expectations of their media experiences change, so we as creators have an obligation - or a possibility, or a challenge - to change how we create our stories to include the audience as more than passive recipients. This has been a goal of Bernie's for the past decade. His latest project, Artificial, is the first drama to use Twitch as a distribution platform, to great effect.

Join us for a talk about Twitch, about Artificial, about audiences and creators moving into a conversation-based relationship and about where we all could start to learn more about our possibilities to engage and initiate such conversations. Welcome!

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

  

Episode 009: Revisiting the Narrative Reversal - a talk with Jeff Gomez

"It’s still the most rare thing in the world, to be genuinely heard, to be listened to… and that’s at the core of any fandom."

My guest for this episode is Jeff Gomez of Starlightrunner Entertainment, with decades of experience of creating storyworlds and narratives for ventures big and small, and one of the main champions of the Collective Journey storytelling model.

Join us for a discussion about embracing the narrative reversal, i.e. what can we do, what should we do and why should we be eagerly anticipating the moment when our audience - be it the potential audience of a Hollywood blockbuster movie or the audience on our semi-professional Instagram account - turns our narrative against us. Welcome!

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 008: Artificial intelligence and storytelling - a talk with Lance Weiler

Lance Weiler has been exploring the frontiers of storytelling for decades in his many projects. Last year the project "Frankenstein A.I. - a monster made by many" launched, a "immersive theatre, installation and collaborative storytelling" project using "AI, IoT, Projection Mapping, Algorithmic visual, audio and movement systems". 

AI might be intriguing, alien, perhaps even scary to approach, especially from a storytelling angle. But as we discuss in this episode, now is the time to explore and find out how and if AI solutions can work for us as storytellers. Welcome to a talk on what can be learned from working with AI as a storyteller and how to best start exploring it!

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 007: The art of engaging audiences early on - a talk with Tomas Lindh

My guest for the seventh episode of The Evolving Media Podcast is Tomas Lindh, executive producer for development and online at Swedish public service broadcaster SVT. Tomas has created numerous projects and shows in Finland and Sweden and reached a global audience with the documentary project "Breaking the Cycle" in 2017. We'll be discussing the changing role of public service, of creators and producers and of audiences, and look at where we hopefully might be heading. Strap in!

The picture is of Tomas (left) and colleague John Stark on location filming "Breaking the Cycle". 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 006: Revisiting Gen Z - a talk with Sandra Lehner

I'm thrilled to have Sandra Lehner back on the podcast, to talk more about Generation Z. It's a creative, caring, sometimes conservative but always expressive generation, and working for and with them as a content creator is a challenge. 

In this episode we dive into Gen Z, what the best examples of storytelling for that particular generation we've seen over the past year, what we need to keep in mind when working with creators from this generation and a lot more. Have a listen and a subscribe!

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available on a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 005: E-sports, streaming, gaming and the lessons the world of media can learn - a talk with Angela Natividad

The world of e-sports, streaming and gaming is a fascinating one from a lot of different angles, the ones of audience outreach, engagement and interaction not least. Joining me for this episode is Angela Natividad, co-founder of Hurrah , the first creative agency that is 100% devoted to e-sports. We talk about all (or at least many :) ) things e-sports and what we all can learn from the people active in that field.  

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available via a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.

Episode 004: The changing world of Documentary Filmmaking - a talk with Jan Rofekamp

The world documentary filmmaking is facing some challenging times when it comes to financing, production as well as distribution. The old models for all of these areas are still in effect, but they no longer fully answer to the needs documentary filmmakers have today. Not to mention the rapidly changing habits of the audience and the need to adequately address these.

My guest for this fourth episode of the Evolving Media Podcast is Jan Rofekamp, founder and CEO of Films Transit and a person with close to 40 years of experience of the field of documentary filmmaking. We'll be talking about the greatest changes over the past decades and what the new media world brings to the table... and a little bit about the weather.

 

Music used in the episode:

Chris Zabriskie: Readers! Do You Read?
Available via a Creative Commons 4.0 License here.