Future of Film Podcast

This episode explores the evolution in interactive filmmaking with filmmaker Paul Raschid and Ru Howe, the Founder of Stornaway.io the development tool for interactive video. Paul is the director of a number of branching narrative feature film/FMV games including 2022's THE GALLERY - comprising of over four and a half hours of video content. In this conversation, Paul and Ru share insights of how they took a 450 scene 'FMV Game' script into the finished feature film utilising Stornaway’s bespoke platform. We also talk distribution and audiences and how releasing the film on gaming platforms has provided Paul with greater control over the releasing of his storytelling. About Paul Rashid Prior to his work in the interactive format, Paul's second feature as a writer-director was 'White Chamber', which was shot in 12.5 days. In 2018, the sci-fi thriller/horror/drama played 10 film festivals around the world including Edinburgh, Sitges, Frightfest, Mumbai, BIFAN and Brussels. Lead actress Shauna Macdonald received the BAFTA Scotland Best Actress award for her tour-de-force performance. Between August 2019 and February 2021, the film was available to stream on Netflix in the UK, USA, Canada, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. Paul entered the interactive arena in 2019 when he directed 'The Complex', a sci-fi interactive feature film/ FMV video game, which released in 2020 on all major gaming platforms. Penned by Lynn Renee Maxcy, it stars Michelle Mylett, Kate Dickie and Al Weaver. It was produced by John Giwa-Amu and Jade Alexander. In 2020, Paul wrote and directed 'Five Dates', a romantic interactive feature film/ FMV video game. It was being made entirely remotely during the UK's national lockdown due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. It stars an ensemble cast including Mandip Gill (Doctor Who), Georgia Hirst (Vikings) and Marisa Abela (Industry). In 2021, Paul wrote and directed 'The Gallery' - an interactive hostage thriller that contains two narratives - before the film begins, the viewer must choose between a female protagonist (whose narrative is set in 1981 London) or a male protagonist (whose narrative is set in 2021 London). The cast is headlined by Anna Popplewell ('Chronicles Of Narnia' & 'Reign') and George Blagden ('Versailles' & 'Vikings'), who interchange roles as both protagonist and antagonist across the two narratives. It is set to release on major gaming platforms in September 2022. Paul is also in post-production for ’Ten Dates’, a sequel to ‘Five Dates’ following its critical and commercial success. About Ru Howe Rupert started trying to code his first “Choose Your Own Ending” video game aged 9 years old. Frustrated with the limits of technology, he began working as a director and producer in TV and film making award-winning 16mm short dramas and documentaries including “The Real Bridget Jones” series for C4. From 2004, he began experimenting with interactive films online and became a pioneer videoblogger and online video artist. He was featured in Trine Bjorkmann Berry’s PhD Thesis “The Film of Tomorrow (pp 19-25) as the world’s first mobile video blogger and created YouTube’s first interactive video story “Indecision” in 2008. From 2010-2018, he worked as a creative workflow consultant, leading digital transformation & workflow projects for the BBC, Disney, News UK, the Financial Times and Melody VR. Stornaway.io is his design. A unique application to enable creative producers to map, script, edit and deliver interactive stories, simply and easily with no coding.

"Big vision and small execution. That's the sweet spot to attack the market" Houston Howard How can creators stand out in today's ocean of content? Super Story Architect, Houston Howard has answers… Houston Howard is the Chief Storyteller at One 3 Creative, a transmedia design firm, and a co-founder of Fulcrum Worldbuilders, an organisation that designs large-scale storyworlds that are meant to shift culture and catalyze large-scale social impact. He has written three books about transmedia design including the brilliant, You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Story, a title on the Future of Film Incubator 2022 Reading List. He is a professor of Transmedia Storytelling and Worldbuilding at the Arts Center College of Design and the host of the Super Story Podcast. In this conversation we discuss how creators can, in Houston’s words, attack the market in 2022. What is the significance of this market becoming commoditised - and what are the specific creative and commercial strategies that storytellers can adopt to navigate and succeed in the new landscape? This episode was recorded as part of Future of Film Incubator 2022 and is brought to you in partnership with Epic Games and Unreal Engine, Autodesk, Dell Technologies, Nvidia and Garden Studios.

This episode is about involving the audience in the creative process and how a Danish startup is realising this using a unique combination of AI and anthropology. Niels Alberg is CEO and co-founder of PUBLIKUM.io (the Danish word that translates literally as Audience). For the past 20 years, Niels has worked in applied research, strategy and creative business development. Niels, who holds a Master's Degree in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen, specializes in designing innovative research methods for a large number of clients in projects that combine human insight and business strategy with the goal of developing new, creative connections between companies, organisations and people. Now, Publikum.io have taken this innovative process into filmmaking to develop a new method designed to empower the creative team. In this conversation he discusses how this works and is being adopted by filmmakers and funders across Europe. This episode was recorded as part of Future of Film Incubator 2022.

Nguyen-Anh Nguyen is a filmmaker based out of Montreal Having began his career as a dentist, he then focused on filmmaking, specifically science fiction, with the viral hit THE AKIRA PROJECT (2014) followed by acclaimed short films TEMPLE (2016) & HYPERLIGHT (2018), all of which garnered over 12M views online and received widespread international acclaim. Anh has now applying his craft in the realm of real time animation, to realise his expansive filmmaking ambitions with the cyberpunk animated series, BABIRU, with writer Philip Gelatt (EUROPA REPORT, LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS), for which Epic Games financed the pilot episode. in Anh’s words he is a “filmmaker bringing what I can from the real world to the Unreal world“ and this episode is full of insights into this process as Anh explains how and why he is making this transition and the opportunities - and challenges - realtime filmmaking presents. This episode is presented in partnership with Epic Games and Unreal Engine. For more information visit www.futureoffilm.live

This episode is a deep-dive into the pivotal role of audience research in film with Kevin Goetz. Nicknamed “the doctor of audience-ology,” Kevin has been at the centre of what Hollywood calls the movie research industry for more than thirty years. His firm, Screen Engine/ASI, conducts research for a majority of all movies that are widely released in America and around the world. With decades of experience, Goetz has worked alongside all of the major film studio chiefs, network and streaming platform executives, and production company decision-makers. The Los Angeles Times Magazine counted him as one of the 100 most powerful and influential people in Southern California. As well as sharing fascinating insights into the testing process, Kevin makes the compelling case that every movie should be profitable if researched and budgeted correctly! His new book, 'Audience-ology: How Moviegoers Shape the Films We Love' is available now. This episode is in partnership with the Movie Marketing and Distribution Podcast. More info at www.futureoffilm.live

Kevin Baillie's career at the forefront of visual effects and screen storytelling began in 1999 and is now part of industry folklore. As an 18-year old high school senior, he and his friend created a short film involving a futuristic speeder race through his school, primarily to attract the attention of Star Wars producer Rick McCallum. The short was hugely successful and the tactic worked with Kevin soon finding himself working alongside George Lucas in the visualisation department on STAR WARS: Episode One. Since then, Kevin has continued to blaze a trail in innovating the storytelling process. He formed a long-term creative collaboration with Robert Zemeckis, supervising the visual effects on films such as FLIGHT, THE WALK and THE WITCHES. Recently, this has started to incorporate increasing amounts of real-time and virtual production techniques into the workflows of his projects. In this episode Kevin reflects on the evolution of these creative tools, the benefits they offer to the storytelling process and explains why "virtual production will allow filmmakers to tell stories that would otherwise be untellable". About Kevin Baillie Kevin's VFX career started at age 18 when he when he joined Lucasfilm's JAK Films as a pre-visualization artist on Star Wars: Episode I. In the following 25 years, Kevin has blazed a bright path, helming VFX at The Orphanage on features including Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Night at the Museum, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Hellboy, and supervising cutting-edge motion capture feature films at ImageMovers Digital. In 2010, he co-founded the groundbreaking VFX studio Atomic Fiction, whose outstanding work on films such as The Walk, Allied, and Flight garnered awards recognition and critical acclaim. In 2018 Atomic Fiction, having grown to over 300 employees in 2 countries, was acquired by Deluxe Entertainment. Kevin's VFX Supervisor credits also include two Star Trek movies, two Transformers features, Welcome to Marwen and The Witches. Most recently, Kevin acted as VFX Supervisor and 2nd Unit Director on Disney’s live-action Pinocchio - another title in his long collaboration with Director Robert Zemeckis. Kevin also founded the venture-funded cloud rendering technology company, Conductor Technologies, is active with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and is an active member of the Directors Guild of America. This episode is presented in partnership with Epic Games and Unreal Engine. More at www.futureoffilm.live

This episode is a deep dive into the revolutionary world of NFTs, Web 3 and the blockchain, with new media and technology entertainment industry executive, Rouslan Ovtcharoff. As the former head of marketing at Millennium Media (famous for blockbusters like The Expendables and Olympus Has Fallen), Rouslan is highly experienced in film and traditional media. More recently, however, he has dived deeply into the world of NFTs and the blockchain, founding Blockchain Global Entertainment Alliance and Groovesetter, a peer-to-peer platform for real-time online music collaboration. In this conversation, Rouslan shares his knowledge and passion for the subject including: What is an NFT ? How can we buy one - and make one? What is Web 3? Why are NFTs and Web 3 so important to the metaverse? What are some of the ways NFTs can be used in film? Why does every filmmaker and media company now needs to have an NFT strategy in 2022?

Kaya Jabar is a multidisciplinary visualisation supervisor with unique experience leading previs, postvis, techvis and virtual production for tentpole film and TV projects including Game of Thrones, Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker and Dumbo. Kaya is on a mission to develop real-time adoption and virtual production workflows with the aim of making visualisation more efficient and interactive. In other words she as at the forefront of the virtual production revolution and in this discussion we explore how realtime engines are transforming the filmmaking process, the role and potential of visualisation in achieving 'creative consensus' and why Kaya believes we are just at the start of a newly democratised future of film.

Robin McNichols is co-founder and Director of the award-winning creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) where he has directed a myriad of immersive experiences, large-scale installations and live performances. Exploring new sensory perspectives that challenge our relationship to the world around us plays a key role in Robin and the team at MLF’s work. His interest in full immersion lead to a 5 year deep-dive into virtual production and interaction techniques which has informed the development of mixed-reality storytelling methods for new forms of audience engagement. Earlier in 2021, this manifested in the pioneering collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s online interactive interpretation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. In DREAM Robin and the MLF team utilised virtual production and realtime techniques to create an interactive, immersive digital WORLD for the RSC performance - which was critical in the show’s pivot to a fully online experience during lockdown. In this episode we explore the creative and technological process of DREAM and how virtual production tools can be utilised in a live theatrical experience. Robin also talks about the business of interactive storytelling and shares his incredibly thoughtful and articulate perspectives on the future of audiences and screen storytelling. Check out more on virtual production in Virtual Production Revolution available now at www.futureoffilm.live

Mahin Ibrahim and Phillip Domfeh are the executives behind Disney Launchpad, the new programme for untapped filmmaking talent. Available now on Disney+, Launchpad is a series of bold and new stories from emerging creators. In this talk, Mahin and Phillip share how the programme worked and the process of nurturing new talent. We also talk about inclusion behind and in front of the camera and the reasons that so often prevent a wider range of talent progressing through the system. More at www.futureoffilm.live