Is the inside experience a social film? Or something else? By Mike Ham Keywords Interactive film Crowd sourcing Crowd Funding Collaboration Advertainment Transmedia

introduction This slideshow will debate whether or not The Inside Experience can be seen as a ‘social film’ or something else. For example an interactive film.

interactive Film Interactive film is an interactive game online, that takes the form of a film, through the use of script, full motion video, and animated live footage. Wikipedia (2010) [online] available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_movie accessed on [10/11/11] There are many examples of this:

Interactive film continued Interactive film gets users to participate in something different to the usual film. Companies can use this to draw in customers by advertising a product on the interactive film. For example, ‘Being Henry’ by Land Rover promotes its Land Rover Evoque. You make decisions in Henrys life, and then at the end, your decisions take you to the type of Evoque which is best suited to you on your choices you made in the interactive film. Jeff Glucker 2011 [online] available at: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/05/06/land-rover-launches-being-henry-interactive-film-series-t/ accessed on: 10/11/11 So it could be argued that The Inside Experience is an interactive film, as participants get to participate in helping Christina, where they can effect the final film, much like participants can do in interactive film where they make the choices.

collaboration Collaboration is seen as a different way to connect people together to create films online. Similar to Interactive film, collaboration looks to break the boundaries of traditional film by encouraging creative fans and audiences, to participate in a way in which it is different to the traditional film culture. An example of this is ‘The story behind the still’ It was the first ever user generated, HD video contest. photographers became filmmakers and we all saw beyond the still. Month after month, aspiring filmmakers were invited to pick up where the previous winning short film ended – on an evocative photograph. This is using Crowdsourcing in which crowds of participants are coming together to become a community to create the medium. Vimeo [online] (2010) avaiable at: http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill accessed on: 10/11/11.

The inside experience and collaboration Shirky describes collaboration as: ‘the power of organizing without organizations’ Shirky, C. (2008) Here comes everybody, London Alan Lane, p51 The Inside Experience is similar to a crowd sourced collaboration film. Inside, connects people together via social networks to collaborate to help Christina out. This could be argued to be crowdsourcing and a collaborative film as participants are coming together and sharing their ideas and answers to the clues Christina provides. Much like participants provide videos or still images used to create a collaborative crowd sourced film. But Inside makers Intel and Toshiba are an organsiation, so according to Shirky, The Inside Experience is not collaborative.

Crowd funding Crowd funding is where people come together and share their money as a community in a network so that a medium can be created. For example making an online film. One online film that used crowd funding was ‘A Swarm Of Angels’ Here participants provided money to join and to help the project take off. A swarm of angels 2008[online]Available at: http://aswarmofangels.com accessed on [10/11/11]

‘Advertainment’ and transmedia Penington, A (2010) [online] New Media Age available at: http://www.nma.co.uk/features/transmedia/3017944.article accessed on [10/11/11] ‘Transmedia is about more than just running content across multiple platforms; it involves engaging an audience in a story wherever they happen to be coming to it from’ Advertisement works with companies like BMW to use trans media by making movies advertise their product in a more entertaining way than an advertisement on TV to the consumers, by using multiple forms of medium. Like TV and online TV, it looks to gain an audience. Consumers are becoming an audience. They produce a small number of episodes of a drama featuring their product along side big names used in TV shows and films. There are many examples of this:

Is inside an advertainment? The ‘social film’ features the Toshiba Satellite p775 laptop. It could therefore be argued that the film takes place around this laptop as the main character Christina is interacting with it in most of its episodes. Just like other entertaining advertisements do. This would make it an advertising film. However when looking at the participants comments on Facebook, it would suggest that they do not like the idea of it being an advertisement. Sheron Neves - “Come on guys, you were doing so well up to now... No hard sell please. It's the main point of branded content, isn't it? You have a bunch of people super engaged with the whole project, real fans (including myself) so mission accomplished. Branding gold. Now don't mess it all up with short term, sales department mentality... You will sell your laptops, don't worry. But don't spoil this experience and brilliant marketing strategy by turning it into cheap product placement :-/” the inside experiance (2011) [online] availble from http://www.facebook.com/TheInsideExperience/posts/163054407104608 accessed on [10/11/11]

Sampling comments on the advertisment on facebook 29/56,115 participants of the inside experience facebook page, liked the link posting to the inside experience website about the laptop on 15th August.  14/56,115 participants of the inside experience facebook page, commented on the link posting to the inside experience website about the laptop on 15th August. From these results, I can conclude that not many people showed an interest in the laptop as not many comments or likes were produced as a huge amount of participants did not comment. Also this was posted before a finished film was produced. So it shows that not many people were interested.

conclusion To conclude, The inside experience claims to be a social film. But there is a narrow terminology of social film today, as inside experience only started this year. So The Inside Experience can instead be seen as parts of: Interactive film Crowd sourcing Crowd Funding Collaboration ‘Advertainment’ Transmedia

Bibliography References A swarm of angels 2008[online]Available at: http://aswarmofangels.com accessed on [10/11/11] Jeff Glucker 2011 [online] available at: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/05/06/land-rover-launches-being-henry-interactive-film-series-t/ accessed on: [10/11/11] Penington, A (2010) [online] New Media Age available at: http://www.nma.co.uk/features/transmedia/3017944.article accessed on [10/11/11] Shirky, C. (2008) Here comes everybody, London Alan Lane, p51 the inside experiance (2011) [online] availble from http://www.facebook.com/TheInsideExperience/posts/163054407104608 accessed on [10/11/11] Vimeo [online] (2010) avaiable at: http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill accessed on: 10/11/11. Wikipedia (2010) [online] available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_movie accessed on [10/11/11