Hugh Garry

100 Unread Messages

We made an app for Gruff Rhys called 100 Unread Messages and we kinda love it. You can download it to your choice of reading device here. Go on... It's great.

100 Unread Messages accompanies the American Interior book, film and album by former Super Furry Animals frontman. It tells the incredible story of John Evans, a distant relative of Gruff, who travelled across America in the 18th century looking for a mythical tribe of Welsh speaking Native Americans.

The idea for the app comes from a song Gruff wrote about the family of John Evans sat at home waiting for news that never came. With such a rich array of content to pick from we loved the idea of telling the story in 100 messages. The messages are distributed across a map following John's journey and are delivered in the form of film, music, photos, drawings, text, spoken word and gifs. All artwork was done by the brilliant Pete Fowler. 

There's lots to say about why we like this app but I thought I'd pull out three things that are noteworthy. 

1. The smart stuff in this app is hidden. Like everything else we do we look at the story first and decide on the best way of telling it. It was app of the week in The Guardian and Stuart Dredge clearly got the experience we were hoping for:

"As a technology writer who’s spent a lot of time covering apps in the last five years, my favourite thing about the American Interior app is the way it helped me get lost (again) in the John Evans story rather than thinking too much about the format in which it’s being delivered. It’s not a whizzy app: it’s a great story."

2. Every message is a Twitter card which means it can be shared as an individual piece of content embedded in a tweet. Twitter now does deep linking, which means that you can link to messages deep within the app. So if you click on a link in Twitter and already have the app and it will fire it up and bring you to that message. If you don't have the app it will fire it up in the store for you to buy. 

3. There is something really interesting in the snack sized portions and physical gesture required to open each message that fires off a shot of dopamine in the brain. The first time I tested it with all the content in was on a 2 hour flight. I planned to test the first few messages but before I knew it the plane was landing and I'd pretty much been through most of them. It's incredibly addictive and a behaviour we're certain to do more research on for future projects.  

Tonight (Wednesday) Gruff is performing at the Apple Store on Regent Street. He'll be telling the story and live tweeting it via the messages built into the app. So people at home will be able to follow the story Gruff tells in the store via a selection of cards embedded in Twitter. 

Credits should go to everyone at Storythings for the work that went into making such a thing of beauty, Nathan Hull at Penguin for generally being ace. And the lovely Cat and Gruff and their team in Wales for their spirit of adventure. 

If you want to speak to us about working on a project get in touch here.

Storytelling Tips from Pixar

Thanks to the wonderful Emma Coats, storyboard artist for Pixar, who recently tweeted a series of 'story basics' picked up from senior collegues she's been working with at the studio.

I partiularly like "#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next". I often use the 'opposite' technique in my creative process when I have a block. When you're struggling for ideas try coming up with a list of things you definitely don't want to do. You'll be amazed how quickly the fog clears. 

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Thanks to The Pixar Touch Book for originally sharing these. And thanks to Pete Jackson on Twitter for reminding me of this excellent TED Talk by Toy Story's Andrew Stanton on the clues to a great story.

Woody Allen, Physical Email and the Proverbial Wallet.

I went to see Woody Allen's new film 'Midnight in Paris' today and couldn't help smile when the main character Gil, who is fascinated by 1920s Paris, gets into a debate with Adriana about when was the best time to live.

Gil meets Adriana (a beautiful Parisian who is having an affair with Picasso) after travelling back in time to his favourite era. The conversation takes place when pair travel further back in time to the 1890s, which is Adriana's favourite period in history. Gil wants to return to the 1920s but she wants to stay in the 1890s forever because the era in which she belongs holds no excitement for her. Whilst they are there they bump into Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gaugin and Edgar Degas who all believe that the golden age was the Renaissance and not the 1890s, the era in which they were living. 

We all have a romantised vision of the past, a golden age that we long to return to for some rose tinted reason or other. We're great at ignoring the present and appreciating it for all its brilliance. Personally, I've never been like that, much to the disappointment of my friends as my enthusiasm for reminiscing falls short of theirs. I can be such a stick in the mud sometimes. 

I've said it before. The greatest time to be alive is now. Teetering on the edge of tomorrow. I do forget sometimes, but then brilliant people share brilliant things using brilliant technologies and I get incredibly excited about the here and now again. 

So. If like me you get excited by current thinking around the intersection of the real and digital world then you may just love the work of former MIT student John Kestner (thanks to the lovely Tom Uglow for bringing him to my attention).

Here are a few interesting things he has done. Please do check out the rest.

Tableau

 

"Tableau acts as a bridge between users of physical and digital media, taking the best parts of both. It's a nightstand that quietly drops photos it sees on its Twitter feed into its drawer, for the owner to discover. Images of things placed in the drawer are posted to its account as well".

Proverbial Wallets

"The Proverbial Wallet gives us that financial sense at the point of purchase by un-abstracting virtual assets. Tactile feedback reflecting our personal balances and transactions helps us develop a subconscious financial sense that guides responsible decisions. In addition to providing a visceral connection to our virtual money, tactile output keeps personal information private and ambient".

SXSW - The Last Broadcast: Entertainment is Social – What’s Next?

The future of social TV was the focus of this panel on day 2 of SXSW. Panelists, which ranged from the likes of Chloe Sladden of Twitter to Gavin Purcell from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, discussed ways in which they incorporate social media into their show.

Traditionally innovation in the media has been driven by commerce. NBC was devised to sell radios. The rise of social viewing has been driven by audiences, though the concept of the appreciation of communal viewing is nothing new to the broadcaster - the reason they put laughter tracks on TV was to make you feel you were laughing along with other people.

Jeffery Cole suggested that the Killer App would be a person DVR that would record a show that you and all your friends could watch appart at one time whilst conversing on social media. Graham Lineham messed with this idea a few years ago with Bad Movie Club:

I’m organising a Bad Film Club event online for Friday night (13th Feb). At exactly 9.00pm, myself and some like-minded Twitterers will be pressing ‘play’ on M Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening’,  and blogging our responses to the magic as it unfolds.

I pulled together some of the conversation and links mentioned using Storify.

Twitter Racing

Earlier this year I had a meeting with Newsbeat to help them think about some creative digital ideas around the election. One of the insights was that young people think that their vote counts for nothing. I suggested we create something physical (like a car on a racetrack) that moves every time someone tweets '#vote'. The idea being that they would watch their '#vote' make the car progress around the track on a webcam throughout the news report.

For various reasons it never happened. So, me being me, I pestered the genius that is Dr Patrick Sinclair to give the idea some thought for the future. He brought in Nick Humfrey and together they built this:

It's Scalextrix powered by Twitter and SMS. The more feedback we get from our listeners the faster the car goes. We can have 2 separate hashtags which would create a Twitter race if we wanted. As a proof of concept it's done a great job in getting on-air to think creatively about where we can take it. Turntables, running machines and demolition have all been mooted as replacements for the racetrack.

Despite Gillian McKeith's brave attempts do dominate Twitter this week Zane Lowe's Masterpieces managed to knock her of the top trending spot thanks to the amazing amount of conversation around the shows. Masterpieces is a really great feature, brilliant in its simplicity and something that we've really nurtured over the years.

We started Masterpieces in 2007 and soon realised that conversation around the show was strong. We started holding listening parties in Facerbook, we created Wordles of audience feedback and this year blitzed the studios of Radio 1 with printed out tweets. Like voting, it's easy for our audience to think that their tweets comments and SMS interactions with Radio 1 vanish into a digital puff of smoke. They couldn't be more wrong.

As a public service broadcaster we have a responsibility to our audience to make best use of their interactions with the network. As social media has grown it's become even more difficult to acknowledge the comments, suggestions, photos or simple 'Hello's' that stream in via SMS, Twitter and Facebook. We do try and have had some fun giving our audience digital rewards.

Taking on challenges like this can be great if you have hugely talented people like Patrick and Nick to call upon when you need something building. Coupled with the great creative minds of our producers working on how you translate to raw ideas into great digital/radio features you can expect some interesting happenings in this area in the coming months.

 

History Retweeting

I'm a sucker for history being re-told in real-time via social media. Here you can follow the tweets of JFK from his 1960 campaign trail.  I came across this soon after discovering that the War Cabinet is tweeting from way back in 1940.

It's great watching The Blitz unfold daily knowing that the most peril I will face today is Twitter being down or something like that. Last week the City of London escaped serious damage two nights running. Phew!

And I love "Business as Usual not Safety First" which would have made a better poster than "Keep Calm Carry On" for my wall.

Rewarding the Love Pt. 2

Earlier this summer I blogged about 'Rewarding the Love' of your audience. As a broadcaster one of the best things about the emergence of social media is that it allows us to find what is being said about our output and respond. Our audience have grown up listening to us via a box formerly know as 'The Radio'. Now we can listen back to them and when we respond the results can be amazing.

And sometimes dangerous.

At this weekend's Reading Festival we delivered some 'Reading Presents' for our followers on Facebook and Twitter. We wanted to connect our listeners who didn't get tickets for Reading with the bands that they love. The idea was that we'd give them a present to make up for them not being there. More often than not the present would involve their favourite band carrying out a request they made to us via Twitter or Facebook. Sometimes we'd just surprise them by giving them a present for just tweeting about us.

You can see the kind of requests we got in the video featuring Fred Durst, Biffy Clyro, Arcade Fire, Paramore, Klaxons, Frank Turner, Paramore and a shed load of others.

In the last post I described it as being like a digital autograph, but having given it more thought these have much more personal value than a scribble on some paper. To begin with they are shareable and not confined to a dusty book you bring out once a year. They have much more kudos because they are 'real', they're pictures or videos that are connected as part of a bigger conversation, not just paper memory. Also, there is the WTF factor; that is actually your hero in that film/photo doing exactly what you asked BBC Radio 1 to get him/her to do via Twitter/Facebook. How does that happen from a bedroom in Bristol?

As you can imagine people's heads were exploding when they got their's whilst some people retweeted and retweeted and retweeted when they worked out what was going on. Their thinking being that the more they talked about us the more chance they had of being picked. Jealousy is a powerful tool.

Finally, the bands themselves retweeted what we were doing to their fanbases, which is not far of 2 million followers in the case of Fred Durst. Thanks Fred

Well done to Kate Lawrence, Laura-May Coope and Will Kinder who worked their socks off this weekend delivering these presents to our followers. You made a smaller group of people happier than we ever could have imagined in the days before social media.

Telling Stories With Twitter

As you may or may not know I'm making a film shot entirely on mobile phones called Shoot The Summer. It's about festivals and last week I missed my first weekend in Ibiza working for Radio 1 since 1997 so that I could be at the Cambridge Folk Festival.

As it's a project about mobile I wanted to use my phone to tell my story of the event in a film. To do this I tweeted all weekend. I had to slightly adjust my tweeting style so that it worked in the context of the film, but generally just tweeted whatever I felt like tweeting at the time.

After the weekend I took all my tweets and dropped them in a word document and activated 'Speech' in my Mac's preferences. This turns text into audio. You get to choose form a selection of voices, you can kill a good 2 minutes of boredom with this. I chose 'Vicki' because she sounds like she's hooked on prescription drugs, though I'd advise you to keep away from Princess - she's dark. I then dropped a load of footage into iMovie, sliced up the twitter audio and pulled an Ulrich Schnauss off my MP3 player (my Nokia N95).

I used the annotation function on Viddler in case you can't understand 'Vicki', though I'm not sure if this adds or detracts from the experience. It's all a little rough around the edges but quite an interesting little experiment. It would've been perfect if Electroplankton was playable on my phone then I could have made my own music like Russell Davies has here.

I had an amazing weekend and never missed the White Island for a moment. I met some wonderful people (including Chris from Aylesbury, Ben and Alex and some cranky gay club kids who did something really funny with a phone) so I hope that comes across in the film