4iP Blog

http://www.resistnetwork.com is a good test case that cropped up at 2gether 08

Stuart,

Powered by 4 sounds a fantastic idea. Is this following the same timescale as the main 4IP funding process or is it more of a fast track initiative?

I’m sure you are already well aware of it but it’s worth pointing out that a good starting point for identifying potential recipients is the shortlist for the UK Catalyst awards. The criteria for both 4IP and the Catalyst awards are quite similar.

http://www.ukcatalystawards.co.uk/shortlist.aspx

Hi Tim

We want to launch with a couple already commited to just help reinforce the overall start at launch. using catalyst is agood idea but happy to take suggestions beyond established winners. Stuart

Stuart,

I think it is important to point out from the beginning how far from conventional ‘interactive’ and ‘broadcastable’ ideas you aim with this project.  Inevitably most of our development efforts will move towards viewer/user participation but I’m still slightly confused as to what degree you’re seeking brand new avenues different from those Matt Locke is pursuing, for instance.  Can you please clarify?

You are right that broadcasters sometimes absorb good ideas even before they’ve matured, and that there is a risk involved of skewing/corrupting the free development of an ‘unspoiled mind’ in these cases.  However, as many TV producers already are thinking within the realm of new content definitions based on the rapidly evolving technology I don’t think you should overlook the possibility that innovation can come from within the broadcast industry itself.  My point being that an open mind, freedom to experiment and constant updating is a key factor. 

I don’t think the aspiration of being sponsored by C4 necessarily is the ultimate incentive to find new inspiration.  To have the possibility of testing new areas and think outside the conventional one-way communication setup could equally be a productive way forward.

Channel WNet/Thirteen’s TV Lab in NY provided an interesting playground for creating new TV content back in the ‘70, and I think a similar way of experimenting might be useful in the quest for the (current) ultimate user experience.  What are the chances that C4 - or even TRC would embark on that route?

The myriad of social websites and interest sharing fora are mind-numbing, and I cannot yet imagine that even a fraction of current - let alone future still to be imagined often niche interest groups would make compelling participation info/entertainment for a large enough group of user to sustain a commercial life.  So question is: are you looking for a format or a topic?  Does it need to be commercially viable through numbers of visits/clicks/users?  Is this also about discovering/developing the next YouTube/Beebo/MyFace etc. phenomenon or is it an attempt to get ahead of the technological pull?  Or have I misunderstood the whole thing?

Hi Jan
Couple of answers we don’t launch til September/October and are shaping our strategy daily. But it would be fair to assume we want to see some really big scalable projects that are meaurable successes in volume terms, but equally we will fund projects that are smaller and even time-tied if they can prove to fill and obvious gap in new media market. Key to all of this is partnership and co-funding which we spoke about recently. I also hope that the biggest success is talent based and unpredictable. Projects need to be sustainable which is a very different thing from commercially viable. Its late and i’ve just got home from our previous meeting so i’m signing off Stuart

Hi Stuart

I run an online music video site called RadarMusicVideos - we met a while ago, hello!

You asked “how should established media organisations assist independent practice? Is it through direct funding, marketing or maybe by keeping the hell out?”.

There are two key resources we need to drive our growth. One is access to expertise - it’s time consuming learning by experience. There are new paths being created all the time and we want to create some of those, but I’m sure there are shortcuts we could take that would save us time and money. I’m looking at various ways to fulfil this, from mentoring to non-exec directors to employment. The other resource we need is promotion. PR, advertising, sponsored projects including online and broadcast tie-ins.

Another useful area of support would be contributing user-experience expertise.

In summary, either experts who can advise & help forge project partnerships and/or money to fund buying expertise and advertising would work for Radar. In return, generating relevant content for said media organisations seems a great deal.

Hope that helps.
4IP looks great, hope it’s going well

Caroline

Hi Caroline

Thanks for your reply. We can deliver on both of those areas -expertise and promotional support. With our partners we can fund projects that build really valuable support right up to high-end mentor advice or business help. We also have the cross-promitional platform power of Channel 4.com and e4.com plus dedicated networks like 4Talent.

What is slightly more evasise is either a technology or web 02 tool that can aggregate or recommend smart sites and companies like radarmusicvideos - often good stuff gets lost and if 4iP can help with that then we will have mad e areal impact.

Keep talking Stuart

something like a more specialised version of stumbleupon or digg? or deli.cio.us?

Yes almost certainly some recommendation, aggregation tool Caroline. Stumbleupon and deli.cio.us both have the sense of recommendation and Digg the underlying technologies of raising items to the top of the tree.

All 3 are the right kind of territory but argulably not with the right public service content preferences.

Digg has a feeling of Jackass about it - for once it my life I am suggesting slightly loftier ambitions. I’d love to see a concept that did for great publically useful content what Digg does for grand theft, exploding pizzas and techno-gadgets. God that sounds like I’ve been drinking ‘Crofts Original Sherry’ but you know what I mean.

A recommenation innovation for socially purposeful content Any further thoughts gratefully received Caroline

Stuart

This is interesting. In general the TV commissioning process does for creativity what Macbeth does for sleep and they find it difficult when discussing a deeper rather than broader engagement with an audience.

The online/mobile environment changes everything at the same time as changing nothing and I am not looking for investment or a commission in the traditional sense.

I set up an IPTV channel to produce and distribute modern movies from classic plays & texts together with programming about the making of the movies and their cultural imperatives. I raised the initial investment, made the movie, set up the web site and have been experimenting with Bluetooth marketing to mobile phones in retail outlets. http://www.europeandrama.net 

What I need is support in marketing and sponsorship to reach an audience and help establish the initial IPTV programming to develop the level of audience engagement, such as the relevance of Commedia dell’Arte to modern acting and the process of making the movies. Marketing to find your audience and creating sufficient new content to keep them, doesn’t change much.

If ‘Powered by 4’ can engage with companies on the Starbucks principal ‘find people clever than you and let them get on with it’ then its seems a very good idea.

4iP probably wants to push further than ‘conventional’ IPTV Simon. At its best its close to what we do on air through a different technological protocol, and at its worst it can feel like poorly executed TV pumped out on the web. The key is finding innovations around IPTV or different ways of engaging and re-engaging with users. Certainly Powerd by 4 seeks to bring greater traffic to destinations and crack the greater probelm of site aggregation and recommendation for an innovative public purpose.

You will be pleased to know that I am C4’s resident expert on Commedia, one of my undergraduate subjects. So look forward to the site. (Some of my collegaues have yet to graduate much beyond a bottle of Chianti)

I take your point about IPTV as just another form of delivery albeit one that makes place and time irrelevant.

I feel what makes TV delivered through an internet protocol different is its link with computing to allow users to engage with the material and create something that illuminates or comments on the original. An opportunity to discuss rather than simply receive culture.

For example we are sponsoring a commedia course as part of the programme development, hopefully this will provide the 1000’s of people who study or have studied commedia an opportunity to put their character online to create, discuss and engage with the art form and process or putting a scene from the movie online together will all the footage that created it and asking others to re-edit it and upload the results as a means to discuss both the process and the meaning of the scene.

Who knows where this will go, but the first commercial imperative is to get traffic.

My company VIVID is putting together a programme of exhibitions and a cumulative archive umbrella titled ‘Participation’ -looking at independent film and video groups operating outside of the mainstream in the 1980s.
It has a particular focus on regional programme/video development through the output of film workshops established in the early 1980s under the aegis of the ACTT Workshop Declaration. Brought together by a shared energy and motivated by a desire to affect social change, the film makers within groups such as the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop, Amber Films, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa were central to a network of independent and underground activity across the UK .
I’m now thinking about the potential for 4iP to support development of the online aspects of this project, as a way of scaling up, sharing the content and engaging with audiences in a manner unavailable in the 1980s.