Conference report 2012

REPORT

2Cinekid for Professionals 2012

/Cinekid for Professionals Conference 2012

Opening words of Cinekid director Sanette Naeye

Good to see so many old friends. A warm welcome to all of you. We have a packed pro-gramme. I’m happy to announce that the media programme of the European Commission selected Cinekid as a partner for three more years. We are the only one that is being support-ed to support you, the media aiming at young audiences. We’re very happy to be selected as the main platform for children’s media in Europe and we invite you to be active in it. But the main thing here at the festival and the conference is to connect and exchange knowledge.

Michel Ocelot recieves The Cinekid Lion and a guest of honor certificate from Sannette Naeyé, director of Cinekid.

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/MICHEL OCELOT – FRENCH ANIMATION WAVE

Master of French animation Michel Ocelot conquered the hearts of animation fans around the world with his Kirikou films. He uses simple, shadow-theatre images, as he calls them, but also regular 3D (Azur and Asmar) and stereoscopic 3D (Tales of the Night). How did his success come about?

What was happening in France before Kirikou? According to special honorary guest and key-note speaker Michael Ocelot “a few crazy people were doing animation. I was one of them. But nobody did it for the money.” The animation landscape was quiet but it wasn’t empty. In 1982 the French government decided to start pushing French animation on TV. As a result of that at the end of the eighties France was the world’s fourth biggest producer of animation, after the US, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. Another important contributing factor was the introduction of animation schools. So many great animators graduated from these, said Ocelot, that American studio’s started hiring French animators immediately after they finished their studies. “You could say that France help fund Dreamworks.”

This was the situation in which Kirikou was made. It took Ocelot two years to find fund-ing for the first instalment. The film couldn’t be made in France because of the high cost of labour, so Ocelot started working with foreign animators in Hungary and Latvia. Then when the film was finished there was another obstacle: it was very hard to find a distributor be-cause the only films French cinemas were interested in were American animation. Ocelot found a small distributor in Lyon who believed in the project. But he had no money. “So we had no posters and no trailers and no advertisements to get the audience to the cinemas. But he did know the network of small cinemas throughout France. He contacted all of them and told them Kirikou was going to be a word of mouth success. ‘Wait’, he told them. ‘Keep showing the film and the people will come’. He was right. I did not expect this kind of deep and long-lasting success. Deep and long lasting. After the first I said I would never make another Kirikou film. Now there are 3.”

Why are the Kirikou films so successful? Mainly because of their distinguishing and per-sonal character, felt Ocelot. And because the time was right. “The audience and critics were hungry for something new after all those American animations. All my films are made from the heart. I never follow advice. I had to fight for the first film all the way to the cinema. Even if people want to help you, go against it, swim upstream. People told me that Africa doesn’t sell, that the title was too simple and that the skin of the characters was too dark. So I made their skin even darker. And also: the music had to be French, they told me. I said no and I contacted Yousou N’Dour in Dakar and he made the soundtrack. One of the biggest problems people said, were the women’s breasts. They should be covered. But then the purity of the film would be lost. I’m convinced the film became successful because I fought for it. I proved that in France you can make a successful animation. And the industry keeps grow-ing. In 2002 there was a production of four animations per year. In 2003 seven. Animation now is ten percent of yearly film production and 32 percent of export. So it sells really well.”


/FRENCH ANIMATION WAVE - PANELMICHEL OCELOT, ERIC GOOSSENS, LAURENT BOILEAU

Participants were Michel Ocelot, Eric Goossens, cofounder of independent animation studio and pro-duction company Walk the Dog, and Laurent Boileau, director of Approved for Adoption. They contribute the success of French animation to a number of creative, political and cultural elements.

Essential elements of this success1. The high quality of the French animation schools.

2. The link between comics and animation. Around 4800 comics are published in France every year. Graphic novels are part of French culture.

3. Comics and animation have evolved and the audience has evolved. 30 years ago it was only for children. Little by little a more adult audience came to view animation. Is this just a French phenomenon? No, look at the success of Persepolis. Or the success of Waltz With Bashir.

4. Transnational cultural elements so the film appeals to international audiences. This is not only the starting point of every good film; it’s also a necessity. National funding is often not enough to finance a project.

5. The enormous public belief in cinema in France and willingness to support it.

6. Public funding. When we coproduce with France, said Eric Goossens, the average amount of money collected in France is 60% of the budget. Once you have that money, possibilities for international coproduction open up.

France’s success in animation really starts with the willingness of the French government to invest in it, stated Goossens. In its slipstream, also Belgium and Luxembourg profit. Again, that has to do with these countries’ willingness to invest, as becomes clear through their respective tax shelters. Another element that fosters coproduction between the three countries is their shared culture. Travelling between countries and realizing an internation-al coproduction is difficult enough without language barriers and cultural differences, so it’s convenient when filmmakers speak the same language.


/JAMES DEELEY - THE RIGHT IDEAS AT THE RIGHT TIME

TH_NK’s Head of Creative Strategy James Deeley has been creating digital experiences for over 15 years. Recently he’s been working on projects for BBC Worldwide, Pottermore and Channel 4.

Deeley started out with showing “a really good experience strategy”, the opening scene of the movie Star Wars. Not this particular opening constitutes an experience but what Star Wars has become since then: books, films, TV-programs, shoes, toys, clothes. It became something you could be part of, which makes you feel closer to the character’s adventures. The Oslo Opera House is another example. “Outside it looks like a huge jigsaw made of mar-ble. Inside there is an opera house where wooden walls form a visual motif through the building that reflects the shoreline outside. If you go deeper inside the building the wood gets darker and treated, because it has a different goal: outside it renders the building a sense of purity and silence, inside it must amplify sound. Another well executed detail are the seats in the concert halls, which produce the same amplification with or without people sitting in them. Every single part makes up the whole.”

Deeley’s third example is the historical adventure game Assassin’s Creed of which produc-tion company UbiSoft has sold 38 million copies to date. Each separate story continuous the overall story line and contributes to the overall experience. The game’s success first led into books and now there’s talk of a film. The important thing is the level of control that the game makers want to keep in the film’s production. They want to be the masters of the experi-ence.” A successful experience strategy is about connecting all ideas in a long-term vision.

Five key points that can help creating effective strategies.

1. Understand the People. Who is your audience and what do you need to do to appeal to them? Sometimes they understand the subject matter a lot better than you because they know it longer. You need to understand what their hopes and fears are of the thing you’re creating. Use the power of fan power. The Pottermore project started with a prelaunch of a million beta accesses. Together with the 9 principal Potter fan sites a teaser campaign was set up. Social channels were used to recruit the users. Feedback from those users was applied to improve the project based on the prelaunch.

2. Proposition. What’s the vision? What’s the statement that’s always going to keep you on track and guide you in the right direction?

3. Plan: how we going to do it over time? With Doctor Who, TH_NK had to work with a plan that was already in place: the broadcast schedule of the episodes. “The big gest thing we worried about: these huge gaps when the show is not on air. We had to fill those gaps, those lows of audience awareness, to keep the energy and engagement constantly high. That’s how we started to create.”

4. Place. Where are the people? How to reach them? “We know our audience is on many different places and uses many devices. And accept that your audience will migrate. People don’t see the differences between media. People watching TV have two or three screens at the same time. How can you play an effective role in that? Also: we shouldn’t create what’s already there, like YouTube.”

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5. Make sure it’s entertaining. Otherwise they won’t come back. “Give them reasons to come back. With drama there’s the suspension of disbelief. So you can play on that. Other things: introduce collective achievements so it becomes a social thing. An example, we once built an experience accessible through a website. But the whole experience wouldn’t start until enough life force was gathered. And you got that through letting other people join. Another thing: rewards: exclusive content. Reward people for winning.”

Deeley expects to involve the audience more and more in the production of interactive me-dia. Increasingly, we’re coproducing with the audience.”


/JOHANNA KARSENTY - INTERNATIONAL KIDS’ TV TRENDS

Time spent watching TV is still rising, but the market behind those ratings is shifting. Children’s chan-nels market share is increasing rapidly in some territories, explained Eurodata Kids TV report man-ager Johanna Karsenty.

TV is doing well. Johanna Karsenty started out with good news. Doing well, despite or thanks to the rise of the internet en games, that is still difficult to say. Time spent in front of the TV is increasing across the European territories. Consumption has risen with nine minutes in four years. North America still has the highest children’s TV consumption. This growth stems for an important part from dedicated children’s channels’ increasing market share. Both local broadcasters like Kika in Germany or CBBC/CBeebies in the UK profit from this. But major US brands like Disney and Cartoon Network are catching up fast with 22% market share for children age 6-12.Focusing on content, Karsenty said children are of course influenced by their parents’ view-ing habits, meaning sports, entertainment and series rank high on their watch list. Enter-tainment shows are among kids’ favourite shows next to music and talent shows and sport-ing events. Regarding fiction, movies rank high, especially during holidays.Within fiction animated features like Madagascar and Ice Age are on top: Most watched TV-series are often dependent on the viewing habits of parents. On children’s channels animated series dominate the ratings and in particular comic series are hugely appreciated. Classic heroes like Tom and Jerry are still popular but modern he-roes as the penguins from Madagascar catch up fast. Overall, international titles do best but local properties – like Spangas in The Netherlands – keep beating the ratings.


/ERIC ROSENBAUM - DESIGNING FOR DESINGERS

MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten is inspired by the way a kindergarten works, explained Eric Rosenbaum. It’s an environment where you learn through making things. With his colleagues Rosen-baum creates new tools, construction kits and learning environments to help people learn and espe-cially learn things that are meaningful to them. At Cinekid he presented three astonishing projects that elegantly prove the success of the Lifelong Kindergarten concept.

1. Melody Morph for the iPad. A project about rethinking music making. Many of Lifelong Kindergarten’s projects are trying to think about media in relation to children in a way that inverts that relation. So instead of consumers children can be creators. Melody Morph is about music making and specifically creatively constructing musical instruments. It’s a way of composing visually. So besides constructing a melody in space through visual elements, it allows the child to make instruments. http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects.php?id=3138

2. Scratch: a way to create your own interactive media through intuitive visual program-ming. With Scratch young people are able to create interactive stories, games, animations and simulation and share their creations online. In the process they learn to think creative-ly, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. “The key idea was to make everything ‘tinkerable’, which means it all feels like the materials you already know how to tinker with in the real world. And everything we design gives you immediate feedback, which is also one of the principles we work with.” There’s also a website where kids can share what they’ve built using Scratch. At the moment it has nearly 3 million projects in over 50 different languages. http://scratch.mit.eduScratch 2.0 will soon be released. It has the same core concept, but with added features: 1. It works entirely in the browser so it opens up new ways for kids to collaborate. 2. It supports input from the camera. With it, kids can create their own augmented reality experience or games that you play with the body in front of the camera. It functions like the Microsoft Kinect but here kids are put in charge of how the games work.

3. The http://www.makeymakey.com invention kit will let the player make anything into a keyboard-key. So instead of pressing the spacebar you can plug in a banana and turn it into a spacebar. Or make a game controller out of Play-Doh. Or make a game controller by draw-ing it on paper.


/JAN WILLEM HUISMAN - WILL THE FIRST SCREEN BECOME THE SECOND SCREEN?

The night before the conference, IJsfontein founder Jan Willem Huisman completely reshuffled his speech. The original question ‘Will the first screen become the second screen?’ seemed irrelevant. The real question was: what will the omnipresence of screens bring us? It’s all about integration and inter-activity, said Huisman. Not one screen opposed to the other.

“What is the second screen? Many people have an opinion about this. It started with the Nielsen report that stated that 60% of people watching TV have a 2nd screen in hand: iPad, laptop or smartphone. They are watching and holding the device in their hands. Everyone became really enthusiastic but if you take a second look at these numbers you’ll see that 95% of those people use the screen to distract them from TV. They find what they see on TV bor-ing.”What are the reasons for having this second device? 1. We want to find stuff. We have 500 channels. Where do I find interesting stuff on TV? The device helps them to find interesting content. 2. We want to share stuff. 3. We want to buy stuff. When people see a famous person with a beautiful hat, they want to buy the hat. 4. We want to have a better remote. I think the first thing we will see is smart remotes with which it is easier to find stuff and interact with the TV.”

Huisman objected to the dominant technical approach of dealing with the second screen. “It should be about people. About moving and touching them in a big way, like TV can do. But also in a small and intimate way. I think interaction is about this small and intimate. The user should be the focus. So what can the second screen do for the user? The quality of TV is that it’s simple and it’s a family thing. Even in 2012, 42% of the time people watch TV, they watch together. Through the internet people could interact in their own time. But the only real revolution after the invention of TV is the console. We’ve tried everything with televi-sion, but the only thing that really changed the way TV is used, are console games. Games are hyperactive in which you get to be the hero instead of only feeling a hero as you do in film. And you can play it with your friends. But even games are scared of the 2nd screen. There was this CEO from Nintendo at the GDC gaming congress earlier this year and he ad-dressed all game developers present: please stick to the platforms. Don’t move to mobile. But you cannot stop mobile. Why not? What’s so good about it?- It’s social- Always with you- It’s a casual device

That’s why it’s deeply integrated in our lives, more than any other medium. That makes it very attractive for game producers. Right now we are syncing TV with the internet. But the problem is it often starts with TV. That’s the dominant medium. We should instead go back to the user and the user experience. Interaction should come first. Young children interact in a simple intuitive way. So I see Apple’s Airplay as the next real revolution. In that model the broadcaster is no longer needed because all content comes from the internet. From a concep-tual perspective it’s very interesting. Finally interaction comes first.”


Davin Risk demonstrated several great apps for children. Some were not specifically for children but the user interface was so elegantly designed that kids can work well with them.

“What makes something innovative is a complex issue”, said Risk. “Everyone has a different version of that. I think it comes down to attention to detail and attention to experience. You can see that in these apps.”

- Toca Band http://tocaboca.com/games/#toca-band Making music with characters- Singing fingers http://singingfingers.com - B-Bot https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/b-bot/id315612171?mt=8- The Incident http://bigbucketsoftware.com/theincident/ Not kids game but very nice aesthetic and simple playability- Gesundheit http://www.matthammill.com/games/gesundheit/ Level of attention detail all hand drawn- Little Digits http://www.cowlyowl.com/little-digits Very nice mode of interaction- Toca House http://tocaboca.com/games/#toca-house Again high attention detail- Squigles https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/squiggles!/id498599631?mt=8

/DAVIN RISK- INNOVATIVE APPS


/CARLA FISHER- DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

1. Because of kids developmental ranges we need to plan for a really wide range of abilities. A 3 year old can be widely advanced but also far behind the average. Both are perfectly normal. Dance Dance Revolution is a game that accidentally hit on this wide range of abilities incredebly well. It’s used by students, grown-ups, and preschoolers. So design for this wide range.

2. Use iconic, consistent design. A stop sign is a stop sign for a reason. It’s very clear. Or the BACK button. Same thing. Preschoolers are learning the language of the word so it’s not the right time to go all artsy-fartsy and try to make new things for them.

3. Provide large hot spots. This is replicated with touch screens. Many apps have button areas that are too small.

4. Make something noticeable happen on touch. Look at Sound Shaker: when the child touches the screen he or she sees something larger than the finger. Or there’s a sound. This helps to reinforce what they do. Also, avoid problems because of accidental multitouch.

5. Drag and drop is tough for kids.

6. Concerning instructions. Recall of audio instructions is short. Keep repeating, don’t overcomplicate.

7. Narrative guidelines. Young children have limited understanding of story sequencing. They recall isolated events instead of full plots.

8. Provide text and audio sync. This is a production nightmare but important. Look at Penelope Rose for a successful app.

9. Preschoolers don’t understand TV-conventions like flashbacks and flash-forwards. They focus on the most physically obvious.

10. Create supportive bells and whistles for understanding story.

11. Foster dialogic reading: let the child be in charge. Ask feedback to promote understanding.

12. Encourage trial and error by offering multiple pathways through the game or story. Instead of having only right and wrong.

13. Support the developing ego.

14. Scaffolding. What do you do if someone gives a wrong answer? Motion Math: errors never interrupt the gameplay.

15. Encourage cooperative play and collaboration. Super Mario Wii with four players. Not for preschoolers but good example.

16. Expect chaos if you design for multiplayer.


17. Build in breaks in physical games. Let the children rest. Like our Ready Set Grover!

18. Encourage role-play. A good example is Toca Tea Party.

19. Make sure in-app purchases have gates built in so children cannot order huge amounts. (The Smurfberry affair http://gigaom.com/apple/in-app-purchases-and-the- smurfberry-affair/)


/JULIET TZABAR - DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR OLDER CHILDREN (6-12 yrs)

1. When you’re talking about children there’s no such thing as a single demographic because they show so much difference in developmental ability. What I find is there’s a real risk of generalization. Therefore we take a user centered approach. At the start of every project we first have a deep think about whom we’re designing for. How old within the 6-12 age range are they? What do they find interesting?

2. Leonardo, the game based on TV-series. We had audience research that said the boys loved the action sequences but they weren’t getting enough of them. So the game provided an opportunity to create more of the action. But the older kids within the age range are also playing Minecraft so that is also fed into the design: we developed an option in which they can craft the vehicles.

3. Which device to target? The desirability of Apple is huge, that’s important to consider. Stuff available for the 6-12 age range on iTunes and tablets usually consists of more general games, because tablets up until now are mainly a family thing. Because of its lower cost actually the iPod Touch is crucial for this demographic and we should develop more for that device.

4. Kids expect their media to be totally pervasive. Main thing when thinking about Transmedia is that there must be a story at the heart. Otherwise media don’t success- fully transfer from one device to another. When developing a new cross media property it must have authenticity.

5. Embed creativity within apps. Kids bring their creativity to the play and become more self-conscious in this age group so give them a way to express that. Example: Lego movie maker.

6. Casual gaming is the way to go for mobile devices: it offers a short gameplay experi ence.

7. The number of game engines is limited because they function well within the confines of the different devices. So use them. Don’t go inventing the wheel for every new game.

8. Age appropriateness. How do you differentiate between a casual game for a broad audience and one that is more developmentally appropriate? It’s important to remember the basics: when creating for preschoolers, use voiceover because they can’t read. But do this for the 6-12 age group as well. You know that they can read, but you also know that they won’t read. When we created the Leonardo game we included audio instructions. In addition, humor is attractive for children. But be aware of the different appreciation of humor for different ages in the 6-12 range.

9. Points and prices. For the 6-12 age group scoring is really important. So we often use a combination of points and prizes (unlockable awards). Example: Skylanders.

10. Recognize that they want social experiences. Remember children circumventing Facebook by using Instagram, exploiting parents’ ignorance. There are ways of making games social, like implementing the option to saving and emailing pictures.


11. User testing is crucial to tweak the design and the mechanics. This goes with a warning: you can never get a large enough sample. So take the results with a pinch of salt. And beware the client that says he’s tested the game on his nephew or niece and wants you to change everything at the last minute.

www.sndrv.nl

“The beautiful thing is that you don’t need to ask permission to use or create augmented reality. Use for instance the Layar app. There are two types of AR: marker based and GPS based. Just aim your phone at reality and information is projected through a new layer of into that reality.”

Examples to experience augmented realityWild Safari in Eindhoven http://www.sndrv.nl/layarsafari/Biggar Biggest interactive sculpture in the world http://www.sndrv.nl/biggar/Mind the Fish at Cinekid 2011 http://www.sndrv.nl/mindthefish/M.A.R.S. launch a virtual M.AR.S rocket http://www.sndrv.nl/m.ar.s/MOMA Exhibition The MoMA building NY hosted a ‘virtual’ augmented reality show on the 9th of October 2010 but didn’t know about it. http://www.sndrv.nl/moma/Dance.AR! with app LAYAR http://www.layar.com/layers/dance/

/SANDER VEENHOF - A DEMONSTRATION OF AUGMENTED REALITY


Zinc Roe’s app creation based on popular Canadian children’s books Stella and Sam aims at providing children an immersive experience by bringing them into the character’s world and offering activities which remind them of what Stella and Sam are doing in the books.

Stella and Sam started as a popular series of children books by Canadian author Marie-Louise Gay. It was licensed as a TV-series and zinc Roe together with TV-producer Radical Sheep are creating a transmedia project out of this with an animated show, an online property and apps.Risk started to explain the company’s approach to tackling a project like this. “Stella and Sam are stories about a brother and sister. There are no adults involved. They go out, free-wheeling, exploring, asking each other questions. The answers are sometimes completely fantastical and made up on the spot. What we wanted to do was include the kids in the story. There are myriad ways to do that. But what we thought of was introducing activities within the style and mindset of the TV-series, so kids could feel part of it. We let them do the kind of things Stella and Sam were doing on TV.”“We started designing the activities. What would Stella and Sam be doing, based on the sort of questions they ask each other? From there we designed simple game mechanics. For in-stance they have a small dog and in the series he leaves paw prints all over the living room floor. So we introduced a sort of finger painting based on that. We developed the activities without fully integrating them into the story and then tested those prototypes to see if they were engaging for kids.”“Eventually we came up with five stories. Separate little narratives that play out apart from the TV-series. Each story takes up about 2 minutes of actual animated series. It’s structured as 30 seconds animated activity, then they go back to the story and then there’s another activity. Each story contains three activities. An example of an app we created based on this: Draw Along https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-along-with-stella-and-sam/id516676111?mt=8, an activity where you can color in a shape and then the shape’s come to life.”

/DAVIN RISK - STELLA AND SAM: INCLUSIVE STORYTELLING


/PANEL MOBILE APPLICATIONS: CONTENT, STORYTELLING, DESIGNDAVIN RISK, CARLA FISHER, JULIET TZABAR

Participants were zinc Roe’s Davin Risk, No Crusts Interactive founder Carla Fisher and Plug-in Media’s managing director Juliet Tzabar.

Where did zinc Roe start when developing the content for the Stella and Sam project?Davin Risk: “With the books. Because they have a very particular and effective psychology to them. The perspective is very much from within the world of the kids. We responded to the feeling of openness and childhood wonder that the books have. That’s why we came up with a sort of act-structure and not a linear storyline. All the stories are original. It’s not book brought to life. The themes and the loca-tions and the feeling of the book retold. We wrote these mini stories in conjunction with the TV company. We picked a seasonal narrative: we have a spring, summer, fall, winter app as the first four stories.”

What do mobile media add to the content what is already there?Juliet Tzabar: “I don’t’ think any story should be told across all platforms. It’s key to tailor your content to the specifics of the platform you’re aiming for. Even within mobile there’s a lot of diversity. When we take stories to mobile we do think about the features of these de-vices and the context in which they’re going to be used: is it about gameplay, or is it maybe a bedtime story in which parent and child are interacting? You have to consider that. We don’t try and push every possible feature because that’s too confusing. The best ideas are the simplest, it’s really straightforward. Don’t over-engineer and overcomplicate a project, which is tempting because many different people are involved and want to add something to the production. Keep bringing everything back to the user. We have almost daily discussions with our clients on the details.”

Carla Fisher: “I have the same experience. For us it’s a combination of user testing and having someone on the team who keeps checking whether the project is still in line with what we set out to produce. Success depends a lot on those daily gut checks.”

At what point in the creative process does content start to play a role?Carla Fisher: “It depends really. We start in a lot of different places. Sometimes it’s a par-ticular mechanic a client wants to play with. Like we’re working now on a project where the client wanted an Angry Bird-ish mechanic so we construct the content around that. Sometimes it’s just the platform that we have to work with, sometimes it’s the content of the original medium. Most of the time we’re coming from a place where the IP (Intellectual Property) is already defined. Whether it’s Sesame Street or whether it’s a new IP. There’s some sort of content history already there which is going to drive the rest of the project.


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From there we go to the storytelling we would like and then we try to figure out which game mechanics go hand in hand with that.”

What are the boundaries of mobile media?Carla Fisher: “In Elmo’s Musical Monster we wanted to use the microphone input to let kids sing. We ended up letting kids yell into the microphone but suddenly we realized that a child could also curse. And we could get in a situation where Elmo is cursing and then that would have gone on YouTube. With this particular brand nobody was comfortable with that. So we had to skip the microphone option.”Juliet Tzabar: “Boundaries for us come from clients expecting to develop a project both for Android and iOS in particular. But we often find ourselves designing for the lowest possible medium in terms of screen size and processing power, because the client only wants to pay for one development. If they pay for a product tailored to each device they would end up with a better product. Now we often try to get a best fit by remodeling something that’s actually built for one device . But that’s a technological boundary. I don’t have experience with any boundaries as to content we want to use.”Davin Risk: “We mainly come across technological problems when we want to push the limits of the devices. Besides that I find concept can often create a barrier. Sometimes you realize halfway through a project that what’s in your head as an adult has nothing to do with what’s in the head of the child. Sometimes they are just not familiar at all with the concept you’re talking about. And sometimes you have to add complexity to the interface in order to explain the concept. But you want as few buttons as possible so that’s not a good road to go down. We’ve either canceled the concept when we realized this or tried variations on the concept and then canceled it anyway. And then there’s something intrinsic to small devices that you really have to be careful about what interface you’re presenting and what options are there. With this sort of media you have to limit your modes of input from the kids.”

What opportunities are you waiting for in order to make the content more in-depth, more engaging?Davin Risk: It’s not specific to any of these technologies, but one of the things we’re focusing on is that there’s a real opportunity for kids to create things that they can take away from the app, like video or audio recordings or still images that they make. Or making their own game within the game or something like that. Because we have really easy access to audio, video and photographic input we don’t need to worry about things like: do they have plug-in x, do they have a camera or a microphone. It’s all there in the device and so those opportuni-ties are really exciting.Carla Fisher: There’s a lot of inspiration for opportunities in casual gaming. In terms of artificial intelligence, in terms of branching narrative and non-player characters being able to respond to input from the player. As this is becoming more commonplace in the multi-million-dollar gaming market, prices are coming down and the kids gaming market can also afford it.Juliet Tzabar: I’m interested in multiplayer and using that to respond to kid’s needs to be social. So I’m really looking forward to the point where we see kids’ virtual worlds coming onto mobile devices.


Getting a transmedia project funded in The Netherlands isn’t impossible, but it’s not a walk in the park either, discovered Virtueel Platform while trying to disentangle funding regulations. It’s advice: Simplify the rules and create opportunities for public private cooperation.

Transmedia is a sign that new media have reached cultural maturity, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer voiced Virtueel Platform’s position. “Transmedia is a productive cooperation between media, not an obstacle as in digital vs. analog or old vs. new. We researched the state of the Dutch transmedia practice and tried to map its main obstacles for progress. We deal with the dark matter, the sand in the machine, a concept which designer Dan Hill in his book Dark Mat-ter and Trojan Horses applied to urban development. The underlying thoughts are the same: you have a great project that you want to realize and then you hit all these hidden walls, regulations etc.”

Virtueel Platform set up a three-step plan. 1. They interviewed producers and makers to find out best and worst practices. 2. They joined Dutch children’s books writer Sieb Postuma who was trying to get a transmedia project funded based on his books. 3. It conducted research into regulations. Not the separate sets of funding rules by the different funds. But the conflicts of interests and regulatory frictions that resulted from try-ing to get a project funded by several funds.

“There are good examples of Dutch TM projects. But they’re all one-offs. Hoe Overleef Ik? Metropolis (VPRO). Human Birdwings (Floris Kaayk). Ravelijn (Efteling). Big Brother (En-demol). So we have a history to build on. In the future, transmedia will become the default mode of storytelling. Every producer will ask: what media can I involve with my content? This is the situation we should prepare for. Because transmedia is not a hype. It suits the larger developments too well. Media need to and will increasingly work together. The ques-tion is how do you work together? That has to be worked out. We need to experiment and the models to work with. Often the business models aren’t clear either.”

Some projects find funding relatively easy from a commercial party. But what if the project isn’t commercially viable yet? Then investors are very hard to find and public funding can provide a kick-start for the project. Or what if commercial forecasts are limited? Kuitenbrou-wer mentioned Sieb Posthuma’s books as an example. “Kids love him, he wins awards, but his books don’t sell more than 20.000 copies. That’s not even enough to live off. Media fund-ing, would be the logical route, but is still largely oriented to one discipline at a time. If you want to work with a public broadcaster you hit upon a complicated set of regulations and evolved habits. Partly official regulation, partly hazy standards of practice. So what exactly is possible? That’s where we asked Monica Bremer: what is possible exactly and what is the law?”

“First of all transmedia is ahead of all other media”, said Bremer. “The first problem is that the public broadcasters don’t really know what transmedia is. There’s a technological knowledge gap. They’re solely focused on TV. They are very willing to evolve and work with it though. But this is going to take some time. The second thing is the legal gap. For substan-tial exposure transmedia producers are still dependent on public broadcasters. But regula-tions are based on a pre-transmedia reality in which their support options are very limited. The Dutch government loves the creative industry but at the same time they put on hurdles

/KLAAS KUITENBROUWER & MONICA BREMER - WORKING TRANSMEDIALLY IN THE NETHERLANDS


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and even roadblocks when it comes to cooperating with a commercial party. That needs to evolve and improve. If you’re not taken aback by all of this and you still want public and pri-vate funding for a project, it comes down to looking really precisely at what you’re doing and try and adjust the project so as to steer through this labyrinthine reality.”

Virtual Platform formulated recommendations for the regulator and the funds to make pro-ducing transmedia projects easier.

To the funds- Collaborate with other funds in order to align the application systems and the budgetary frameworks- Develop the possibility for transmedial projects to ask for support as one entire whole at the collective funds- Expertise to judge the quality of transmedial projects is required within every fund

To makers- Share your knowledge with other makers, especially the knowledge on production methods, financing and business models- Before applying, consider whether you want to apply as one project- Collaborate with educational institutions for smaller or pilot projects

To educational institutions- Develop curricula in which students can learn to develop the scenarios for transmedia productions

To the Dutch Media Authority and the Dutch Media Act- Open an information and examination desk where third parties and non-broadcasters can also have their plans for public-private collaborations checked- Simplify the rules for public-private collaborations- Create a space for experimentation with more open rules for cultural public-private collaboration

The report can be found at www.virtueelplatform.nl/kennis/transmediale-pps

Concluding: it looks complicated but actually a lot is possible when you look into the mat-ter. Important is: share knowledge; especially about the way you approach broadcasters and investors. Everybody needs to know how this works.


Brand strategist Brenda Bisner was involved in more than 30 app deals. She’s been doing business for over a decade specializing in digital media. Creating, developing, selling, buying. She develops digital strategies. She presented a brief overview of the route to get your app out there.

“One of the things I ask first is: What is the point of your app. Finding and launching a great app is difficult. It all comes down to the marketing. And what’s going to keep people coming back? As far as deal strategies go: first there is a cost, second there is a range depending on what you want your app to do. Then there’s different ways of doing it. I find the right deal structure for you and depending on your goal I can set up a creative deal strategy. You can either pay a company to produce your app (determine what its going to cost and determine the time frame) or you can negotiate with the app company to have them invest the cost and recoup right of the top of the sales made. In both cases a strong marketing and social media campaign is necessary, based on what the app is and what the target demographics are. Part of that is a website strategy and a plan for cross promotion in many different areas. The business model is based on what you’re trying to achieve with your app. And ask yourself how to monetize the project: through advertising, through selling the app or through in-app purchases. Then determine how many people need to see the app or be on that app in order to recoup your investment.”

Elements of marketing approaches- word of mouth- having a connection with someone at Apple who can help make your product a featured app on iTunes is really helpful- worst thing is getting a bad rating so ask users to go to iTunes and give good ratings if they’re satisfied with the app- traditional marketing and advertising also comes into play- target online area where parents and parenting organizations are- is there an e-book or TV-series out there where the app is based on? That is really helpful for exposure.

/BRENDA BISNER- DEAL STRATEGY AND DISTRIBUTION MODELS


/JULIET TZABAR- HOW STUFF GETS MADE

Plugin Media’s Juliet Tzabar sketched the processes her company uses to create and produce projects and offered a brief glimpse of the future.

Bristol based Plugin Media translates linear media into award winning interactive media for clients such as Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, BBC and Turner Broadcasting. Examples of projects: Octonauts, Elmo the Musical!, Clifford’s 50th birthday app, Tree Fu Tom, Leonardo, Numtums, Alphablocks, Driving Academy and Super Grover 2.0 Force.

Tzabar focused on three elements that constitute Plugin’s successful creative and business strategy.1. Dedicated in-house R&D that fosters innovations. We stay ahead by using innovations.2. How we collaborate with partners to produce projects3. How our international outlook enables us to serve worldwide audience

1. Tree Fu Tom“We produce interactive web content for Tree Fu Tom. Looking at the role of R&D in the busi-ness: Developers really like developing new stuff. Progress in this business comes from a marriage between creativity and technology. We have to foster that. Another good reason is that it creates virtuous circles through testing stuff. Audience responds feeds back into the R&D.”“Another example is ZingZillas in which kids play along with the band by using movements picked up by the webcam. Originally we had a prototype of this technique but it wasn’t finely calibrated. So we wanted to see where we could push the calibration with a webcam through a browser. This was our own R&D. Some time later the BBC came to us and said ‘we’ve got this new series and it’s all about exploring movement for children’. And they wanted an interactive extension. So having done all that R&D on movement calibration we took it to a pitch at the BBC and showed them what we could do.”

2. Leonardo“This is an example of a real collaboration between a TV company and an interactive compa-ny. We work with many production companies but we have a really longstanding collabora-tion with Kindle entertainment. They had a show called Leonardo, about Leonardo da Vinci racing around Florence as a teenager with his friend Machiavelli and one of the De’ Medici’s. We presented a joint pitch at the BBC based on the question: how can we extend this brand into an interactive space? To actually bring audience to the TV show via the game. The prob-lem was that it was hard to attract boys to the show: it was a costume drama set in Flor-ence. Our strategy was to look at gaming. Kindle brought story development. We provided a unique look and feel. Giving the TV-show a new esthetic based on comics.”

3. CliffordWe’ve been exporting our digital services since 2006 and we started to get an international reputation. That’s really important. Exports constitute 39% of sales now. Clifford’s 50th birthday is an app for Scholastic with educational word games and other mini game dynam-ics built in. Scholastic owns all the IP (intellectual property). But the real benefit for us is getting an app out there. And Scholastic has a great relationship with Apple so that’s maybe good for us for the future.

Where does that leave us? There’s a lot of immaturity in the market in terms of the rights-frameworks and the business models around to exploit digital projects. Whilst we’ve bee-


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waiting for the market place to mature, we’ve started developing our own IP. We see our-selves as a production company so we’ve set up an IP onto the business and through that we want to exploit what we’ve learned doing digital development and apply them to IP develop-ment. It’s all based on rapid prototyping and rapid testing using a user centered approach. The whole idea of iteractive development and improving the product through the feedback from users (iTunes) is also important. And crucial: the opportunity we have to publish.”

Previews of some of the IP projects we’ve been working on:- Create World: series of apps aimed at gamifying creativity. We’re focusing on boys who don’t traditionally play creative games. Give them gaming rush of fast paced game with a creative outcome. Example: make a picture through racing because of the paint on the wheels- T and Mo: It’s about a mummy monkey and baby monkey. With this we’re exploring the idea of a dual audience: parents and children playing together- Haha Bunk: a user generated interactive joke book


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/COLOPHON

Stichting Cinekid Phone: +31 20 531 7890Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 21 Fax: +31 20 531 78991017 RP Amsterdam Email: [email protected] Netherlands www.cinekid.nl

Board of Directors: Michiel Buitelaar (Chair-man), Niels Baas, Eline Danker, Paul van der Linden, Sabine VeenendaalFestival Director / Festival Programmer - Film: Sannette NaeyéCo-Programmer Film / Project Manager Film: Erik TijmanFestival Programmer - Television: Fleur WintersFestival Programmer - New Media / Crossmedia: Paulien DresscherProject Manager: Elly EngelBusiness Executive: Jurriaan RammelooMarketing and Communication Officer: Dennis van Rijswijk

Cinekid for Professionals 2012Head Cinekid for Professionals: Fleur WintersSenior Producer Junior Co-production Market: Allison CodyHead of the Guest Department: Mirte EngelhardConference Co-ordinator & Producer CfP: Cathelijne BerghouwerScreeningClub Co-ordinator: Fred de HaasProducer ScreeningClub: Lotte van den BergJunior Producer: Patrick EvertseJunior Producer: Sanne ScholingCo-ordinator Expert Meeting: Jenny BoomsProduction Manager: Cro LampeGuest Desk: Amber NefkensCar service: Sanne Bais

Main Sponsors Cinekid 2012Bernard van Leer Foundation, De Volkskrant, Zapp, Mondriaan Fonds. Sponsors Cinekid 2012Art Support, PlayMais, Beamsystems, Cam-A-Lot, Cineco, Eye international, Fedex, Fes-tival tickets, Fiep Westendorp Foundation, Film*Techniek Rotterdam, High5!, H&S Comput-erservices, IJsfontein, Lloyd Hotel, NPO Sales, NTR, Virtueel Platform, Westergasfabriek, Wim Pel Productions, UPC Nederland, Zapp.

Cinekid 2012 has been made possiblewith the financial support of:Amsterdams Fund for the Arts, City of Amster-dam, Fiep Westendorp Foundation, Fund for Cul-tural Participation, MEDIA programme of the European Union, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, Dutch Film Fund, SNS Reaal Fund, Mondriaan Fund.

Cinekid for Professionals 2012 is supported by:The Dutch Film Fund and the MEDIA Pro-gramme of the European Union.

Cinekid for Professionals 2012has been made possible by:Bernard van Leer Foundation, Wim Pel Produc-tions, IJsfontein, NTR, Virtueel Platform, Eye International, Zapp, NTR, DDG, Lloyd Hotel, Netwerk Scenarioschrijvers, Norwegian Film Institute, ACE, The Children’s Media Confer-ence, Power to the Pixel, EAVE, Mijn Kind On-line, AIM, Primehouse.

Conference reporttext: Ronald Roversphotography and DTP: Cathelijne Berghouwer

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Conference report 2012

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