Looking at the first social film, 'Inside' and debating whether it is a social film, or somethign else? by discussing: Interactive film, collaboration, crowd funding, transmedia, advertising,

1. IS THE INSIDE
EXPERIENCE A SOCIAL Keyword s
Interactive film
Crowd sourcing
FILM? OR SOMETHING Crowd Funding
Collaboration
ELSE?
Adver tainment
Transmedia
BY MIKE HAM

2. INTRODUCTION
 This slideshow will debate whether or not The Inside
Experience can be seen as a ‘social film’ or something else.
For example an interactive film.

3. INTERACTIVE FILM
 Interactive film is an interactive game online, that takes the
form of a film, through the use of script, full motion video,
and animated live footage . W i k i p e d i a ( 2 0 1 0 ) [ o n l i n e ] a v a i l a b l e a t :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_movie accessed on [10/11/11]
 There are many examples of this:

4. INTERACTIVE FILM CONTINUED
 Interactive film gets users to participate in something
dif ferent to the usual film.
 Companies can use this to draw in customers by advertising a
product on the interactive film. For example, ‘Being Henry’ by
Land Rover promotes its Land Rover Evoque. You make
decisions in Henrys life, and then at the end, your decisions
take you to the type of Evoque which is best suited to you on
your choices you made in the interactive film.
 Jeff Glucker 2011 [online] available at: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/05/06/land-rover-launches-being-henry-interactive-
film-series-t/ accessed on: 10/11/11
 So it could be argued that The Inside Experience is an
interactive film, as participants get to participate in helping
Christina, where they can ef fect the final film, much like
participants can do in interactive film where they make the
choices.

5. COLLABORATION
 Collaboration is seen as a dif ferent way to connect people
together to create films online.
 Similar to Interactive film, collaboration looks to break the
boundaries of traditional film by encouraging creative fans
and audiences, to participate in a way in which it is dif ferent
to the traditional film culture.
 An example of this is ‘The story behind the still’
• It was the first ever user generated, HD
video contest. photographers became
filmmakers and we all saw beyond the still.
Month after month, aspiring filmmakers
were invited to pick up where the previous
winning short film ended – on an evocative
photograph.
• This is using Crowdsourcing in which crowds
of participants are coming together to
become a community to create the
medium.
• Vimeo [online] (2010) avaiable at: http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill
accessed on: 10/11/11.

6. THE INSIDE EXPERIENCE AND
COLLABORATION
 Shirky describes collaboration as: ‘the power of organizing
without organizations ’ S h i r k y , C . ( 2 0 0 8 ) H e r e c o m e s e v e r y b o d y , L o n d o n A l a n L a n e , p 5 1
 The Inside Experience is similar to a crowd sourced
collaboration film.
 Inside, connects people together via social networks to
collaborate to help Christina out.
 This could be argued to be crowdsourcing and a collaborative
film as participants are coming together and sharing their
ideas and answers to the clues Christina provides. Much like
participants provide videos or still images used to create a
collaborative crowd sourced film.
 But Inside makers Intel and Toshiba are an organsiation, so
according to Shirky, The Inside Experience is not
collaborative.

7. CROWD FUNDING
 Crowd funding is where people come together and share their
money as a community in a network so that a medium can be
created. For example making an online film.
 One online film that used crowd funding was ‘A Swarm Of
Angels’
 Here participants provided money to join and to help the
project take of f.
 A swarm of angels 2008[online]Available at: http://aswarmofangels.com accessed on [10/11/11]

8. ‘ADVERTAINMENT’ AND TRANSMEDIA
Penington, A (2010) [online] New Media Age available at: http://www.nma.co.uk/features/transmedia/3017944.article accessed
on [10/11/11]
 ‘ Tr a n s m e d ia i s a b o ut m o r e t h a n j u s t r u n n in g c o n te n t a c r o s s m u l t ip l e p l a t fo r m s ; i t
i n vo l v e s e n g a g in g a n a u d ie n c e i n a s to r y w h e r eve r t h ey h a p p e n t o b e c o m i n g t o i t
from’
 A d v e r t i s em e n t w o r k s w i t h c o m p a n i e s l i ke B M W to u s e t r a n s m e d i a b y m a k i n g
m o v i e s a d v e r t i s e t h e i r p r o d uc t i n a m o r e e n te r t a i n i n g w ay t h a n a n a d v e r t i s em e n t
o n T V to t h e c o n s u m e r s , b y u s i n g m u l t i p l e f o r m s o f m e d i um.
 L i ke T V a n d o n l i n e T V, i t l o o k s to g a i n a n a u d i e n c e . C o n s u m e r s a r e b e c o m in g a n
a u d i e nc e .
 T h ey p r o d uc e a s m a l l n u m b e r o f e p i s o d e s o f a d r a m a f e a t u r i n g t h e i r p r o d uc t a l o n g
side big names used in T V shows and films.
 T h e r e a r e m a ny ex a m p l e s o f t h i s :

9. IS INSIDE AN ADVERTAINMENT?
 The ‘social film’ features the Toshiba Satellite p775 laptop.
 It could therefore be argued that the film takes place around this
laptop as the main character Christina is interacting with it in
most of its episodes. Just like other entertaining advertisements
do.
 This would make it an advertising film.
 However when looking at the participants comments on
Facebook, it would suggest that they do not like the idea of it
being an advertisement.
 S h e ro n N eve s - “ C o m e o n gu y s , yo u we re d o i n g s o we l l u p to n ow. . . N o h a rd s e l l
p l e a s e . I t ' s t h e m a i n p o i n t o f b r a n d e d c o n te n t, i s n ' t i t ? Yo u h ave a b u n c h o f
p e o p l e s u p e r e n ga ge d wi t h t h e wh o l e p ro j e c t , re a l fa n s ( i n c l udi ng my s e l f) s o
m i s s i o n a c c ompl i s h e d. Br a n d i n g go l d . N ow d o n ' t m e s s i t a l l u p wi t h s h o r t te rm ,
s a l e s d e p a r t m e n t m e n t a l i ty. . . Yo u wi l l s e l l yo u r l a p to ps , d o n ' t wo rr y. Bu t d o n ' t
sp o i l t hi s ex p e ri e n c e a n d b ri l l i a n t m a rket i ng s t r a te gy by t u rn i n g i t i n to c he a p
p ro d u ct p l a c e m e n t : - / ”
 the inside experiance (2011) [online] availble from http://www.facebook.com/TheInsideExperience/posts/163054407104608
accessed on [10/11/11]

10. SAMPLING COMMENTS ON THE
ADVERTISMENT ON FACEBOOK
 29/56,115 participants of the inside experience facebook
page, liked the link posting to the inside experience website
about the laptop on 15th August.
 14/56,115 participants of the inside experience facebook
page, commented on the link posting to the inside experience
website about the laptop on 15th August.
 From these results, I can conclude that not many people
showed an interest in the laptop as not many comments or
likes were produced as a huge amount of participants did not
comment. Also this was posted before a finished film was
produced. So it shows that not many people were interested.

11. CONCLUSION
To conclude, The inside experience claims to be a social film.
But there is a narrow terminology of social film today, as inside
experience only started this year. So The Inside Experience can
instead be seen as parts of:
 Interactive film
 Crowd sourcing
 Crowd Funding
 Collaboration
 ‘Advertainment’
 Transmedia

12. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 References
 A swarm of angels 2008[online]Available at:
http://aswarmofangels.com accessed on [10/11/11 ]
 Jef f Glucker 2011 [online] available at:
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/05/06/land -rover-launches-being-
henr y -interactive-film-series-t/ accessed on: [10/11/11]
 Penington , A ( 2010) [ online] New Media A g e available at:
http://www.nma.co.uk/features/transmedia/3017944.ar ticle accessed
on [10/11/11 ]
 Shirky, C. (2008) Here comes ever ybody, London Alan Lane, p51
 the inside experiance (2011) [online] availble from
http://www.facebook .com/TheInsideExperience/posts/163054407104
608 accessed on [10/11/11 ]
 Vimeo [online] (2010) avaiable at:
http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill accessed on: 10/11/11 .
 Wikipedia (2010) [online] available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_movie accessed on [ 10/11/11