This blog was started through a project with the National Film Board of Canada and has coincided with my own PhD research. The goal was to examine where filmmaking is going and how technology is providing some new opportunities for presenting narrative to an audience. As you can imagine, the answer was huge, complex and has already changed by the time you’re read this.
Now, a bit about myself. My name is Michael Magee and I’m involved in a number of media and technology projects on several different levels including artistic, academic and commercial level. In order to be able to design, plan and implement these projects I’ve become familiar with a wide variety of web and media technologies.
I also do a lot of work with business and technology, having worked with several tech start-ups providing mentoring and business management. The businesses range from social web applications to robotics. The social web applications are really more like social experiments to try to understand how to identify and connect with niche markets that would be interested in a product or creative property. The products of this software development explore new models of collaboration as well as evolving business models for distribution of digital and physical content. My roles in these projects have included chief operating officer, project manager, fund-raiser, user interface design, information architect and software implementation.
My current perspectives on the direction of media and filmmaking have come from my work with Poor Dog Productions, an international co-production company operating between Los Angeles and Calgary. I was looking at how to change the film pitches that were going forward to investors so they examined multiple media delivery options for a single screenplay. There was a lot of new technology; new media and changes in delivery and consumption of media that were presenting new business models for anyone in the entertainment industry willing to think outside of the box. This resulted in the development of several game design and cross media pitches to accompany a number of script treatments that are currently in a fundraising cycle.
I am currently developing his own original creative property called “Dispatch” for the National Film Board of Canada. This cross-media narrative is being developed as an Alternate Reality Game for the NFB as a way to explore evolving approaches to narratives in media and encourage dialogue around Canada’s role in Afghanistan.
I am also a PhD student in the Graduate Division of Educational Research at the University of Calgary. My most recent research has focused on the cognitive and psychological impact of long-term use of technology. Specifically, the work is looking at the personal epistemology, or worldview, of long-term video game players and how that game play affects their attitudes towards knowledge and learning.
