The Future of the Book – A Conversation with Bob Stein Monday, June 23, 2008 7PM

**EXCLUSIVE, MEMBERS ONLY EVENT**

Monday, June 23, 2008
7 pm – 9 pm

The Future of the Book – A Conversation with Bob Stein

It has been 453 years since Johannes Gutenberg published the first mechanically printed book, and recent developments in electronic ink and more user-friendly mobile displays - including the introduction of Amazon.com’s Kindle reader and Apple’s iPhone - have created a market for electronic “books” that go far beyond ink-on-pulp publications. As the printed page is giving way to the networked screen, the Institute for the Future of the Book seeks to chronicle this shift, and impact its development in a positive direction. The Institute is a project of the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California and Columbia University, and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Bob Stein, Director of the Institute for Future of the Book (http://futureofthebook.org). Stein was the founder of The Voyager Company. For 13 years, he led the development of more than 300 titles in “The Criterion Collection,” a series of definitive films on videodisc, and more than 75 CD-ROM titles, including the CD Companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Who Built America,” and the Voyager edition of Macbeth. Previous to Voyager, Stein worked with Alan Kay in the Research Group at Atari on a variety of electronic publishing projects. In 1996, Stein started the Night Kitchen company to develop authoring tools for the next generation of electronic publishing. That work is being continued at the Institute for the Future of the Book. Stein is also Research Director, Digital Authoring Tools, USC Annenberg Center for Communication.

Moderator: Chris Pfaff, President, Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC; board delegate, PGA New Media Council
A board delegate of the PGA New Media Council since 2006, and a PGA NMC member since 2004, Chris Pfaff leads a consultancy – Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC – that represents some of the leading service providers, audio/video technology firms, networking vendors, and media companies in the world, from PRIMEDIA and Eastman Kodak to Cantor Telecom. A veteran of the venture world, Chris helped launch more than 20 ventures from the Lucent New Ventures Group, including iBiquity Digital; Flarion; Lucent Digital Video, and GeoVideo Networks, among others. In addition, he has helped launch AT&T’s Internet strategy; the Viacom New Media division of Viacom, Inc.; Sony Electronics’ Digital Betacam format, and Sharp Electronics’ LCD product division.

A wine and cheese networking reception beginning will precede the conversation programming.

This event will take place at The Core Club in New York City.

Event hosted by the Producers Guild of America New Media Council East.

**YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA TO ATTEND THIS EVENT.**

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is the premier industry association for entertainment producing professionals working in film, television and digital media.

For more information about the PGA New Media Council and to access a membership application, please visit: http://www.pganewmedia.org.

For more information about the PGA and to access a membership application, please visit: http://www.producersguild.org.

Previous events from our 2005-2007 event series can be accessed in web cast format at: http://www.scribemedia.org/pga.

For more information about ScribeStudio Productions, please visit http://www.scribemedia.org/about/.

New York: Digital Media Mecca – A Conversation with Chip Austin, founder of i-Hatch Ventures

Producers Guild of America
New Media Council East

Presents the
2007-2008 Panel and Salon Series

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

New York: Digital Media Mecca – A Conversation with Chip Austin, founder of i-Hatch Ventures

Though memories of Silicon Alley and the 1990s are receding, the role of digital media in the New York economy continues to gain strength. Even as the recent Wall Street crisis continues to unfold, entrepreneurs and major media companies are creating new businesses, new means of digital media delivery and transaction, and venture capitalists are contributing to this evolving ecosystem of content-driven plays.

One such long-standing New York digital media investment stalwart is Chip Austin, founder and partner of New York-based venture capital fund i-Hatch Ventures. Chip has been an active agent in the growth of both the first wave of online ventures, as well as the current landscape of New York-based ventures. Since founding i-Hatch in 1999, Chip has invested in such successful ventures as Vindigo, Dotcast, M:Metrics, and Thumbplay. Previously, in addition to founding Bertelsmann's E-commerce division, Chip was a member of the senior executive team leading the buyout and restructuring of Prodigy Communications and was a co-founder of McKinsey’s & Co.’s interactive practice, where he spent seven years advising Fortune 500 companies on their technology and media strategies. Prior to that, Chip worked at Morgan Stanley and IBM's PC division.

Moderator: Chris Pfaff, President, Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC; board delegate, PGA New Media Council
A board delegate of the PGA New Media Council since 2006, and a PGA NMC member since 2004, Chris Pfaff leads a consultancy – Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC – that represents some of the leading service providers, audio/video technology firms, networking vendors, and media companies in the world, from PRIMEDIA and Eastman Kodak to Cantor Telecom. A veteran of the venture world, Chris helped launch more than 20 ventures from the Lucent New Ventures Group, including iBiquity Digital; Flarion; Lucent Digital Video, and GeoVideo Networks, among others. In addition, he has helped launch AT&T’s Internet strategy; the Viacom New Media division of Viacom, Inc.; Sony Electronics’ Digital Betacam format, and Sharp Electronics’ LCD product division.

A wine and cheese networking reception will precede the conversation programming.

This event takes place at the Screening Room at The Core Club.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA TO ATTEND THIS EVENT.

Previous events from our 2005-2008 event series can be accessed in both webcast and podcast format at: http://www.scribemedia.org/pga

For more information about ScribeStudio Productions, please visit: http://www.scribemedia.org/about.

’CONTACT IS KING’ – A Conversation with Douglas Rushkoff

Producers Guild of America
New Media Council East

Presents the

2007-2008 Panel and Salon Series

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at the Screening Room at The Core Club

’CONTACT IS KING’ – A Conversation with Douglas Rushkoff

As all media becomes a landscape in which interaction takes place, and “literacy” is the ability to participate consciously in this environment, the convergence of media networks becomes ever more important in how we consume, produce, and analyze content. Best-selling author, documentarian, and cultural commentator Douglas Rushkoff is one of the foremost analysts of how people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. In this conversation, he will examine how one of his futuristic predictions from the 1990s, ‘Contact is King,’ has manifested itself in becoming a mantra for an all-pervasive communications paradigm for today’s society.

Author of such works as Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, and the just-completed Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, Rushkoff has written and hosted two award-winning PBS Frontline specials, The Merchants of Cool (how corporations influence youth culture) and The Persuaders (how the cluttered landscape of marketing makes efforts to overcome consumer resistance).

He regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News to CNN’s Larry King Live and HBO’s Realtime with Bill Maher. His commentaries are seen and heard on CBS Sunday Morning and on NPR. He is writing a new monthly comic book for Vertigo, and he developed the Electronic Oracle software series for HarperCollins Interactive.

Rushkoff founded the Narrative Lab at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and lectures about media, art, society, and change at conferences and universities around the world.

Moderator: Chris Pfaff, President, Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC; board delegate, PGA New Media Council
A board delegate of the PGA New Media Council since 2006, and a PGA NMC member since 2004, Chris Pfaff leads a consultancy – Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC – that represents some of the leading service providers, audio/video technology firms, networking vendors, and media companies in the world, from PRIMEDIA and Eastman Kodak to Cantor Telecom. A veteran of the venture world, Chris helped launch more than 20 ventures from the Lucent New Ventures Group, including iBiquity Digital; Flarion; Lucent Digital Video, and GeoVideo Networks, among others. In addition, he has helped launch AT&T’s Internet strategy; the Viacom New Media division of Viacom, Inc.; Sony Electronics’ Digital Betacam format, and Sharp Electronics’ LCD product division.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA TO ATTEND THIS EVENT.

Event hosted by Jeff Dachis and Chris Pfaff, co-chairmen, PGA New Media Council East.


Previous events from our 2005-2007 event series can be accessed in both webcast and podcast format at: http://www.scribemedia.org/pga

For more information about please visit ScribeStudio Productions.

Getting Everyone on the Same Page

THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 8 - Getting Everyone on the Same Page
By Brian Seth Hurst

The network, the creators, producers and writers and the cross media producers all need to start in the same place. Call it mutual education in which the cross media folks learn in depth about the show and the show folks learn what is possible across platforms. Lines of communication and approvals must be established right away. If this is truly going to be distributed story telling that works, then no one can work in isolation. During preproduction, the Cross Media producers should be briefed and then either go away and come back with a fistful of prioritized executable ideas or what I consider to be the most fun a brainstorming session with producers where the possibilities are thrown on the table, vetted and prioritized.

Ideally the Executive Producer Cross Media should ride shotgun with the producers of the show. The story arc, plot twists and turns, and character development are just a few of the things that will provide foundation for cross media ideas.

Cross-platform strategies can vary significantly according to producer Patrick Crowe. “In the Fallen Alternate Reality Game, the TV production provided the framework for the game world,” explains Crowe. “However, we had enormous freedom to develop the game plot and characters provided these remained consistent with the themes of the TV mini-series. By contrast, in our previous ARG for the TV drama ReGenesis, we worked directly with the writing team of the TV series, planting interactive events into every single episode. Sometimes these clues even influenced the plot of the TV drama.”

What should you consider in the process of building a cross media proposition? The process is deep but exciting. A book or even a manual could be written on it. It is both an art and a science, but briefly you should keep the following factors in mind:

The Show
The Audience
The Platforms
The Business Models
The Vendors
The Production

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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.