From Immersive Cinema to the Daggumit Summit

Ed wrote:
Hi David,
I’m in Portugal teaching a course in Immersive Cinema and am honeymooning as well…
Let’s connect late Sept or early Oct...
Best,
Ed

David replied:
Congratulations, Ed! How's Espinho? BTW, the British organizers misspelled your name--

Scientific Organizing Committee:
Ed Lanz (Visual Bandwith)
Johan Gijsenbergs (Sky-Skan, Inc Europe)

No wonder! Lantz must be real tough for a Brit to spell, especially compared to Gijsenbergs. And give me a Bandwith over a Bandwithout, every time!

TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE CONFERENCE when you get back.
Hey, is it just about scooped-proscenium spaces?
What about projections? Laser, maybe-- on translucent scrims and pressurized mist curtains?
Or guerilla VR collective experiences? Actually, you could mix large-format projection, VR, and real people. Script your participants in the physical space, maybe?

WHY, IT'S A PRIMITIVE HOLODECK!
Just like the "real" holodeck on Next Gen, it could immerse role-playing participants into interactive literature. As with blogging and serious online gaming, the best players could evolve into professional performers, and pros from hard-shell (e.g., mainstream) media could migrate into it, along with Sonys of the world, who would spend lots of money and still fundamentally misunderstand. (Oh, I see they're a sponsor of the conference. Never mind!

Actually, my money's on Nokia. They won't try to figure it out, they'll just listen real hard to their customers, and do what they're told. Very, very well. But they don't know it yet, so they're not a sponsor. This year.

It's like this:
TO CREATE A CHEAP IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT:
Start with a large-format "screen" for the background projections: a large tent, an inflatable building, or even a parachute suspended and puffed out, shock-corded to the ceiling and walls of a large room.
A 3D multimedia program runs through a wireless router.
Each participant, thru one's own wireless device, experiences foreground details, synced and rendered by location coordinates within the space, thru stereo headphones and VR goggles.

SPEAKING OF NOKIA-- IF THEY HAD READ THIS FIRST, THEY'D BE A SPONSOR.
How about cell phones with:
- An alternate channel to link to a wireless audio VPN, to provide a virtual environment without hogging cellular bandwidth
- Stereo, for the surround-sound audio portion
- A location-tracking router to render the dynamic 3D A/V

Wow, where'd that come from? That's really off the track! Too bad I can't sell these ideas. Nah, too far-fetched. Nobody'd ever want to do that. Guess I'll go chop some more wood now. Otherwise I'll have to fire up the kerosene lamp just to see what I'm doing.
=====================

BOA NOITE, and my best to you and your new wife, whomever she may be,

David

HEY, here's another rambling I did before I actually looked at the conference site:
I left my cinematic work in college, but
it hasn't stopped playing in my imagination.
The warbling voice and shifting eye still haunt me
in a moment when a glimpse of a face on the street
becomes a tangent, reeling into an unbidden scenario
that scrolls up from some hidden place.
A shoulder appears.
Pressed on by some unseen burden, it sinks around a corner
like a stone in water, without the ripple.
Did you make that up? No, Mother.
Don't tell stories. Well-l-l, ...
Now, can you tell me what really happened?
Oh, not another story!

Whoa, I got carried away there, too. Maybe I'm just limbering up, before I lumber down to the marked-up copy on my desk. I'm writing materials and promo for the Earth Charter Summit in Phila on Oct 7. The podcast PSA I offered to do was rendered moot when the public program was canceled for lack of funding, so I offered to write anything for the leaders summit.

And they do need it, or it'll just be a daggumit summit.

Oh, I am on a role!
=====================