Rob and Trav’s SXSW Video Diary: Day 2 + 3
AIRBAG, Melbourne executive producer Robert Stock and director Travis Hogg report exclusively for Campaign Brief from the SXSW conference in Austin.
SXSW Friday March 13
Today we kicked off with all round nice guy and publishing sensation Tim Ferris (author of ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’, ‘The 4-Hour Body’ and ‘The 4-Hour Chef’). His talk was ‘How to Rock SXSW in 4-Hours’. The title was more a clever illusion to his book titles than relevant to his speech. His session was basically a class in how to behave when you meet people, want to get something from them and want them to pick up what you’re putting down. Useful for SXSW but ultimately all plain old common sense.
We checked out the Start Up Village and were part of a packed audience who got to watch selected new tech businesses pitch their ideas to elevate the McDonald’s dining experience to McDonald’s executives. I hope some of them get a meeting – even the ones who experienced tech fails during the presentation. We’ve all been there right.
We checked out the SX Create maker section which was essentially a huge (insert the correct collective noun here) of 3D Printing companies printing little plastic 3D things. Almost anything can be 3D printing these days – it was a pity not to see more variety.
The highlight of the day was seeing the Oculus Rift Panel featuring founder Palmer Luckey. What a journey he’s been on from initial Kickstarter campaign to $1b Facebook acquisition. Virtual Reality is an emerging experiential platform now and will rapidly evolve into a consumer platform. Content and experiences which take advantage of fully immersing users into a VR world are going to be a growth area for the creative arts and production industries for sure.
Pro fashion tip for successful up and coming Tech gurus: wear thongs! Both Mr Ferriss and Mr Luckey both sported ‘flip flops’ today.
SXSW Saturday 14th March
We all woke up to a beautiful day In Austin this Saturday.
We started off the day with An Experiential Breakfast where there was alcohol but no food. An experiential fail we thought.
We checked out Morgan Spurlock (or as I insist on calling him Spurling Mortlock) who was plugging his new AOL show called Connected. Modeled on our video blog it features no film crew, no filter and no faking it. It’s a ‘Hyper’ Reality show entirely filmed by the subjects themselves as a video diary of their lives. Real Housewives it is not.
The VR buzz continues with yesterday’s announcement of YouTube’s native support for 360 degree immersive video. Oculus have alienated segments of the gaming community by focusing as much on film as they are on games. The challenge to us content creators is how to tell a curated story – where we need the user to arrive at a predetermined end point – with a self guided camera. It’s an opportunity for a new generation of filmmakers to work more closely with coders to solve this problem. Call me at AIRBAG to start the conversation, it’s in our wheelhouse.
We also meet and attended a panel with High Maintenance creative power couple Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld. A success story of how a love project web series with friends has turned into a fully funded Vimeo pay for view hit.
We finished the day on a lighter note with a Jimmy Kimmel fireside chat. He is a social media pioneer and constant agitator and seems to be a really nice guy.
Rob + Travis.
See the full SXSW On Streaming Schedule here.
See the full SXSW On Streaming Schedule here.