You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Lecture on Immersive Audio Storytelling by Michael Epstein
powered byJotCast
Rishika Singh
9:31
Hello and welcome to this lecture on Immersive Audio Storytelling by Michael Epstein.
9:32
Michael Epstein is 2019-20 Reynolds Fellow and an immersive media producer at Walking Cinema and professor at the California College of Arts. He is developing what he calls 'Expandable Audio Journalism' (EAJ), a platform for producing audio stories that can expand or contract based on a person’s interest level.
9:33
9:37
Michael seems interested in knowing the interactive podcasting scene in India. He asks students, "What is the state of podcasting in India right now? Is it big?"
9:39
The students reply saying it isn't that big but ever since Spotify has become popular in India, podcasts seem to be getting big. But there are hardly any interactive podcasts.
9:41
They point out that even though attempts have been made to produce investigative and crime-thriller podcasts, but they haven't fleshed out as well as outside India.
9:43
To shed more light on this, Michael has prepared a presentation for the students.
9:46
Talking about himself, he tells students that he used to work at an American radio station for 5 years. He says, " I was frustrated with the radio format."
9:48
Sharing his educational background, Michael says, "I went to MIT where they had a program called Media Studies." He adds saying although he studied comparative media studies but explored more into media studies.
9:50
Michael recalls, "While I was at MIT, I met a filmmaker who made this movie called 'Murder at Harvard.'" It's a story about an unsolved crime that happened in Boston 150 years ago.
9:52
He poignantly adds, "What I did was an experiment where I took this movie and cut it into small video clips." Recalling how smartphones had just started coming out, he says it did not work out very well.
9:54
Ruminating over his college documentary he says, "It was a 60 minute documentary, we did portions of it. There were other problems in the nature of interactive story telling that is why it didn’t work out."
9:55
Looking at it from a critical perspective, he adds that the biggest challenge of this format is that you have to go to places physically.
Further elaborating on the same, he reiterates, "The movie doesn’t really get you to connect with the environment, it’s a movie to be watched indoors."
9:57
Stressing on this point, he says, "There was a chronological disruption, people wanted to feel more connected to the environment."
9:59
Recalling his journey of opening The Walking Cinema, he tells, "Like all mistakes you might make when you try an experiment, you learn from it. You try to do something different. I built a company called The Walking Cinema."
10:00
He adds, "We do walkable podcasts, we do more augmented reality but we don't do videos anymore."
10:02
Talking about San Francisco or 'SanFran' as it's better known; he says, "San Francisco is a very big technological city. Silicone Valley is right next door. It's causing the city to be very very expensive. Normal people who don’t make a lot of money, how can they live in San Francisco?"
10:04
Shedding more light on it, he adds that since the last 60 years, San Fran has tried creating lots of housing but it's turning out to be a disaster.
10:05
He even calls it one of the most activist and liberal cities in the world.
10:07
Explaining how he works he says, that he begins by exploring a neighborhood first to understand the context and what is going on in the environment around them.
10:09
Sharing his experience of making a specific story, he recalls, "I began visiting a particular neighbourhood where they tried building a city, 50 years ago."
10:10
Explaining his vision behind making these stories, he adds, "I visit the archives. We pay really close attention to how a particular neighborhood is trying to talk about its history."
10:12
Recalling his experiences in this neighbourhood, he says, "There used to be a big music center. They tried to keep the jazz music alive, even though many people left."
10:14
Detailing the characters he found, he says: "... a little girl whose father and grandfather were religious preachers, she lived there... she opposed making a new city as her grandfather’s church was taken down."
10:15
10:16
Talking about the Walking Cinema, he stresses, "We have a platform now that gives you a map, describing what you are looking at and also describing the characters."
Showing a video clip of what it looks like, he excitedly points out, "People are standing in front of the church but they are able to experience augmented reality. This is a new kind of technology. We have been using this for 5 years now."
10:17
10:19
Proudly pointing out that their production and audiences really loving it, he elaborates, "This was also a very effective moment in the story
... where they were able at look at the murals saved from the church in one of the characters' story."
10:21
Showing a video on what he developed at his company and what they do, he happily asserts, "This project is popular. It did really well."
10:22
"We recently did a project with WBUR, a public radio station at Boston," he tells.
10:23
This project was about exploring the hidden spaces and bringing audio stories about them and also interactive 3D models.
Load More Messages
Connecting…