Spike Lee, Nokia and You(Tube)

Fresh of the pages of dead-tree media elite NYT comes news of a new media partnership:

“Mr. Lee, the director, is teaming up with Nokia, the cellphone maker, to direct a short film comprising YouTube-style videos created by teenagers and adults using their mobile phones.

By hiring Mr. Lee for the project, Nokia is seeking to combine the populist appeal of user-generated content with the power of a famous director’s pedigree. The film will have three acts, each three to five minutes long, with the theme loosely based on the concept of humanity.”

This is far from the first time a mobile carrier has tried the filmmaker approach.  I remember watching a bunch of shorts made for VCast by well-known filmmakers.

Obviously, Spike Lee’s involvement ups the ante, but the big question is whether or not this kind of social-network/crowd-sourcing method can lead to truly entertaining content.  It is all well and good to have a cool method for creation but the creation itself has to live up to the process.

I’m SO Into ARGs

For my money, ARGs as a way to deliver compelling storytelling and solid marketing seems like a slam-dunk, with the obvious caveat that they are incredibly complex and challenging to design and implement.

For now, I’m just going to keep pointing out posts of interest.  In this case, the world-trotting Cory Doctorow has super kindly posted his notes from a talk given by one of the main ARG inovators, Elan Lee.

The notes are rough but there are some super cool nuggets:

"ARG: Edoc (Push)

	* A clothing company

	* Good looking clothes, every item has a secret (Edoc is CODE backwards)

	* Find secret by folding, infrared light, washing, etc

	* If you solve the shirt, you go to the website and a movie plays

	* One movie/shirt

	* The movies piece together a murder mystery, told exclusively through
	clothing

	* Started by designing an online story, but delivered the story offline by
	pushing it out through clothes

	* People who wear the shirts have a connection with each other

	* When they pass in the street, they have a story to discuss"

So cool.