David Kirkpatrick - A World Without Story

Thursday Afternoon Special Guest Keynote David Kirkpatrick
Plymouth Rock Studios - breaking ground 10-09

Raw notes

We relate to the combination of sound, music, and movement in an almost mystical way.

Homer, Shakespeare, Spielberg - hierarchical storytelling
Spielberg's next novel Lincoln, based on Kearns Goodwins' Team of Rivals.

What is mass media/TV goes away? What will the business model look like?
Sound stages needed to "protect the story" during production.

Story
Last 100 years people driven together by story.

Mass Media & Pop Culture L
Last 100 years of sound and motion. Majesty of anarchy, commonality, adds to our definition of who we are.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs


Creative Destruction - nature of economics in America.
agricultural > industrialization > information > flat world
"The end of the affair." - Wall St. Journal - end of the car. All old platform we grew up on are disappearing. TV networks, music distribution, etc. One solid entry, the screen, broadcast is now narrow-cast, to bring the networks down. Redefining pop culture hits- the hit has changed. Erosion of mass media in exchange for participatory culture. Social media is a new level of participatory media culture.
Watching online culture grow PEW reports exponential growth. Broadband the same.
64% of online teens are content creators.

Movies coming from new mediums - books, cartoons, toys. Ultimate re-mix. Shows level of popular acceptance. Hollywood no longer manufactures original dreams but reconstitutes popular choices. Story is vibrating across multiple platforms, but nobody has figured out how to bring them all together. Hierarchy of mass media has changed. People on web are influencing storytelling. Participatory culture a co-team in creative process, no longer slapped away but encouraged to be involved in crafting story.

Marketing
Smaller niches, needs to get out into the space, no longer just through the regular screens. Kids today see brand, not product. Creative expression is the key to success. Ex. Coke is now an entertainment company, not just beverage. brand i red & white. What if kids of future see things differently? What if kids see red and "see" Coke brand instead?
Decreasing attention span of the human 1970 - 125,000 / 2006 - 9,000,000

Is Google Making Us Stupid? (Atlantic Monthly July/Aug 2008) It is our search response. People are no longer reading deeply. 75% of college grads will never finish another book after graduating. Are we losing ability to read deeply?

Trends
Immersive experience. Old way of movie viewing will become interactive, showplace because of availability of large screens in homes less need to go out for movie. Production increasingly geared toward young audiences because they are the only ones going out to movie theaters.

Cloud Storage - ownership not required, just access. No longer ownership culture moving toward access culture.

Open Loop Creativity - not hierarchical. Big studios not nimble enough to respond to quick market changes.

Artist - it is us. Collaborative.
Renaissance 2.0 - new age of creativity.

Availaility of creative resources is crusial for children.
Where have all our muses gone? (Wall St. Journal, 5/09) They are our students.
Harris Poll - America's Favorite Books 2008
The hierarchical storyteller is us.