Page 8 - 17_Bafta ACADEMY_Sam Mendes_ok

first person
coming together
Martin Freeth, recently appointed chief executive of NESTA’s new Futurelab, argues that “we are all part of one interactive, media industry.”
6
“The power of interactivity can be harnessed in creative ways to dramatically enhance learning and education.”
Back in July, Grant Dean from BAFTA Interactive and Sarah Baynes from the Children’s Committee set up one of the most entertaining evening sessions at the Academy in some time.
‘What the Kids Want’ was an important event because partici- pants actually asked young peo- ple for their views. But I thought it was also particularly significant because it brought together pro- fessionals who had rarely spoken to each other before: commis- sioners from the world of interac- tive TV, and games developers.
The games developers have been swimming in the shark- infested waters of interactivity for decades – while most of the inter- active TV people are only just beginning to dip their toes in this enticing but dangerous water.
‘Interactivity’ (a clumsy word, unfortunately, but perhaps the best around) does not just offer an amusing side show. The digital revolution brings a host of promis- es and threats to all of us in the world of film and television – new ways of making things, and new ways of distributing traditional media – but it is the fact that digi- tal technologies give our viewers/ users/ customers real power which has the potential to turn our world upside down.
‘Interactivity’ is not just about giving people more choices – it is about a major shift of power from producers to consumers. Consumers can now start, both as individuals and as members of connected communities, to change the stories we write, to become partners in the creative process along with us, to shape what we offer to suit their own individual needs and desires,
even to take over our communi- cations networks.
For some time, games have been exploiting the potential of person-to-machine interactivity compelling millions of teenage boys to devote millions of hours to killing monsters and enemies, but not real- ly threatening our wider markets.
But now, with the rise of the Sims and other less violent games, and with the growth of the inter- net, everyone is starting to join in. The average age of typical gamers is 28 and today about one third are women. The statis- tics will change again as game play goes on line, with multi-play- er games such as Everquest and Anarchy Online beginning to capture thousands of us early adopters already.
Already, in the USA, the games industry takes more money than Hollywood and people are spending more time online than watching television. Traditional film and television producers sim- ply cannot go on treating these new media as a side issue.
Give or take Big Brother and Wimbledon Interactive, until now gambling and pornography have dominated the growth interactivity in the UK – a sad way to drive up demand for internet connections.
The UK is indeed well down the league table in delivering broadband connections to homes, schools and offices. But in my view it is broadband which offers us the best hope that more valuable creative services, built on a partnership between tradi- tional media producers and the public, will soon take their proper share of the interactive market.
I want to emphasise in particu- lar that the power of interactivity
can be harnessed in creative ways to dramatically enhance learning and education.
“The next big killer application for the internet is going to be educa- tion. It’s going to be so big it’s going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error”, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, has said.
In the broadband world, deliv- ering learning through digital tech- nologies is going to create a new world and new businesses. But all the capabilities I shall describe could be applied just as effective- ly to entertainment, factual materi- al, marketing, even drama.
Many creative teachers have come to realise that if they could get involved in developing imagi- native learning software they could use this new power to enhance and indeed revolu- tionise the learning experience for everybody. Even when more or less traditional courses are delivered on line, the relationship between teacher and pupil can be transformed.
In a classroom or lecture the- atre it is usually the same people who ask questions or get involved in debate. But tutors who work online (such as those working for the University of Phoenix Arizona, successfully developing business training) report that almost every online student wants to partici- pate and that, because of this, they have never had to work so hard to meet students’ needs.
The era of genuinely broad- band internet is probably less than five years ahead for most people, and at a low price. By then the world-wide-wait will be over and the online experience will be as much about entertainment and emotion as it is about data.