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Talking Quirky at ICKC
Last night I was invited to share my experience at the Quirky offices with the Inventor’s Club of KC. The response was pretty strong, so I have no doubt a few new members will be joining the Q community. I also have no doubt that ICKC made a new member out of me. The community is really supportive and productive. If you live in the area I highly recommend attending the next meeting.
Here’s a look at the talk, which starts around 20:35.
The GetUp Desk
I’ve been kicking around the idea of using Kickstarter. This particular idea is a small but subtle one I would like to license and put on to the infomercial circuit at some point in time.
So far it’s garnered some nice compliments and a $25 Amazon gift card from Genius Crowds, but alas, I’m still looking for the right licensee. If there are any takers, let me know.
Oh – and pardon the terrible VO.
Deleted Scene from the Greatest Movie Never Made
If there’s one thing Home Alone has taught us, it’s that kids should never call the police. Especially when they know the exact date armed criminals are planning on breaking into their house.
Sure, Macauley Culkin brought this message to mainstream America, but diehard preteen action comedy fans will tell you that no movie helps children make the right decisions quite like 3 Ninjas:
Yes, unlike Kevin McAllister who resorted to pipes, paint buckets and flame throwers, 3 Ninjas showed an entire generation of frail 90′s whiteboys that the best way to handle professional thieves, gangsters and possible rapists is to resort to hand-to-hand combat.
This was a big topic between me and my buddy/production guru Jon Walker. As a result, we started a script for a movie that was half lighthearted comedy, half violent torture. It was aptly titled, “Kung Fu Kids.”
This particular scene precedes a horrific, all-to-realistic portrayal of the violent fate that awaits these naive – albeit handsome – victims. I’m pretty sure one scene involved several feet of entrails. It might not be the most family-friendly movie to watch, but it sure would teach kids to call the freaking cops. Possibly even… y’know… leave the house.
Unfortunately this test screening is all that currently exists from the project, but rest assured it was/is meant to be a doozy.
More Snippets from the Cutting Room Floor
Enough time has passed, I might as well share some more valiant print attempts from yesteryear. View if you care dare:
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Pocket Sitcom: Season 2
Pocket Sitcom has been a pet project for some time now. A pet project that has done much better than I ever anticipated – even finding it’s way on to national television – and it’s high time it got a glossy new reboot:
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Version 2 features a much larger array of SFX thanks to Noel Selders, the top dogs at Propaganda 3 and Bazillion Pictures. We’re quickly approaching 150,000 downloads, which just may give me the green light into a premium version that I’m extremely excited for. I shouldn’t divulge plans yet, but I’ll say that if we go about this the right way, we’ve got a very killer feature coming up!
As always, stay tuned!
If you haven’t yet, download Pocket Sitcom from iTunes and check it out yourself. Hey – it’s free!
Dirt Tough
I can’t stress how much I love working with the guys at Liquid 9. Here’s a project we worked on that I’ve been wanting to post for some time, and probably as tough as a fungicide ad can rightfully be. Hell, the VO is Kratos from God of War! My only regret: not enough nudity.
R.I.P. Suzy
I’m not usually one to toot my own horn, but I found this old spec script and had to wonder why it never came to be:
A little disturbing. Just like an actual bedtime.
Why isn’t the Kinect in the Classroom?
This is a video of a project from the talented crew at Take 2 | Back Alley Films. They showed this to us just a day before I entered the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Global Education Challenge. It was a matter of seconds before I put the two together in one glorious idea.
As someone who works in advertising, I see a lot of interesting and unique ways that technology is reaching consumers. We live in an age where dynamic digital experiences are quickly growing around us, and it’s time to use them for more than just selling products.
Odds are you know somebody with an Xbox Kinect in their home. This technology allows people to interact with games without a controller – just using the motion of their own body. Multiple players can even join in.
Combined with a projection screen and software designed around grade-level lesson plans can create an immersive experience where students work with each other to turn problem solving into a shared experience.
Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about, and how this can translate taking a passive audience into an enthusiastic community:
A typical kinect runs a couple hundred dollars. The projector another couple of hundred.
The software can easily change and develop for age levels. For example, students learning to develop letters can “create” them in a virtual environment, then place them by different objects to understand their phonemes. As a group children can work as “word factories” where some build the letters and others connect them in the right order, creating a team-based, interactive environment.
Microsoft has just released a software development kit (SDK) for Kinect technology, allowing for open-source creation of apps like the ones I’m hoping come about. I’d really like to use this post as a topic of discussion for potential games and applications that can use this technology as an interactive learning tool.
Read an article to the physical benefits Kinect can have with kids here, or see this example of how it can be used with art class:
Please share any thoughts you may have.
Fertilizer Efficiency – there’s a Network for that
It’s been a while since I featured some digital chops, so here’s a few screenshots of my latest doings with SFP’s summer-long, cross-country tour.
I think the O&B digital team gave this site a really clean, crisp look. Here’s one more shot from the charity page:
Here’s a quick comp of a related web banner. (If anybody knows a good way to post flash content on WordPress, please let me know!)
