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Welcome to our blog. This blog is an area where we put up our thoughts, ideas and things we like.
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DMEX Viral Marketing event
23/06/09 -
News
Digital Media Exchange (DMEX) links the experience and skills of traditional media freelancers and employees with the new markets and innovation of the region’s best Digital Media companies. It offers unique opportunity for Digital Media businesses to work with, and learn from, established professionals from the television industries, sharing skills and knowledge between both sectors.
As part of the programme, The White Room (working with Northwest Vision and Media) are running a series of training events exploring some of the new & emerging digital media platforms and their potential uses in content creation.
This event has been developed in response to demand from DMEX participants & will focus on viral marketing. There have been some really fantastic viral campaigns in recent years, and as the format continues to grow and mature it’s becoming THE way for advertisers to engage audiences online. Great virals do just that, they go viral. As users pass on links to other users, the audience for the product grows like wildfire. In this session we’ll explore just what makes for a great viral ad and how TV professionals can use their skills in producing them.
We’ve worked hard, as ever, to secure some really top-notch guest speakers for this session and this DMEX session should be our most entertaining & educational yet!
First up will be Anthony Hartley-Denton, MD of Manchester-based Visual Effects & Animation company AHD. Last Christmas, Anthony and his team broke the steely hearts of the North-West media industry with their sad tale of an out-of-work CGI robot (AHD-1168). A masterwork of self-promotional content, the recession-themed animation caused a huge buzz, and has notched-up over 55,000 views on YouTube.
Following Anthony, we have Matt Smith from New York & London-based digital marketing agency The Viral Factory. Matt is a true pioneer of viral production, and it’s quite a coup for DMEX to be able to secure him! Their work has included the award-winning ‘Sex Olympics’ for Trojan condoms, whilst one of their most recent projects, Extreme Sheep Art for Samsung has had over 8 MILLION (!) views on YouTube.
Event Agenda
6:00pm – 6:15pm : Arrivals & registrations
6:15pm – 6:45pm : Anthony Hartley-Denton (MD, AHD) on their self-promotional viral AHD-1168
6:45pm – 6:50pm : Q&A
6:50pm – 7:00pm : Break
7:00pm – 7:45pm : Matt Smith (The Viral Factory) on ‘What makes a killer viral?’
7:45pm – 8:00pm : Q&A
8:00pm Close
The event will be free, but numbers will be limited so book now by following this link!
This activity is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.
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Join us for the premiere of Education for Leisure – a DMEX Labs short film
22/06/09 -
News
Cornerhouse Manchester | Thursday 2nd July, 6pm – 8pm
Join The White Room at the premiere of an innovative short film based on the recently-appointed Poet Laureate Carol-Ann Duffy’s controversial poem, ‘Education For Leisure’. It has been created by NW-based TV and Film professionals using machinima – a cutting-edge film-making practice that fuses computer games graphics engines with narrative storytelling.
Digital Media Exchange (DMEX) links the experience and skills of traditional media freelancers and employees with the new markets and innovation of the region’s best Digital Media companies. It offers a unique opportunity for Digital Media businesses to work with, and learn from, established professionals from the television industries, sharing skills and knowledge between both sectors.
As part of the DMEX programme, a team of film and television professionals have joined forces to create a short film using cutting-edge animation technology. “Education for Leisure” is an animation interpretation of a poem by the recently appointed Poet Laureate, Carol-Ann Duffy. The film is produced using Moviestorm, a new software still in early release, which enables film-makers to use computer games technology to make animated films. The film debuted online at the end of May, receiving fantastic reviews almost instantaneously.
To celebrate the achievements of the film-makers involved in the project, Northwest Vision and Media & The White Room are hosting an offline premiere of the short at Manchester’s Cornerhouse cinema.
Book online for this event here.
Schedule
6.00pm - Drinks & arrivals
6:30pm - Lynn Kelly / Lynne McCadden (Northwest Vision and Media)
Introducing the Digital Media Skills Project and the DMEX scheme
6:50pm - David Eccles (Fudge, a DMEX host company)
How DMEX has helped Fudge
7:00pm - Susi oNeill (The White Room) and a member of the Education For Leisure production team
Introducing ‘Education for Leisure’
7:10pm - Premiere, ‘Education for Leisure’
7:20pm - Q&A – Education For Leisure production team
7:30pm - Drinks and networking – Cornerhouse Cafe Bar
As one recent DMEX host company said: “The DMEX scheme has provided us with the opportunity for real cross platform collaboration.”
Northwest Vision and Media
Northwest Vision and Media works on behalf of the digital and creative industries in the Northwest to grow a world-class digital and creative economy within the region. We provide strategic leadership, help to build businesses, develop skills and talent, encourage and invest in production and inspire audiences. Find out more at www.visionandmedia.co.uk
This activity is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.
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When television, computer games and poetry converge: creating opportunity from the downturn
22/06/09 -
News
The White Room was commissioned by Northwest Vision and Media at the end of 2008 to develop a unique skills exchange programme, DMEX (the Digital Media Exchange), which connects senior talent from the North West’s television sector into the fast-growing digital media industry. Through the scheme we facilitate placement opportunities for TV professionals, embedding them into digital businesses to share skills, knowledge and expertise.
Running alongside the placements, we’ve established ‘DMEX Labs’ – a collaborative production model, setting live digital project briefs to teams of volunteers from the pool of TV talent involved in the scheme.
The most recent DMEX Labs production is a wonderful example of collaboration and convergence – bringing a diverse team together on a project that collides television, computer games and poetry. We established quite an unusual brief to make a machinima film based on Carol-Ann Duffy’s ‘Education for Leisure’ poem – a piece set during the Eighties recession. Machinima is a growing genre that combines the graphic engines used in computer games with narrative storytelling.
A team of six set to work on the film, including scriptwriters, editors, and directors – most with high-level careers in the industry. We then brought in an executive producer (the originator of the Machinima term, no less!) to guide the team. None of the team had worked together before, nor did they have any experience in working on solely digital productions. The majority of the work was done remotely with the team using collaborative tools such as Huddle and Skype to communicate, which again was a completely new working practice for them.
The film debuted online at the end of May and received fantastic reviews from the international Machinima community.
We think the end results are great and you can really see the film-making expertise of the team in the final cut. However, it’s the process as much the product that is of real value here. Collaborative partnerships were formed; new skills and workflows developed; mindsets were challenged.
Under more peaceful economic conditions perhaps such an innovative piece of creative content might not be made. Certainly, getting individuals to commit to a time-intensive and non-commercial project like this wouldn’t be possible if they had their pre-downturn workload. If you’re familiar with the poem you’ll appreciate this poignant nuance.
We are undoubtedly in difficult times, and the creative sector is by no means immune to the impacts of the global economic downturn. But the opportunity, especially for a sector defined by innovation, is in using the time to challenge, to change, and be really creative.
The DMEX project is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.