When television, computer games and poetry converge: creating opportunity from the downturn

Valerie | 10 Jun 2009, 08:13

C&binet comment: Phil Birchenall on the importance of creativity in a downturn

Phil Birchenall is Project Director at The White Room, a creative economy consultancy that researches, innovates, and manages projects for clients in the private and public sectors.

The White Room was commissioned by Northwest Vision and Media at the end of 2008 to develop a unique skills exchange programme, DMEX (the Digital Media Exchange), which connects senior talent from the North West’s television sector into the fast-growing digital media industry. Through the scheme we facilitate placement opportunities for TV professionals, embedding them into digital businesses to share skills, knowledge and expertise.

Running alongside the placements, we’ve established ‘DMEX Labs’ - a collaborative production model, setting live digital project briefs to teams of volunteers from the pool of TV talent involved in the scheme.

The most recent DMEX Labs production is a wonderful example of collaboration and convergence - bringing a diverse team together on a project that collides television, computer games and poetry. We established quite an unusual brief to make a machinima film based on Carol-Ann Duffy’s ‘Education for Leisure’ poem - a piece set during the Eighties recession. Machinima is a growing genre that combines the graphic engines used in computer games with narrative storytelling.

A team of six set to work on the film, including scriptwriters, editors, and directors - most with high-level careers in the industry. We then brought in an executive producer (the originator of the Machinima term, no less!) to guide the team. None of the team had worked together before, nor did they have any experience in working on solely digital productions. The majority of the work was done remotely with the team using collaborative tools such as Huddle and Skype to communicate, which again was a completely new working practice for them.

The film debuted online at the end of May and received fantastic reviews from the international Machinima community.

We think the end results are great and you can really see the film-making expertise of the team in the final cut. However, it’s the process as much the product that is of real value here. Collaborative partnerships were formed; new skills and workflows developed; mindsets were challenged.

Under more peaceful economic conditions perhaps such an innovative piece of creative content might not be made. Certainly, getting individuals to commit to a time-intensive and non-commercial project like this wouldn’t be possible if they had their pre-downturn workload. If you’re familiar with the poem you’ll appreciate this poignant nuance.

We are undoubtedly in difficult times, and the creative sector is by no means immune to the impacts of the global economic downturn. But the opportunity, especially for a sector defined by innovation, is in using the time to challenge, to change, and be really creative.

Watch the video of ‘Education for Leisure’ by following this link.